Hippona and given her the Charge over them and when you celebrate the solemn Rites of your Goddess Isis you with a great deal of Ceremony adorn that Animal Yea you pay Adoration to the heads of Oxen and Rams so that you Worship the same Beasts which you Sacrifice Some of your Gods are made up of a mixt shape of Goats and Men and others of them have the Heads half of Dogs and half of Lyons Don't you with the Egytians worship and feed an Ox under the Name of Apis Neither do you disavow the worship of their other goodly Deities as Serpents Crocodiles and other Beasts Birds and Fishes so that it is accounted Capital to kill any one of these Gods Are there not a great many amongst you who with the Egyptians stand as much in awe of the biting sharpness of an Onion as of their Goddess Isis and are as much afraid of the noise of breaking wind backward as of their God Serapis As for such as accuse us of adoring the privy Parts of our Priests they do but charge us with their own Villanies for such filthy Devotions are very suitable to those debauched and lewd people among whom 't is but too common for both Sexes to prostitute all their Members and who give the name of Courtesie and kindness to the most extravagant Obscenity and Lasciviousness who envy the liberty of Strumpets and commit such unnatural filthiness with one another as no modest Tongue can express or Pen set down and who sooner grow weary than asham'd of their impudent lasciviousness Oh horrible lewdness They willingly suffer those things to be committed upon themselves which neither tender age is able to bear nor the basest of slaves will yield to As for our part we are so far from being guilty of such filthithy actions that we do even blush at the bare recital of them and indeed I should think my self to transgress the bounds of Civility should I insist any longer upon this Matter though it be in order to defend our Religion For really you accuse us who are Chast and Modest of such Crimes as we could not have believed there had been such had there not been the proofs of them from among your selves As to that which you say that we worship a wicked Person and his Cross you are greatly mistaken for how could he have deserv'd to be worshipp'd had he been an Evil-doer or to be believ'd a GOD had he been only Earthly He is surely very miserable who reposes all his confidence in a mortal man since all hopes of his help dye with him The Egyptians indeed are guilty of this folly who chuse a Man for the Object of their Worship whom they pray unto consult upon all occasions and to whom they offer Sacrifice But all this while whether he will or no he that is a God to others is but a Man to himself and though he may deceive others he cannot deceive his own Conscience Upon Kings and great Persons also base flattery has bestow'd the Title of Gods whereas it had been enough to have paid them their due honours though to speak the truth Honour is properly due only to those who are eminently deserving as Love is to excellently good Men. Thus they invoke these Divine Powers they pray before their Images implore the help of their Genii that is their Daemons and hold it a less Crime for a Man to be perjur'd when he swears by Jupiter than when he swears by the Emperor's Genius We neither worship Crosses nor wish to be nail'd to them You your selves are more likely to adore them who worship Wooden Gods that are made of the same Matter And what are your Banners and Standards but gilt and beautified Crosses Nay the very Trophies of your Victories do not only bear the figure of a Cross but of a Crucified Man Indeed the Sign of the Cross is naturally represented in many things as in a Ship when under Sail or when row'd with Oars also when a Man prays to GOD with his hands stretched forth he makes the same Figure So that the Figure of the Cross has both a ground in Natural Reason and in your Religion as being formed in the most Solemn action of it Prayer NOW I would fain meet with that Man that says or believes that the blood of a murther'd Infant is the initiating Ceremony of our Religion First who could have the heart to shed the blood of a young Innocent that is but newly born Surely none can imagine or believe such a Crime but he who can commit it 'T is you that expose your Children new-born to wild Beasts and Birds and strangle them at their coming into the World Nay there are some among you who by taking Potions to cause abortion destroy them in the Womb and are guilty of their death even before they are born Which cruelty you have learned of your Gods For Saturn was not contented to expose his own Children but devour'd them himself Upon which account they were us'd in some parts of Africa to offer him such little Infants whom they prevented from crying by stopping their mouths with kisses that they might not sacrifice sad and mournful Victims to their Gods It was also a Custom among the Scythians to sacrifice Strangers that lodg'd with them which a King of Egypt also practis'd The Gauls sacrificed humane or rather inhumane Offerings to Mercury The Roman Priests have upon some occasions overwhelm'd and buried a Grecian Man and Woman as likewise a Man and Woman of Gaul alive And at this day the solemn Worship paid to Jupiter Latiaris is cutting of a Man's throat which indeed very well becomes Saturn's Son thus to gorge himself with the blood of a Criminal From whence I suppose it was that Catiline learn'd to ratifie his Conspiracy with humane blood and that Bellona does still oblige those to drink a draught of it who consecrate themselves to her service With which bloody Medicine a thousand times worse than the Disease the Falling-sickness is also cured Nor are they much less barbarous who from the Amphitheatre take and eat wild Beasts all besmear'd with blood and newly fed with the flesh and entrails of Men. For our part it is not lawful for us either to see or hear of Murthers committed and so much do we abhor Humane blood that we eat not even that of Beasts As for our incestuous and promiscuous Feasts it is a Calumny invented at a consultation of Devils on purpose to obscure the glory of our Chastity and deter Men from our Religion before they had try'd it by the horror of so great a Crime and what your Orator Fronto has said concerning it is rather an Invective than an Evidence But really it 's your selves that are guilty of Incests and not we The Persians marry their own Mothers the Egyptians and the Athenians their Sisters Your Stories and Tragedies wherein you take so much delight boast of Incests and so you worship Gods
parts of their Priests as if they meant to adore the Genitals of their Ghostly Fathers Now whether these Reports be true or false I will not take upon me absolutely to determine But their Nocturnal Ceremonies and conceal'd Devotions seem to be sufficient Arguments to perswade the truth of them and they who tell us that they worship a Man who was crucified for his Villanies and that the Wood of a Cross constitutes a great part of their Devotion do worthily attribute to them Altars suitable to their Crimes by making them to adore what they deserve Moreover the Ceremony they observe upon admitting any to their Religion is no less horrible than notorious A Child cover'd all over with Paste to conceal the Murther he is designed for is set before the new Proselyte who by their command strikes his knife many times into it until the blood run down apace from all parts which by them is as greedily suckt up and this common Crime is made the Pledge and Surety for their Silence and Secrecy These are their Sacrifices which are worse than all Sacriledges As to their Feasts they are but too well known concerning which our Cirthensian Orator tells us in his Speech that on a certain day solemnly appointed for that purpose they assemble themselves all together both Men Women Children Brothers Sisters and in a word people of all Ages Conditions and Sexes and after they have eaten and drunk to excess and that the heat of the Wine and Meats begins to kindle their blood and provoke their lust they cast a morsel to a Dog who is ty'd to a Candlestick so far out of his reach that in striving to leap at it he overthrows the Candlestick and puts out the Light So that having thus rid themselves of the only Witness of their infamous actions and taking boldness from shameless Darkness they confusedly mix themselves together as it happens and therefore though it may chance so that they are not all Incestuous in deed yet they are all of 'em so in will and design since the Sin acted by any one of them is not only consented to but wish'd by the whole Company Several other things of this nature there are which I purposely omit I having already produc'd but too many instances of their Errors And indeed were there nothing else against them but that of their endeavouring to conceal so much their Mysteries in obscurity it would be an evident proof of the truth of all we say or at least of the greatest part thereof For why do they so industriously strive to hide that which they worship Men are not afraid to publish their honest actions but such as are unjust they seek to cover with silence and privacy Why have they neither Altars nor Temples nor any Images at least which are known Why don't they speak but in private holes and corners whither they repair by stealth if this their conceal'd Religion be not infamous and criminal But pray from whence who and where is this one only solitary and forsaken God of theirs whom not one free Nation no Kingdoms do worship no not the Romans themselves who have worshipp'd all the Gods of the whole Universe Among all the people in the World there is but that one miserable Nation of the Jews who have served one God alone and yet they did it too in a publick manner with Temples Altars Rites and Sacrifices and notwithstanding the power of this God is so inconsiderable that both himself and his People are now Captives to the Romans But what strange and wonderful things don't they invent They assert That to this God whom they neither see nor can demonstrate men's Lives and Actions are particularly known That he hears their words searcheth their most secret thoughts and is present every where thereby making him troublesome restless and curious even to impudence for he hath a hand in or at least a knowledge of every thing He is present every where and leaves nothing unpried into But how can this be How can he possibly have an eye to every thing in particular who has business in all places at once Or how can he be sufficient for all whilst he applies himself to every particular Nor do they content themselves with all this but they threaten all the World and the Stars themselves with an universal Conflagration as if any thing could alter that Eternal Order which Nature her self has establish'd the Elements break their Alliance or the Divine Harmony of the Spheres be dissolv'd for to destroy this wonderful Fabrick which contains and surrounds us To these they add several other Old Wives Fables They tell us That after Death their ashes and dust shall rise again and by I don't know what strange kind of perswasion they stedfastly believe those Errors they have invented and fancy themselves already risen and born again Which is a double madness and folly to believe that the Heavens and Stars which we leave as we found them shall perish and that Men whom we see hourly dye and have an End as they have had a Beginning shall for ever abide And as if Dead Bodies being kept from the flames should not by length and process of time be turn'd into dust and ashes they will not burn their Dead and blame us because we burn ours Do you think that it matters any thing whether they be consum'd in the Earth or in the Sea or devour'd by Fire or wild Beasts For if Dead Bodies have any sense any manner of Burial must needs be a torment to them but if they have none that way whereby they are soonest consum'd is the best Nevertheless being prepossest with this ridiculous opinion they promise themselves as the Godly Party an everlasting happiness after this Life and threaten others as being the Rebel Rout with torments that shall have no end I have many things to say here to prove them worse than others but I will not take pains to make it out since I think it sufficiently done already But were it granted that they are as righteous as others is it not as a certain truth believ'd by most That Destiny is the cause both of the good and evil that we see in the World Which is your judgment also For as some impute all humane Actions to Fate and Fortune so do you to God Which is in effect to say that you have not voluntarily embraced this Sect but God has Elected you thereunto So that thereby you make your God an unjust Judge who does not punish the sinful but the unfortunate Pray tell me shall you rise again without or with a Body and shall that Body be the same you have now or another If you say without a Body For my part I don't believe there is either Life Soul or Sense without a Body And how with a Body It cannot be your own for that is already wasted Shall it be another Then it will be a new body and not the old one repair'd
are of a Middle substance between Mortal and Immortal that is between a Body and Spirit being made of a mixture of Terrestrial grosness and Celestial purity By which means they have an easie access to us to stir up our desires and by conveighing themselves into our hearts to affect our Senses raise our Passions and kindle in our Souls the flames of Lust These Daemons then who are mix'd and impure Spirits as we have plainly demonstrated by the Authority of Wisemen Philosophers and Plato himself lurk privately in those Statues and Images which are consecrated unto them and by their Enthusiasms get so great an Authority over the minds of men as of present Deities and this by inspiring their Prophets dwelling in their Temples by animating and acting the Entrails of Beasts by directing the flying of Birds determining of Lots and uttering Oracles which are generally obscure and mixt with abundance of lyes for they both deceive others and are deceiv'd themselves who as they do not know the Truth fully so they oft conceal and will not confess that which they do know because it tends to their own shame and confusion Thus they make it their business to depress and sink us downwards from Heaven to Earth and to estrange us from GOD by immersing us into Matter They trouble and disquiet our life molest us with Dreams and this by the advantage they have as Spirits to convey themselves into our Bodies where they counterfeit Diseases terrifie our Minds distort our Members thereby to oblige us to adore them and that after they are glutted with the reaking steam of Altars and the blood of slain Beasts by undoing their own Charms the honour of Healing might be attributed to them They are these very Spirits which act those raging mad folks whom you see running along the streets and who are every whit as much Prophets as those who give answers in your Temples for they both foame rage and are whirl'd about alike Indeed they are Daemons which possess the one as well as the other with this only difference that the object of their madness does vary From the same also proceed all those delusions you even now rehears'd as that of Jupiter's commanding in a Dream that his Games should be restor'd the appearance of Castor and Pollux on Horseback and that of a Ship being tow'd along by the girdle of a Roman Matron The most now adays and among them many of your own Party know very well that the Devils themselves do oft confess all these things when by the torture of our Words and the Fire of our Prayers they are driven out and dispossess'd Then it is that Saturn Serapis and Jupiter with all the Crew of Gods you worship being overcome with anguish do declare plainly what they are nor have they the power by lying to conceal their own shame as you may be sure they fain would though some of their deluded Adorers be present Sure you will credit the testimony of your own Gods when they witness the Truth against themselves and confess they are Devils For when those Wretches are conjur'd to come forth by the Name of the True and Only GOD they tremble and quake within the Bodies they have possess'd and either leap forth presently or vanish by degrees according as the Faith of the Patient and Grace of the Ghostly Physician are stronger or weaker So that they dread the nearness of those Christians whom at a distance by your means they trouble and disturb in their Assemblies and to that end insinuate themselves into the hearts of the simple and ignorant and there sow the seeds of hatred against our Religion For nothing is more natural than to hate those whom we dread and give all the trouble we can to those of whom we stand in awe So they prepossess and prejudice the hearts of men against us that they begin to hate us before they know us lest knowing us without this prejudice they might desire to imitate or at least not be able to condemn us Now how unjust it is to pass a Judgment upon things which one knows not as you do in condemning us you may take warning from us who do so heartily repent for having committed the same fault for we were once as you are and had the same Sentiments being involv'd in the same blindness and stupidity of Error when we believ'd that the Christans worship'd Monsters devour'd Children defil'd their Feasts with Incests without considering that though such things were commonly reported yet they never were prov'd and that none all this while has ever confess'd the least tittle of any one of these Crimes though besides the assurance of Pardon the â—eward of such a discovery might have been a great temptation thereunto â—ndeed to be a Christian is so far from â—mplying any thing that is evil or criminal that they who are convict neâ—â—her blush at it nor fear the punishment which attends it No you see them â—lory in it and troubled at nothing but â—hat they were so no sooner Neverâ—heless we our selves at the same time when we undertook the Defence of Parricides and persons guilty of Sacriledges and Incest would not so much as hear the Plea that Christians were ready to make for themselves whom we sometimes made endure a cruel corture not out of hatred but pity forsooth that by constraining them through the greatness of torments to renounce their Religion we might save their lives Oh! perverse Inquisition to make use of the Rack not to force the sufferer to declare the Truth but to deny it Now if it so happened that any one less constant being overcome with the pains of those tortures did renounce his Religion he was received into favour as if by such an abjuration he had made atonement for all the Crimes which are commonly charg'd upon them By which you may plainly see that we formerly were of the same mind and persuasion with you doing the very same things as you do now But indeed had you been govern'd by Reason and not by the instigation of Evil Spirits your business would have been to have urg'd the Christians not to renounce their Religion but to confess their Incests Whoredoms impious Ceremonies and their Sacrificing of Infants which are the fabulous Stories wherewith the same Daemons have fill'd the silly people's Minds to make them detest and abhor us But no wonder if all these horrid lyes and Fictions do vanish away before the appearance of Truth which those Monsters so much oppose making it their business to spread and foment false reports From these also that Fable had its rise That we worship an Asse's Head But I pray you who can be conceiv'd so much a fool to worship such a thing or rather who is so much a fool as to believe we do it except those who are guilty of as extravagant and impious Devotions themselves For indeed it is you make both Asses and Stables Holy by having consecrated your Goddess