Ad Nationes.

 Book I.

 In this case you actually conduct trials contrary to the usual form of judicial process against criminals for when culprits are brought up for trial,

 Since, therefore, you who are in other cases most scrupulous and persevering in investigating charges of far less serious import, relinquish your care

 But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of its founder. Now in the first place it is, no doubt, a fair and usual custom that a sect should be m

 As to your saying of us that we are a most shameful set, and utterly steeped in luxury, avarice, and depravity, we will not deny that this is true of

 Whenever these statements and answers of ours, which truth suggests of its own accord, press and restrain your conscience, which is the witness of its

 Whence comes it to pass, you will say to us, that such a character could have been attributed to you, as to have justified the lawmakers perhaps by it

 We are indeed said to be the “third race” of men. What, a dog-faced race? Or broadly shadow-footed? bread

 But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations?  Under the same natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and gr

 Pour out now all your venom fling against this name of ours all your shafts of calumny: I shall stay no longer to refute them but they shall by and

 In this matter we are (said to be) guilty not merely of forsaking the religion of the community, but of introducing a monstrous superstition for some

 As for him who affirms that we are “the priesthood of a cross,” we shall claim him all cross

 Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact

 Report has introduced a new calumny respecting our God. Not so long ago, a most abandoned wretch in that city of yours, a man who had deserted indeed

 Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship, if I ma

 I am now come to the hour for extinguishing the lamps, and for using the dogs, and practising the deeds of darkness. And on this point I am afraid I m

 As to your charges of obstinacy and presumption, whatever you allege against us, even in these respects, there are not wanting points in which you wil

 The rest of your charge of obstinacy against us you sum up in this indictment, that we boldly refuse neither your swords, nor your crosses, nor your w

 Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in common with yourselves, it onl

 Chapter XX.—Truth and Reality Pertain to Christians Alone. The Heathen Counselled to Examine and Embrace It.

 Book II

 Chapter I.—The Heathen Gods from Heathen Authorities. Varro Has Written a Work on the Subject. His Threefold Classification. The Changeable Character

 Chapter II.—Philosophers Had Not Succeeded in Discovering God. The Uncertainty and Confusion of Their Speculations.

 Chapter III.—The Physical Philosophers Maintained the Divinity of the Elements The Absurdity of the Tenet Exposed.

 Chapter IV.—Wrong Derivation of the Word Θεός. The Name Indicative of the True Deity. God Without Shape and Immaterial. Anecdote of Thales.

 Chapter V.—The Physical Theory Continued. Further Reasons Advanced Against the Divinity of the Elements.

 Chapter VI.—The Changes of the Heavenly Bodies, Proof that They are Not Divine.  Transition from the Physical to the Mythic Class of Gods.

 Chapter VII.—The Gods of the Mythic Class. The Poets a Very Poor Authority in Such Matters. Homer and the Mythic Poets. Why Irreligious.

 Chapter VIII.—The Gods of the Different Nations. Varro’s Gentile Class. Their Inferiority. A Good Deal of This Perverse Theology Taken from Scripture.

 Chapter IX.—The Power of Rome. Romanized Aspect of All the Heathen Mythology. Varro’s Threefold Distribution Criticised. Roman Heroes (Æneas Included,

 Chapter X.—A Disgraceful Feature of the Roman Mythology. It Honours Such Infamous Characters as Larentina.

 Chapter XI.—The Romans Provided Gods for Birth, Nay, Even Before Birth, to Death. Much Indelicacy in This System.

 Now, how much further need I go in recounting your gods—because I want to descant on the character of such as you have adopted? It is quite uncertain

 Manifest cases, indeed, like these have a force peculiarly their own.  Men like Varro and his fellow-dreamers admit into the ranks of the divinity tho

 Chapter XIV.—Gods, Those Which Were Confessedly Elevated to the Divine Condition, What Pre-Eminent Right Had They to Such Honour? Hercules an Inferior

 Chapter XV.—The Constellations and the Genii Very Indifferent Gods. The Roman Monopoly of Gods Unsatisfactory. Other Nations Require Deities Quite as

 Chapter XVI.—Inventors of Useful Arts Unworthy of Deification. They Would Be the First to Acknowledge a Creator. The Arts Changeable from Time to Time

 In conclusion, without denying all those whom antiquity willed and posterity has believed to be gods, to be the guardians of your religion, there yet

Chapter V.—The Physical Theory Continued. Further Reasons Advanced Against the Divinity of the Elements.

Why, then, do we not resort to that far more reasonable392    See The Apology, c. iii.    Humaniorem. opinion, which has clear proof of being derived from men’s common sense and unsophisticated deduction?393    Plectitur.    Conjectura. Even Varro bears it in mind, when he says that the elements are supposed to be divine, because nothing whatever is capable, without their concurrence,394    Tradux.    Suffragio. of being produced, nourished, or applied to the sustenance395    Retinere.    Sationem. of man’s life and of the earth, since not even our bodies and souls could have sufficed in themselves without the modification396    At nunc.    Temperamento. of the elements. By this it is that the world is made generally habitable,—a result which is harmoniously secured397    Elatrent.    Fœderata. by the distribution into zones,398    Libertatem suam, “their liberty of speech.”    Circulorum conditionibus. except where human residence has been rendered impracticable by intensity of cold or heat. On this account, men have accounted as gods—the sun, because it imparts from itself the light of day, ripens the fruit with its warmth, and measures the year with its stated periods; the moon, which is at once the solace of the night and the controller of the months by its governance; the stars also, certain indications as they are of those seasons which are to be observed in the tillage of our fields; lastly, the very heaven also under which, and the earth over which, as well as the intermediate space within which, all things conspire together for the good of man. Nor is it from their beneficent influences only that a faith in their divinity has been deemed compatible with the elements, but from their opposite qualities also, such as usually happen from what one might call399    Denique.    Tanquam. their wrath and anger—as thunder, and hail, and drought, and pestilential winds, floods also, and openings of the ground, and earthquakes: these are all fairly enough400    Porro.    Jure. accounted gods, whether their nature becomes the object of reverence as being favourable, or of fear because terrible—the sovereign dispenser,401    Gravem, “earnest.”    Domina. in fact,402    Comp. The Apology, c. iii.    Scilicet. both of help and of hurt. But in the practical conduct of social life, this is the way in which men act and feel: they do not show gratitude or find fault with the very things from which the succour or the injury proceeds, so much as with them by whose strength and power the operation of the things is effected. For even in your amusements you do not award the crown as a prize to the flute or the harp, but to the musician who manages the said flute or harp by the power of his delightful skill.403    Pro.    Vi suavitatis. In like manner, when one is in ill-health, you do not bestow your acknowledgments on the flannel wraps,404    i.e., the Christian.    Lanis. or the medicines, or the poultices, but on the doctors by whose care and prudence the remedies become effectual.  So again, in untoward events, they who are wounded with the sword do not charge the injury on the sword or the spear, but on the enemy or the robber; whilst those whom a falling house covers do not blame the tiles or the stones, but the oldness of the building; as again shipwrecked sailors impute their calamity not to the rocks and waves, but to the tempest. And rightly too; for it is certain that everything which happens must be ascribed not to the instrument with which, but to the agent by whom, it takes place; inasmuch as he is the prime cause of the occurrence,405    De commercio.    Caput facti. who appoints both the event itself and that by whose instrumentality it comes to pass (as there are in all things these three particular elements—the fact itself, its instrument, and its cause), because he himself who wills the occurrence of a thing comes into notice406    Unum atque alium. The sense being plural, we have so given it all through.    Invenitur. prior to the thing which he wills, or the instrument by which it occurs. On all other occasions therefore, your conduct is right enough, because you consider the author; but in physical phenomena your rule is opposed to that natural principle which prompts you to a wise judgment in all other cases, removing out of sight as you do the supreme position of the author, and considering rather the things that happen, than him by whom they happen. Thus it comes to pass that you suppose the power and the dominion to belong to the elements, which are but the slaves and functionaries.  Now do we not, in thus tracing out an artificer and master within, expose the artful structure of their slavery407    Captivitatis (as if theirs was a self-inflicted captivity at home).    Servitutis artem. “Artem” Oehler explains by “artificiose institutum.” out of the appointed functions of those elements to which you ascribe (the attributes) of power?408    Omnem uxorem patientiam obtulisse (comp. Apology, middle of c. xxxix.).    We subjoin Oehler’s text of this obscure sentence: “Non in ista investigatione alicujus artificis intus et domini servitutis artem ostendimus elementorum certis ex operis” (for “operibis,” not unusual in Tertullian) “eorum quas facis potestatis?” But gods are not slaves; therefore whatever things are servile in character are not gods.  Otherwise409    In ergastulum.    Aut. they should prove to us that, according to the ordinary course of things, liberty is promoted by irregular licence,410    Radiant.    De licentia passivitatis libertas approbetur. despotism by liberty, and that by despotism divine power is meant. For if all the (heavenly bodies) overhead forget not411    He means the religion of Christ, which he in b. ii. c. ii. contrasts with “the mere wisdom” of the philosophers.    Meminerunt. to fulfil their courses in certain orbits, in regular seasons, at proper distances, and at equal intervals—appointed in the way of a law for the revolutions of time, and for directing the guidance thereof—can it fail to result412    Num non. from the very observance of their conditions and the fidelity of their operations, that you will be convinced both by the recurrence of their orbital courses and the accuracy of their mutations, when you bear in mind how ceaseless is their recurrence, that a governing power presides over them, to which the entire management of the world413    Universa negotiatio mundialis. is obedient, reaching even to the utility and injury of the human race? For you cannot pretend that these (phenomena) act and care for themselves alone, without contributing anything to the advantage of mankind, when you maintain that the elements are divine for no other reason than that you experience from them either benefit or injury to yourself. For if they benefit themselves only, you are under no obligation to them.

5. Quin ergo ad humaniorem aliquanto . . . . imur opinionem, quae de communi omnium sensu et simplici cog. . . . deducta videatur ? Nam et Varro meminit ejus, creditam praeterea dicens elementorum divinitatem, quod nihil omnino sine suffragio illorum gigni, ali, provehi possit ad vitae humanae et terrae sationem, quando ne ipsa quidem corpora aut animas 0592B sufficere licuisset sine elementorum temperamento, quo hahitatio ista mundi circulorum conditionibus foederata praestatur, nisi quod hominum incolatui denegavit enormitas frigoris aut caloris. Itaque deos credi: solem, qui diei de suo cumulet, fruges caloribus, p. . . . . . et annum stationibus servet; lunam, solatium noctium, patrocinium mensium gubernaculis, item sidera, signacula quaedam temporum ad mutationem notandorum; ipsum denique coelum, sub quo omnia; terram, super quam omnia, et quicquid illorum inter se ad commoda humana conspirat. Nec tantum beneficiis fidem divinitatis elementis convenire, sed etiam de diversis, quae tanquam de ira et offensa eorum incidere soleant, ut fulmina, ut grandines, ut ardores, ut aurae 0592C pestilentes, item diluvia, item hiatus motusque terrarum. Et jure credi deos, quorum natura honoranda sit in secundis, metuenda sit in adversis, domina scilicet juvandi et nocendi. Porro, si ita sentiuntur in. . . . . conversatione, non perinde rebus ipsis, quibus juvantur sive laeduntur aut gratias referunt aut querelas intendunt, sed his, sub quorum ducatu et potestate operatio rerum decurrit. Nam in voluptatibus vestris non tibiae aut citharae coronam ad praemium adjudicatis, sed artifici, qui tibiam et citharam suavitatis temperet vi. Aeque cum quis valetudine male est, non lanis nec antidotis aut malagmatis ipsis gratiam meministis, sed medicis, quorum opera atque prudentia remedia proveniunt. Item in adversis qui ferro sociantur, non gladium ipsum aut 0593A lanceam accusant, sed hostem vel latronem. Et quos . . . tegulas aut imbrices arguunt, sed vetustatem; sicut et naufragi non petris et fluctibus imputant, sed procellae. Merito. Certum enim est, quodcumque est, ei adscribendum, non per quod fit, sed a quo fit, quia is est caput facti, qui et ut fiat et per quid fiat, instituit. Et sunt in omnibus rebus tres tituli isti: quod est, per quod est, et a quo est; quia prius est, qui quid velit fieri, et quod possit, inveniri. Et ita recte in caeteris agitis, auctorem considerantes. At in physicis contra naturam regula vestra, qua in caeteris sapientiam judicatis, auferendo summum gradum auctoris et quae fiunt, non a quo fieri. . . ita credere contingit elementorum potestates et ar . . . esse, quae sunt servitutes et officia. Non in ista investigatione ali. . . . us 0593B artificis intus et domini, servitutis autem non tendimus elementorum . . . . operis eorum quas facis potestatis. Sed Dei non serviunt; ea igitur, quae serviunt, Dei non sunt. Aut doceant vulgo fieri, ut de licentia passivitatis libertas approbetur, de libertate dominatio de dominatione divinitas intelligatur. Nam si omnia haec super nos certis curriculis, legitimis decursibus, propriis spatiis, aequis vicibus sub legis instar constituta volvendis temporibus et exercendis temporibus et exercendis temporum ducatibus occurrere meminerunt, ex ipsa observatione conditionum suarum et fide operum et instantia. . . . . . . . et cura demutationum, memoria reciprocatorum, aliquam dominationem sibi praeesse persuadeant vobis, cui apparere videatur universa negotiatio mundialis perveniens 0593C ad humani generis utilitatem et . . . . . onem? Non enim potest dicere, ea sibi agere ista ac sibi curare nec quicquam hominum caussa disponere, cum propterea defendas elementis divinitatem, quod ab aliis aut juvari te aut laedi sentias; nam si sibi praestant, nihil eis debes.