Chapter XIX.292    Compare The Apology, cc. xlvii. xlviii. xlix. [This Vol., supra.]—If Christians and the Heathen Thus Resemble Each Other, There is Great Difference in the Grounds and Nature of Their Apparently Similar Conduct.

Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in common with yourselves, it only remains that we compare the grounds which the respective parties have for being personally derided. All our obstinacy, however, is with you a foregone conclusion,293    Præstruitur. based on our strong convictions; for we take for granted294    Præsumimus. a resurrection of the dead. Hope in this resurrection amounts to295    Est. a contempt of death. Ridicule, therefore, as much as you like the excessive stupidity of such minds as die that they may live; but then, in order that you may be able to laugh more merrily, and deride us with greater boldness, you must take your sponge, or perhaps your tongue, and wipe away those records of yours every now and then cropping out,296    Interim. which assert in not dissimilar terms that souls will return to bodies. But how much more worthy of acceptance is our belief which maintains that they will return to the same bodies! And how much more ridiculous is your inherited conceit,297    Traditum. that the human spirit is to reappear in a dog, or a mule, or a peacock! Again, we affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man. This you ascribe to Minos and Rhadamanthus, while at the same time you reject Aristides, who was a juster judge than either.  By the award of the judgment, we say that the wicked will have to spend an eternity in endless fire, the pious and innocent in a region of bliss. In your view likewise an unalterable condition is ascribed to the respective destinations of Pyriphlegethon298    The heathen hell, Tartarus or Orcus. and Elysium. Now they are not merely your composers of myth and poetry who write songs of this strain; but your philosophers also speak with all confidence of the return of souls to their former state,299    Reciprocatione. and of the twofold award300    Distributione. of a final judgment.

19. Hucusque, opinor, horrenda obstinationum christianarum; quae si vobiscum communicamus, superest deridenda personarum conferamus; quamquam de persuasionibus omnis obstinatio nostra praestruitur: mortuorum enim praesumimus resurrectionem. Spes resurrectionis fastidium est mortis. Ridete igitur quantumlibet stupidissimas mentes, quae moriuntur ut vivant; sed quo facilius rideatis et resolutius decachinnetis, arrepta spongia vel interim lingua delete litteras interim vestras, quae similiter asseverant animas in corpora redituras. Attamen quanto acceptabilior nostra praesumptio est, quae in eadem corpora redituras defendit? vobis autem quanto 0585B vanius traditum est, hominis spiritum in cane vel mulo aut pavone rediturum? Item judicium annuntiamus a Deo pro cujusque meritis post interitum destinatum. Id vos Minoi et Radamantho adscribitis, justiore interim Aristide recusato. Eo judicio iniquos aeterno igni, pios et insontes amoeno in loco dicimus perpetuitatem transacturos. Apud vos . . . quoque Pyriphlegethontis et Elysii non alia conditio disponitur. Nec mythici ac poetici soli talia canunt, sed et philosophi de animorum reciprocatione et judicii distributione confirmant.