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let those look to it who scent the poesumo With their hair. We do not go is your spectacles; yet the articles thatare sold there, is I need thom, I mill obtain mors readilyat their proper places. We certainly buy no Irankincense. Is tho Arabias complain of this, tot the Sabaeans bo mellassured that their more precious and costly mercliandise is
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126 TERTULLIANUS expended as largely in the burring of Christians as in the fumigating of the gods. At any rate, Fou say, the temple
compassion spenda more in the streets than youm does in the
fraud and falsehood in the census declarations the calculation may eastly be made-it Would bo seen that the groundos complaint in one depariment of revenue is compensated by the advantages Which others derive. 43. I Will confess, however, Without hesitation, that themare Some Who in a sense may complain os Christians thatthey are a sterile race : as, for instance, pimps, and pandera, and bath-suppliera; assassins, and polsonera, and Sorcere ;So0thsayers, toο, diviners, and astrologers. But it is a nobis
so many of the truly good suffer the last penalty. And
presiding at tho trials os prisoners, and passing sentence uponcrimes. Reli, in your long lisis of those accused of many and various atrocities, has any assasSin, any culpurse, any
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man guilty os sacrilege, or seduction, or stealing bastere clothes, his name entered as being a Christian too Orwheti Christians are brought before you on the mero ground of their namo, is there ever sound among them an ill-doeros the sorti It is always With your solli the prison is Steaming, the mines are sighing, the wild beasta ars sed: it is hom you the exhibitors of gladiatorial shows alWaysget thoir herda os criminals to feod up for the occasion. u find no Christian there, excepi simply as being such; or is one is thero as something else, a Christian he is no
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128 TERTULLIANUS punishment you can inflic never to last longor than tilldeath. On this ground Epicurus mahes light os ali sustoringand pain, maintaining that is it is smali, it is contemptibio; and is it is meat, it is not longinontinued. No doubi a ut
stration, On the basis of reality' But whilo tho truth mohold is mado clear to all, unbelles meanWhile, at tho verytimo it is convinced of tho mortii os Christiani , which hasnow becomo meli known for iis benefila as meli as from thointercourso os lise, takes up the notion that it is not reatly athing divine, but raster a kind of pbilosophy. These ars the very things, it says, the philosophers counsel and profess- innocence, justice, patience, sobrie , chasti . Why, then, aro We not permitted an equat liberty and impunity lar o doctrines as they have, With Whom, in respect os What me
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APOLOGETICUS 129barh out against your rulere, and they are reWarded mitti statues and salaries, instead of being ovon to the wild beasis. And very right it should bo so. For they are called philosophera, not Christians. This name os philosopher has nopo er to put demons to the rout. Why are they not ablo todo that too' since philosophers count demons inferior to gods. Socrates used to say, Ιf the demon grant permission. the, too, though in denying the existenco os your divinities hohad a glimpse os the truth, at his dying ordered a coch to bosacrificod to Esculapius, I bellove in honour of his fallier,sor Apollo prono ced Socrates the Wisest of men. Thought-less Apollol testibing to the wisdom of tho man who dented the existence of his race. In proportion to tho enmity the
but the man who corrupis and mahes a mere pretence of it,
precisely on this ground gains favour With iis persecutors. The truth whicli philosophers, these mockers and corrupters
of it, Willi hostile ends merely affect to hold, and in dοingso deprave, caring ior nought but glory, Christians both intensely and intimately long sor and maintain in iis integritrias those Who have a real concern about their salvation. Sothat we aro like each other neister in Our knowledge nor our Ways, as Fou imagine. For What certain information didThales, the first of natural philosophers, ove in reply to thoinqui os Croesus regarding Deity, the delay sor further
thought so osten proving in vain ' Thero is not a Christianworkman but finds out God. and manifests Him, and henceassigns to Him ali those attributes Which go in constitute adivino being, though Plato affirms that it is far trom easy to discovor the Maher of tho universe ; and Maen He is nund, it is diffleuit to maho Him known to ali. But is v e chal-lenge Fou to comparison in the virtus of chasti , I turn to a pari os the sentence passed by the Athenians against Socrates, Who Was pronounced a corrupter of youth. The Christianconfines himself to tho semale sex. I have read also ho
ths hariot Phryns hindlod in Diogenes the fires os lust, and hoW a certain Speusippus, of Plato's school, perished in the adultemus act. The Christian husband has nothing to do
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130 TERTULLIANUS With any but his o- - . Democritus, in pulting out his
o M plainin by tho punishment he inflicta, his incontinence. But a Christian with grac healia προ is siouem in this matter; ho is montally blind against the assauits of pa
sion. Ιs I maintain our superior modesty of bellario , there at once occurs to me Diogenes With filii, vered fost
trampling on the proud couches of Plato, under the influenco of another prido : tho Christian does not even play the proud man to the pauper. Is sobriely of spirit be the virtuo indebate, Why, there ars Pythagoras at Thurii, and Zeno at Priene, ambitious of the supreme poner: the Christian do not aspire to the aedileship. Is equanimity be the conte tion, yοu have Lycurgus ch sing deain is seli-Marvation,
bcta e tho Lacons had made some emendation of his laws :tho Christian, even When he is condemneri oves thanis. Is the comparison bo made in regard in trust riuinem, Anaxagoras dented the deposit of his enemies: tho Chri tian is notia for his fideliu even among those Who am notos his religion. Is the matter os sincertu is to be broughtto triat, Aristolle basely thrust his triend Hermias immhis placo: the Christian does no ham even to his foe. Willi equat basonem does Aristotis play the sycophant to Alexander, insisad os exercising his influenco in hoop him in the right way, and Plato allows himself ω bo boughtis Dionysius for his Mily's sine. Mistippus in the purple, With ali his meat show of gravit' oVes Way to erimu ganco; and Hippias is put in death laying plota against
the state: no Christian ever attempted such a thing in bolials of his Methren, even when persecution Was scatis
ing them abroad Wissi every atroci . But it mill bo said
Christians; but tho philosophera Who do such things retata stili the name and tho hono of Wisdom. So, then, Whereis there any likeuem between tho Christian and the phil sopher bet en the disciplo os Graeco and of heaven
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my Work to a moderate sige, I might launch forth also into the proos of this. What poet or sophist has not Munk at thefountain os the propheis 3 Thence, accordinon the phil sophera matered their arid mind' so that it is the things invitave hom us which bring us into comparison With them. Forthis reason, I imagine, philosophy Was banished by certain states mean by the Thebans, is the Spartans iam, and tho Argives iis discipies mught to imitate our doctrines; and ambitio , as I have said, os glory and eloquence alone, is they seli upon anything in the collection os sacred Scriptures whita displeased them, in their oWn peculiar styla os research, they perverted it in serve their pur ses: for they had noadequato satin in their divini in heep them hom Among them, nor had they any sussicient underatanding of thomeither, as being stili at the time under veli ven obscure tothe JeWs themselves, Whose peculiar possession they seemedio be. For so, ino, is the truth was distinguishod by iis simplici , the more on stat account the fastidiousness of man, too proud to belleve, set to altering it; so that even Whatthey found certain they mado uncertain by their admixtures. Finding a simple revelation os God, they procaeded in disputeabout Him, nes as He had been reveHod in them, but turninasido is debais about His properties, Us nature, His a M. Some assert Him in be incorporeat; othere maintain He has a body ths Platonista teaching tho one doctrine, and the Stoica the other. Somo thiis stat He is composed os atoms,
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132 TERTULLIANUS others of numbers: such are tho different views of Epicurus and 'thagoras. ono thinhs He is mado of fire; so itappeared in Heraclitus. The Platonisis, again, hold that He administera the assairs of the world; the Epicureans, ontho contrata, stat He is idis and inactive, and, so in speah, a nobody in human things. Then the Stoics represent Himas placed oulside the worid, and whirling round this liugomam frem Without like a potier; While the Platonisis place Him within the worid, as a pilot is in the ship he sisera. So, in like manner, they differ in their vieWs about tho woriditself, Whether it is created or uncreatod, Whether it is destinedio pras aWay or to remain for ever. So again it is debated con- cerning the nature of the foui, Whicli somo contend is divinoand eternal, whilo others hold that it is dissoluble. According toeach oncs sancy, Ηe has either introduced something neW, orres hioned the old. Nor need we wonder is the speculationsos philosophers have perverted the older Scriptures. Someos their brood, with their opinions, have even adulterated ourne given Christian revelation, and corrupted it into a systemos philosophic doctrines, and troin the one path have struchost many and inexplicabie by-roads. And I have alludod tostis, test any one becoming aequainted With the variety of parties among us, this might seem to him to put us on a levet mitti the philosophers, and he might condemn the trulli homilio different ways in Whieli it is defended. But we at onceput in a plea in bar against these lainters of our purity, asserting that that is tho rule of truth Whicli comes do nfrom Christ by transmission through His companions, to Whomwe shali prove that those devisera os different doctrines aroesi posterior. Everything opposed to the truth has been gesup hom tho truth itself, the spirits of error car ing on this system os opposition. By them ali corruptions os wholesomedisciplino have been secretly instigated; by them, tοο, certaini les have been introduced, that, by their resemblance to
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and philosophera set up a judgment-seat in the realms below.And ii me threaten Gehenna, which is a reservoir os secretfire under the earth sor purposes of punishment, We have intho fame Way derision heaped on us. For so, i , they havetheir Pyriphlegethon, a river os flame in the regions of the dead. Αnd is me speah os Paradise, the place of heavenlybliss appotnted in receivs the spiriis of the sainis, severeδhom tho knowledge of this World by that fiery gone as bya sori os enclosure, the Elysian plians have tahen possession
this, so like us, in the poeta and philosophera The reason simply is, that they havs been inhen trom our religion. Butis they are inhen hom our sacred things, as being of earlier date, then oura are the truer, and have hi er claims uponbelles, since even their imitations find fiath among you. Isthey maintain their sacred mysteries to havs sprung ironi their own minds, in that case ours will be reflections of whataro later than themselves, which by the naturo os things is impossibie. For never does the shado precede tho bodywhieli casta it, or the imago the reality. 48. Come noW, is some philosopher affirms, as Laberius holds, solio ing an opinion os Pythagoras, stat a man may have his origin hom a mule, a serpent frem a Woman, and withskill of speech tWisis every argument in prove his vlem Will honot gain acceptance tor it, and work in somo the convictionthat, On account of this, they should even abstain hom eat-ing animal sood Ilay any one have the persuasion stat hostiould so abstain, test by chance in his bees he eats of somo ancestor of his i But is a Christian promises the retum ota man iram a man, and the very actuat Gaius hom Gaius,
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134 TERTULLIANUS ferent bodios, Why may they not retum into tho Very su stanco they have lest, feeing this is to be restored, to bo that which had beon They ars no longer the very things they