77. Therefore that bitterness of persecution of which you speak is our deliverance and not persecution, and our ill-treatment will not bring evil upon us, but will lead us to the light of liberty. As if some senseless and stupid fellow were to think that he never punished a man who had been put into prison679    The ms. and both Roman edd. read in carcerem natum inegressum; LB. and later edd. have received from the margin of Ursinus the reading translated above, datum, omitting the last word altogether, which Oehler, however, would retain as equivalent to “not to be passed from.” with severity and cruelty, unless he were to rage against the very prison, break its stones in pieces, and burn its roof, its wall, its doors; and strip, overthrow, and dash to the ground its other parts, not knowing that thus he was giving light to him whom he seemed to be injuring, and was taking from him the accursed darkness: in like manner, you too, by the flames, banishments, tortures, and monsters with which you tear in pieces and rend asunder our bodies, do not rob us of life, but relieve us of our skins, not knowing that, as far as you assault and seek to rage against these our shadows and forms, so far you free us from pressing and heavy chains, and cutting our bonds, make us fly up to the light.

LXXVII. Itaque ista, quam dicitis, persecutionis asperitas liberatio nostra est, non persecutio; nec poenam vexatio inferet, sed ad lucem libertatis educet: ut si aliquis brutus ac stolidus in carcerem hominem datum, quaestionum numquam afficere se gravibus atque immanibus existimet poenis, nisi in ipsum saeviat carcerem, materiam ejus comminuat, atque urat tectum, parietem, januas, partesque alias operis renudet, dejiciat, affligat, nesciens hoc facto ei, cui videatur officere, dari ab se lucem et sceleratam eripi caecitatem; itidem et vos flammis, exiliis, 0935B cruciatibus, belluis, quibus corpora lancinatis et divexatis nostra, non vitam eripitis nobis, sed pelliculis relevatis et cutibus nos; nescii quod quantum instatis et pergitis in effigies has nostras speciesque 0936A saevire, tantum arctis et gravibus relevatis nos vinculis, et ad lumen efficitis circumcisis nexibus evolare.