opinion it is another kind of fury to leape over consecrated towers to a deity then to precipitate ones slle from a prophane house that it is another sort of rage to cut off ones privy parts and armes then to cut ones throat in truth the despaire both of the one and the other meet both in one as it is but one cause that transports them But hitherto we have made use of nothihg but wordes now wee must make use of the things themselves and demonstrations to shew you that your gods and divels are but one substance and that they differ but in name If a man should bring before your Tribunalls one that were truely possessed of a Divell if a Christian should comand him to speake this wicked spirit wil confess then that he is a Devill with as much truth as he saith falsely at another time he is a God Let them present any one of these they believe to be wrought upon within by a deity that in the ceremony of the sacrifices they offer on the Altars have the vertue of a God in senting the smell which goes out of the sacrifices who with force belch out words out of their stomacks within breathing declare oracles if this heavenly virgin who promiseth raine if this AEsculapius that teacheth the secrets of Physicke that preserves the lives of them who must lose the same soone after confesse not by the mouths of these impostors Whose fained inspirations deceive the world that they are but devills if the presence of a Christian takes not from them the boldnesse of lying wee are willing that in the same place you shed the bloud of this Christian and punish him as a wicked person What demonstration is clearer then this what proofe more infallible truth shines there in its purity it is afficted with this force that is not proper but for her selfe there is nothing heere to bee evill thought on Say then it is done by the power of Magick or by some such like tricke if your eyes or eares will let you But I pray what can you say against a thing that shews it selfe so cleare and without artifice if these spirits are gods indeed why do they falsely say they are devills is it to obey us they do so on this accout the deity receives law from the Christians but they should not honour with this title a nature that is under the government of man I might add that is subect to the power of his enemies if it causeth shame If on the other side these spirits are Divels or Angels how comes it when they speake to others then to us they would passe for gods for as those to whom divine honour is rendred wou'd not be avowed Divels if in truth they were gods because gods cannot take the qualitie of Divels without putting off their majesty so yit the names they give themselves whom you acknowledge to bee Divels were the names of true gods they could not bee so rash as to take and to put them in the rank of a Deitie because these gods would without doubt bee their Soveraignes and they would feare to offend the majestie of them whose power they should dread Acknowledge then that the Deitie you honour is not a Deitie because if it were the Divels would not attribute it to themselves and the gods would not disavow it So seeing both the one and the other concur in acknowledging this truth that those the world acknowledge for gods are none you must confess then they are Divels and therefore you must resolve to seek Deities somewhere else seeing you now see what is the condition of them you take for gods Now seeing by our meanes your gods discover to you they are no gods and that all the other to whom men erect Altars are none in like manner but this at the same time they make you know who the true God is if it be this only God that we that are Christians worship if we must believe of him what the Christians believe if hee must bee served as their Lawes ordaine When you conjure your gods in the name of Jesus Christ doe they aske who is that Jesus Christ doe they call the History of his life a Fable doe they say hee is a man of the same condition as other men that hee was a Magician that after dead his Disciples tooke away his body privately from the Sepulchre and that he is now in Hell say they not rather hee is in Heaven that hee must discend to the terrour of all the world with horrour to the Universe with the lamentation of all men but Christians and that hee shall come downe on the earth full of Majestie as the vertue of God the spirit of God the Word Wisdome Reason and Son of God your gods must doe as you doe deride all these things denie all the souls that liv'd since the Creation of the world should take their bodies againe that Jesus Christ must judge them they should say it belongs to Radamanthus and Minos according to the opinion of Plato and the Poets at least they should discharge themselves of the shame of this sin and infamy of their condemnation not avowing they are spirits of corruption although it sufficiently enough appeares by the condition of their meats they seed on the bloud smoake stinking sacrifices of beasts and impure tongues of their Divines that they are so and in the end not confess they are already condemned to the pains of Hell expecting the universall judgement where they shall receive the just recompence of their wickedness with all them that have sinned as they and worshipped them Now all the power we have of them is the name of Jesus Christ who gives it us it is the threatning we give them of the evils God is readie to powre on their heads and which one day Jesus Christ must declare to them As they feare Jesus Christ in God and God in Jesus Christ they are under the government of the servants of God and of Jesus Christ so by the onely touch of our hands and breath of our mouths the Divel seized with feare at the sight of the flames that environ them are forced to obey us to come our of the bodies they possess in dispite of them and with murmuring to suffer this shame in our presence You that are wont to believe them when they lie believe them when they speake of thenselves No body will tell a lie to get shame by it but rather to gaine honour one will sooner beleve them that confesse against their owne interest then those that denie to their advantage These Testimonies which we have of your Gods make men to bee Christians for wee cannot give a full beleese to what they say without believing in Jesus Christ our master Your gods kindle in our hearts the faith which the Holy Scripture teacheth us they strengthen our hope and confirme us in the assurance wee have of our salvation As for you to honour them
to whom they gave charge to keep him carefully This suspicious people feared his Disciples should come and take away his body and having committed this theft perswade them hee was risen because hee had said that in three dayes hee would rise from the grave and triumph over death But the third day being come the earth shooke on a sudden the stone that shut the mouth of the Sepulchre was overturned the Souldiers astonished and troubled with fear and not one of his Disciples durst appeare that they might be accused of taking away his body which not being found there remained nothing in the grave but the linnen wherewith he was wrapt Yet notwithstanding the High Priests divulged this bruit that the body of Jesus was taken away by his Disoiples They had reason to publish this false theft that they might turne away the people from embracing this Doctrine otherwise themselves should lose the authority they had over the People and the profits they drew from them if they had knowne that hee whom they had crucified was truly the son of God Their mindes being thus abused by the ambition and avarice of the Priests they remained in the darknesse of errour for Jesus Christ shewed himselfe not to the People because hee would not doe this favour to the wicked to make them become faithfull in presenting before their eyes his glorious body and it must be that the faith that promis'd such great recompences should bee wrapt up with some difficulties After his resurrection he stayes with some of his Disciples sorty dayes in Galile one of the Provinces in Judea where hee taught them what they should preach to men and having given them to declare his Doctrine throughout all the Earth a cloud invironed him where with received up to Heaven a truth far more certain then any humane testimonies given of your Proculus touching his seeing a Romulus or other of your Princes mounting up into the same place Pilate who in his heart believed in Jesus Christ at the same time wrote all this History to the Emperour Tiberius whereupon the Cesars themselves had worshipped our Master if their government in so doing had been consistent with the men of this world and Christians permitted to have beene saluted Caesars The Disciples of Jesus following the order hee had given them went over all parts of the knowne world to publish the Law of the Gospel But the Jewes their declared Enemies made them indure many punishments which they suffered generously because they knew they were hated only for preaching the truth In the end these Insidels taking advantage of the cruelty of Nero caused the bloud of the Christians inhumanly to be shed But remember when wee told you of the gods you worship we said we would produce them as sit witnesses of the Godhead of Jesus Christ Is it not strange we should imploy them whom you withold from being Christians to make you believe the Doctrine of Christians yet you shall see by and by that your gods beare witness in favour of our Religion against your Idolatry This wee shall tell you when come to declare to you wherin consists all the mystery of our instirution then you shall know both the originall of out Religion the name and the Author thereof Let none therefore object to us any more these crimes so full of infamy let none any more conceive these strange opinions of our lives you must needs belleve what wee declare to you touching the worship we render to God Religion is a sacred thing where it is not permitted to seigne and where lies are counted sacrilegious Every man that saith he worships other God then whom he pretends truly to worship is an Insidell to his God and takes from him the honour hee should render him to transfer the same to another and in transferring it acknowledgeth not his Godhead any longer because hee violates it in denying him We say openly we are Christians we avow it publickly yea even in the midst of tortures the which you make use of to make us deny it When we are torne in pieces and covered with our bloud we cry out as far as our voices will extend wee worship God in Jesus Christ believe if you will Jesus Christ to be man onely It is by him and in him nevertheless that God will bee known and honoured So to the end wee may answer the Jewes Have not they learn'd to worship God on earth by Moses a man whom God sent to teach them to serve him and that he made use of Moses as a man to publish his Law as for the Greeks were not they men that instructed them in their superstitions to wit Orpheus on the mountain of Pierius Museus at Atbens Melampus at Argos and Trophonius in Beotia Then if I should cast mine eyes upon you who are the Masters of all the world do I not finde it was a man a Numa Pompilius that put upon you a Religion so full of ridiculous mysteries and troublesome ceremonies Why should it not be permitted Jesus Christ also to declare his Divinity he to whom only the Divinity appertained and to make himselfe acknowledged for the God of Heaven and Earth He ought not to be suspected for an Impostor as others for hee was not like to a Numa who would not soften the wilde spirits of these savage people and barbarous in filling them with astonishment by the infinite number of gods which made them afraid Hee address'd himself to men pollishe perfectly knowing in the prudence of the world and yet withall their wisedome were blinde as concerning Heaven He came to enlighten and discover to them the truth they knew not Informe your selves whether the God-head of Jesus Christ be the true God-head we ought to worship Whether it change their manners that believe it and makes them become better then they were all the other Deities must bee condemned as false and principally that which is under the names and Images of dead men by the artisice of certaine supposed signes of the miracles they counterfet and the deceitfull Oracles they render passe for a true Divinity although it is knowne that all it doth is but the worke of Divels CHAP. XXII VVE say then that there is in Nature certain spiritual substances to whom the name of Divels is given This name is not new the Philosopher had the knowledge of it and Socrates did nothing Without the permission of his Divell So they say that from his infancy this Divell was alwayes by him and abandoned him not so long as the lived Certes this spirit was not proper but to turne him away from the love of good things The Poets also knew what the Divels were and the ignorant common people have them in their mouths when they would pronounce a malediction It is by an inward motion of the soule that in those imprecations in calling the evill spirits in effect they call Satan who is the Prince of this cursed Company Blato did
Christians thought they should offend God if in shewing their affection to the Emperour they mingled themselves in these dissolutions but their piety passing with the Infidels for a crime their enemies tooke occasion thereby to exclame against them as against the enemies of the Emperour Some think that Severus after hee had caused many Noble persons to bee put to death of Niger or Albinius party went to make War against the Parthians and leaving the Government of the City of Rome to Plautianus this man naturally cruell and continuing the search after all those who had favoured the one or the other of these two parties filling Rome with Funeralls and mourning began also the fifth Persecution against the Christians not as complices of the factions which now began to be extinguished but as guilty of high Treason in neglecting to render to the Emperour at his return from Gaule their duties in like maner as his other people did They that writ this fifth Persecution were stirred up at Rome on this subject on the only authority of Plautianus have also writ it was in this time that Tertullian made this Apologie or Defence to make known to the Gentiles the injustice of the usage the Christians had And upon their account this Peece was published the seventh yeare of the Empire of Severus which fell in the year of our Lord 201. But others more probably say it was in the year of our Salvation 204. the tenth year of the Empire of Severus when this Prince after he had overcome the Parthians and established peace in the Empire willing to smother the seed of troubles wher with it had beene so violently agitated for bad unlawfull assemblies and factious meetings upon this occasion pretence is taken to persecute the Christians with authority as if in meeting to prayse GOD they had violated the prohibition of the Emperour Tertullian in his Apologie or Defence affirms this last opinion to be the truest shewing Christian meetings not to be factious meetings Concluding it was not for this cause that the before mentioned Inhibition was put forth Neither is it unlikely but this Apologie or Defence that justifies Christian Religion from the guilt of faction practise and conspiracie against the State was after the Edict of Severus who commanding the Judges to punish all seditious confederacies had kindled againe the fire of Persecution against the guiltlesse Howsoever it was certaine it is Tertullian composed this Apologie or Defence in the reigne of Severus during the greatest heat of punishing the Christians he was then at Rome and published this Book without putting his name to it that bee might not expose himselfe to inevitable danger Sparing the name of Severus for the respect born to his dignity he addrest this Book to the Magistrates who sate every day in judgement upon the faithfull and condemned the true Religion without knowing it It s impossible seriously to consider this Peece without being ravisht therewith Riches it hath that puts it into the rank of great Workes and of force to make us consesse that if it be to bee esteemed for the reputation of its Author it is also of more esteem for its own merit We may see therin rare vivacity of wit incredible store of high thoughts and a mervaillous power of perswading Wee may receive there the light of an eminent Doctrine We meet there with an infinite number of choice things The conduct of it is admirable Art hath nothing excellent which is not judicially there observed All the parts therof are agreeable with the whole In fine it s a perfect body to which the Learned have given this commendation that of all the Works of Tertullian there is none to bee compared to this All the following Ages have acknowledged that the Church hath nothing more accomplished and that Religion could not bee better defended nor better perswaded then it is in this Divine Peece The truth is the stile is not so glorious the phrase rude and obscure and it seems as if every one of its periods contayned a mystery the sense therof is so hid But we must pardon an Affrican if it be not expressed with all the grace of the Latine Tongue the fault is not so much in him as in his Countrey If his speech hath not much Eloquence it hath much vigor His discourse flatters not the ears but works with vehemence and impresseth powerfully on the mind of the Readers that which will perswade him Now although Terrullian hath not loftinesse of speech yet we may say hee hath written purely and not used tearms which were not fit to declare vigorously what he conceived and which are not found in the Authors of Humane Learning and of civill right all his words are Latin but his phrase strange and rellisheth of the stile of the Greeks to which he was accustomed by his ordinary reading of their Books It s this mixture that makes it obscure that the most able men meet with difficulties in his Workes and the reason his Apologie or Defence shewes not its beauty to all those that makes use of it There have crept in some opinions not now received and which in that time were not condemned He writes Divels were ingendred by the conjunction of revolted Angels with the daughters of men he speaks of the birth of the soule as well as of that of the body beleeving the child takes both his soul and his body from the substance of his father he sayes the soul cannot suffer alone but he is not constant in his opinion and teaches that the souls of the wicked suffer in hell although separated from the matter and their bodies rest in the grave which is the doctrine of the Catholicke Church Hee mentions Paradise as a place of delights different from that in heaven and separated from the world by the interposition of a Zone of fire where he beleeves the just goe after death to remain till the day of the Lord. And in conclusion le ts slip something from his pen of the age of a thousand years interposed between the end of this world and eternity He is of opinion also that during the course of these thousand yeares Iesus Christ shall raign on the earth with his elect that in the mean time the just being raysed out of their graves shall live with abundance of spirituall felicity and that this age being come to its period the Son of God shall then make his universall judgement It is enough wee have taken notice of these opinions which were not yet errors in the time of Tertullian the Church then not having pronounced any thing to the contrary they conâ—â—ated themselves then to preach the truth of one God in three Persons the mystery of the Birth Life and Death of Iesus Christ the institution of the Sacraments the judgement of the Lord the glory of the blessed in heaven and eternall punishments prepared for the wicked in hell Our Tertullian hath so wel1 establisht this doctrine