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

It would be tedious to take a survey of all those, too, whom you have buried amongst the constellations, and audaciously minister to as gods.599    Deis ministratis. I suppose your Castors, and Perseus, and Erigona,600    The constellation Virgo. have just the same claims for the honours of the sky as Jupiter’s own big boy601    Jovis exoletus, Ganymede, or Aquarius. had. But why should we wonder? You have transferred to heaven even dogs, and scorpions, and crabs. I postpone all remarks602    He makes a similar postponement above, in c. vii., to The Apology, cc. xxii. xxiii. concerning those whom you worship in your oracles. That this worship exists, is attested by him who pronounces the oracle.603    Divini. Why; you will have your gods to be spectators even of sadness,604    Et tristitiæ arbitros. as is Viduus, who makes a widow of the soul, by parting it from the body, and whom you have condemned, by not permitting him to be enclosed within your city-walls; there is Cæculus also, to deprive the eyes of their perception; and Orbana, to bereave seed of its vital power; moreover, there is the goddess of death herself. To pass hastily by all others,605    Transvolem. you account as gods the sites of places or of the city; such are Father Janus (there being, moreover, the archer-goddess606    Diva arquis. Jana607    Perhaps another form of Diana.), and Septimontius of the seven hills.

Men sacrifice608    Faciunt = ῥίζουσι. to the same Genii, whilst they have altars or temples in the same places; but to others besides, when they dwell in a strange place, or live in rented houses.609    This seems to be the meaning of an almost unintelligible sentence, which we subjoin: “Geniis eisdem illi faciunt qui in isdem locis aras vel ædes habent; præterea aliis qui in alieno loco aut mercedibus habitant.” Oehler, who makes this text, supposes that in each clause the name of some god has dropped out. I say nothing about Ascensus, who gets his name for his climbing propensity, and Clivicola, from her sloping (haunts); I pass silently by the deities called Forculus from doors, and Cardea from hinges, and Limentinus the god of thresholds, and whatever others are worshipped by your neighbours as tutelar deities of their street doors.610    Numinum janitorum. There is nothing strange in this, since men have their respective gods in their brothels, their kitchens, and even in their prison. Heaven, therefore, is crowded with innumerable gods of its own, both these and others belonging to the Romans, which have distributed amongst them the functions of one’s whole life, in such a way that there is no want of the other611    Ceteris. gods. Although, it is true,612    Immo cum. the gods which we have enumerated are reckoned as Roman peculiarly, and as not easily recognised abroad; yet how do all those functions and circumstances, over which men have willed their gods to preside, come about,613    Proveniunt. in every part of the human race, and in every nation, where their guarantees614    Prædes. are not only without an official recognition, but even any recognition at all?

15. Longum foret recensere etiam de illis quos in sidera sepelistis, et audaciter dei . . . tratis. Sic opinor digni de coelo Castores et Perseus et Erigona, quemadmodum et Jovis expletus. Sed quid mirandum? etiam canes et scorpios cancros in coelum transtulistis. Differo de his quos in oraculis . . . . et testimonium hic divini, qui et tristitiae deos arbitros esse vultis . . . . dius, qui animam corpore viduet, quem intra muros cludi non permittendo damnastis. Item Caeculus, qui oculos sensu exani . . . . Orbana, quae in orbitatem semina exstinguat, et ipsius Mortis . . . . Ut caetera transvolem, etiam locorum urbis, vel loca, deos ar . . . . patrem, et diva Arquis et Lana et montium 0606B Septemontium . . . . illi faciunt, qui in iisdem locis aras vel aedes habent, praeterea . . . . in alieno loco aut mercedibus habitant. Taceo Ascensum . . . . et Levicolam a clivis; taceo deos Forculum a foribus, et Cardeam a cardinibus, et liminum Limentinum, sive qui alii inter vicinos ap . . . . num Janitorum adorantur. Quid enim magnum? cum et habeant in lupanaribus, in culinis, et in imo carcere; in i . . . . itaque propr . . . . aliisque Romanorum deis, quibus totius vitae officia distribuuntur, taliter, ut caeteris deis opus non sit. Imo cum privatim apud Romanos deputentur, quos supra signavimus, nec facile foris cogniti, quomodo ea omnia illos praeesse voluerunt in omni genere humano, et in omni gente proveniunt; ubi praedes eorum, non modo honore, sed 0606C ipsa quoque notitia carent. Sed enim quidam fructus et necessaria victui demonstraverunt?