Chapter IV.--How Autolycus Had Been Misled by False Accusations Against the Christians.
Nor indeed was there any necessity for my refuting these, except that I see you still in dubiety about the word of the truth. For though yourself prudent, you endure fools gladly. Otherwise you would not have been moved by senseless men to yield yourself to empty words, and to give credit to the prevalent rumor wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us, who are worshippers of God, and are called Christians, alleging that the wives of us all are held in common and made promiscuous use of; and that we even commit incest with our own sisters, and, what is most impious and barbarous of all, that we eat human flesh. [640] But further, they say that our doctrine has but recently come to light, and that we have nothing to allege in proof of what we receive as truth, nor of our teaching, but that our doctrine is foolishness. I wonder, then, chiefly that you, who in other matters are studious, and a scrutinizer of all things, give but a careless hearing to us. For, if it were possible for you, you would not grudge to spend the night in the libraries.
[640] [The body of Christ is human flesh. If, then, it had been the primitive doctrine, that the bread and wine cease to exist in the Eucharist, and are changed into natural flesh and blood, our author could not have resented this charge as "most barbarous and impious."]
Chapter V.--Philosophers Inculcate Cannibalism.
Since, then, you have read much, what is your opinion of the precepts of Zeno, and Diogenes, and Cleanthes, which their books contain, inculcating the eating of human flesh: that fathers be cooked and eaten by their own children; and that if any one refuse or reject a part of this infamous food, he himself be devoured who will not eat? An utterance even more godless than these is found,--that, namely, of Diogenes, who teaches children to bring their own parents in sacrifice, and devour them. And does not the historian Herodotus narrate that Cambyses, [641] when he had slaughtered the children of Harpagus, cooked them also, and set them as a meal before their father? And, still further, he narrates that among the Indians the parents are eaten by their own children. Oh! the godless teaching of those who recorded, yea, rather, inculcated such things! Oh! their wickedness and godlessness! Oh! the conception of those who thus accurately philosophized, and profess philosophy! For they who taught these doctrines have filled the world with iniquity.
[641] It was not Cambyses, but Astyages, who did this; see Herod. i. 119.
Chapter VI.--Other Opinions of the Philosophers.
And regarding lawless conduct, those who have blindly wandered into the choir of philosophy have, almost to a man, spoken with one voice. Certainly Plato, to mention him first who seems to have been the most respectable philosopher among them, expressly, as it were, legislates in his first book, [642] entitled The Republic, that the wives of all be common, using the precedent of the son [643] of Jupiter and the lawgiver of the Cretans, in order that under this pretext there might be an abundant offspring from the best persons, and that those who were worn with toil might be comforted by such intercourse. [644] And Epicurus himself, too, as well as teaching atheism, teaches along with it incest with mothers and sisters, and this in transgression of the laws which forbid it; for Solon distinctly legislated regarding this, in order that from a married parent children might lawfully spring, that they might not be born of adultery, so that no one should honour as his father him who was not his father, or dishonour him who was really his father, through ignorance that he was so. And these things the other laws of the Romans and Greeks also prohibit. Why, then, do Epicurus and the Stoics teach incest and sodomy, with which doctrines they have filled libraries, so that from boyhood [645] this lawless intercourse is learned? And why should I further spend time on them, since even of those they call gods they relate similar things?
[642] Not in the first, but the fifth book of the Republic, p. 460.
[643] Minos.
[644] As this sentence cannot be intelligibly rendered without its original in Plato, we subjoin the latter: "As for those youths who excel either in war or other pursuits, they ought both to have other rewards and prizes given them; and specially this, of being allowed the freest intercourse with women, that, at the same time, under this pretext the greatest number of children may spring from such parents."
[645] [This statement reflects light upon some passages of Hermas, and shows with what delicacy he has reproved the gross vices with which Christians could not escape familiarity.]