Chapter XIX. [750] --If Christians and the Heathen Thus Resemble Each Other, There is Great Difference in the Grounds and Nature of Their Apparently Similar Conduct.
Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in common with yourselves, it only remains that we compare the grounds which the respective parties have for being personally derided. All our obstinacy, however, is with you a foregone conclusion, [751] based on our strong convictions; for we take for granted [752] a resurrection of the dead. Hope in this resurrection amounts to [753] a contempt of death. Ridicule, therefore, as much as you like the excessive stupidity of such minds as die that they may live; but then, in order that you may be able to laugh more merrily, and deride us with greater boldness, you must take your sponge, or perhaps your tongue, and wipe away those records of yours every now and then cropping out, [754] which assert in not dissimilar terms that souls will return to bodies. But how much more worthy of acceptance is our belief which maintains that they will return to the same bodies! And how much more ridiculous is your inherited conceit, [755] that the human spirit is to reappear in a dog, or a mule, or a peacock! Again, we affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man. This you ascribe to Minos and Rhadamanthus, while at the same time you reject Aristides, who was a juster judge than either. By the award of the judgment, we say that the wicked will have to spend an eternity in endless fire, the pious and innocent in a region of bliss. In your view likewise an unalterable condition is ascribed to the respective destinations of Pyriphlegethon [756] and Elysium. Now they are not merely your composers of myth and poetry who write songs of this strain; but your philosophers also speak with all confidence of the return of souls to their former state, [757] and of the twofold award [758] of a final judgment.
[750] Compare The Apology, cc. xlvii. xlviii. xlix. [This Vol., supra.]
[751] Præstruitur.
[752] Præsumimus.
[753] Est.
[754] Interim.
[755] Traditum.
[756] The heathen hell, Tartarus or Orcus.
[757] Reciprocatione.
[758] Distributione.
Chapter XX.--Truth and Reality Pertain to Christians Alone. The Heathen Counselled to Examine and Embrace It.
How long therefore, O most unjust heathen, will you refuse to acknowledge us, and (what is more) to execrate your own (worthies), since between us no distinction has place, because we are one and the same? Since you do not (of course) hate what you yourselves are, give us rather your right hands in fellowship, unite your salutations, [759] mingle your embraces, sanguinary with the sanguinary, incestuous with the incestuous, conspirators with conspirators, obstinate and vain with those of the selfsame qualities. In company with each other, we have been traitors to the majesty of the gods; and together do we provoke their indignation. You too have your "third race;" [760] not indeed third in the way of religious rite, [761] but a third race in sex, and, made up as it is of male and female in one, it is more fitted to men and women (for offices of lust). [762] Well, then, do we offend you by the very fact of our approximation and agreement? Being on a par is apt to furnish unconsciously the materials for rivalry. Thus "a potter envies a potter, and a smith a smith." [763] But we must now discontinue this imaginary confession. [764] Our conscience has returned to the truth, and to the consistency of truth. For all those points which you allege [765] (against us) will be really found in ourselves alone; and we alone can rebut them, against whom they are adduced, by getting you to listen [766] to the other side of the question, whence that full knowledge is learnt which both inspires counsel and directs the judgment. Now it is in fact your own maxim, that no one should determine a cause without hearing both sides of it; and it is only in our own case that you neglect (the equitable principle). You indulge to the full [767] that fault of human nature, that those things which you do not disallow in yourselves you condemn in others, or you boldly charge [768] against others those things the guilt of which [769] you retain a lasting consciousness of [770] in yourselves. The course of life in which you will choose to occupy yourselves is different from ours: whilst chaste in the eyes of others, you are unchaste towards your own selves; whilst vigorous against vice out of doors, you succumb to it at home. This is the injustice (which we have to suffer), that, knowing truth, we are condemned by those who know it not; free from guilt, we are judged by those who are implicated in it. Remove the mote, or rather the beam, out of your own eye, that you may be able to extract the mote from the eyes of others. Amend your own lives first, that you may be able to punish the Christians. Only so far as you shall have effected your own reformation, will you refuse to inflict punishment on them--nay, so far will you have become Christians yourselves; and as you shall have become Christians, so far will you have compassed your own amendment of life. Learn what that is which you accuse in us, and you will accuse no longer; search out what that is which you do not accuse in yourselves, and you will become self-accusers. From these very few and humble remarks, so far as we have been able to open out the subject to you, you will plainly get some insight into (your own) error, and some discovery of our truth. Condemn that truth if you have the heart, [771] but only after you have examined it; and approve the error still, if you are so minded, [772] only first explore it. But if your prescribed rule is to love error and hate truth, why, (let me ask,) do you not probe to a full discovery the objects both of your love and your hatred?
[759] Compingite oscula.
[760] Eunuchs (Rigalt.).
[761] As the Christians were held to be; coming after (1) the heathen, (2) the Jews. See above, c. viii., and Scorpiace, c. x.
[762] Eunuchs (Rigalt.).
[763] An oft-quoted proverb in ancient writers. It occurs in Hesiod (Opp. et Dies) 25.
[764] Literally, "cease henceforth, O, simulated confession."
[765] Omnia ista.
[766] This seems to be the force of the "agnitione," which Oehler renders "auditione."
[767] Satisfacitis.
[768] Jactetis.
[769] Quorum reatum.
[770] Memineritis.
[771] Si potestis.
[772] Si putatis.