TERTVLLIANS APOLOGY OR DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS AGAINST THE ACCUSATIONS OF THE GENTILES Now made English by H. B. Esq LONDON Printed by Tho. Harper and are to be sold by Thomas Butler at his shop in Lincolns-Inn field near the New-market 1655. To my honoured Father in Law ABRAHAM HAYNES Esq SIR THis Excellent Peece of Tertullian who lived about 1400. years since falling into my hands and perusing it for an Essay translated into English part therof Some of my friends who gave me a visit read this beginning and liking it although they have the same in Latine importuned me to finish what begun Esteeming it might bring some profit to the Christian Religion because therin Tertullian hath made such a solid confutation of the errors of Paganisme and so perfectly represented the innocence of Christians against the false accusations of the Gentiles that in truth Religion could not be better defended nor better perswaded then it is in this Divine Peece That which makes mee appropriate it to you for my particular you are he to whom I professe my selfe SIR Your humble and affectionate Son in Law HENRY BROWN TO HIS HONOURED Friend Henry Brown Esquire Translator of the ensuing Discourse into the English tongue SIR IT s very commendable when Gentlemen to avoid the irksome sin of Idlenes apply their minds unto studies beneficiall to themselves and others in making Exoâ—ick tongues hold forth the truth of things in our Native Language This it cannot be gainsayd in your late translation of this rare Peece into English you have done It was written at first by Tertullian the Author thereof in Latine Into how many severall tongues it hath been translated since I cannot say this I can its worthy for the excellency thereof to bee translated into all tongues the Contents being convincing Arguments for the proof of One God against the Heathen Romans who were then Worshippers of Many It were heartily to be wished we of this Nation could all of us bee as unanimous in the Profession of One true Religion as the Author of this Treatise earnestly laboured to make those unto whom hee wrot in the Confession of One true God This however at present wee may sooner wish then hope for in these suffering and distracting times you have seasonably done Chirst being the Center from whence all lines of truth tend to the Vniversality of Religion as to their Circumference in laying to your helping hand for supporting the sinking pillars of Christianity by translating out of a forraign tongue what the Primitive Christians did and suffered for the Name of Christ It s high time to put pen to paper and publish in our Mother tongue An Apologie or Defence for Christians when men and women nowadays who would bee thought true children of our Mother the Church secretly blaspheme and openly call in question the Godhead of Christ But as I and my Father am one saith our Saviour in the Gospel and therby declares himselfe consequently to be true God so this Apologie sufficiently sets forth the truth of our Christian Faith Which that it so doth in the English tongue we are all beholding to you for your pains alone in this translation The happy success wherof together with a further blessing upon it and your selfe from the Author of what ever blessings God blessed for evermore is heartily prayed for by him who is Sir Yours much devoted to serve you THOMAS WESTLEY THE PREFACE THis Apologie or Defence is the Work of an excellent Orator displaying all the forces of his wit to uphold a most deplored cause in the opinion of the Gentiles and yet the justest that ever was exposed to the judgement of men It s Reader will easily comprehend the merit of this peece so soon as know Tertullian the Author therof and its subject the defense of truth 'T was treated as criminall with them who shut their eyes to the lights therein and would not thereby bee informed Error seemed venerable to them for its antiquity they preferred the darknesse which blinded them for so many Ages before the most excellent Sun-shine of divine light although the accused made mention of in this Treatise were without spots yet their accusers endeavoured to find some and obscured their lustre whom they falsly accused with such impurity that it was necessary men illuminated with the beams of divine splendor should employ the graces they received from heaven to dissipate the darknesse of error and discover to the world a truth which till then they were utterly ignorant of Tertullian was one of those God made use of to lay open or unfold so glorious a ministry and certainly it was a labour worthy of him Hee had enriched his mind with all the choice ornaments of humane Learning was ignorant of nothing that was taught by any kind of Philosophers compleat he was in the knowledge of the Civill Lawes had read the histories of all Ages made to himselfe a treasure of what every science had most precious in it knew all the mysteries of idolatry and was fully informed of the beginning and progresse of Superstition having an understanding which made him capable of very great things His Discourse was so powerfull that one could not heare him without being perswaded by him every of his Arguments rendring him victorious at least over some of his Auditors Hee was equally subtill and solid in his reasonings he had united to those his sublime qualifications a perfect understanding of the holy Scriptures great piety and a marvellous zeale in the Religion of the true God It appertained to a man such as hee was to defend the Christians aginst the calumntes of the Goutiles to overthrow the Altars of the false Gods which Philosophy as he saith himselfe had set up to justifie the worship given by us to the Creator of the Vniversal Hee was an Affrican drawing his originall from a Noble Family of the City of Carthage his Father was an Heathen and commanded a Company of Souldiers under the charge of the Governour of the Province As himselfe tooke birth from an idolatrous house so brought up hee was in Error but God giving him an inquisitive soule he contented not himselfe with the knowledge of this world only but also soared and even penetrated into heaven to get knowledge of divine truth This saving well spring carefully laid up in the bosome of the Church was the water of life hee chiefly thirsted after which having once tasted of he happily plunged himselfe therein and took aful draught of the graces of God swallowed up at the same time this precious liquor Since when he ever after abhorred the fond blindnesse of foolish men who attribute to miserable creatures the glory due to God Charity the most excellent of Christian vertues so lively inflamed his heart that it made him undertake to instruct Infidels to communicate his lights unto them to confirme them therein by the Authority of holy Scriptures and by the strength of reason to ranke
whether they be your jesters or your gods that stir up laughter there you heare an immodest Anubis spoken of a masculine Moone and a Diana that was whipt there the will of a dead Jupiter is recited there jests made of three hundred starved Hercules's Besides all this Comedies Tragedies express all that is shamefull in the History of your gods There With delight you may heare the Sum complain of the misfortun of his off spring thrown down from Heaven You may see there without blushing Cybele sighing for a Shepheard that undervalued her there you suffer to be repeated in songs before you all the Encomions wherewith Jupiter is extolled for his jewd pranks and how Paris decided the difference betweene Juno Minerva and Venus But are they not certaine infamous persons that are disguised With the visages of your gods Is it not some vicious fellow that appears on the Stage with a forced posture and an effeminate voice to represent a Minerva or Hercules unto you Tell me if in approving these sacrilegious persons by the commendations and applaudings you give them you violate not the Majesty of your gods and prophane their Deities But it may be what 's repeated on the Amphitheatre hath more modesty and piety in it It is there where your gods play their parts in the bloud of men and horrour of punishments Their Histories serve for an argument to the subjects which the guilty present there and very often also these poore people doe truly represent the personages of your gods by the paines they indure Wee have sometimes seen the secret parts of a miscrable creature cut off for your god Athis of the City of Possena and sometimes he that wore the habit of Hercules lost his life for him in the flames We have taken occasion to laugh to see Mercury in the midst of the bloudy Spectacles of the combats of the Gladiators which are acted at Noone proving the dead bodies with his hot iron rod to try if they be still living And Pluto conducts them with a hammer in his hand to dispatch them if not already dead If all these actions and many such like which one might finde out bee injurious to the honour of your gods and throws all their Majesty to the ground they must take it from the neglect which they have of their Deities and of those that commit it and are the cause thereof But suppose all this is but jesting There are other things which your consciences cannot disavow no more then that I have already said you make bargains for Adulteries in the Temples you corrupt the chastitie of women before the Altars you fulfill your concupisceces for the most part even in those houses which ordained for the Priests and for the laying up of other holy things therin having before your eyes the Pontificall habits and the Incense still fuming with the fire of the Sacrifices This being so I know not why your gods doe not more complaine of you then of Christians Indeed all that are found guiltie of sacriledge are of your Religion for as you know Christians never enter in the day time into your Temples it may be they would ransack them as well as you if they offered sacrifices as you doe But if you aske what Deity the Christians adore I answer it is not hard to conceive that they who render no worship to false gods honour the true they will not fall any more into the errours from whence they are delivered when as they have received the light of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and known the wickedness of Idolatry Now I will begin to discover the mysteries of our Religion yet it shall be after I have refuted the false opinions you have conceived of it CHAP. XVI SOme among you have fancied the god we worship hath the shape of an Asse It importeth that I discover the originall source of this fable The reason that raised this suspition of us is in the fifth Booke of the History of Cornelius Tacitus where making mention of the warre that Titus had with the Jewes under the Empire of Vespatian he takes occasion to relate the History of this Nation speaking as he thinks good of its originall name and Religion and reports that the Jewes comming out of AEgypt where they were banished as he believes received great incommodities in passing the vast Desarts of Arabia because they found no water and as they were extreamly press'd with thirst they were delivered by the rencounter which they had with a company of wild Asses who shewed them the Fountains where they went to drink lying not farre from their Pastures And in acknowledgement of this benefit they are reported to consecrate the image of one of these Asses that then succoured them in that extremity I thinke this tale makes it presumed that the Christians whose Religion is drawne from that of the Jews and hath succeeded it worship the effigies of an asse Yet the same Author who faith hee lies not writes neverthelesse that Pompey having taken the City of Jerusalem and entring into the Temple to see the mysteries of the Jewish Religion saw there no image at all It is likely had they formed any image to the Deity adored by them they had reposed it in the Sanctuary where if suspected to bee thought Idolaters they could not bee discovered by strangers because none but their own high Priest permitted to enter in a vaile also being drawn before it to hinder all others from prying thereinto As for your selves its a thing you cannot deny you worship with ridiculous ceremonie all beasts of burthen with their goddesse Hyppone But peradventure it may not bee so well taken that among so many worshippers of all forts of creatures we onely should be thought to adore nothing else but asses I come therefore to those who are of opinion wee worship a crosse also and do not they the same thing they believe of us when they consecrate their woodden images It imports not though it bee another figure so it bee of the same matter though the forme bee not the same so it be the body of a God What difference is there betweene the wood of the crosse and an Athenian Pallace or a pharien Ceres which are nothing but rough pieces of wood unshapt whereof the hand of the workman hath not formed an image All images set upon their feet by you represent a part of the crosse and do not we better then you when wee worship the whole Godhead in Christ without a Crosse Moreover those taken by you for goâ—s have beene in the begining cast as we said before in moulds made after the forme in som part or similitude of a crosse besides you consecrate spoyles taken by you from your enemies you rayse up Trophies in honour of victory and those Trophies what are they within but onely trees made by you into crosses The Roman souldiers in their Religion which is all martiall adore the ensignes of their Emperour they
the holy Scriptures 80 Providence divine which hath given a being hath also provided for all things 52 53 The Providence of God reverenced in the Person of Kings 122 Phyrron 178 Pythagoras will usurp Tyranny over the Turiens 161 Q Questions of the Author to the Romans 7 to Trajan 9 10 c. R RAdamanthus and Minos 101 Reasons of Insidels weake against the Christian Religion 19 Reasons that confound the divinity of the false gods 52 Râ—asons wherfore the Christians will not sacrifice to Idols for the welfare of the Prince 117. has to the true God and what prayers they make for them ibid. 118 Regulus his generosity 176 Religion Christian what her condition permits her to doe drawes her originall from heaven should not be condemned without knowing her ibid. they that will bee instructed therin must addresse themselves to their Superiors 37 Religion not to be dissembled 113 115 Religion Christian is exempt from all crime 134 Religion counted asacred thing where it s not permitted to saign and where lies are esteemed sacriledge 91 Reproaches to the Romans of their injustice against Christians 7 8 Resurrection and the proofs of it 170. confirmed by the Oracles of Apello ibid. Revealed by Jesus Christ 171 Resolutions of divers Empires and Kingdomes 112 Romans attribute the enlargement of their Empire to their piety 106 Reasons against it 109 110 111 Romans answered to that they object against Christians of enduring their punishment and being so willingly put to death 175 S SAcrificing of men in the Temple of Diana Taurica and at Rome in honour of Jupiter 40 Samothracian mysteries 32 Saliens their suppers 140 Saturn why the ancientest of all the gods 49. many bistorians speak of him but as a man 50 Saturns inventions given to men 53 Scaevola the greatnes of his courage 176 Scipio just and warlike 56 Serapu suppers made in honour of her 141 Seneca writ against the Pagan superstitions 58 Serapis Isis Harpocrates and the image of the head of a dog taken away from the Pallace of the gods by Pison and â—abinius â—8 reestablished again by the Romans 29 Severus a very wise Emperour 20 Socrates his maner of speaking 158 sacrificeth a Cock to AEjculaplus 159 a corrupter of yong boyes 160 undervalued his gods calleth for witnes of his oaths an oak a buck and a dog 64 Sedom and Gomorrha consumed by fire 144 Soctishnes of the ancient Idolaters 49 50 Spectacles horrible 65 66 Speusippus taken in adultery 160 Sterculus 106 Sunday the day of the Sun wherefore celebrated by us 70 71 T THales Prince of the Physitians his answer to Cressus 159 Tallus 49 78 Tenths of goods vowed to Hercules 140 Treasure of Christians where every one contributes what he will and how employed 138 Tiberius propounded to the Senat to receive Jesus Christ among the number of their Gods 23 Trophonius 51 Tuscans and Grecians were the inventers of carving images to the deities 110 Tyrants and their customes 12 Tyrants in vaine rejoyce at Christians suffering death for the Christian Religion and the reason 174 V VArro brings in three hundred gods without a head under the name of Jupiter 65 Vespasian conquered Judea 25 Vestals where of one kept water in a Sieve and the other drew a Ship alone 96 Virginity vowed to God by the Christians 46 Vulsina a City consumed by fire 144 W WIne the use of it forbid to women 28 How to know when they had drunk it ibid Women their Communion odious to Christians 130 Words cannot bee condemned unlesse they bee barbarous or expresse some evill sp aking 16 The Word is one with God 85. and is compared to light ibid. Z ZEno saith that the Word is the Author of the order wee see in Nature calls it Destiny the soule of Jupiter and the necessiry of all things 84 Will usurp tyranny over the Prieniaes 161 His death 177 ERRATA Page 1 line 7. read capitall p. 25. l. 3. r. Marcus Aurelius p. 60 l. 11. and 24. r. Lares p. 65. l. 11. r. actions p. ibid. l. 12. r. Buffoons p. 69 l. 24. r. Athenian Pallas p. 82. l. 1. r. we doe not Page 93 line 6. and 7. read Daemon p. 96. l. 26. r. retained p. 100. l. 25. r. when we conjure p. 103. l. 30. r. whâ—â— is it that Plato p. 122. l. 14. and 22. r. Gâ—niâ— p. 129. l. 5. r. professe not p. 146. l. 25. r. drought FINIS
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