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oven then I shali not caro in attend in such ministers of sin, in my eager Wish raster is fix a gage insatiabio on those
them is fiath in the picturings of imagination. But Whatare the things Whicli vo has not Men, and ear has notheata, and which have not so much as dimb damnia uponino human hearti malaver they are, they are nobier, I belleve, than circus, and both theatres,' and every race-
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F, with tho object os convicting tho rivals and
persecutors of Christian truth, from their o nauthorities, of the crime of at once being un-true to themselves and doing injustice to us,one is bent on gathering testimontes in iis favour from thowritings of the philosophers, or the poets, or other mastersos this worlaes learning and wisdom, he has need os a most inquisitivo spirit, and a stili greater memory, to carry out the research. Indeed, some of our people, Who stili continued their inquisitivo labours in ancient literature, and stili occu-pied memory With it, have published works Wo have in ovehands of this very sori; works in Whicli they relate and attest the nature and origin os their traditions, and the grounds onwhicli opinions rest, and from Whicli it may be seen at oncethat wo have embraced nothing neW or monstrous-nothingsor which we cannot claim the suppori os ordinary and well-known Writings, Whether in ejecting error from our creed, or admitting truth into it. But the unbelleving hard-ness os thes human heari leads thom to stight even their owntoachers, otherWise approved and in high renown, Whenoverthey touch upon arguments Whicli are used in defence of Christianity. Then the poets are soois, When they describethe gods with human passions and stories; then the philo- Sophers are Without reason, When they hnoch at the gales of truth. He mill thus iar be rechoned a Wiso and sagacious man who has gono the tength of ultering sentimonis that arealmost Christian ; while is, in a mero affectation of judgmentand wisdom, he seis himseis to rμject their ceremontes, or toconvicting the world of ita sin, ho is sure to be branded as a
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rature and the teaching, perverted in iis best resulti, whichis belloved in iis errora rather than iis truth. We inali layno stress on it, is some of their authors havo declared that there is one God, and one God only. Nay, let it be granted that there is nothing in heathen writers whicli a Christianapproves, that it may be put out of his pomer to ulter a single Word of reproach. For ali are not familiis With
Christian. I cali in a neW testimony, yea, one Whicli is bellerknown than ali literature, more discussed than ali doctrine, more public than ali publications, greater than the whole man I mean ali Whicli is man's. Stand fortii, o foui, Whether thou ari a divine and eternat substance, as most philosophers bellove is it is so, thou Wilt be the less lihely to li'-or Whether thou art the very opposite os divine, because indeeda mortes thing, as Epicurus alone thinhs-in that case there will bo tho less temptation for theo to speah falsely in this
caser Whether thou art received from heaven, or sprungsrom earth; Whether thou ari formed of numbere, or ofatoms; Whether thine existenco begins mitti that of tho bodnor thou ari put into it at a later stage; from Whalaver murce, and in Whatever Way, thou mahest man a rational being, in
address thee, simple and rude, and uncultured and unisu t. such as they have thee Who have thee onin that very thingpure and entire, of the road, the street, the Worlahop. I Want thine inexperience, since in thy smali experience no one feelsany confidence. I domand of theo the things thou bringest illi thoe into man, which thou knowest either from tisset or hom thine author, Wh ver he may be. Thou ari not, as I Woll know, Christian; for a man becomes a Christian, he is not born one. Yet Christians earnestly press theo for
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38 TERTULLIANUS a testimony; they press thee, though an alien, to bear sitneas against thy friends, that they may be put to iname besorothee, for haling and mocking on account of things Which
2. We ove offence by prociatming that there is one God,
thy testimony, ii thou knoWest this to M the truth; foropenly and with a perfeci liberty, such as me do not possem, me hear theo both in private and in public exclaim, - Whichmay God grant,' and, It God so Wili.' ' expressio
such as theso thou declarest that there is one Who is distinctivoly God, and thou consessest that ali poWer belongato Him to whoso mill as Sovereign thou dost look. At thesame time, ino, thou dentest any others in be truly gods, incalling them by their oWn names of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva; for thou amrmest Him to be God alano io Whomthou givest no other name than God ; and though thou som times callest these othere gods, thou plainly usest the designation as one Which does not reatly belong to them, but is,so in speis, a borrowed one. Nor is the naturo of tho Godme declare unknown to thee : God is good, God dom good, thou ari Wont to say; plainly suggesting further, But manis evit.' In asserting an antithetic proposition, thou in asori os indirect and figurativo way reproachest man with his Wichednoss in departing from a God so go . SO,. again, as
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is angry, then He is susceptibie of corruption and passion; but that of Which passion and corruption can bo affirmedmay also perish, Which God cannot do. But theso very persons else here, confessing that the wes is divino, and bestowed on us by God, stumble against a testimony of thosoul itself, Which assorti an ans er to these viows: sor itoither divine or God- ven, it doubti s knows iis inver; and
talas a witness for us Christiansl3. But When κε say that there are demons-as though, in tho simple faci that κε alono expol them iram the men'sbodies, me did not also provo their existence-some disciple of
Chrysippus begins to curi the lip. Yet thy curses sinciently
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40 TERTULLIANUS attest stat there are such beings, and that thv are objecisos sty strong distilis. As What comes to thee as a fit e pression Os thy strong hatred of him, thou callest the mana devit Who annoys theo with his sistines' or malice, orinsolence, or any other vice Which Wo ascribe to evit spiriis. In expressing Vexation, or contempt, or abhorrence, thou hastSatan constantly upon thy lips; the very samo me bold tobo the anget os evit, the fource of error, the corrupter of the wholo Worid, by Whom in the beginning man Was entrappedinto bre ing the commandment of God, and being givenover to death on account of his sin, the entire human race, lainted in their descent from him, mere made a channelior transmitting his condemnation. Thou seest, then, Who
Christians, or to any other feet that confesses the one trus
point tho more closely belonging to thee, in so far as it beamon thy personat mell-being, We maintain that aster ilia has passed away thou stili remainest in existence, and lookest forWard to a day of judgment, and according to thy deserisari assigned to misery or bliss, in either Way of it for ever; that, to be capable of this, sty former substance must needfretum to thee, the matter and the niem ορο of the Ve samo human being: for neither good nor evit couldst thou feelis thou meri not endo ed again With stat sensitivo bodilyorganigation, and there Would be no grounds ior judgmentwithout tho presentation of the Very person to Whom the susserings of judgment mere due. That Christian vieW, thoughmuch nobter than the Pythagorean, as it does not transfer theo into beasta; though more completo than the Platonie, since it endows thoe again with a body; though moro morthyos hono than tho Epicurean, as it preserves thee hom anni-hilation, et, because of the namo connected with it, it is held to bs nothing but vanity and folly, and, as it is. called,
ii our presumption is found to have thy support. Well, in
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on thee mith sto sting in it of some old injuryl It is thino imprecation that tho earth may lie heavy on him, and that there may be troubis to his ashos in the realm of the dead.
ari indeblad for favoure, thou entreatest repose to his bones
and ashes, and thy destro is that among the dead ho may havo pleasant rest. Is thou hast no poWer os suffering asterdeath, is no secling remains,-is, in a mord, severance Domtho body is the annihilation of thee, What mahes theo lis against thyself, as it thou couldst suffer in another state
it threatens a temards, but be use it deprives us of the Mod os lise; yet, on the other hand, as it pura an end totiso's discomsoris, whicli aro far more numerous, death'Sterrore are mitigated by a gain that more than outweighs tholoss. And there is no occasion to be troubled about a loss
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42 TERTU LANUS ot good things, Whicli is amply made up lar by so great ablessing as reliei from every trouble. There is nothingdroadsul in that whicli dolivsira from ali stat is to be dreaded. Is thou fhrinhest from giving up lite beeause thy experienceos it has been sweet, at any rate there is no need in be in any alam about death it thou hast no knowledgo that it is evit. Thy dread of it is the proos that thou ari aware os ita evit. Thou wouldst nover think it evil hou Wouldst have no fearos it at ali ii thou wert not sure stat after it there is som thing to mahe it evit, and so a thing of terror. Let us leave unnoticed at this time that natural Way of fearing death. Itis a p r ining for any one to fear What is inevitabie. I talis up the other fide, and argue on the ground of a joysul hopobeyond our term of earthly life; for destre os posthumous fame is With almost every clam an inborn thing. I have nottimo to speah of the Curtii, and the Reguli, or the brave menos Graece, Who afford us innumerable instances of death despised for aftemdeath reno n. Who at this day is Without the destro that ha may bo osten remombored When he is deadi Who does not give ait endeavo. to preserve hisname by Woas of literature, or by the simple ψοπ of his Viriues, or by the splendour even of his tomb How is it tho nature os the foui to have these posthumous ambitions, and to prepare With such amazing effori things it can onbuis aster iis deceasel It would caro nothing about the future, is the future mere quite unknown to it. But perhapsthou thinhest thyself surer os continuing stili to foet astor thy exit from the body than of any future resurrection, which is a doctrine laid at our door as one of our presum' tuom suppositions. But it is also the doctrine of the foui; for ii any one inquires about a person lately dead as thoughhe were alive, it occurs at once to say, He has gone. Ηe is expected to return, then. 5. These testimontes os the foui are simple as true, commonplaco as Simple, universal as commonplace, natural asuniversat, divine as naturai. I don't th h they can appear frivolous or feeble to any one, ii he reflect on the majestyos nature, hom whicli the foui derives ita authori . Ιf
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DE TESTIMONIO ANIMAE. 43Du achnowledge the authority of the mistres' you mill omnit also in tho disciple. Woli, naturo is the mistrem here, and her disciple is the foui. But eve ining tho one has taughtor the other learnia, has come from God-tho Teacher of tho Dachor. And what the foui may know hom tho Machings of ita chiel instructor, thou canst judge from that whichis .ithin thee. Think of that which onables theo to thinh; refleet on that Whita in foro dings is the prophet, the augur in omens, the foreseer os coming eventa. Is it a monderies
mas bestowed Even fallen as it is, tho victim of the great adversa 's machinations, it does not fomet iis Creator, Hismodnem and tam and the final end both of itseli and of ita seo. Is it singulis then, is, divine in iis orion, ita revelations agres With the knowledge God has given to His οὐ peopte But he who does not regard thoso ovibursis of the foui asine inaching of a congenital nature and the secret deposit os an inborn knowledge, Will say that tho habit and, so in say, tho vice of speaing in this Way has been acquired and co firmed irom tho opinions of published books widely spreadamong men. Unquestionably the foui existed before letters, and speech besoro books, and ideas before the writing of them, and man himself before the poet and philosopher. Isit then to bo belloved, that betare literature and ita publication
Ming stili amanting, without which it cannot even exist atinis dari When it is so much more copious, and rich, and wise , ii the things Whicli are noW so eastly suggestet that cling in us so constantly, that are so very near to us, thalare somelioW bom on Our very liph had no existence in ancient times, betore letters had any existenco in the worid-before there Was a Mercury, Ι thinh, at all. And whenco Was it, I pray, stat letters themselves came to know, and todisseminate for the me os speech, What no miud had ever
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44 TERTULLIANUS conceived, or longue put fortit, or ear talien in ' But, clearly, since the Scriptures of God, Whether belongingio Christians or Jews into whose olivo tree me have been grasted-are much more ancient than any secular literature,
thou maintain a VieW so groundless, as that those testimontes of the foui have gone forth srom the mere human specula
site speis of demons, when site means to denote spiriis tobo hold accursedi Why does stio mahe her protestations towards the heavens, and pronounce her ordinary execrationsearthwards ' Why does site render service in one place, in