TERTULLIANS' 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 Piece of Tertullian (who lived about 1400. years since) falling into my hands, and perusing it, for an Essay, translated into English part thereof. Some of my friends (who gave me a visit) read this beginning, and liking it (although they have the same in Latin) importuned me to finish what begun. Esteeming, it might bring some profit to the Christian Religion; because therein Tertullian hath made such a solid confutation of the errors of Paganism, 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 persuaded, than it is in this Divine Piece. That which makes me appropriate it to you, for my particular, you are he, to whom I profess myself,  
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 Idleness, apply their minds unto studies beneficial to themselves and others, in making Exotic tongues hold forth the truth of things in our Native Language. This (it cannot be gainsaid) in your late translation of this rare Piece into English, you have done. It was written at first by Tertullian, the Author thereof, in Latin. Into how many several tongues it hath been translated since, I cannot say; this I can, its worthy for the excellency thereof, to be 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 be as unanimous in the Profession of One true Religion, as the Author of this Treatise earnestly laboured to make those unto whom he wrote, in the Confession of One true God. This, however, at present, we may sooner wish, then hope for, in these suffering and distracting times, you have seasonably done, christ being the Centre, from whence all lines of truth tend to the Universality of Religion, as to their Circumference, in laying to your helping hand for supporting the sinking pillars of Christianity, by translating, out of a foreign 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 Apology, or Defence for Christians, when men and women, nowadays, who would be 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 thereby declares himself consequently to be true God, so this Apology 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 whereof, together with a further blessing upon it, and yourself 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 Apology 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 piece, so soon as know Tertullian the Author thereof, and its subject the defence of truth. 'Twas treated as criminal, with them who shut their eyes to the lights therein, and would not thereby be informed; Error seemed venerable to them for its antiquity: they preferred the darkness which blinded them for so many Ages, before the most excellent Sunshine 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 falsely accused with such impurity, that it was necessary men illuminated with the beams of divine splendour, should employ the graces they received from heaven, to dissipate the darkness 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; He had enriched his mind with all the choice ornaments of humane Learning; was ignorant of nothing that was taught by any kind of Philosophers, complete he was in the knowledge of the Civil Laws, had read the histories of all Ages, made to himself 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 progress of Superstition, having an understanding which made him capable of very great things: His Discourse was so powerful, that one could not hear him without being persuaded by him; every of his Arguments rendering him victorious, at least over some of his Auditors. He was equally subtle 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 zeal in the Religion of the true God. It appertained to a man such as he was, to defend the Christians against the calumntes of the Goutiles, to overthrow the Altars of the false Gods which Philosophy (as he saith himself) had set up to justify the worship given by us to the Creator of the Universal.  
He was an African, drawing his original from a Noble Family of the City of Carthage: his Father was an Heathen, and commanded a Company of Soldiers, under the charge of the Governor of the Province. As himself took birth from an idolatrous house, so brought up he was in Error, but God giving him an inquisitive soul, he contented not himself 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 bosom of the Church, was the water of life he chiefly thirsted after, which having once tasted of, he happily plunged himself 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 blindness of foolish men, who attribute to miserable creatures the glory due to God.  
Charity, the most excellent of Christian virtues, so lively inflamed his heart, that it made him undertake to instruct Infidels, to communicate his lights unto them, to confirm them therein by the Authority of holy Scriptures, and by the strength of reason to rank themselves with him, in the faith of jesus Christ.  
Heerupon it was he so powerfully resisted the vanity of Philosophy, which he formerly so delighted in, and knew to be the principal ground of Superstition, So that the same things he heretofore studied to adorn his mind withal, and bring it to the knowledge of false Gods, whilst he lived under the servitude of Idolatry, by an admirable working of divine providence, served him since his conversion as strong instruments to destroy the worship of Idols.  
Now it is very reasonable that he, who so earnestly desired the salvation of his enemies, should have a particular care of his brethren, groaning under the weight of persecutions, which Pagans made them suffer: As therefore he piously laboured to open the eyes of the Gentiles, and make them worship his Master, so he happily employed himself likewise to represent to him the holiness of those who most unjustly were charged with such strange crimes.  
Two principal things he equally endeavoured to set forth, namely the falseness of the Gods of the Gentiles, and the truth of one only God, and joining together the defence of doctrine and manners, proved by one same work, the faith and innocence of Christians.  
He came into the Church near the end of the second Age, about the time when Severus came to the Empire. The faithful then enjoyed a profound peace after a furious war. The Hmp rour Marcus Aurelius, a wise Prince for the world, but too much addicted to the opinions of Philosophers, suffered the fourth Persecution to be kindled, which being stirred up in the year of our Lord 164. by the fury of the people, and injustice of the Magistrates, who governed the Provinces, swept away an infinite number of the servants of GOD: Nevertheless, although some rest they had, in the year of our salvation 176. by the authority of that Prince his forbidding upon pain of death, to accuse the Christians, for their Religion by adust acknowledgement of the service he had of their affection, When by the prayers of Christian soldiers, which were in his troops, heaven poured down a favourable shower, that refreshed in extreme necessity, the Army be commanded in Germany. Yet this calm lasted not long, the quiet of this unconstant sea brought in with it an horrible tempest, especially on this side the Alps, where the City of Vienna and Lions saw the Rhos● died with the first blood the members of jesus Christ spilt in Gaul.  
The people that durst not directly resist the will of the Emperor, transported with extreme rage against so many good people, began again to trouble their rest, in the year 179, on other pretences than that of Religion: They accused them of supposed crimes, the borror whereof, made their names odious, and by this detestable subtiloy dragged them unjustly before the Courts of justice; whereby they eluded the punishment established by the Emperor, against those who accused the Christians, and boldly glutted their cruelty on these innocents', whom they exposed to all kind of tortures, and in the end, in humanely put them to death, for confessing the name of God only. This Persecution ended with the life of Marcus Aurelius.  
The faithful after so many suffering, had rest under the Emperor Commodus, who transported with a bloody outrage against all Orders of his State, by a secret judgement of God spared none but Christians.  
And certainly it was by a visible miracle that this Prince an enemy of all honesty was not also an enemy of those in like manner that made profession of godliness, that this Prince who shed with so much tyranny, the blood of his people, should close the wounds by which came out that of the Christians, and that these Idolaters who before had no spectacle so agreeable to their madness as the punishments of the Faithful, should cease to afflict them, in a time when heir hands were so accustomed to slaughter.  
We must acknowledge God, who inspires such motions as please him in the hearts of men, the author of this so strange wonder. He procured this peace to the Church, to the end he might fortify it against the assaults it was to endure soon after. It's certain, during this tranquillity it was much increased: the Gentiles moved to see such excellency in the Christians, the innocent carriage of their lives, could not consider thereof without astonishment. They admired the purity they saw shine in their actions. From thence sprang desire in them of discovering the cause of such perfection, and employed were they in the search of its original, which is truth. And after they had broken down the vail, which hindered them from knowing the same, they embraced it with as much affection, as ever they strove against it.  
So not only the people, but those also, whose birth and merit raised them to great dignities, followed the Cross of Jesus Christ. They renounced their Idols, to consecraete themselves to the service of the true God, and abandoned the Temples of the false Gods, that they might serve no other but that one God that created them. By this means Towns wrer peopled with Christians, Armies made up of them, and the Senate of Rome, from whence flowed the Governors of all the World, filled with them every day. These are the fruits which peace had produced, which the Church enjoyed since the Empire of Commodus.  
Severus having found the Empire in this happy condition, left it not so. The Sovereign power fell in his hands in the year of our Lord 195. At the beginning he showed no sign of any aversion against the Christians, but contrarily made great esteem of them; witnessed their probity, and openly opposed the violence of the people when he saw them most incensed to the Christians destruction. He had still before his eyes the benefit wherewith he was obliged to a Christian named Proculus' Torpation, who heretofore restored him to his health, and by the remembrance of such a recovery, was so dear to him, that he always kept this man near him, so long as he lived; he durst not use violence to the Religion of him to whom he owed his life, so long as he was in the world, and his presence ready to reproove him of such ingratitude. The death of this Christian, time, and the revolution of affairs changed his mind unhappily to indignation.  
He had two Competitors in the Empire, Piscenius Niger (who held Syria, and declared himself Emperor in the City of Antioch) and Claudius Albinius (who was Master of Gaul and Britain,) Severus accommodated himself to this man, and associated him with himself in the Empire, to defeat the other, and after overcoming Niger (who died of akurt he received in fight) turned his thoughts unto procuring the ruin of Albinius, whom he had honoured for no other purpose then to destroy him. Albinius' being dead, he came back from Gaul victorious, and entering Rome, he was there received with public acclamations, rejoicings, and such solemnities as Superstition had brought in, and which thwarted the holiness of the Christians, thought they should offend God, if in showing their affection to the Emperor, they mingled themselves in these dissolutions; but their piety passing with the Infidels for a crime, their enemies took occasion thereby to exclaim against them, as against the enemies of the Emperor. Some think that Severus after he had caused many Noble persons to be 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 cruel, and continuing the search after all those who had favoured the one or the other of these two parties, filling Rome with Funerals 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 Emperor at his return from Gaul, their duties in like manner 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 Apology or Defence, to make known to the Gentiles the injustice of the usage the Christians had; And upon their account this Piece was published the seventh year 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, where with it had been so violently agitated, for bad unlawful assemblies, and factious meetings; upon this occasion, pretence is taken to persecute the Christians with authority as if in meeting to praise GOD, they had violated the prohibition of the Emperor.  
Tertullian in his Apology or Defence, affirms, this last opinion to be the truest, showing 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 Apology or Defence, that justifies Christian Religion from the guilt of faction, practice and conspiracy against the State, was after the Edict of Severus, who commanding the Judges to punish all seditious confederacies, had kindled again the fire of Persecution against the guiltless.  
Howsoever it was, certain it is; Tertullian composed this Apology or Defence in the reign 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 be might not expose himself to inevitable danger.  
Sparing the name of Severus for the respect born to his dignity, he addressed this Book to the Magistrates, who sat every day in judgement upon the faithful, and condemned the true Religion without knowing it.  
It's impossible seriously to consider this Piece without being ravished therewith. Riches it hath that puts it into the rank of great Works, and of force to make us confess, that if it be to be esteemed for the reputation of its Author, it is also of more esteem for its own merit. We may see therein rare vivacity of wit, incredible store of high thoughts and a mervaillous power of persuading. We 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 thereof 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 be compared to this. All the following Ages have acknowledged, that the Church hath nothing more accomplished; and that Religion could not be better defended, nor better persuaded than it is in this Divine Piece.  
The truth is, the stile is not so glorious, the phrase rude and obscure, and it seems as if every one of its periods contained a mystery, the sense thereof is so hid, But we must pardon an African, if it be not expressed with all the grace of the Latin Tongue: the fault is not so much in him, as in his Country. If his speech hath not much Eloquence, it hath much vigour; His discourse flatters not the ears, but works with vehemence, and impresseth powerfully on the mind of the Readers that which will persuade him  
Now although Terrullian hath not loftiness of speech, yet we may say, he hath written purely and not used terms, which were not fit to declare vigorously what he conceived, and which are not found in the Authors of Humane Learning, and of civil right; all his words are Latin, but his phrase strange, and relisheth 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 Works; and the reason his Apology or Defence shows 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, Devils were engendered by the conjunction of revolted Angels, with the daughters of men: he speaks of the birth of the soul, as well as of that of the body, believing the child takes both his soul and his body from the substance of his father: he says 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 body's rest in the grave, which is the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He 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 believes the just go after death, to remain till the day of the Lord. And in conclusion, le's 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 years, jesus Christ shall reign on the earth with his elect, that in the mean time, the just being raised out of their graves, shall live with abundance of spiritual felicity, and that this age being come to its period, the Son of God shall then make his universal judgement. It is enough we have taken notice of these opinions, which were not yet errors in the time of Tertullian; the Church than not having pronounced any thing to the contrary, they conflated themselves then to preach the truth of one God in three Persons, the mystery of the Birth, Life, and Death of jesus Christ, the institution of the Sacraments, the judgement of the Lord, the glory of the blessed in heaven, and eternal punishments prepared for the wicked in hell.  
Our Tertullian hath so wel1 established this doctrine, so perfectly represented the innocence of Christians, by this Apology or Defence, that all the Church had this Book in singular reversace: they esteemedit as a pretions' Cabinet, where the evidences of its faith are kept the proofs of its ancient discipline, and marks of the holiness of its first children  
It seems to me that England deserves to have this Piece in its Language, that Learned men owe to this Nation so rich a Present; for although Translations are not much esteemed in this Age, where every one adores his own inventions, yet this, (how meanly soever translated) may be well received, because of the dignity of the matter. I have undertaken it for those, who not knowing the language of the Mistress of the World, cannot know the perfection of so excellent a production of wit, if it appear not to their eyes with its graces in the Mother tongue of their native Country. This Work might have met with a better Pen than mine, but not a faithfuller; I aspire not to the glory of writing well, but only, of being an Interpreter of an Author, who, in the judgement of the Learned, hath no fewer thorns, than flowers.   

Tertullia's Apology, or Defense of the Christians, against the accusations of the Gentiles.  

CHAPTER I.  
SIRS:  
IF the Authority of Justice be subject to so intolerable a necessity, as you that hold the first places of the Roman Empire, (who in the dignity of your Magistracy, being exposed to the eyes of all the world, judge men in the most eminent place of this Capitol City of the Universe) have not the liberty to examine publicly and in the view of the people under your conduct, wherein the things consist whereof the Christians are accused, and which they propose for the proof of their innocence: If upon this occasion only you fear, or are ashamed to labour openly to find out the truth, and to instruct yourselves by the order the Laws have established; or if the severity you have exercised against the Christians subject to your domestic power, incensing your minds with too much sury against our Religion, makes you bring from your home a resolution to condemn us, and not so much as hear the reasons serving for our defence: Be pleased we present you this truth in secret, and permit us to discover the same to you in paper, seeing we cannot make you understand it by word of mouth. She demands no favour of you; because her condition permits her not to hope for a usage easier than that she hath formerly received; she knows herself a stranger on earth, and doubts not to meet with enemies in a Country that's not her own; as she derives her original from Heaven, so there makes she her principal residence, where she hath most hope, where her best credit is, and where her dignity Chines in its greatest lustre. That which she desires of you whilst she remains here below, is only you would not condemn her unknown. The Laws of the State will lose nothing of their Authority, if you Permit her but to defend herself; their power on the contrary will be seen with more lustre if you condemn her after you have heard her: but if you judge her without knowing her cause, you will not only stand charged with reproach of manifest injustice; but be justly suspected your consciences check you with some secret motions, that make you refuse to hear the thing you could not condemn if you heard it. We say then ignorance is the first cause that makes the hatred unjust you have conceived against the name of Christians; indeed we are unholy in your opinion, because you are not informed of the holiness of our doctrine. But take heed what seems to serve you for an excuse, be not that which renders your judgement of us faulty. For is there any thing more unjust then to hate that you know not, although it were otherwise even a thing to be hated? As bad as any thing is it begins not to deserve hatred, till it be known to deserve it; while you know not what it is, how is it possible you should rightly hate it? To make the hatred of any thing just, it sufficeth not the thing itself be evil, but that the party who hates the same knows it to be evil in like manner; seeing therefore you hate us without knowing wherefore, how appears it you hate us not without a cause, and consequently most unjustly? in regard whereof we have good reason to reprehend you, because you know us not (to wit) in our condition when you hate us, and therefore hate us most unjustly. Certainly you pursue us with so much animosity, that it well appears you know not in what manner we live; and affect an ignorance that condemns rather than excuseth you of injustice. For we see a great many whose hatred is grounded on the want of knowledge only, who so soon as they cease from being ignorant of our discipline, cease at the same time to bear hatred against us. It is of these fort of men that Christians are made; they embrace our religion after informed in the Piety thereof, when hating what they sometimes were, they make public profession of that they hated before; the number of these men is so great, that it will astonish you when but hear them reckoned up. And from thence it comes the people complain highly that the City of Rome is environed on all sides with the enemies of the worship of the Gods, that Christians are spread over all the Empire, that the provinces are full of them; they be wail it as a signal mischief and as a considerable loss, because persons of all qualities and ages, men of all conditions, even those who have attained to great dignities, run promiscuously on this side. The progress Christianity hath made cannot make them judge well of us, and the examples before their eyes puts not this thought in their minds, that a religion that draws all the world after it must have something excellent and divine that they know not of. The constancy wherewith we suffer their persecutions is not able to move them, to better opinions of us then those they have formerly conceived: they will not particularly be informed of our Doctrine, wherein only they care not for, being over curious, and take as much delight to be ignorant of this, as others to know all things. O how would Anacharsis have judged these rather imprudent for giving their judgement upon men wiser than themselves, then formerly he taxed those of folly, who themselves being altogether immusicall, gave their judgement touching Music. Seemed it not the policy of the Athenians ridiculous to him, when he saw among them the learned exposed to the judgement of ignorant men? Truly the blindness of our enemies far surpasseth this, in regard they are so hardened in the hatred they bear towards us, that because not being obliged to relinquish it, they care not for being made acquainted with our condition: much doubting what they are ignorant of, is of such quality, that it will not be in tneir power to hate it, if once acquainted but with the merit thereof. Now if hatred have not a lawful cause, we cannot too soon extinguish it, and it justly kindled, it imports that the subject which hath given it a being be examined; because if it be found it hath justice on its side? not only this testimony takes nothing away from its force, but seems to take new forces, authorising it the more. You say, to prove the holiness of our doctrine, we should not boast in that which she insinuateth into the mind, and that she gaineth so much people; for we see very many change their good customs into bad, that it is not a new thing soldier's revolting from their own party quit their Ensigns, to cast themselves into the troops of their enemies. We agree with you in this; but experience also teacheth us, that even they that suffer themselves to be surprised with unruly affections, are not assured of defending the disorders of their life, and dare not undertake to make them pass for good actions; Nature hath tied to evil, fear or shame, the wicked seek for darkness, tremble when they are surprised, and deny all when accused: One can hardly draw the truth from their mouths no not in the midst of tortures, and when their sentence is pronounced, they have recourse to tears and sighs. They examine their consciences, and remembering the number of their crimes, they impute it to destiny & the stars, and will not acknowledge they have been carried to it by their consent, because they know they are wicked and punishable things. Do the Christians any such thing? They are not ashamed when discovered what they are, they repent not, unless it be that they had not sooner followed the Law of Jesus Christ, they esteem it a glory to be put into the hands of Justice, if accused they defend not themselves, when interrogated they confess willingly, and when condemned they declare themselves thankful to their Judges. What is that evil that hath not the quality of evil? which is neither accompanied with fear nor shame? who know not the artifices the accused make use of to gain time, and defer judgement? Who are not affected with repentings, or complaints wherewith criminals use ordinarily to deplore the sadness of their conditio? was there ever an evil of this nature? Did any ever see criminals rejoice in the torments they endure? Who desire to be accused? Who make much of punishment? and of their pain make their felicity? Do not say the constancy we show is rather a mark of despair then of virtue, for you cannot judge safeiy of our actions, seeing you cannot know the motions they produce.   

CHAP. II.  
IF notwithstanding you cannot part with the opinion you have conceived, but believe us indeed guilty, why are we handled otherwise then they who, being like us, are in like manner guilty? Seeing by the rules of justice the same fault ought to have the same manner of punishment. When men, not of our Religion are accused of the same crimes they impute to us, it is permitted them to have their innocency made known, to defend themselves by word of mouth, to take counsel of an Advocate; they are suffered to give an answer unto what objected against them, and to make good their justification; for the Laws do not allow those to be condemned whose offences have not been heard. It is only from the Christians they take the liberty to speak in their justification, to uphold the truth, and to declare to the Judges the things they ought necessarily to know, that their judgements might not be suspected of injustice. They require for the condemning of us, but only the confession of the name Christian, they stay not till the crimes wherewith they charge us be examined, and it is the confession only that exposeth us to public hatred. When you put up a process against a Criminal, you do not pronounce his condemnation so soon as confessed he is a murderer, sacrilegious, incestuous, an enemy of the State, which are the titles they give us: But you examine the circumstances, you consider the qualities of the fact, in what place, in what manner, and at what time the crime was committed, than you inform yourselves against the complices; you do not keep these forms when you proceed against us, and yet you will condemn us without show of justice; you must make us appear guilty of the things which are falsely imputed to us; for example, how many children a Christian denounced after inhumanely cut their throats, how many times darkness give him the assurance of satiating his incontineney with incestuous embraces, who the Cooks dressed the flesh of these bodies so cruelly murdered, & of what sort the dogs (as you suppose) brought into our assemblies, to serve to put out the lights. Oh what great glory to a Judge to have convinced by due proof a Christian to have eaten the fieash of an hundred children? seeing we read it hath otherwise been hecretofore forbid even so much as to make any manner of inquiry after us. Pliny the second, whilst Governor of Asia, after sentencing to death many Christians, & depriving others of their dignities, wondered his severity did not diminish their number, and consutred with the Emperor Trajan to know in what manner he should govern for the time to come, in the behalf of Christians that should be presented to him. He wrote to him that besides their firm resolution of not sacrificing to the Gods, he could learn no other thing touching their Religion, but of their assembling together before day to sing praises to Jesus Christ, and to God, and to unite their wills to the conservation of the discipline established amongst them: forbidding expressly murder, adultery, fraud, perfidiousnes, and other crimes. Trajan by way of answer, returns him a command not to make inquiry after them, but being brought before him to punish them. O judgement wrapped up in a necessary and inexplicable ambiguity.! How is it possible to accord things so opposite? Hec forbids to seek after Christians, as being innocent, and commands to punush them as criminals. He is merciful and cruel, pardons, and punisheth at the same time. How comes it you are contrary to yourselves, that your own judgement bears witness of your own Injustice? If you think we deserve punishment, why forbid to inquire after us? If thought fitting not to inquire after us, why then not acquit us? Provosts are established in all Provinces, to discover and take thiefs. Arms are lawful in the hands of all men to be employed against traitors, and against the enemies of the State. When once made acquainted with a villainy committed, we apprehend in the pursuit all we suspect to be Partakers with them that commit it. They are only Christians are forbid to be sought after, and yet permitted at the same time to be dragged before the Tribunals of Justice, as if the enquiry made to no other end then to present men before the Judges. So you condemn a Christian when once found out, although according to the design of your Laws, he should be assured against all searches; and when you condemn them, I do not believe you judge them worthy of the punishment you ordain them, because guilty, but only because discovered; and that there are people found bold enough to inquire of their life against the public ordinances. But when a Christian is in your hands, you do not act against him as you are used to act when you would pursue the vengeance of a crime, for when the other accused boldly maintain they are not guilty, you ordayn they should be put to the rack, to the end that torture may force them to confess, and contrarily you apply it to the Christians only to force them to deny. If our Religion were evil, without doubt we should fly to denyings in the same manner as criminals do, and you would be forced to draw confessions from us by the force of torments; you say you do not think yourselves obliged to seek by tortures the proof of the evil we do, because you certainly believe the confession of the name Christian carries enough with it of all crimes. But this pretence is not lawful: for if a man be accused of murder, although you know well enough of what nature his crime is, yet you do not content yourselves with the confission, but you force him to declare the order he took to commit it; you do not deal so with us, and the strangeness of your proceeding discovers visibly your injustice. You hold that to confess the name Christian makes us guilty, and you make use of violence to force us to retract it, in disavowing the name of Christian, we discharge ourselves, at the same time of the crimes you impute to us because of this confession. But I think you do so, because you will not have us destroy ourselves, we whom you take for execrable persons: It may be you are wont to bid a murderer deny the murder he is accused of, and enjoin a sacrilegious person to suffer more torments if he persevers inconfessing his impiety. Now seeing you proceed not against us as against Criminals, it's a signe you think us very innocent; Then therefore it is without doubt you will not have us persist in this confeission, whereas you know very well that condemnation is grounded on the necessity imposed on you to obey the laws of the state, and not on the rules of justice. A man cries out in the midst of his torments, and saith, I am a Christian, he declares openly what he is; you would hear from his mouth what he is not. You are resolved, purposed, determined to draw the proof of the truth by the confession of the accused, and of all other men, but there are none but we of whom you strive to hear lies. You ask me (saith one of us) if I be a Christian, and I answer, I am. Why endeavour you to corrupt me by force of tortures? I confess and you torment me. What would you do if I should deny? when those that are guilty protest they are innocent, you believe not the truth from their words; and you believe us so soon as we say we are not Christians. Certainly this unjust affection which so unhapplly troubles your reason, is to be suspected, and aught to make you think there's some secret violence that works in your minds, and makes you proceed in our cause against the order and nature of judgement, and also against the Laws. If I be not deceived the laws command us to discover, and not conceal ofoffenders in withdrawing them from punishment, it or deigns that those who confess themselves guilty should be condemned, and not absolved.  
These are the rules established by the authority of your Senate, and custom of your Princes: these are the maxims which are in use in the exercise of the power whereof you are ministers; for the authority of your magistracy is lawful, and not Tyrannical. Tyrant's are accustomed to add tortures to ordinary punishments to render them more cruel: but as your policy is full of humanity, you make no use of it, but force the accused 10 confess. Keep this Law in its vigour, and stretch it not further than its bounds; its necessary to draw confession from the mouth of criminals, but if they prevent its rigour men must not use it, there remains nothing in this case but to judge and punish it. Punishment established by the laws is a debt which they are bound to acquit, and whereof its unjust to discharge it after it is confessed. Indeed we see nojudge that strives openly to save a wicked person. Neither is he permitted to have a will to it; and from thence it comes in order of judgement we do not force men to deny. You believe a man cannot make profession of Christianity without being tainted with all sorts of crimes; without being an enemy to the Gods, to Princes, to the laws, to good manners, and to nature, and that a Christian cannot be acquitted unless he denies himself to be a Christian; you force him to deny that you may acquit him, which is apparently tobetraye the justice of the laws. What would you have him deny he is guilty that you may make him innocent, even against his will, & that a man cannot after impute to him what is past to render him criminal? tell us what motion inspires you with an affection so, unreasonable? and from whence comes it you resolve not to believe him that voluntarily confesseth rather then the party that denies what he is accused of by constraint: This last being forced in his judgement mayspeake against his conscience, and keeping in his heart the Christian Religion, after he is absolved, deride you at the same time you come to judge him, because of the partiality you show in maintaining your opinions at the charge of justice. Now seeing you treat us in every thing otherwise then criminals, and your only end is to make us forego the name we bear, (and we undoubtedly relinquish the same if we do what they do who are not Christians) you may easily apprehend we are not guilty of any wickedness: that our being named Christians is our only crime, that his appellation is unjustly prosecuted by the motions of a rash and blind hatred, whereof the first effect is to take from men the desire of knowing certainly the things which they know they have no assured knowledge of at all. So they believe all that is published against us, although they see no proofs, and they will not let our lives be enquired after, for fear a lawful proceeding discover only the things they will not have to be believed to be true, and they take occasion to condemn this name, which is the object of their hatred, on the only confession we make as if the confession of the name were sufficient for the conviction of those crimes, they attribute to it without any other ground then their own opinion. Then as our contention is but a contention about a name, they torment us when we confess it, they punish our constancy, and acquit us when we deny it. But after all, when you pronounce sentence against a Christian, why do you not declare another cause of his condemnation then that he is a Christian? Why say you not he is guilty of murder, and of incest? that he hath committed all other crimes imputed to us by yourselves. It seems there are none but we against whom you are ashamed to pronounce judgement under the notion of these execrable actions. If the name of Christian be not a name of naughtiness, than what you attribute to it is nothing pertinent, it being the name only, and not any wickedness that name importeth, Which you find fault with.   

CHAP. III.  
BUt is it not a strange thing, that the hatred, wherewith this name is pursued, in such manner blinds the minds of most men, that when witness the probity of a Christian, they mix in their discourse as a reproach that he hath embraced this Religion? One saith, truly he of whom you speak is an honest man, if he were not a Christian, and his life would be free from blame. Another, do you know such a one who had the reputation of a wise and discreet man, he is lately turned Christian? and there is no body reproves and shows them it is more to the purpose to reason thus: Therefore such a one is an honest man, or this who is so wise and modest hath got these rare qualities since making profession of Christianity: or else, such like men make it appear visibly they are Christians, because they are wise and virtuous, they praise the thing they know, and blame what they know not, and corrupt the purity of handsome actions, whereof eye-witnesses, by the opposition of a quality whose merit is unknown to them, although it is more just to judge of things that appear not, by those that appear; then to ground on hidden things the condemnation of those which are apparent. There are others found that keeping company with those they knew before they were Christians to be vagabonds, infamous, and wicked, now praise them, who observed the irregularity of their life past. These people by an extreme blindness of hatred, speak to the advantage of the name Christian when they strive to render it odious. For say they, how pleasant and of what a good humour was that woman? How sociable and jovial was that man? It's pity they should be christian's. So they impute the amendment of their lives to the profession of Christianity. Some of them also purchase the aversion they carry against the name Christian which we bear, with the price of what is most precious to them, rather desiring to lose the sweetness of life, tranquillity of mind, and all sorts of Commodities, then to see in their houses that which they hate.  
A man who heretofore had his mind full of jealousy, can no longer endure the company of his Wife, what assurance soever he hath of her Chastity, after once he perceives her to be turned Christian, and parts from her now when her actions (full of modesty) have extinguished all suspicions wherewith he was heretofore moved.  
A Father, who of a long time endured the disobedience of his heathenish Son, resolves to take from him the hope of succeeding him in his inheritance, for turning Christian, when at the same time executing his commandments without murmuring.  
A Master that used his Slave gently, when his carriage gave him some cause of distrust, now puts him far from him, for that a Christian, when he hath most assurance of his fidelity. It's committing of a crime to correct the disorders of a man's life, by the motions of a holy conversion to the Christian faith; and the good which is produced by so happy a change, works not so powerfully on the minds of men, as the hatred they have conceived against us. Indeed this hatred is strange; and when I consider that the name of Christian only makes it to be so, I would willingly know how a name can be criminal, and how a simple word can be accused? Me thinks a word cannot be condemned, unless it be barbarous, or expresseth some evil speaking, or represents some unchaste thing, and of ill report. The word Christian draws its, original from that of Unction; it is the name that the son of God our master took, to show he was the King of the faithful, and the high Priest of the new law. And when by an ill pronunciation you change the signification of this name, (for one need but hear you speak it, to discover you know it not) it is a name composed of sweetness and goodness; so you hate men whose actions are full of integrity, and a name that hath nothing of evil in it, did one ever see an opinion condemned because of the name of its author? What wonder were it if they that give themselves to a discipline take the name of him that taught it? Are not Philosophers by the reason of the name of their Sects called Platonics, Epicurians, and Pithagorians? and in consideration of the places of their assemblies Stoics and Academics? and do we not see Physicians borrow that of Erasistratus? the Gramarians that qf Aristarchus? and the Cooks also that of famous Apicius? Let none think it strange that both the one and the other bear the name of their Author, seeing they glory in following their Doctrine, and in embracing their discipline which was left them. Indeed the name of a Sect cannot be condemned, if it be not vicious, and it must be made known that a Doctrine is evil, and also that the Author is wicked, to make the name of them odious which make profession of it: for it cannot be, unless it be because of the vices of the Sect, and of him that made it. Therefore before you hate our name, you must know the worthiness of our Religion by the knowledge of our Author, which is Jesus Christ: or else inquire of the conditions of our master, by a holy search of the things he taught us. But you will know neither the Religion which you persecute, nor the excellent quality of its Author: You are content to inveigh against the name, and to contend with it: a simple word is all the ground of the injustice you do to a Religion, and the Author Of a Doctrine you know not; and there is so much prejudice in your minds, that you condemn this law and its Author, only because of the name, without being convinced by the force of a lawful conviction.   

CHAP. IU.  
I Have hitherto insisted in opposing the injustice of the public hatred wherewith we are persecuted: I am now to treat of the point of our innocency; and therefore will not only refute the things they object against us; but return the same upon themselves who cast them upon us, that thereby they may know Chiristians defile not themselves with crimes so impudently laid to their charge, by those who cannot be ignorant that Christians are guiltless thereof. In regard whereof, I wonder they blush not (wicked people as they are) at the rash accusations they charge us withal; I will not speak against: good men, but only such as themselves, who asperse us for criminals.  
I will touch in particular all they say we do in private, and from whence they take occasion to reproach us as wicked, superstitious persons, worthy the infamy of punishment, and in conclusion objects of laughter and contempt, and make it appear our Enemies commit the same publicly every day. But because your last refuge, when you see truth on our side discovers all these impostures, is to make use of the authority of the Laws against us; and have ordinarily in your mouths, either that it is not permitted you to examine anew what they have condemned, or your oath enjoins the necessity of obeying the same; that is, whether you will or no, and by constraint you prefer what they will have you, before the knowledge of the truth; I am first obliged seeing the Laws are under your protection, to speak to you of the obedience due unto them. I say then, when you pronounce these words with too much rigour unto us, your Religion is forbid by the Laws, and by an inclination contrary to humanity condemn us with an unlimited power, without suffering us to justify ourselves: you act with violence, and exercise a power full of tyranny. Certainly you abuse your authority, when you determine the Christian Religion ought not to be suffered, not indeed because it ought not to be suffered, but because you will not suffer it.  
If Justice be the Rule of your Judgements, and if reason makes you condemn a thing which ought not to be condemned; without doubt that only should be forbid which is wicked, from whence it follows, what is good should be left to the free liberty of all men. If I find that to be just your Laws forbid, is it not true, this forbidding of yours obligeth me not at all, and contrarily, that I am bound to obey it, if condemning that which is evil? And wonder not if I accuse your Laws of error: it is man hath conceived them, they that made them failed not a little: your Laws have not been established by the infinite Wisdom of God.  
It is no wonder to take notice that men may be deceived in making a Law, and therefore upon better consideration with themselves, they have confessed their error, in condemning that they formerly approved? Know we not that the Lacedemoniaus sweetened the severity of Lycurgus' Laws, to accommodate them to civil society: at which the great Lawgiver was so displeased, that he voluntarily quitted his Country, condemned himself to die, and to advance his death, deprived himself of nourishment for life? and falls it not out every day, that the experience you have got in doing justice, serves you for a Candle, and glittering light to dissipate the darkness of antiquity, to beat down before you this thorny Wood of the ancient Laws? I might say, you clear the confusion that would ensue thereupon, by the authority of the new constitutions of the Emperors?  
A little while since have we not seen Severus, a Prince endued with comely gravity and rare wisdom to have changed certain things of the Papic Laws, although their old age was never so venerable? Laws that forced the People to put their children into the world, before the Age ordained by the Julian Laws to contract marriage, and which showed them ridiculous, in taking thought with solitary care for the birth of men.  
There were also Laws that permitted Creditors to cut in pieces the bodies of their Debtors, when destitute of means to pay what was due to them. But these Laws are abolished, and the following Ages by a more feeling humanity, have universally condemned this cruelty as too barbarous. They exempted the poor from capital punishment, but not to leave them without chastisement imprinted shame in their foreheads, by ordaining their goods to be publicly sold, that their infamy might be public in like manner, choosing thereby rather to make blood ascend into their faces, then to let it out of the bodies of such poor men.  
How many other crimes do you think there are in your State, whereof you know not the injustice, and which deserve to be corrected? Surely, seeing equity is the only object all Laws ought to propose; Laws themselves are neither for the number of years or dignity of their Author, but for the only consideration of the equity and justice that is in them for to be commended. So that when once we know they are destitute of this so necessary a condition, we have reason to neglect them though they have such authority, and condemn those which accuse them of injustice. But it is not enough to say your Laws are unjust, we must add they are impertinent, and rash when they punish men for their Names sake only, as those are that are published against Christians; if it be true, Laws ought to punish actions, if in respect of all other persons they will have the condemnation to be grounded on the proof of the fact, and not on the name of the accused: Is it not a strange thing that in our Cause they take only the name we bear to punish us for the crimes they impute unto us? I have committed incest, why require they not my life for the same? I have killed a Child, how comes it to pass, they extort not from me the confession of these crimes by racks, and tortures? I have offended the Majesty of the gods, and the Prince (say they) why is not my, defence heard to know if I have where with all to justify myself with respect to those crimes they accuse me of? There is no law forbids me to examine that which is liable to condemnation, neither doth a judge justly inflict punishment, unless he finds the accused to have offended against the public ordinances. Neither can a Citizen give the obedience that he ought to the law, unless he know of what nature the action is which, it punisheth. It sufficeth not the law be good in itself: but so it must be known also from those from whom it expecteth obedience. For that is to be suspected which will not let us try whether or no it be just: but without all apparent proof of its equity will absolutely have what it condemneth to be executed. Such a Law cannot but be wicked.   

CHAP. V.  
But (to say something of the original of the Laws you oppose against us) there was an ancient Law that forbade introducing new ceremonies into Religion, as worshipping strange Deities, unless approved by the Senate: this was an inviolable and unalterable Law to which the Prince or Emperor himself was subject. Marcus AEmilius knew what his power was, when he would have had divine honours rendered to his Idol called the god Alburnus, but he could not obtain the same. A strange thing, and advantageous for our part against you I that the gods with you must depend upon the approbation of men: if men like not God, he shall no longer be a God; and man must now be propitious to God. It was by virtue of this Law the Emperor Tiberius (under whom the name Christian began to be made famous) propounded to the Senate to receive among the number of their gods, Jesus Christ, of whom he heard great miracles had been done, from the intelligence given him by those Commanders under him Palestine, the place where Christ our Master first Preached the mystery of his Divinity.  
This Prince witnessed at first, that he inclined to ordain for him the honour he rendered to his other gods: the Senate rejected the proposition, and would not approve of a God they did not know. Tiberius remained firm in his resolution, and threatened disgrace to those that went about to accuse the Christians.  
Read your ancient Records: you shall find there Nero the first of all the Emperors that persecuted our Religion, when it was in its birth: which much redounded to our glory, that this Monster should be the first of all others that condemned us; for whosoever knew his life, must needs judge it could not otherwise be, but what he condemned was most highly to be esteemed.  
Domitian (whose cruelty made up that of Nero's) did sometimes resolve also to molest us: but as his thoughts and resolutions were contrary to humane condition, his mind of itself turned to render, us the peace he had taken from us, and to recall those Christians he had banished. In brief, we were never persecuted, but by Prince, whose actions were full of injustice, whose minds of impiety, and whose manners of shame and infamy, never persecuted of any but of those whose lives your own selves are wont to condemn, and whose odious governments oblige you to revoke their judgements, in re-establishing innocents' which have been so miserable as to be the unhappy objects of their fury. Princes who by their virtue got the love of the people, have not been our enemies; and of all the Emperors commanding this State till now, and that had any sense of Piety and Religion towards your gods, or whose conduct was animated by the spirit of humane wisdom, you cannot name one that persecuted the Christians. On the contrary, it will be found, the Emperor Mark Aurelius, a very wise Prince, was our Protector; if you see the Letters he writ touching the extreme incommodity his Army suffered whilst he made war in Germany, you shall find he there witnesseth, that the prayers of the Christian Soldiers in his Troops, obtained from Heaven that favourable rain which quenched the thirst wherewith they were oppressed.  
This Prince resolving to make acknowledgement of their affection, and the good will they bore him; and yet not purposing to infringe the authority of his Predecessors, did not publicly discharge the Christians from the punishments enacted against them, but rendered their power useless in the sight of all the world, another way, by ordaining their Accusers to be inflicted also with the extremest punishment. Consider then a little what force these Laws ought to have, where none made use of them against us, but these Emperors that are defamed with all manner of impiety, injustice, villainy, cruelty, lightness, and folly: which Trajan frustrated in part, in forbidding to inquire after Christians which were never confirmed by an Adrian, a Prince curious of all rare and excellent things, by a Vespasian who conquered Judea, by an Antoninus Pius, nor by a Marcus Aurelius: If our lives were wicked, as is supposed, we should not fear affliction from wicked Princes, because Companions of their Vices, but rather punishment to be inflicted upon us from them who make profession of honesty, whom being virtuous we might sooner fear to become our enemies and ready upon all occasions to seek means to disturb us.   

CHAP. VI  
BUT I could wish these men that appear so religiously, and so zealously observant of their own Laws, and so severe defenders of things instituted by their Ancestors, would answer to the demands I shall make them; namely, whether they have kept their Faith inviolable? whether rendered the honour and obedience they ought to the good Rules left them by their forefather's? whether there are not some Laws that have lost their power and authority among them? whether they have not passed beyond the bounds prescribed by ancient simplicity? or rather not banished from their policy all that their Fathers judged necessary and convenient to establish a good government? what are become of the Laws which cut off Luxury, superfluous and ambitious expenses? which commanded what we spent at a Feast should not exceed five shillings? that would have us serve up but one Hen at a meal, and that not a fat one neither? which forbade a Senator entrance into the Senate, who had in his house twenty marks of silver; (as if in that alone one might justly suspect he would seem too magnificent) that would over throw the Theatres after newly set up, supposing the use of shows would not serve but to corrupt manners? which would not suffer any man rashly and without punishment to usurp the emblems of great dignities, belonging to persons of noble birth?  
But now I see superfluity gives names to Feasts, they call them Hundreds, because of s; o many hundred Crownesspent at such Feasts. They also draw out of the Mines silver to make Basins, not only for Senators but Freemen, and those that not yet come to obtain their freedom, yea that scarce exempt from the miseries of servitude: I see it is not enough in open Theatres to content the eyes of the People, but by drawing vast Covertures over, they arm themselves against the injuries of the Air, to fulfil their pleasures by the objects of those infamous representations. For they imitate the Lacedæmonians, who were the first that took care to see public Plays at their ease, and covered themselves with large and heavy Gowns for fear lest during the winter, they should catch cold, in enjoying their dishonest and unchaste pleasures. I see no difference between the women of honour, and those that are infamous and lewd; they observe not any longer those holy institutions of former times, that enjoined women to have special care of modesty and temperance. When a woman wore no more gold than that on the finger she put the Ring her Husband gave her the day she was married, to be the gage of her conjugal Faith. When it was so absolutely forbidden women to drink Wine, that there was one that her near Kinsman caused to be starved, because she had broke the seals wherewith his Cellars were shut up; and under the reign of Romulus one Mecenius killed his Wife for the same cause, and was absolved for it.  
Therefore it was established that they should kiss their Parents, that they might judge by their breath, if they had offended against this Law. Where are now those happy Marriages, and good manners, maintained in such a perfect harmony, that we have seen near six hundred years since the foundation of this City pass, without hearing so much as a divorce once spoke of in any one family only?  
Women now a days have never a part of their bodies which bows not under the weight of the gold they wear: a man cannot kiss them without smelling the Wine they drink; and we are fallen into those times, it seems, that people marry only to be repudiated, and divorce is the fruit of marriage: But this is not all, for as religious as you will appear in the observation of the ancient institutions of your Fathers, you have revoked what they ordained with serious deliberation concerning the worship of your gods. The Consuls with the Authority of the Senate, banished, not only from the City, but also from all Italy; Father Bacchus, with all ceremonies done in his honour; Piso and Gabinius were not Christians, and yet during their Consulship, they forbade to place in the Capitol, Serapis, Isis, Harpoerates, and that Image which had the head of a dog, that is to say, they put them away from the Palace of the gods. They took from them their divine honours, and caused their Altars to be beat down, that the disorder of vain and dishonest superstitions might be restrained.  
You have reestablished all these gods in the dignity they had taken from them, and make them partake of honours due to the highest Majesty known by mortals. Tell me where is your Religion? where the reverence you owe to your forefather's? you render yourselves unlike them, in your habits, custom of living, manners, opinions, and lastly in your very words & language? you always praise antiquity, and every day, receive new things: so that you remove from you as much as is possible, the laudable institutions of your Ancestors, and as for the things that are established, you keep none of them, but what deserve not to be kept. There is moreover, this in it, for I will show presently that by a negligence, that injureth the authority of your forefather's, although you have set up again the Altars of Serapis, that by your means this god might be no more a stranger at Rome, and have presented your sacrifices to Bacchus, whom you cause to be worshipped in Italy, you have no more this great affection to the worship of the gods, which antiquity held so unfortunate an error, and so strange a blindness; you yourselves destroy the Religion your Fathers taught you, whilst pass for its faithful protectors, and accuse Christians principally of being guilty of impiety towards them; yet notwithstanding I must justify our profession from the infamy of the hidden crimes which they object against it, that I may prepare a way, to arrive at the point which concerns the actions we do in the sight of all the world.   

CHAP. VII.  
I Say then, the crimes pretended against us, the horror whereof makes us pass for wicked in the opinion of the people, are, that we meet together to sacrifice a child; after we have taken away his life by a barbarous superstition, we devour his body, and when devoured the flesh of this Innocent, we commit incests. They add, we have Dogs who serve to overthrow the Candles, and doing the Office of these infamous Merchants of modesty, make us lose all shame in taking the lights from us, and covering our actions under the veil of darkness, emboldens us to seek the use of ungodly and sacrilegious pleasures.  
But so it is, we are not guilty, save in the discourse you make concerning us. It's a long time since you imputed to us all these things, and though you accuse us of them everyday, yet you make not much inquiry to know the truth thereof. If you take us to be faulty, why make you not process against us as criminals? but seeing you have not as yet convicted us by a lawful proceeding, you should not have such an evil opinion of us; and certainly that which moves you to use dissimulation in what concerns us, tells you we are unjustly accused. Therefore is it you dare not undertake to inform against us, and when you give the Executioners the order they are to observe in tormenting Christians; you command them to draw from their mouths; not the confession of what they are, but the disavowing the Religion they profess.  
Now (as we have already said) the doctrine which we follow, began from the time of the Emperor Tiberius; from its beginning it hath drawn on it the hatreds of men: it hath met with as many enemies, as it hath found people in the darkness of Idolatry; even those who ought to have received it: The Jews, to whom it was revealed, are set against it, by a spirit of jealousy, because it would destroy their Law. Soldiers in their usual persecuting us are accustomed to be against it, & our domestics becoming our adversaries by an evil inclination of nature, have been the first that made war against it. From thece it comes, that every day we see our selus besieged, we are betrayed at every instant, and very often they take us in our Assemblies. This being so, I ask when did it fall out, that ever any one surprised us at the same time, when a Child having the knife set to his throat, gave forth his last cry before we cut his windpipe asunder? was there any that finding a Christians mouth bleeding, as of the Cyclops, and the Cyrene's after such a deed done by us, presented it to the Judges? Who among you ever discerned in his Wite any symptom or token of unchastity, after our Religion at any time sincerely embraced by her? Is it possible our Enemies should hide such strange crimes as laid to our charge, after once discovering us to be faulty therein? or that they that take such a pride in persecuting and dragging us before the Tribunal of justice, should be corrupted in our behalf? you say we do nothing but in obscurity: if it be as you say, tell us, when knew you we did what you accuse us of, and in whose power it was to give you the certain knowledge of it? it's not likely you had it from the mouths of them you judge guilty: for all Mysteries are to be kept secret; and to partake of them as we ought, the Law of silence is faithfully to be observed by us. Men usually say nothing of the mysteries of Samothracia or Eleusina: How much rather ought they to be careful, not to reveal those which would excite against them, were they known the rigour both of humane and divine justice.  
They are not Christians it seems then, that discover themselves unto you; and if not Christians, then must they be people of different profession, that discourse of their actions. But how should such a people's knowledge be informed in those mysteries to be laid open by them, seeing even the ceremonies where piety presides puts away the profane, and suffers no strange witnesses, unless they will have it said, Christians are impious, and the wicked fear less to be seen then the good. So you must confess you know nothing of our doings, but by common bruit, uncertain proof, of the weakeness whereof there is no man ignorant? Is there any who knows not the nature of it? One of your Authors said, same is the swiftest of all evils? why think you call they it an evil? is it because of its swiftness? or because its principal office is to discover hidden things? or that it often declareth lies; indeed it hath this evil quality, even when reporting something of truth it cannot forbear to mingle the same with leasing or falsehood. Truth never passeth purely through fame's mouth, either she adds something to, or takes something from, or makes some notable change in it: besides, she hath also this fault, her credit lasts no longer than she lies: she hath no life, but so long as she certainly proves nothing: so soon as make evident her proof, she ceaseth to be any longer Fame, whose property is to make relation of nothing but what's not certainly known: so soon ●s delivered for certain, the assurance of the thing delivered succeeds immediately into its place, as being no longer a bruit, but a known and professed truth. At what time and when such a thing is known, we say not it's so reported, or so the bruit goes, but so or so it is without doubt.  
For example, we use to say, such a man hath got such a government, in such a Province, when we know certainly he hath got the same: and when not, it is so famed, or so reported. After we are assured of a thing, we make no more reekoning of Fame, which is an expression of doubt and uncertainty. So there are none but fools ground themselves upon reports; wise men believe nothing but what is certain, and what time also hath verified on her behalf. And certainly, as general and diffused as same may be, what belief soever she hath got with men, and with what assurance soever they esteem her, we must always consider she had a beginning since she hath passed through divers tongues and ears, which have given her the vogue she hath in the world. Her original is ordinarily weak and vicious: but together with all her faults she authoriseth and covers all that is added to her from her birth, because no body mounts up to the source, and troubles himself to know whether or no the first Author of the relation thereof began with a lie: which falls out often, either through hatred to them same tears in pieces, or liberty usurped to make evil judgements upon simple suspicions, or the pleasure some take in lying, a pleasure not new among men, and to which many are so naturally inclined. But God be thanked, time reveals the truth of all things; it is a sentence we have from you, and whereof we make use against you, the established order of nature cannot suffer any thing long to remain hid: but in the end makes that appear which fame had not discovered. Judge then if it be as reasonable you should still persecute us seeing after so long time there's nothing but bare report to inform you in the knowledge of the crimes we are supposed to commit, nothing proved against us by you, but her testimony which is so much the more evil, because she cannot yet prove what she bathe heretofore invented to make us appear odious, and which for so many years she hath affirmed upon the opinion only of certain men.   

CHAP. VIII.  
IT is not enough to show you the weakness of the proofs you employ against us, I will make known our innocence by your own judgement, to overthrow the opinion you have conceived against our life: I demand but the testimony of nature, who is your mother as well as ours. Suppose Christians promise Eternal life, as a recompense for all these crimes so full of horror: You may believe it if you list, but I would also know, if after persuaded by such black actions a man might merit Heaven, you would be so barbarous as to desire it at such a rate. Can it be imagined one should say these words or the like unto you? come on hither, die your sword in the blood of a Child, I say in a Child's blood whose tender age ought to have no enemy, who cannot be guilty of injuring any body, and whom every one with a fatherly Love ought to cherish.  
Or if the charge of shedding a Child's blood be committed to another, can it be supposed we should use this discourse unto you? Be present at the bloody death of an infant who meets with the end of his life in the beginning of his days, see a soul depart out of a body so soon as it came in, take this blood newly animated, dip your bread in it, and fill yourself with the substance thereof. Again, while at Table, mark well where your Mother, and Sister, are seated, that you may not fail to find them out, after they are left in the dark, by dogs overthrowing the Candles, consequently extinguishing the lignt. For you must know, you cannot but be faulty if you commit not incest. If profiting by these our instructions, you square your Faith by the practice of such actions, assure yourself you shall receive everlasting life. Answer me now, would you to get this never fading selicity do things so contrary to all humanity? If nature itself be of force sufficient to divert your own minds from acting such irregular courses, you cannot I persuade myself, be induced to believe that other men would be faulty therein: Yea though ye certainly believe this the only way to eternal happiness. I dare say you would not by such means so barbarously defile yourselves; no neither if you had any such desire, have the courage to perform the same. Judge then of us by yourselves, and know we can no more commit these crimes than you, or if we can, yourselves as liable thereunto as we.  
But what do you think our judgements different form yours? that Christians of another race of mankind than you are? do you take us for the Cynocephales', & Sciapodes, Monsters of India & Lybia? do you believe we are made otherwise then other men, that the faculties of our bodies otherwise disposed and by a savageness more than the most brutish of all people, us only to feed on blood, and violate the Laws of nature, in the use embracements which it forbids? Certainly if believe these things of Christians there's some what in it that you should do so, we are men as well as you: And therefore if your souls abhor such like actions, you ought not imagine us in regard men as well as Christians, to commit them. You acknowledge these crimes contrary to nature: but you say we deceive them who know us not; as if the calumnies you invented against the Christians were not public or any could be ignorant thereof. That which all the world knows cannot be dissembled, and those who have embraced the Law of Jesus Christ, take not this resolution, without well considering it: but after all things exactly pondered they find we are innocent of the crimes wherewith they accuse us. Besides, it's a common use, that those who will be instructed in a Religion, address themselves to the cheise Priests, to learn of them what they ought to prepare that partake of his mysteries. Then if it be true, Christians are guilty of these impieties, there's no doubt but the Priest, whose charge is to receive him who would be instructed, speaks to him in this manner: Friend, you must be careful to provide a child that is yet in the innocence of his first age, who knows not what death means, and rejoiceth at the sight of the knife that must cut his throat.  
You must have a loaf to put under the wound to receive the blood which runs from it. You must make provision of Candlesticks and Lamps: You must bring Dogs; which when you throw meat to them to eat out of the reach of the string wherewith tied, the desire of filling themselves therewith may excite them to make such a leap, that they overthrew the Candlesticks to which they are tied, and by this means put out the lights: but first it is necessary you cause your Mother and Sister to be present. Yea, but how if they will not consent to it? If he hath neither Mother nor Sister? If no kindred that would be a Christian, can he not be received? and these relations of Brother or Son, are they essential to the quality of Christians? I say more, suppose they have all these things ready, without advertising those who have no knowledge thereof: one cannot deny but they learn presently what is done in their Assemblies; and yet they remain firm, after turning unto Christianity they complain not of being deceived: but you say they fear to be punished, if they discover the evil they have done. Contrarily, if any be found that call for the public Authority against Christians as against impostors, there would be none but would speak in their behalf. Moreover, if the actions of Christians were so detestable as you make the, those whom they should so abuse, would rather expose themselves to death then live with the remorse of so criminal a conscience. But after all, suppose they fear to accuse themselves, how comes it they perservere so constantly, and keep their religion in the midst of persecutions? for men are not wont to tie themselves with such constancy to a profession, which they had not embraced, if not been well informed of it form the beginning.   

CHAP. IX.  
BUT, to make it known we are not guilty of these crimes, I will show, that you yourselves in public & private commit the same; for it may be for this reason it is you lay them to our charge. Men heretofore publicly sacrificed Children in Africa to Saturn, until the time of Tiberius, by whose Commandment, he that governed this Province under him, abolished so strange a barbarism, causing the Priests, the authors of these impieties, to be put to death in their room, on the trees which were near the Temple of this god; trees whereon they were wont to hang the offerings they presented to him, and where the leaves seemed to comply with the crimes committed under their shades.  
A just punishment, and which these miserable creatures suffered in the view of the Soldiers, in the Country of my Nativity, who served the Lieutenant of the Emperor in the execution of this commission. They still continue these bloody and detestable sacrifices: but they do them privately, and hide themselves when they shed the blood of innocents'.  
So you see they are not Christians only that contemn your Laws: your own people slight your injunctions: whatsoever severity used by you, you cannot throughly pluck out of men's hearts the roots of this criminal devotion, and your gods change not their manners, in having changed their condition.  
Saturn that pardoned not his own children, much less would spare children not his own. Since he ceased to live upon the earth, he lost not the desire of blood he had before. Ever since men made him a god, he continually receiveth the offering up of innocents' unto him from the hands of their own Fathers, who by an unlucky superstition, making sacrifices to their gods, take away the lives of them to whom they had given the same; who voluntarily obliged themselves to this impiety; and who in this action where their own Children were the victims sacrificed by them, entertained them with flatteries, not without any feeling of compassion, fearing the mystery might be interrupted, it they suffer not their throats to be cut without shedding tears. Tell us a little, whether the crime of murder you impute to us, be not far beneath that of Parricide, which your People are guilty of? The Gauls offered on the Altars of Mercury, men which had attained to their full strength or age of perfection.  
I Pass by the fables of the horrible sacrifices that were offered up in the Temple of Diana Taurica, as matter fitter to be represented on Theatres. There is also in this so religious a City, and Temples of the Pious offspring of AEneas, a Jupiter in honour of whom they make plays, where they shed humane blood, by Combats with men and wild Beasts. You tell me, you expose none but those that are already condemned to die. Alas, what then? Is it not the shedding of humane blood, to shed the blood of these miserable creatures? But this sacrifice, is it not much more detestable, than the blood of the wicked which is presented to a God? whatsoever excuse you may seek for, this truth remains always certain, that this blood which you offer, is the blood of a man, whom you have caused to be cut in pieces, and you cannot accomplish your vows without committing murder.  
Certainly, your Jupiter much resembles Jesus Christ: for he thirsts as much for blood, as you suppose our Master loves to see it shed, and as he is the only Son of his Father; which you must acknowledge could never be, had not Saturn a cruel heart.  
Let us pass now form murdering children in scrifices, to other kind of wilful murdering by their Parents; (for in what manner soever they take away their children's lives, it is always murdering them, although not always alike heinous:) I will then address my speech to all Idolaters: how many are there among you, O ye people, that are this way greedy of the blood of Christians? and also among you, O ye Magistrates, that after you appear such great Justiciers by the severity you treat us with, whose consciences I would strike with true reproaches of having procured the death of your own children? yet if you did but simply put them to death, it were somewhat; but by a strange excess of cruelty, you throw them into the water, you expose them to the rigour of cold and hunger, and the rage of dogs: you will not take their lives away with the sword, because too gentle a death, and which men of the age of discretion had rather suffer, than any other that hath violence in it.  
As for us that are Christians, homicide is particularly forbidden us, by virtue whereof, it's likewise inhibited us to destroy that which the Mother hath conceived in her womb, though yet but blood, and deliberating (as I may so speak) in the presence of nature, whether or no it take the form of man: It's a committing murder before hand, to destroy that which is to be born; and as much evil in hindering the birth of a soul, as in plucking it out of the body when it is borne: that which should come into the world being a man, and the fruit already in the seed which produceth it.  
As for that custom, so full of inhumanity, to drink blood, and to feed on such tragic meats, you may read further in Herodotus, it being he, as I think, who reports, that certain Nations assembling to swear Treaties, were accustomed to draw blood from their Arms, which presenting one to the other, they drank solemnly.  
There passed some such thing in the conjuration of Catiline. They say also among the Scythians, in certain Families they that are near allied use to devour the bodies of their dead kindred: but we need not go so far; we have among us the use of these barbarous ceremonies. The Priests of Bellona, shedding their own blood, and consecrating it to their Goddess, after putting it in the palm of their hand, give it to those who participate with them in their mysteries. In the public spectacles of the combats of the Gladiators, they that are subject to the falling sickness, seek their cure by the practice of a Remedy worse than the Disease, viz. seeing the blood of these wretched creatures newly slain; they receive the same while running from their wounds, and to obtain their healths, fill themselves in such a brutish greediness, with the substance of these poor people, who are men as well themselves.  
What shall we say of these that make whole meals meats of these poor creatures (before key-cold) killed upon the place of combat, and ask at the same time for a piece of the wild Boar, and of the Stag lying dead also upon the place? a piece of that wild Boar, which having torn in pieces his assailant, whilst they were yet in the encounter, licked up the blood flowing from his wounds; again a piece of that Stag, even yet sweltering in the gore of the Gladiator whom he pierced with his horn: The people also ask for the entrails of Bears, which are full of the bodies of men they have devoured; so men fill themselves with flesh nourished by that of men. As for you that cat these meats, how much are your meals different from the meals of Christians? But what judgement shall all one give of these who by a brutish concupiscence make impure meat for themselves of that which contributeth to the birth of men? are they less guilty than others, because they devour the substance of the living? can one say in the filth to which they abandon themsolves, there is no humane blood, because the matter they suck in is that wherewith blood is made? These people eat not only children, but men, old enough to put other men into the world.  
Certainly it must needs be, these disorders with you, should make you blush before Christians, who as you know, eat not the blood of any creature, and for that reason feed not on the meat of any creatures stifled, and abstain from that of beasts which have not been slain, for fear they should have the least blood that is, even that dried up or yet remaining in the flesh of the strangled beast to defile themselves with.  
This is the reason also, you offer them puddings made with the blood of beasts when you try them, being well informed, that what you suppose they sin most in, if they accepted thereof, is most straight interdicted them. Is it possible, think you, we thirst after the blood of men, when you know by experience, we abhor the blood even of beasts? This opinion cannot enter into your minds, unless having tasted of the one and the other both, humane blood seems to you the most pleasing.  
But if persuaded Christians inhumanly devour this blood, how comes it to pass you make not use thereof to try them? you should offer them man's blood, as usually you offer them incense-fire: They'll soon discover themselves in not taking this drink from your hands, as when refuse to sacrifice Incense; and thereby you may have this advantage of two several proofs to condemn them with; namely, their refusing to taste man's blood, and their not offering up Incense to your gods.  
The criminal justice you execute upon supposed offenders will furnish you this way with blood enough to convince all manner of Christians brought before you. But to speak of the crime of Incest, who should a man sooner suspect to be guilty of this wickedness, than those to whom the greatest of their gods (to wit, Jupiter) hath given an example? The Persians (as Cresias reports) mingle themselves incestuously with their own Mothers. The Macedonians it seems are not exempt from this sin, in regard the mocking complaints Oedipus makes in the Tragedy of Sophocles, because of the Incest he had committed with Jocaste, in laughing to see him so afflicted, they said, go fight generously, and overcome your Mother. As for you, if open but your own eyes, you cannot but take notice, that Incontinence, whose slaves you are, nourisheth you with disorders, inconsiderately precipitating you into this soul crime: for you expose your children to the open air by putting them from you, that passengers having more compassion of their hard destiny then yourselves, might bring them up, or else make them over to be adopted by other Fathers of a better disposition than yourselves: Now it cannot be, but in time you lose the knowledge of your blood, which you abandon to strangers, and when once for want of this knowledge, begin to offend the error in which you so imprudently engage yourselves, increasing by course of years, your care will perpetuate itself with the vice of its incestuous beginning. And truly your lust accompanies you in all places where you go: it remains with you in your houses: it leaves you not when you travel; it passeth Sea with you, from whence it falls out you lose no opportunity fulfilling your concupiscence, it's very difficult not to meet in some places of the World with persons that know not your birth, and theirs have the same beginning, and that descended of the same kindred and lineage that you are. It's also very hard, leaving your seed all the world over, it produceth not children unto you which by the commerce men have one with another, are joined to you, or yours, by an incestuous conjunction, and thereby mingling your blood with that of your near kindred, without knowing the same.  
As for us, the chastity whereof we make exact profession, and which we keep with greatest assurance, will warrant us from these accidents, and as enable us against incontinency, by living purely in the estate of marriage, preserve us from falling into the sin of Incest.  
Yea, there are many among us, who to avoid these disorders, with greater prevention, vow to God their virginity, which they happily keep till the extremity of old age, that (as it were) renders and renews unto them the innocency of their first years. Certainly, if consider you yourselves guilty of these crimes imputed by you to Christians, you would presently confess that they are innocent. The light of your own understanding could not butcondemn yourselves and acquit them at one and the same instant. But it falls out ordinarily, by the rencontre of a double blindness, that they who see not that which is, imagine they see that which is nor. I will show you by and by the truth of this proposition in all things, but speak first of those which are more manifest.   

CHAP. X.  
YOU say we do not worship the gods, nor for the welfare of the Emperors offer Sacrifices unto them. The one of these two crimes whereof you accuse us, must necessarily follow upon the neck, or in consequence of the other: for being resolved to render no manner of worship to your deities, we must necessarily be resolved in like manner, not to sacrifice to their Altars, whether for ourselves, or for what person soever it be. Hereupon you conclude us guilty of sacrilege and high treason, which is the upshot of what you charge us withal: and the argument most convincing of all other, whereof you accuse us. And truly it well deserves to be examined, because the judgement of our innocence wholly depends, thereon: the judgement I say of our guilt or innocence in this matter, that neither prejudice nor injustice pronounce the sentence: not prejudice which upon all occasions refuseth to hear, nor injustice which by all means refuseth to allow of truth when ready to be alleged in our defence: We say then, we have desisted from honouring your gods, since the first time we knew them to be no gods. That which to be expected by you from us, is, we prove those you adore as gods, to be no gods, and therefore unworthy the worship you render them: for it is true, honour should be due unto them, if they were true deities; and Christians were punishable, if this title of a god appertained unto tnose whom they refuse to adore, for the opinion only they conceive they are no gods. But you add, they are your gods: in answer thereunto, we appeal from your words to your Consciences: We are willing they both judge and condemn us, if it can be maintained your gods have not been men as well as yourselves; if it be denied, we will convince it of falsehood, by the testimony of antiquity, which shows us the Cities where they were born, the Countries where they left Monuments of their actions, and places where they were buried.  
I will not stay to speak to you of all particularly: there is too great a number of them, new, old, Barbarians, Greeks, Romans, Strangers, Captives, gods that are particularly adored in each Province, those that are known in Greece and at Rome males, and females, gods of Countries, and gods of Cities, Seafaring and Warfaring gods. It were to lose time to repeat what may be said of every one of them, I will only speak of them in gross, not to make you know them, but to recall your knowledge by remembering their beginning, which it seems you have forgot.  
You have never a god ancienter than Saturn: from him begins all that Deity to which you address your Vows, at least the principal and the most known: That which you say touching his original, may fitly enough be applied to those descended from him. If believe written Books, we shall find that neither Diodorus Siculus nor Tallus, nor Crassus Severus, nor Cornelius Nepos, nor any other ancient Historian, have spoke of Saturn otherwise then of a man. If seek for proofs drawn out of public Records or monuments, we cannot meet with faithfuller, or more certain than those we have in Italy itself, where we learn, that Saturn after many Voya ge landed in this Province, while coming from grease, and was received there by Janus or Janes (as the Saliens will have it.) The Mountain where he dwelled was called Saturnien: the City he founded carries even until now, the same appellation, and in conclusion all Italy after that of Oenotirian was called by his name. It was he who first found out the invention of Tables and signing or marking money with the Image of Princes, from whence it comes, that the public Treasure is placed by you in his Temple: Now if Saturn were a man, he was the Son of another man; and being his Father was a man, you cannot say he was the Son of Heaven, and Earth.  
It is an error proceeding from hence when Saurn, so called, that his original was not known, and because they knew not of what race he was, they easily fell to this belief, that he had for his Parent's Heaven and Earth, the which a man justly may style the parents of all Mankind: for who is he that for reverence or honour's sake, calls not Heaven and Earth the Father and Mother of us all? or else they had this thought of Saturn, namely, that as men are used to say of those they never saw; till coming upon them on a sudden, they are come from Heaven.  
So Saturn in person thus surprising the Inhabitants of the places where he first landed, passed after for a Divine person, the vulgar calling them Children of the Earth, also whose original is altogether uncertain to them. I could tell you people in these times were so gross, that if a man not wont formerly to be among them, showed himself to them, they were moved with it in the same manner, as if they had seen a god. Which ought not seem strange, leeing now adays, the wits of men are so refined, that at present put them in the number of the living gods, who a little before by the Ceremony of a funeral pomp, you knew to be only dead men. Enough of Saturn, although but a little spoken of him. We will show now that as Jupiter the Son of a Man, he was Man also, as well as his Father, and all the descent of your gods mortal, and of the same condition with those, of whom taking their Birth they are descended.   

CHAP. XI.  
BUT because you dare not deny your gods have lived as men, to the end you may justify the worship given by you unto them; you say, their deities were established unto them after death: let us then examine the causes that should raise men up into this glory.  
First, you must grant a greater God than them, a power upon which the power of your gods depends, as of their Sovereign, a god who made those your gods of més, by endowing them with a divine nature; for of themselves they could never attain this quality which was not in them, neither is there any but he who had it of his own nature, that could give a part thereof to them to whom it did not appertain originally: That if there were not a God, who gave this divinity to men: if not, acknowledge this principle Author; it would be but in vain to think they were made gods after they ceased to live here on the Earth as men. Briefly, had they had the power of making themselves gods, they would never have been born men, and subjected themselves to mortality, while enjoy they might the possession of a far more excellent condition.  
Then if there be a chief God that makes gods, I return to the search of the causes which should oblige him, being the chiefest, to communicate to men this high Majesty: and I find none unless we say this chief God had need of their ministry wherewith to exercise his functions more perfectly: But it's an injuring the Author of all things, to think he needed the help of any one living, much less should employ to so excellent an end the ministry of dead men. This wise providence could not but well foresee such an assistance would be necessary to him for the time to come, and in this foreknowledge it had been more convenient for him to make gods assistant to himself from the very beginning, then stay the end of these men's lives subjected to mortality, whom he purposed to make his fellow gods.  
But I see no need God Almighty had to make other gods; for what manner of thought soever we have of this world, whether it bade no beginning and was never made, (according to the opinion of Pythagoras) or that there was a time when it had a beginning, & was made, (according to the opinion of plato) the eternal Wisdom at the same instant doubtless when he form it, foresaw by an absolute & admirable exquisiteness all that was necessary for the government thereof; he who gives perfection to all other things, could not be imperfect to himself, as expecting help from Saturn, or any other of Satur's race to add ro his perfection.  
Men would be thought to be very simple if from the beginning of time they believed not both rain to have fallen from the Clouds, stars to have darted out their beams from Heaven, light to have shone, Thunder to have made a noise, and Jupiter himself to have trembled (as it were) at the terrible roaring of Thunderbolts put by God into his hands. Also the Earth produced all sorts of fruits before Bacchus, Ceres and Minerva lived, yea before those whom you make your greatest Gods reigned upon the Earth. That which serves to entertain the life of man is as ancient as himself, providence giving him a being, I gave him at the same time all things whereof he stood in need; and men could not have invented any thing more for their preservation, than what was before: let them not say therefore they are the Authors; but only after finding out the same, when created before by God that taught others how they should make use thereof, which presupposeth such things were before such, as they showed their use. And from thence follows the glory or honour thereof is not to be attributed to men, but to him to whom they themselves owe their original. If Bacchus were put in the number of the Gods, because he first taught men to plant the Vine, certainly they have ill treated Lucullus in not making him a god also, he being the first who planted Cherry-trees in Italy, brought by him from the Kingdom of Pontus; for they ought also to have made him a god, as Author of a new fruit, because he first gave them knowledge of it. Wherefore seeing from the beginning all we see dono in the Universe, hath been done before, as likewise all things ordained to certain functions of their nature, this first reason, for which suppose God communicated his deity to men is rendered of no force because the same faculties you give to each of your Gods inventing, were from the beginning of the world created by God, and should never have seized to be, or to produce their excellent effects, though you had never established those your gods. Seek ye therefore another reason for mons being sacrificed unto, as unto gods, by saying that deifying them is the reward of their eminent virtues. From whence I suppose you must grant that this God that makes other Gods, governs by the rules of exact justice, and distributes not so noble a recompense rashly, without measuring his liberality, and considering the merit of those whom he calls to his glory. I will therefore examine these men's actions whom you now adore as gods, to see if they be of a condition that render them worthy to be listed up to Heaven, or not rather (which as a man would think) should have cast them headlong into the bottom of Hell, a Prison (as you say sometimes) wherein the wicked are shut up, to receive the punishment of their crimes. A place where (according to your opinion) those are imprisoned who have banished from their hearts the natural Piety that Children ought to show towards their Parents; a place whither those are confined who commit incests with their sisters, who corrupt married women, ravish Maids, defile themselves with boys, use all manner of violence or outrage, kill, steal, and deceive their neighbours, and who (to shut up all in a word) by their vices, are like some of your gods; for you cannot make appear one of them was ever exempted from all manner of faults, unless deny him to be at any time man. But you must acknowledge, your gods have been of the condition of men, because the actions you attribute to them witnesseth they were subject to such disorders, as are tokens of the weakness of our nature, and tokens I say which permit not, we can be persuaded that after death they should be styled gods.  
In a word, if wont to punish those who suffer themselves to be carried away with these disorders; if as many of you as are people any good manners, avoid the commerce, conversation, and society of vicious and infamous persons, think you, God hath called you to possession of his Deity those whom they resemble? or if any such matter believed by you, how comes it to pass you condemn criminals? you that adore the companions of their crimes? the justice you seem to exereise in this world, serves not in heaven but for a subject of mockery, and derision. If render yourselves conformable to your gods, you must ascribe divine honours to the wickedest of all men, it being an honour to those gods you adore, to make gods of men most like unto them in all manner of abominable filthiness.  
But to omit speaking any further of things so unworthy of divine worship, I could wish so long as they lived here below, they had been of better report, had passed their days here in perfect integrity. How many nevertheless of better reputation than these whom you worship for gods, have you left in Hell? have you not there put Socrates so renowned for his wisdom? Also Aristides, no less famous to all posterity for his justice? Themistocles, who was so excellent a Soldier? Alexander, who by his high, enterprises made himself so great and terrible? Polycrates, who was so happy? Croesus who possessed so much riches? and Demosthenes whose eloquence was so admirable? Were there any of your gods wiser than Cato? juster, or more warlike than Scipio? greater than Pompey? happier than Sylla? richer than Crassus? and eloquenter than Cicero? Certainly, God who knows perfectly the merit of men, being to have his divine nature, communicated to mortal men, would have thought his graces with more equity distributed if he had stayed for the death of these persons to make gods of them.  
But it may be he made too much haste, and thereupon after he had taken the men whom you adore, to be partakers with him of his divine Majesty, shuting up Heavens doors, could not call thither any other, these fair souls in the mean while going down to Hell; where murmuring against his injustice, by their complaint, from thence they make him still blush with shame enough unto this day.   

CHAP. XII.  
NOT insisting on these things any longer, I will show you the true condition of your gods, and thereby demonstratively make it appear that indeed they were never gods. Touching whom to say what I have heard and read, I find nothing at all but the names of certain men long since dead, fabulous reports of what they did in their life time, and thereof composed mysteries made sacred to mock the common-people withal. As for the Images you adore, that which seems to me most ridiculous, is, they are made of the same matter that other Vessels, wherewith you are ordinarily served: or rather of your movable goods you make gods, by your consecrating them, and thereby changing the uses whereunto at first ordained by the help of Art; also you give them another form, than what they had, and of the matter thereof compose figures which you call gods: which works cannot without much abuse and wronging the Divine Nature be done by you.  
From whence nevertheless we that are Christians may take occasion of comforting ourselves with respect to those evils your gods cause us to suffer, seeing the same you make them endure before obtain from you the titles of gods. So whereas you tie Christians to Crosses and pieces of wood; have you any image that in making thereof hath not been first fixed to such like stakes before completed into such a shape, as thought fit by you to be worshipped in? you hang us up as public spectacles unto all men upon Gibbets. Is it not on a Gibbet that the Mass or body of those things you call gods is set up before worshipped by you? You pierce our bodies with irons, and when forming your gods of wood, use you not the like violence with Saws, Chissels, and such like iron instruments upon each member of them also? You cut off our heads, and your gods have no heads till after fastened by you to their bodies, with Soder, Cement, and Iron Cramps.  
You expose us to the rage of wild beasts, and are they not such beasts you make to keep company with, Bacchus, Cybele and Ceres, men carving or painting them therewith? You throw us into the flames, and have not your gods been tried therewith when of a shapeless matter, the Smith's hand form them into a Comelier figure out of the fire? you condemn us to work in mines, and is it not from thence your Gods made of silver and gold fetch their original? you confine us to Islands, and have not some of your gods taken their birth, and others their death there? If any divinity in these things, it will follow, men consecreate these they punish, and that punishments are embraced instead of gods. But in truth your gods neither know the outrages men do unto them, when they work upon their Statues, nor the honours they render them when adore and present sacrifices to them.  
Most vile and profane Wretches, that speak after this sort, that dare utter such blasphemous words (say you of us) in reproach of our gods, be as angry and fume with rage as long as you list, whatever say, you are they that have approved the works of Seneca, though inveighing more eagerly though penned with much more vehemence against this your superstition. Then if we do not adore Statues and Figures, which are as cold as the dead bodies they represent, and whereof the beasts know their insensibility; our resolution that proceeds but from the light of truth, which coming to enlighten our minds, makes us renounce your error. Is it not worthy rather of praises, then of the torments we suffer? Is it possible we can offend them whom we know very well that they are not? That which is not, suffereth no manner of injury from any body, because it is not.   

CHAP. XII.  
BUT you say the gods we offend are your gods; if it be so, from whence comes it, that by your actions you show yourselves impious and sacrilegious towards them. I will maintain it you undervalue those whom you take to be your gods, you overthrew their Altars at the same time you are thought to reverence them, and detract from the glory thereof when you would appear to be so zealous. Examine what follows, and see whether I say the truth.  
Is it not so that some among you adore certain gods which others adore not? you cannot deny but you wrong those gods whom you render no honour to: the preferring of some gods necessarily implieth the neglect of others, because when of two things we choose one, it's certain we reject that we choose not and consequently neglect the same. So you despise the gods you know not, and testify you fear not to offend them, in denying them the worship wherewith you honour other Deities.  
But (as we have touched upon before) the condition of each of your gods, depends upon the appro bation of men. He is not a god whom your Senate, while not approving of, refuseth to own as God.  
As for your domestic gods (styled of you by the names of Lares) you dispose of them even as of your other household or domestic goods, pawning, selling, and changing them upon all occasions, as your selus list: of a Saturn and Minerva you make goods for your Kitchen, when these Images are spoilt and broke with old age, in having too long time received divine honours: or else if you find yourselves incommodated in your affairs, you make money of them to help the necessity wherewith you are pressed, in which you find more holiness, then in your gods, seeing you prefer it before the worship you render them.  
You use the gods of the public no better, than those private Lar made use of. You employ the authority of justice to prostitute them; you put them into the Book of the public revenue, and let them out to those that offer most for them, even as you are wont to farm those incomes that are raised in the Capitol and Market. A Crier publisheth the prices of a Deity, and in pronouncing what you judge it to be worth doth it solemnly, and in the same form as all other things prized by you; a Treasurer keeps Registers of the price of the Farm of a god, as of the price of all other farms. It seems Land charged with tribute is of less value, than Land not subject to any duty; a man that is imposed to a personal tax, is not noble, as a man that is exempted from it; for these charges are marks of servitude.  
Contrarily, among the gods those which pay a greater tribute are not most to be adored, but rather those to whom men have the most devotion, render a greater tribute than others. They make a shameful commerce of the Majesty of the gods: they carry their Images even into Alehouses, that Religion may began Alms there: they take money for their entrance into the Temple, & for the place they occupy there: one cannot make use of the gods freely, and their mysteries are not exempted from sale also. But what do you in honouring them, you do not also practice in celebrating the memory of dead men? you erect Temples and Altars both to the one, and the other, their Statues have the same Ornaments; You dress up those for men according to the diversity of their age and condition: you observe the same thing of the gods.  
What difference is there between the Feast made in honour of Jupiter, and Feasts of the Funerals of the dead? between the Vessels out of which they pour Wine in sacrifices, and those they usually offer to the shades of the dead? between the Augur, and he that hath the charge of the Graves? For he doth the Office of an Augur, in Funeral Ceremonies, yet we must acknowledge you justly place your Emperors after dead in the number of the gods, seeing whilst they lived you conferred this honour upon them. Your gods are obliged to you, and they ought to thank you, because of their Masters you make them their equals: But whereas you attribute divine honour unto Larentina a Common Whore, I Would rather advise you to worship among your Juno's, Ceres, and Diana's: Lais or phryne after the same manner. You erect a Statue to Simon Magus, with this Inscription, This is the Statue of a Deity. You make a Deity of I know not whom, of one that hath been bred with infamous education, and prostrated to the lewdest pleasures, even those which Nature herself abhors; albeit your gods of old (being of the same stamp) were no better than such, yet they take themselves nevertheless to be foully reproached by you when using liberty to worship the aforesaid men and women with what ever divine rites yourselves list, you give the same honour to others of later edition, which was wont anciently to be ascribed only unto themselves.   

CHAP. XIV.  
I Will now say something of the rites and ceremonies of your Religion; not insisting much on the condition of your sacrifices, where the beasts you offer are the oldest and worst you can find: when your sacrifices are fat and well fed you keep the best of them; and offer to your gods, only unprofitable pieces cut off from several parts, and accustomed to be given by you in your houses, to servants or dogs. Even as of the tenth part of your goods vowed by you to Hercules, you present him but with a third on his Altars.  
Imagine not that I blame you at all for this, contrarily its an action of wisdom me thinks to keep part of what would be entirely lost. But that which I think strange is this, the Books wherein instructed in worldly prudence, and from whence you draw the knowledge of all duties touching a civil life, are they not filled with impertinent and ridiculous tales concerning your Gods. In those books it's reported that the gods have sought one with another, as the Gladiators in favour of the Trojans or greeks: that Venus was hurt with the shaft of an Arrow, drawn by the hand of a man, when she would have pulled her son AEneas from Diomedes who had almost killed her. That Mars remained thirty months in irons wherewith chained. That Jupiter by the help of a certain monster was saved from the same violence the other gods would have made him suffer.  
Sometimes they present him shedding tears for the death of sarpedon, sometimes they figure him in the infamous embraces of his sister, telling him of his adventures and assuring him that the love he bore towards his mistresses was not comparable to that of theirs to him. After all, who is he among your Poets, to flatter some Prince, invents not some unworthy thing of your gods? One will have Apollo employed in feeding the cattle of King Admetus? Another speaks of Neptune as of a Mercenary, recommended to Laomedon to build the City of Troy. There is a Lyrike Poet (pindarus by name) who writes that AEsculapius was struck with thunder, for abusing his knowledge of Physic, by covetously making use thereof, to hurt rather than restore men unto their healths; wherein Jupiter was too blame, if Jupiter it be that hath command of the Thunderbolts, for showing such cruelty towards his granchild, such envy towards the Author of so excellent and useful a science But truly these things are of such a condition that men who would be thought Religious should neither relate them if they were not true, nor invent them if they were false. Tragic and Comic Poets are not more respectful of your gods: in regard that usually, when making mention of them in their interludes they spare not to speak of their disorders. I will say nothing of your Philosophers. Socrates may suffice for all, who in derision to your false Gods, calls an Oak, a Buck, and a Dog, for witnesses of the oaths he made. But Socrates say you was condemned, because he undervallued, and consequently put a blur upon the worship of your gods. I answer, truth hath been in all times the object of the hatred of men. Yet the Athenians repented of the judgement they gave against him: they punished those that accused him, and placed in their Temples his Statues made of the most precious of all their metals. Now seeing they revoked his condemnation, without doubt they gave Testimonies of his innocence, and approved the opinion he had of the gods. But your Diogenes hath he not scoffed sufficiently at Hercules? and Varro the Cynique of the Romans, bringeth he not in three hundred gods without a head under the name of Jupiter?   

CHAP. XV.  
ALL these Libertines who labour so much to delight you, draw their subject from dishonest action attributed to your gods. When you see them play the Baffoones with ridiculous conceits out of Lentulus, and Hostilius, tell me whether they be your jesters, or your gods that stir up laughter: there you hear an immodest Anubis spoken of, a masculine Moon, and a Diana that was whipped, there the will of a dead Jupiter, is recited there jests made of three hundred starved Herculeses. Besides all this, Comedies Tragedies express all that is shameful in the History of your gods.  
There With delight you may hear the Sum complain of the misfortune of his off spring thrown down from Heaven. You may see there without blushing Cybele sighing for a Shepherd that undervalved her: there you suffer to be repeated in songs before you, all the Enconiums wherewith Jupiter is extolled for his jewd pranks, and how Paris decided the difference between Juno, Minerva, and Venus. But are they not certain 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 profane 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 blood of men, and horror of punishments. Their Histories serve for an argument to the subjects which the guilty present there; and very often also these poor people do truly represent the personages of your gods, by the pains they endure. We 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 bloody Spectacles, of the combats of the Gladiators, which are acted at Noon, 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 find out, be 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 than that I have already said; you make bargains for Adulteries in the Temples: you corrupt the chastity of women before the Altars: you fulfil your concupisceces for the most part even in those houses which ordained for the Priests, and for the laying up of other holy things therein, having before your eyes the Pontifical habits, and the Incense still fuming with the fire of the Sacrifices. This being so, I know not why your gods do not more complain of you, then of Christians: Indeed, all that are found guilty of sacrilege 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 do.  
But if you ask 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 errors 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 Ass. It importeth that I discover the original source of this fable: The reason that raised this suspicion of us, is in the fifth Book of the History of Cornelius Tacitus, where making mention of the war that Titus had with the Jews under the Empire of Vespasian, he takes occasion to relate the History of this Nation, speaking as he thinks good, of its original, name, and Religion; and reports that the Jews coming out of Egypt, where they were banished, as he believes, received great incommodities in passing the vast Deserts of Arabia, because they found no water, and as they were extremely pressed with thirst, they were delivered by the rencontre which they had with a company of wild Asses, who showed them the Fountains where they went to drink, lying not far 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 think this, tale makes it presumed that the Christians whose Religion is drawn from that of the Jews, and hath succeeded it, worship the effigies of an ass. Yet the same Author, who faith he lies not, writeth nevertheless that Pompey having taken the City of Jerusalem, and entering into the Temple to see the mysteries of the Jewish Religion, saw there no image at all. It is likely, had they form any image to the Deity adored by them, they had reposed it in the Sanctuary, where if suspected to be thought Idolaters, they could not be discovered by strangers, because none but their own high Priest permitted to enter in, a veil also being drawn before it, to hinder all others from prying thereinto.  
As for yourselves its a thing you cannot deny you worship with ridiculous ceremony, all beasts of burden with their goddess Hyppone. But peradventure it may not be so well taken, that among so many worshippers of all forts of creatures, we only should be thought to adore nothing else but asses. I come therefore to those who are of opinion we worship a cross also, and do not they the same thing they believe of us when they consecreate their wooden images. It imports not though it be another figure, so it be of the same matter: though the form be not the same, so it be the body of a God.  
What difference is there between the wood of the cross, and an Athenian Palace, or a pharien Ceres, which are nothing but rough pieces of wood unshapt, whereof the hand of the workman hath not form an image? All images set upon their feet by you represent a part of the cross; and do not we better than you when we worship the whole Godhead in Christ without a Cross? Moreover, those taken by you for go●s have been in the beginning cast, as we said before in moulds made after the form in some part or similitude of a cross: besides you consecreate spoils taken by you from your enemies: you raise up Trophies in honour of victory: and those Trophies what are they within but only trees made by you into crosses? The Roman soldiers in their Religion which is all martial, adore the ensigns of their Emperor, they swear by their standard, and make Deities of them, which they prefer before the majesty of their other gods. Which Ensigns and standards of theirs, however richly set forth, however covered over with cloth of gold, perhaps, or tissue, and the like, are all for the most part represented to the eyes under the form or figure of a Cross. So that all the difference I find between the Cross we honour, and you, consists, it should seem, in the pompousness wherewith yours beyond ours is adorned. Wherein I applaud you for it, that you consecreate not bare crosses without all other manner of adorning them.  
There are, that with more apparent reason believe, the Sun to be our god, these send us to the Religion of the Persians: But we worship not the Image of the Sun, as these people do, who in a foolish superstition carry it ordinarily painted on their Bucklers. Yet herein they suspect us for so doing, because hearing when we pray, we turn ourselves to the East: Is it not true, there are many among you that do the same, when making Orisons to some other gods than those Images of yours represent, prostrate themselves to the Sunrising, and in that posture offer up their vows to Heaven? If celebrate the Sunday, which is the day of the Sun, as a Holiday, to rejoice in it, so doing we worship not that great light of the world, but thereby rather solemnize this day which comes next after that of Saturn, to be distinguished from the Jews, who own Saturday for their Sabbath, and with respect thereunto spend the same in all manner of case and idleness, swerving in so doing from the laudable custom of their Ancestors, long since extinguished with them.  
The calumnies invented to cry down our Religion, arise to such excess of impiety, that not long ago in this City, a Picture of our God was showed by a certain infamous person that got his living by exposing to the sight of the people, wild beasts: who, by a strange faculty gotten by him to avoid their bitings, making use of his craft, showed also the aforesaid Picture openly to all comers, with this inscription thereon, This is Onochoetes the god of the christians.  
This supposed god of the christians pretended by him, had the ears of an ass, a hoof on one of his feet, carried a book, and was clothed with a gown. We laugh at the barbarousness of this name, and the extravagancy of this figure. But they me thinks, should rather worship such a Monster as this for a god, who for the present adore with divine honour such like things: for example, an Image composed of two different forms at the same time, having the head of a Dog, and Lion, joined together; horns resembling those of an Ox and Ram, like a goat from the loins, a serpent from the thighs, with wings on his feet and back. Of these things more then enough, that nothing remains to be confuted on our part, of what ever falsely alleged by the Heathen against us, as also that you might not say or impute to me I have used artifice in dissembling the things whereof I could not justify the Christians. I come now to the expounding the mysteries of our Religion.   

CHAP. XVII.  
THe God whom we worship, is one only God, who created of nothing this great mass of the world, together with every thing whereof the Elements, bodies, and spirits therein are composed, and by the authority of his word, by the admirable order which his wisdom hath established, and the virtue of his infinite power, hath produced this excellent work to be a worthy image of his greatness: from whence it comes the greeks have given him a name which signifies ornament. This God though daily to be seen, is nevertheless invisible; though graciously represented every where, incomprehensible; enough exposed to humane sense, yet indiscernible. Because such a God, therefore is he the true God. Ordinarily that which falls under the object of the sight, which may be handled, which the mind can understand, is less than the eyes that see it, the hands that touch it, the mind which makes it be known. Which things cannot be said of God whose infiniteness is only indiscoverable save to himself. In regard whereof though not so well apprehended of men, yet is he nevertheless not altogethe unknown to them. Something of him men conceive, when conceive him to be beyond the farthest reach of all human reasonings; his immensity at the same time discovering, when concealing. But herein you mistake principally in that you will not know him at all, because you cannot know him perfectly, or you will not worship him because you will not know him, when at the instant you seem to a vow as much, you cannot be wholly ignorant of him.  
Well then, will you have us prove him by the infiniteness of his marvellous works wherewith we are encompassed, wherewith we are preserved, wherewith we are delighted, wherewith we are terrified? Will you have us convince you of your infidelity by the witness of your own soul? you know in despite of the constraint she suffers in the Prison of her body, in the midst of evil habits wherewith besieged, with respect to the disorders of vicious inclinations, and unchaste desires impairing her vigour, in this misfortune of her condition, where she sees herself enslaved to false deities, when retire into herself, and takes up her spirits, as it falls out after she comes from being cropsick (as it were) out of sleep, or what ever distempers if retaining still the use of reason, she thanks God. This inward motion that makes you call on God, doth it not show you that there is but one God to whom truly this high title belongs? Is it not true that you all say God is great, God is good? and when you speak of the good you receive from Heaven that God hath given, do you not also make this, God your judge, when you say God sees all things, recommending yourselves to God, and desiring that he will help you? in effect, these words which you have ordinarily in your mouth show, that your souls are naturally carried to acknowledge a God, and consequently that you are Christians. Finally, he that speaks thus of God, looks up to Heaven, and not to the Capitol; for he knows Heaven is the residence of the living God, as he knows him to be the Author of his life, and from thence to have descended.   

CHAP. XVIII.  
NOw as God is full of goodness, he would leave a means, whereby men might acquire a full and entire knowledge of the truth of his being, his laws, and his commandments. He hath given the Holy Scriptures to instruct those who will be enlightened with the light of the true Religion, who desire to find it when they seek it, who have intentions to believe in the word of one God, after they have found him; and to serve him faithfully after they have received the same. Therefore he caused men to be sent upon the earth from the beginning of times, who by holiness of manners, and innocency of their lives, have rendered themselves capable of knowing and showing his greatness to others. He hath abundantly shed upon them the graces of his divine spirit, that they might preach, there is but one God who created this Universe; who is the true Prometheus that took man from the earth, who hath ordained in the world the change of seasons, by which it subsists; who hath given tokens of the dreadful rigour of his judgements by water, and fire, who hath published his Laws wherein all he would have men do to please him are set down, Laws that you are ignorant of, or neglect; who hath ordained great recompenses to those that keep them, who, at the end of the world, will raise all the dead, that ever lived from the Creation of the World, commanding them to reassume their bodies, to examine their good or evil actions, that thereupon gives to the faithful a felicity that hath no end, and condemn Idolaters and such like, to eternal flames. We have heretofore been of your opinion, and then mocked at this doctrine, for men are not borne Christians; they embrace this Religion after they know it. We say then, those to whom God hath given this charge to preach, are called Prophets, because they publish the things which should come to pass: the oracles which they have declared, concerning the mysteries of that God which we worship, have been laid up in books, as in the public treasury, where they have been kept till now.  
The most learned of the Ptolemy's, who was surnamed Philadelphus, a most accomplished Prince in the knowledge of learning, would after the example of Pisistratus make a rich Library; among the excellent pieces which he sought after, and had reputation, either because of their antiquity, or because they were rare and curious, by the advice of Demetrius phalerius, (who was then the learnedst of all the Gramarians, and to whom he had given the keeping of all that great number of volumes he had gathered together,) ask● of the Jews the holy books which were written in their mother tongue, & which were not found any where else but in their hands: For the Prophets were always of their nation, and they always addressed their Prophecies to them; as to a people, who by the merit of their ancient Patrianks, had the happiness to be the beloved of God. We called them heretofore Hebrews, whom you now call Jews, and therefore their language was called the Hebrew tongue. The Jews to make known to strangers the law of the true God, granted Ptolemy that which he desired of them, and sent him seventy two learned men to interpret those holy books. Will you have witnesses? the Philosopher Menedemus who was a powerful Protector of the opinion of divine providence, admired at what recorded in them, and in that point was of the same opinion with them. Aristaeus hath left a public monument of this history, in a book he composed in Greek: These Hebrew volumes are found at this day in the liberary of Ptolemy, and the Jews read them openly, you may go and hear them every Saturday in their Synagogues; they buy this liberty with a great tribute which they annually pay.  
He that hears the truths they declare, shall meet with the truth of one only God; and whosoever will study to comhrehend the mysteries contained in the Holy Scriptures, will be presently forced, to believe them.   

CHAP. XIX.  
THese holy Writings take their principal authority from their antiquity. You are wont to make use of this proof, and will have it to be lawful in upholding your Idolatry, you ground the reverence you carry to your gods, on long continuance of years, but we have more reason to make use of it than you; for the books of one of our Prophets only, to wit, Moses, (wherein, it seems, God hath enclosed, as in a treasure, all the Religion of the Jews, and consequently all the Christian Religion, preceding for many ages together) reacheth beyond the ancientest you have, even all your public Monuments, the antiquity of your originals, the establishment of your estate, the birth of most part of the people, the foundation of many great Cities, all that most advanced by you in all ages of History, and memory of times, the invention of Characters, which are interpreters of Sciences, and the Guardians of all excellent things: I think we may say more, even your gods, Temples, Oracles, and Sacrifices.  
Have you heard mention made of that great Prophet Moses? He was contemporary with Inachus, he preceded Danaus' three hundred fourscore and thirteen years, the ancientest of all that have a name in your Histories: He lived about a thousand years before the ruin of the City of Troy; I could also say, fifteen hundred and more before Homer: for it is not without ground, neither will I relate it, but as others have reported it before me. Every of the other Prophets succeeded Moses, and yet the last of them all, is of the same age as your first Wisemen, Lawgivers, and Historians were.  
The proof of these things are not so difficult, as it would be troublesome, so hard as long to make apparent: we must examine a great number of Volumes, and Papers, put ourselves to calculate the sequel of times; open the Records of the ancientest of all people, namely, of Egyptians, Chaldeans, and phaenitians: make use of the testimonies of their Writets, who have left to posterity the knowledge of things past; of Manethon an Egyptian, Berosus a Chaldean, Hierome a Phaenician King of Tire, and of them that followed after, Menedesius a Ptolomean, Menander an Ephesian, Demetrius a Phalerian, King Juba, Appion, Thallus, and Josephus, the genuine and true Author of the antiquity of the Jews, whose Writings either approve that which others have said, or make known their errors.  
We must examine the public Registers of the Greeks, see what actions they report, consider when such actions done, that the order of times may appear, and clear the Histories of the past ages, in reducing them according to the sequel of years; in conclusion, we must turn over the leaves and Notes of all the earth.  
But me thinks I have already made half the proof, in showing from whence it ought to be taken. Certainly it is better to defer the spinning out this point any further; for fear that touching it in half, I say not all that importance thereof requires, or that in resting here, I stay too long from the principle means of our Defence.   

CHAP. XX.  
IF defer to show the antiquity of holy Scriptures, I will show you at persent something more important in lieu thereof: for I discover to you their Majesty, I tell you, they are divine, if you doubt still they are ancient. There's no need of any long discussion to let you know it, neither will we go to seek the proof without us. The World History of all ages, & the event of things do furnish us; all don in our days was foretold here to fore, what our. Fathers heard spoken of arrived not till after them; the Prophets whom the providence of God instructed touching the time to come, have foreseen & left in writing that which passed every moment to the view of mor; they have known what we see, that Earthquakes swallow up great Cities; that the Sea covers Islands, and takes them from our sight; that the people are afflicted with strange, and intestine wars; that one kingdom destroys another; that famine and the Plague, cause mortalities; that every country hath its particular calamities; that wild beasts inhabiting the mountains, do hurt in the plains; that the little become great, and contrarily, that the lofty by a miserable change fall into a low fortune; that there is little justice among men, and very much iniquity; that the thought of all good things is lost; that the functions of the seasons and elements are in disorder; that the order of nature is troubled by Monsters, and prodigies, all these misfortunes are found in our books, whilst we endure, and try them, our judgement obligeth us to believe those who have foretold them: I think the accomplishment of a prophecy is a good testimony of its holiness, and one may conclude it is divine, when find it true.  
Now as we believe things that have been prophesied, and are come to pass, so we believe things that have been told us, & not as yet come to pass; because they have been all foretold us by the same Scriptures, as well those that are verified every day as those whose success us still expected; they are the same words which we hear; the same letters that instruct us, it is the same spirit which hath inspired the Prophets both the one, and the other. He that by the grace of God, hath the gift of penetrating into the time to come, discovers in an instant all future things: men which have not this light, distinguish the times by the events, and separate the time to come, from the present, and the present from the past. Tell me I pray, if we commit any fault, when we believe that which should come, seeing the present and the past are two degrees; by which we learn, that we ought to believe that which is foretold, although we do not as yet see the success?   

CHAP. XXI.  
I Have told you our Religion is grounded on very ancient monuments; that is to say, on the Books of the Religion of the Jews: yet because there are many among you know it to be much newer than this, & that it began under the Empire of Tiberius, & we acknowledge it ourselves. It imports that I explain myself more particularly on this subject, that we may not be accused of covering our own opinions under the veil of a most famous Religion, and whereof the public exercise is permitted. We must take away the scruple that may arise, not only in that we are distinguished from the Jews by the times, and novelty of our institution, but also for that there is a difference between their ceremonies and ours, that we forbid not as they do the use of certain meats, nor solemnize their ten feasts, nor use circumcision, and in the end, carry not the same name: which are arguments you hold infallible, to prove you do not serve one God.  
But that which helps to confirm you in the opinions you have of us, is, that you all know, even unto the meanest of the people, that Jesus Christ was Man, that as so he was condemned by the Jews, which carries you easily to this persuasion, that we worship a Man, and not the God of the Jews. But the behaviour this ungrateful people have used to our Master, doth not make us ashamed; contrarily it is a glory to us to pass for his children, and to be persecuted for his name, and the honour we bear to him derogateth not from that we owe to God, neither have we any other opinion of the Godhead than the Jews.  
I am therefore obliged to speak a few things of Jesus Christ, and to show he is the true God. The Jewish Nation of all others had the happiness to be the only beloved people of God. They received this favour because of the wonderful piety, and inviolable faith of their ancient Patriarches, and therefore was their race still raised to that admirable greatness, their condition came to a power that made it so flourishing, and their felicity so perfect, that God communicated himself to them, and with his own mouth taught them to honour him always, and not to offend him. But they had too much confidence in the merit of their Ancestors; that which should have tied them straight to the service of the Divine Majesty, made them forget their duty: they finned against God, and by a strange blindness, neglected his Commandments, and changed his Laws into a profane worship. If the Jews will not confess their crimes, the condition they are now in, will be a sufficient proof thereof. They are spread over all the Universe, they wander from all parts, are banished from their Country, cannot enjoy the air they breathed at their birth; and run over all the world, without having either man, or God for their King; in conclusion, their condition is so miserable, that it is not permitted them to set so much as their foot, or cast their eyes on their natural Country, or to pass thither as strangers. The holy Scriptures that threatened them with these evils, are full of Prophecies, that foretold them that in the last times God would choose servants faithfuller than they, whom he would take to himself in all Nations, and Countries of the World; and on whom he would pour graces much perfecter, than those they had received, proportioned to the merit of the Messiah, which should come to publish the Law which he would give them.  
Therefore the Mespsiah which God had ordained to send on the earth, to change the Law of the Jews, to discover the truth of these figures, and to accomplish the Prophecies; this just Dispensator of Divine graces, this excellent Master of this heavenly Doctrine, the true light that enlightens, and Doctor that teacheth men, and to say all, this Son of God was promised us. But do not think this Son is ashamed of his birth; he hath been begotton, but know, that neither the seed of his Father, not the name of Son, which he bears makes him ashamed: His generation is not defiled with the incest of Brother, or Sister, neither of a gods unchaste embraces with a Maid or married woman: His Father not a god disguised under the form of a Serpent, Bull, Bird, or golden shower, as of your feigned god Jupiter it is reported.  
Besides, the Son of God whom we worship, it's true hath a Mother; but not a Mother defiled with the least impurity, she to whom the birth of this Son hath given the name of Mother, being still a Virgin without carnal knowledge of any man. But to make you comprehend how the Son of God is born, I must discover to you what his substance is. I have already declared, that God created the Universe by the power of his word, the operation of his wisdom, and the virtue of his power.  
The ancient Wisemen also were of this opinion, that the word and wisdom, which they named of one only word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is to say, the word, did make the World. Zenon saith, this word is the Author of that order, and admirable disposition we see in nature; also that the same that is called Destiny is God, the mind of Jupiter, and necessity of all things. Cleanthes makes a spirit that goes into all the parts of this Universe. As for us, as we say God hath made all things by his word, wisdom, and virtue, we attribute to the word, wisdom, and virtue of God, a Spirit that is their proper substance, and which is the word to command, the wisdom to dispose, and the virtue to give perfection to his works. We have learned that God hath produced this spirit which we call the word, that God in producing it hath begot it, and therefore it is the Son of God, and also God in regard the substance of God and his own Son, are but oneself same substance, because God is also a Spirit; it is even as of a beam coming from the body of the Sun; this Planet in producing the same, gives it a portion of its light, which notwithstanding it cannot lose; for it is always in its beam, because the beam is always a beam of the Sun; the substance of the light is not separated, but spreads forth. So in the internal generation of the word, the spirit derives from the spirit, and God derives from God, as the light of a Candle is taken from another Candle which hath comunicated to it its light: the light remains all entire in the Candle from whence it is taken, and suffers not any diminution, although men borrow the quality to distribute it to many Candles.  
It is even so of God, that which comes from him is God, the Son of God, and both together, God, and his Son, are one and the self same God. From whence it follows that this distinction of spirit to spirit, of God to God, is not in the substance, but person, makes not a division in God, but only a distribution of the qualities of Father and Son; not a diversity of conditions between Father and Son, but only an order of God the Father to God the Son: and finally that God the Son springeth, and is not separated from the substance of God: wherefore the beam of God being come down into the body of a Virgin, and incarnate in her womb; is come likewise into the world Man and God together. This marvellous composure of mortal flesh, & the spirit of God, hath been nourished, brought up, grown in years, spoken, taught, & wrought, & is this Man Jesus Christ. Take if you will, this truth for a fable, you may receive it in the mean time, till we bring further proofs of our Master, as we receive many tales made touching those, gods you confess. This wonder was known to them of whom you hold all the follies you believe of a Deity.  
They have invented them by a sacrilegious emulation, to destroy the eternal truth of a God-man, in exposing to them the lies which have some relation with them. If then you will have witnesses of the incarnation of the Son of God, we tell you the Jews knew it from the mouths of the Prophets, that he was to be borne among men, and they expect him still, and the greatest difference between them and us, is, that they do not believe he is already come. The holy Scriptures make mention of two comings of the Son of God: the first, when he appeared in the weakness of humane nature, and condition of a very low humility. The second, which to bring with it the end of all times, and wherein he will show himself with all the splendour of his Godhead. The Jews have not heard of the first, and they, hope for the second, which hath been so clearly declared, persuading themselves that the Son of God should come this only time on the earth: Their sins are the just cause of their blindness, they have deserved by their crimes committed against God, not to understand this first coming; yet without doubt, they would have believed this glorious Mystery, if they had uhderstood it, and if they Would have believed it, he had acquired for them eternal salvation.  
This punishment was foretold them, and they may read in the holy Scripture, that God hath threatened, they should not know his secrets, that their understanding should not comprehend them; that they should have eyes, and not see his light, ears, and not hear his word. Now, as they could not imagine him whom they saw in this low humility, to be a God, so they took him only for a man; whom when reflecting upon them the effects of his power, they gave out, that he used Magic, and by the help thereof cast Devils out the bodies of men, restored sight to the blind; cleansed the Lepers; healed them that were sick of the Palsy; raised the dead; made the Elements obey him; appeased Tempests; went upon the waters; all actions by which he showed himself to be the ancient Word, the first born, accomplished with virtue and wisdom, as also informed with the spirit of God himself.  
The Doctors, of the Law, and the greatest among the Jews, who saw when he preached, that he confounded their errors, and that an infinite multitude of people followed him, were so incensed against him, that, in conclusion, they accused him before Pontius Pilate, the then Governor of Judea, under the authority of the Emperor Tiberius; and by violating justice, forced him to deliver them Jesus to be nailed on the Cross. He foretold they should thus unworthily use him; but, it may be, 'twould not be enough if the Prophets had not declared it a long time before: yet Jesus being on the cross gave many signs, by which he showed he was truly the Son of God; for after making that great exclamation, when a dying, he rendered, of his own accord, his spirit to God his Father preventing thereby the Executioners, accustomed to break the thighs of those that were crucified, to hasten the end of their lives, and deliver them from the pains of a longer punishment.  
Moreover, in that very moment wherein Jesus expired, which was at noon, the Sun lost his light, and the Earth was covered with darkness even they who knew not this prodigy should happen at his death, and that revealed before to the Prophets did take it for a miracle, and because unwilling to discover the reason thereof, they denied it that came to pass: But you cannot make this wonder suspected, seeing your own Calendars have remarked it, and yourselves retain the testimonies thereof in your own registers.  
The Jews having took Jesus from the Cross, and put him into the sepulchre, encompassed it with a great number of Soldiers, 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, persuade them he was risen, because he had said, that in three days he would rise from the grave, and triumph over death.  
But the third day being come, the earth shook on a sudden, the stone that shut the mouth of the Sepulchre was overturned, the Soldiers astonished, and troubled with fear, and not one of his Disciples durst appear, that they might be accused of taking away his body, which not being found, there remained nothing in the grave, but the linen wherewith he was wrapped. 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 turn 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 known that he whom they had crucified was truly the son of God.  
Their minds being thus abused by the ambition and avarice of the Priests, they remained in the darkness of error; for Jesus Christ showed himself, not to the People, because he would not do this favour to the wicked, to make them become faithful, in presenting before their eyes his glorious body, and it must be that the faith that promised such great recompenses, should be wrapped up with some difficulties.  
After his resurrection he stays with some of his Disciples forty days in Galilee, one of the Provinces in Judea, where he taught them what they should preach to men; and having given them to declare his Doctrine throughout all the Earth, a cloud environed him, where with received up to Heaven, a truth far more certain than 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 Emperor Tiberius, whereupon the Caesar's 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 been saluted Caesar's. The Disciples of Jesus, following the order he had given them, went over all parts of the known world to publish the Law of the Gospel: But the Jews, their declared Enemies, made them endure 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 blood of the Christians inhumanly to be shed.  
But remember when we 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 employ them whom you withhold from being Christians, to make you believe the Doctrine of Christians? yet you shall see by and by, that your gods bear witness, in favour of our Religion, against your Idolatry. This we shall tell you, when come to declare to you, wherein consists all the mystery of our instirution; than you shall know both the original 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 believe what we 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 infidel to his God, and takes from him the honour he should render him to transfer the same to another; and in transferring it, acknowledgeth not his Godhead any longer, because he violates it in denying him. We say openly we are Christians, we avow it publicly, yea even in the midst of tortures, the which you make use of to make us deny it. When we are torn in pieces and covered with our blood, we cry out, as far as our voices will extend, we worship God in Jesus Christ, believe if you will Jesus Christ to be man only. It is by him, and in him nevertheless that God will be known and honoured. So to the end we may answer the Jews, Have not they learned 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 find 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 himself acknowledged for the God of Heaven and Earth? He ought not to be suspected for an Impostor as others, for he was not like to a Numa, who would not soften the wild spirits of these savage people, and barbarous, in filling them with astonishment by the infinite number of gods which made them afraid. He addressed himself to men pollishe & perfectly knowing in the prudence of the world, and yet withal their wisdom, were blind as concerning Heaven. He came to enlighten, and discover to them the truth they knew not. Inform yourselves whether the Godhead of Jesus Christ be the true Godhead we ought to worship. Whether it change their manners that believe it, and makes them become better than they were, all the other Deities must be condemned as false, and principally that which is under the names and Images of dead men, by the artisice of certain supposed signs, of the miracles they counterfeit, and the deceitful Oracles they render, pass for a true Divinity, although it is known that all it doth is but the work of Devils.   

CHAP. XXII.  
WE say then, that there is in Nature certain spiritual substances, to whom the name of Devils is given. This name is not new, the Philosopher had the knowledge of it, and Socrates did nothing Without the permission of his Devil. So they say, that from his infancy this Devil was always by him, and abandoned him not so long as the lived. Certes: this spirit was not proper but to turn him away from the love of good things The Poets also knew what the Devils 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 soul, that in those imprecations in calling the evil spirits, in effect they call Satan, who is the Prince of this cursed Company. Blato did also aoknowledge the nature of the Angels; and the Magidians who in their enchantments make use of the names of Angels, and Devils, to be testimonies of their being. One may learn from the holy Scriptures how by the sin of certain Angels, who from the irregularity of their own will suffered their innocence to be corrupted, came the race of the Devils, a race much more corrupted then these evil Angels from whence they draw their original, and that God hath condemned with them, and their Prince, those of whom we come from speaking of, Wherefore sufficeth that we now treat of the point that concerneth the operations of these spirits.  
They work on men but to destroy them; the malice of the Devils from the beginning of times was employed in doing evil. Thus they afflict bodies with diseases, and make them fall into troublesome accidents; they stir up in men's minds violent troubles, and sudden motions, which move them extraordinarily. Their simple and subtle nature gives them the faculty of laying bold of the two substances that compose man.  
The power with which these spirits operate is admirable, one may very well know their action, but the manner of their operation falls not under the object of the sight, neither can be perceived by the organ of the senses. As when there happens any secret irregularity in the aite, the distemper thereof makes the fruit to be lost in the blossom, takes away its life when it begins to put forth, and nips them at the very time of their maturity: even as when the air is infected by some sudden cause, it spreads the plague upon the earth among the vapours that the Sun had drawn up; in the same manner, and with a contagion as unperceiveable, the Devils and evil Angels by their blast cast disorders into minds, agitate them with divers furies, give them thoughts of folly and filthiness, make them capable more violent passions, and slide therein an infinite number of errors. Of these errors this is the principal, that, after they have abused, & wrapped them up into a thousand illusions, they recommend them to the worshipping of these false gods, and oblige them to offer sacrifices to their Idols, that they may be fed with the odour of the sacrifices, and the blood of these beasts which is their most agreeable nourishment. For what nourishment do they razed with more pleasure then, the Idolatry of man, when by the wiles of their false juggle, they seduce them, and turn aside their thoughts from the object of the true God? I will now discover by what way they deceive them.  
Every Spirit hath the same nimbleness as a bird, and because the Angels and Devils are spirits, they are every where in a moment. All the world is but one place to them, it is all one with them to know what is done in every coast of the world, as to say it. This promptitude with which they know all things, makes them pass for gods, because their substance is not known.  
So they will often appear to be Authors of that which they declare; & in effect they are sometimes of evil, but never of good. Besides, they learned heretofore from the mouths of the Prophets the things which eternal providence hath determined; and now they take them from the holy Scriptures: it is from thence they draw the conjectures by which they judge of the times to come.  
They observe the changes that have happened in the fequell of times, and they strive to appear like to a Deity, by the thefts they make of these predictions wherewith they abuse the world. They work upon all with a wonderful cunning to express the Oracles they render, by terms full of ambiguity, that they may accommodate themselves to the events. Croesus and Pyrrhus could tell much news. It was by the means we before spoke of, Apollo declared, that Croesus had boiled his Tortoise With the flesh of a Lamb; he had learned it in Lydia, where he was in an instant. Moreover the Devils who have their residence in the air, by their neighbourhood with the stars, and the nearness of the clouds may know the disposition of the Heavens.  
They promise men rain which is ready to fall, and which they feel when they promise it. Truly we must avow they are very helpful in the cure of diseases; for they are they that do the evil, and afterwards ordain the remedies, but they are remedies wonderful new, and contrary to the evil: after one hath made use of their receipts, they cease to afflict the body, and then we think they have cured it.  
What shall I say more concerning the tricks of these deceitful spirits, and their admirable effects? of the spirits of Castor and Pollux, who brought to Rome the news of the victory obtained on King Perseus of Macedonia, presently after it was won? of that Vestal that received water in a sieve? of another that made a great ship sail which she drew only with her girdle? of that Domitius to whom the spirits of Castor and Pollux, by their only touch, changed the colour of his beard, and of black made it become red, that he might have some mark to make him elieveb it? when declaring to him this victory already obtained by the Romans all these things which are the workers of the Devil have authorised Idolatry, persuaded men that stones were true deities, and hindered them to seek the true God; this high and incomprehensible majesty to whom only worship is due.   

CHAP. XXIII.  
BUt seeing Magicians have power to make spirits appear to men; seeing they recall the souls of the dead, whom they cover with infamy by their witchcrafts; that by the force of their enchantments, Children are made use of in their charms to throw themselves on the ground, and afterwards rise up again to declare Oracles; that by the delusions, wherewith they deceive the eyes and ears, they represent a great number of miracles; that they infuse dreams into us when asleep, and work all these things, when once by the virtue of their invocations they have obtained the help of evil Angels and Devils, who make their goats, and tables prophesic: When this power worketh of one accord, and for it only; with how much more affection doth it employ all its forces to effect what it produceth, when there is no question of any interest but of that which is a stranger to it? If the Angels and Devils do the same things as your gods, where is the excellency of the deity, we must imagine to be above all other powers? is it not more seemly to presume that they are they that make themselves to be acknowledged for gods, seeing their actions are like to them they take for actions of the gods, then to believe the power of the gods is not greater than that of Angels and Devils? but it may be your gods are gods but in the temples, it is the place that gives them the title, and that out of temples, you do not acknowledge them for gods; that in your opinion, it is another kind of fury to leap over consecrated towers to a deity, then to precipitate ones slle from a profane house, that it is another sort of rage to cut off ones privy parts, and arms, then to cut one's throat; in truth the despair 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 words; now we must make use of the things themselves, and demonstrations, to show you that your gods and devils are but one substance, and that they differ but in name.  
If a man should bring before your Tribunals, one that were truly possessed of a Devil, if a Christian should command him to speak, this wicked spirit will confess then that he is a Devil, 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 virtue of a God in scenting the smell which goes out of the sacrifices; who with force belch out words out of their stomaches; within breathing declare oracles; if this heavenly virgin who promiseth rain; if this AEsculapius that teacheth the secrets of Physic, that preserves the lives of them who must lose the same soon after, confess not by the mouths of these impostors, Whose feigned inspirations deceive the world, that they are but devils, if the presence of a Christian takes not from them the boldness of lying, we are willing that in the same place, you shed the blood of this Christian, and punish him as a wicked person. What demonstration is clearer than this? what proof more infallible? truth shines there in its purity, it is afflicted with this force, that is not proper but for herself; there is nothing here to be evil thought on. Say then it is done by the power of Magic; or by some such like trick, if your eyes or ears will let you. But I pray what can you say against a thing that shows itself so clear and without artifice? if these spirits are gods indeed, why do they falsely say they are devils? 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 Devils, or Angels, how comes it when they speak to others then to us, they would pass for gods? for as those to whom divine honour is rendered would not be avowed Devils, if in truth they were gods, because gods cannot take the quality of Devils without putting off their majesty; so yet the names they give themselves whom you acknowledge to be Devils, were the names, of true gods, they could not be so rash as to take, and to put them in the rank of a Deity; because these gods would without doubt be their Sovereigns, and they would fear to offend the majesty of them whose power they should dread.  
Acknowledge then that the Deity you honour is not a Deity, because, if it were, the Devils 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 than they are Devils; 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 means 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 he must be served as their Laws ordain. When you conjure your gods in the name of Jesus Christ, do they ask who is that Jesus Christ? do they call the History of his life a Fable? do they say he is a man of the same condition as other men? that he was a Magician? that, after dead, his Disciples took away his body privately from the Sepulchre? and that he is now in Hell? say they not rather he is in Heaven? that he must descend to the terror of all the world? with horror to the Universe? with the lamentation of all men but Christians? and that he shall come down on the earth full of Majesty, as the virtue of God, the spirit of God, the Word, Wisdom, Reason, and Son of God? your gods must do as you do, deride all these things, deny all the souls that lived since the Creation of the world should take their bodies again; 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 appears by the condition of their meats they seed on, the blood, smoke, 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 universal judgement, where they shall receive the just recompense 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 threatening we give them of the evils God is ready to pour on their heads, and which one day Jesus Christ must declare to them. As they fear 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 only touch of our hands, and breath of our mouths; the Devil seized with fear at the sight of the flames that environ them are forced to obey us, to come our of the bodies they possess, in despite 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 speak of thenselves. No body will tell a lie to get shame by it, but rather to gain honour; one will sooner believe them that confess against their own interest, than those that deny to their advantage. These Testimonies which we have of your Gods make men to be Christians; for we 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 confirm us in the assurance we have of our salvation. As for you, to honour them, you offer them also the blood of Christians; and if it were permitted then to lie when Christians interrogate them, and labour to make you know the truth by their confession, they would take good heed of discovering your errors to you, as well for keeping the profit they have of them, and the honours you render them, as for the fear they might have that in becoming yourselves Christians, you drive them away as we do from the bodies they torment with so much rage.   

CHAP. XXIV.  
WE need nothing but the acknowledgement we have from your gods, when we make them confess they are no gods, and when they answer us there is no other God, than the only God we serve, to purge us from the crime of high treason, and impiety to the Roman Religion. For if in truth the Gods they worship are no gods, in truth their Religion is no Religion; if their Religion be no Religion, than those they acknowledge for gods, are none, it follows we are not guilty of the crime of impiety. On the contrary we can maintain, that this reproach reflects on you, that, because so long as you honour a lie, you neglect not only the true Religion of the true God, but moreover oppose God; and by this means truly fall into the crime of true impiety.  
If we should agree your gods are true gods, would you not confess, according to common opinion, that there is a God greater and stronger than they, who is as the principal and author of the Universe, and accomplished with power, and an infinite majesty? for many have this opinion of the Deity; that to one only God belongs Sovereign power, and that he commits the exercise of his functions to all the other Gods: what is that Plato would have prepresented, when he writ, that great Jupiter is in Heaven accompanied with an army of Gods and Devils. You may say, we must honour the officres and Lieutenant's of a Prince, even as the Prince whose majesty they represent. But I demand of you, what crime commits he who regards none but the prince, hopes not but in his favour, and will please none but him? what outrage commits he against the Godhead that gives not the name of God but to the Prince of Heaven? seeing in the world they give the name of Emperor but to the Sovereign, and that it is a Capital crime, by humane laws, to call, or suffer to be called with this title any other, than the master of the State? But let one worship God, another, Jupiter, let one in saying his prayers lift up his hands to Heaven, another put them on the Altar of faith; let one, if you will, number the clouds, another the ceilings; one vow his soul to his God, another offer him that of a goat. But you ought to: take heed that this be not a kind of impiety, to take from men the liberty of serving God after their own manner, to hinder them from making choice of a deity, and force them so in that which should depend upon the will, that it should not be permitted them to worship the God they would, and be forced to worship him they would not.  
Know we not very well that neither the gods, nor men, demand any thing but voluntary services: and this is the reason they suffer the vain superstitions of the Egyptians, who by a strange blindness consecrate Birds and Beasts, and condemn to death them that have killed one of these gods. Moreover every province, and city hath his particular God, Syria the God Astartes; Arabia the God Disares; Bavaria, Belenus; Africa the goddess Celestis; Mauritania their Kings.  
The provinces I have named, me thinks, are subject to the Roman Empire, and yet I have not named among the Gods that are there worshipped any of the gods of the Romans; in effect the gods that are honoured in these countries, are as little known at Rome, as those that are worshipped in the Cities of Italy, as the God Belventinus of Monterotondo, Visidianus of Narni, the Goddess Ancaria of Ascoli, Nursia of Vulsina, Valentia of Ocricoly, Nortia of Sutry, and June of Monte-siasooni, who is called upon there, because there she was born, and to whom the inhabitants of the place gave it the name of her father. There are none but we to whom it is forbid to have a Religion a part.  
We offend the Romans, because not serve the God of the Romans, and are unworthy the names of Romans. But we have this advantage, that God is the God of all men, and that we are all his, whether we will or no. As for you, it is permitted you to worship all forts of gods, excepting the true God; as if the same were not by way of eminence, the God of us all, seeing we all are his.   

CHAP. XXV.  
IN my opinion I have sufficiently proved, what the false, and what the true Divinity is, seeing I have drawn my proofs, not only from Arguments which reasoning produceth, but also from the sole testimony of those you acknowledge to be gods; so that I have largely given satisfaction (as I think) in this point. But because in this place, an occasion is presented to speak of the name Romans, I will not avoid the combat that some oblige me to undertake, against the opinion that hath seized on their minds, and makes them say, the Romans obtained the Empire of all the world, and this greatness where to we see them arrived, by their piety, and deserved to be Masters of all the Nations of the Earth, by the reverence carried by them to the mysteries of the religion of the gods, the gods having rendered them flourishing beyond all other honours, because the Romans surpass all other in devotion.  
There is some likelihood the Romans received this Recompense from the original gods of Rome, in acknowledgement of the honours the Romans rendered unto those gods; for example, the gods sterculus, Mutunus, and Larentina, who enlarged the bounds of their domination. For I do not think the other gods had more inclination to a strange Nation, then to their own Country, or that they would have subjected to a people so far remote from their Country, the Land where they were borne, where their youth brought up, where they acquired so much honour in their life time, or where finally after their death they had burial given to their bodies. Cybele will not disavow the affection she bore to the City of Rome to be produced from that she carried to AEneas, because he was of her Country; she defended him against the Armies of the Greeks, and loves the City where she still sees the blood of Trojans, and progeny of that Prince. Without doubt, when resolved to favour the Romans, she foresaw they would revenge it, and put Greece in servitude, which had ruined the Empire of Troy.  
Certainly, she hath caused it to be seen in our time, that it was with a great deal of reason the City of Rome delayed to give unto him Divine honours; for Marcus Aurelius having ended his days at Sirmion, the seventeenth of March, the chiefest Priest of that goddess, this venerable chief of the Eunuches, the sour and twentieth of the same Month of March, with the horror and impurity of the blood he spilt, and which came from the wounds he made in his body, rendered his vows, as he was wont, for the preservation of this Prince after he was dead. O sleepy Courtiers! O tedious dispatchers, whose tarrying the cause that Cybele was not acquainted sooner with the Emperor's death! truly Christians could not choose but make derision at such a goddess. But had it been in the power of Jupiter to dispose (as he thought good) of the Empire of the world, would he have suffered the power of the Romans to put his Isle of Crect insubjection? Would you think, the remembrance of the cave of Mount Ida, with the noise the Corybantes made, in beating on their head attires, and playing on their cymbals to hinder those childish cries from discovering him: again, the acceptable smell of the breath of his nurse, should not oblige him rather to oppose himself against this conquest? would he not have preferred the place of his burial before all the greatness of the Capitol? would he not rather have inclined to have raised up above all the countries of the earth, that which enclosed his ashes? would juno have taken it well that Carthage, which she preferred before samos, should be overcome and destroyed, even by the race of AEneas, if I be not deceived  
— Hic illius Arma,  
Hic currus fuit; hoc regnum dea gentibus esse,  
si qua fata sinant, jam tum tendetque fovetque.  
Englished thus by John Ogleby out of Virgil.  
— Here her Arms, and here  
Her Chariot was: that this Earth sway should bear  
(If Fates permit) she fosters and intends.  
This unfortunate sister and wife of Jupiter had not the credit of changing the decrees of destiny, 
— Fato stat Jupiter esse.  
— To Fate, was Jupiter himself conform.   
And yet the Romans have not done them so much honour, although they put Carthage under their power, against the design and desires of Juno, as to an unchaste whore, and a villainous and an infamous Larentine, now of all the gods you honour, its certain there are many of them that have reigned in the would; if they had now the power to give Empires and kingdoms, whilst they were kings, and commanded maen, of whom received they their authority? what gods have been worshipped by Saturn and by Jupiter? it may be 'twas some Sterculus, to whom they gave immortality because the first found out the invention of dunging the earth, but he lived since their death with the people that inhabited the territory of Rome. If any of your gods have not had the Sovereign power here below, in their time, there were Kings that rendered them not as yet, Divine honours, because they were not as yet acknowledged for gods; from whence it follows that it belongs to others then to them to give kingdoms, because there were kings established a long time before they consecrated these deities.  
But see how ridiculous a thing it is to attribute the greatness of the Romans, to the merit of their piety and care had or Religion, seeing their Religion became much more pompous and costly since their estate grew powerful, and their dominion enlarged. For although Numa was author of all your superstitious mysteries, yet in his time the Romans served their gods without Images and Temples, their Reliligion being then void of all costliness and ostentation; their ceremonies then neither rich, nor magnificent, we saw not as then Capitols raised up to Heaven, but only altars of turf made in haste, as served occasion and upon necessity: te vessels for their sacrifices were as then but of earth, from whence only issued the odor of all the blood of the beasts which were sacrificed. Engraven representations of the gods than no where appeared. For the Greeks and Tuscans who first invented the art of making carved images to the gods were n ot as then spread in the City of Rome. It's true therefore the Romans were powerful before they were Religious, neither was it their piety that was the cause of their greatness  
For, how should the care of Religion become great to them, who owe their greatness to impiety and sacrilege? for it I be not deceived, Kingdoms and Empires are established by disorders of war, and increase by victories. Wars and victories ordinarily produce the taking and ruin of Cities. Which things cannot be done without offending the gods. Fury at the same time indifferently assaulting the walls of Temples and Cities, slaughters involving Priests and Citizens without distinction, and the Soldier eager for his prey, sparing no more sacred things, then profane. In which regard the Romans committed as many sacrilodges, as they obtained conquests; triumphed as often over their gods as Over men; all Images of strange and captive gods, yet in your Temples, remain as so many booties taken form people overcome by you, and these gods suffer their enemies to worship them, giving an endless Empire to them, whose outrages they should rather have punished, then recompensed after that sort their sacrilegious flatteries.  
But as it's unprofitable to honour these gods that have neither sense, nor knowledge, so it's as little dangerous to offend them. Certes true piety permits not to believe, that this people who (as aforesaid) increased Religion by scandalising it, again scandalized Religion in labouring for its judgement, should get this great power to which arrived, by any reverence borne by them to divine things; neither is it otherwise in like manner, to be believed, that those Nations, whose Countries conduced in their being conquered by them, unto the Roman greatness, before losing their Countries, should be destitute of all manner of Religion.   

CHAP. XXVI.  
Return then into yourselves, and examine if it be not more likely that it's he distril utes Kingdoms, he to whom the World belongs which kings govern, and whom Kings depend upon, who command on the Earth; that it's he that hath ordained the change of Emperors in the sequel of times, and course of ages, who was before all times, and who from times hath composed the ages, that raiseth up estates, and makes them fall from their greatness, whom men have acknowledged for their Author before they had established among them any society: confess your error. Rome, this City heretofore a field, in ancienter than any of your gods; she had her Laws reverenced before she built this vast and magnificent work of the Capitol. The Babylonians reigned before the creation of your high Priests. The Medes before that of the fifteen men, whom, you propounded to consult on the Sibyl's Books. The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Amazons possessed great Empires before we heard speak of the Saliens, Lupercals, and Vestal Virgins.  
After all, if the gods of the Romans disposed of Kingdoms, the Jewish Nation who always neglected these kinds of Deities, had never form an Estate powerful as it hath done: they abhorred your Idolatry, and on the contrary, you have sacrificed oblations to their god, you have presented gifts to his Temple, you have lived in alliance with them along time, and they had never fallen under your power, if they had not offended their God by the unworthy treating they used to Jesus Christ.   

CHAP. XXVII.  
ME thinks we have purged ourselves very well of the crime of high treason, when we say we offend not your deities, because we show they are no deities. Therefore when we are exhorted to present them sacrifices, we oppose for our defence, the trust we put or owe to the light God hath given us; we call our consciences to our aid, which shows us certainly, to whom the worship you render to these images should be addressed, which are exposed to a sacrilegious adoration, and to the names of men you have consecrated: but some say there is folly in our resistance, we may sacrifice when pressed to it, and conserve our lives without injuring our consciences, in keeping a secret resolution to remain firm in our Religion, and that in neglecting our security, we prefer a vain self-will before our welfare. So you give us an advice that teacheth us how to deceive you, but we know the author of this counsel, and who inspires it into you: we know the crafts of that wicked one, who sometimes by the wiles of his persuasions, sometimes, by the force of torments makes us suffer, strives to overthrow our constancy. It is that malicious spirit whose substance is that of Angels, and Devils, who by his sin finally falling from grace becomes our enemy, and envies at that state of happiness wherein by God's gracious assistance we yet remain, and who puts projects in your minds to assault us, who secretly excites these furious motions that corrupts all functions of reason in you, and dispose you to do us the injustice we spoke of in the beginning of this discourse; of condemning us against the rules of justice, and in tormenting us, altough guilty of no fault: for although all power of Devils, and this wicked spirit, is subject to us, yet is falls out sometimes, that like unto wicked and faithless slaves, in the midst of the fear they have of the authority God hath given us over them, they give themselves over to actions of disobedience and revolt: and as te ordinary effect of fear, is to produce hatred, they strive to wrong them, whose power they fear.  
Besides in the estate of rage, and despair to which they are reduced, because their condemnation is already pronounced, they find content in their wickedness, they solace themselves in their evils, by those they make against the servants of God, against the day of the last judgement when they shall be shut up in hell to suffer there eternally.  
Nevertheless, they combat not with us after this sort but at a distance, for when we come near them, they must yield, being under out power, and are forced to acknowledge the misery of their condition, so the Devils that assault us when far from us, have recourse to entreaties when we affront them near hand. Therefore when we must undergo such punishmets as you ordain for your wretched slaves, when they shut us up in prisos, when tey cause us to be condemned to work in the mines, or to some other servile work of the same condition; in the end when they exercise all their rage against us, by te impetuous motions of fury that transports them because they see they are subjected to our authority, knowing their forces are inferior to ours, and therefore our victory is assured, and their destruction is inevitable, than we defend ourselves against these troublesome & importunate spirits, as if they were our equals, we resist them by a holy perseverance in the faith which they strive to destroy; and the most glorious triumph we can gain over them, is, when our constancy and firm resolution in the Religion of the true God condemns us to death.   

CHAP. XXVIII.  
BUT seeing Religion cannot be forced, and the service of God is a pure act of the will, it seems, it were injustice to force free men to offer them sacrifices, and would be ridiculous to oblige them to honour the gods in despite of them, seeing they ought to be carried by their own motion and interest to seek their favour; if they be true gods, we should not snatch away the advantage that gives them the liberty of their nature: It should be permitted them to say, I will not have Jupiter favourable to me: who are you that will force my will? I fear not Janus, I laugh at his anger, of which side soever of his two faces he looks upon me, what power have you to meddle with what concerns me? but the same spirit that inspires you to press us to sacrifice to the gods, excites you to ordain us to sacrifice for the health of the Emperors, & by this means the interest of Caesar being mingled with that of the gods, you cannot avoid the necessity of constraining us, and we cannot hinder our lives form being in peril, if we will be faithful to God. So we are come to the second head of high treason, but against a majesty more august than that of the gods: for you render your duties to the Emporour with more fear, and an apprehension more industrious, then to your jupiter you place in Heaven; and I find you do wisely if you knew the true condition of this King of gods: for, tell me, whatsoever he be of the living, is he not to be preserd before the dead? but that which you do is not so much because reason obligeth you to it, as for the consideration of the power present with you, and which before your eyes exerciseth a sovereign authority on the earth: therefore you show yourselves impious towards your gods, in being more afraid of the Princes of the world, then of those gods you profess to worship. Finally there is less danger with you to call all the gods together to be witnesses of a false oath, then to swear falsely by the genius of Caesar only.   

CHAP. XXIX.  
BEfore than you can force us to sacrifice to the gods, it must appear they can preserve the lives of the Emperors, and the rest of men: when you can show us they have this power we are willing to be declared criminals, if we address not our prayers to them for the welfare of our Princes: If the gods you serve; who are no other than the miserable spirits of evil Angels and Devils, work any good: if they that destroy themselves preserve others: if the condemned deliver those that exclaim against them: and lastly if the dead, as you know in your consciences your gods are, protect the living.  
Why defend they not rather their statues, images, and temples, who in my opinion owe their conservation to the soldiers that guard them? But tell me if the matter, whereof these statues are form, be not taken out of the mines of the Emperor's inheritance? and if all these temples depend not absolutely on his will? There are many gods have had experience of Caesa●s anger; and this is an advantage to us that the Prince being favourable to them, hath used his liberality and accorded some privileges to them.  
Now how is it possible that they that are subjects to the Emperor, to whom all the world is subject, should have the welfare of their Emperor in their power? there is more likelihood they have their welfare from Caesar, than Caesar from them.  
What? offend we the majesty of the Prince, because we cast him not under the things appertaining to him? because we turn not into derision the prayers which should be raised up to Heaven for his preservation? and believe not that it is in the hands of the leaden statues of your gods? Truly you appear very pious to your Prince, being you seek his welfare where it is not, and demand it of them who can do nothing, forgetting him that hath the power, to give it; and seeing you persecute men who can demand it, and knowing how to ask it, know also how to obtain it.   

CHAP. XXX.  
As for us, in the prayers we make for the Emperors, we call upon the eternal God, the true God, the living God, this God to whom the Emperors prefer their assistance before that of other gods; they know very well who gave them the empire they possess; and men as they are, know who gave them the spirit wherewith they are animated. They acknowledge there is no other, than this only God, through whose power alone they subsist, to whom they are inferior one degree only, after whom they are next in place; before and above all other that are called gods. Why should they not be greater than these gods, seeing they are masters of all the living, which are more worth than the dead? they consider how far their authority goes, and apprehend the essence of God in proving they can do nothing against him; also seeing God greater and of more power than themselves, they are forced to acknowledge they can do nothing but by him.  
Let the Princes of the earth makes as many designs as they please to subdue Heaven, undertake to carry Heaven in triumph as a captive, command courts of guard to be kept in Heaven, strive to make Heaven tributary, they labour in vain, he is great, because not altogether so great as heaven. To him heaven and all creatures appertain, the Emperor draws his original from the same place whence man drew before he was Emperor: the author of his soul, is the author of his power. It is to him to whom we Christians, address our prayers, make them with hands opened, and lifted up, because innocent; the head bare, because no cause to be ashamed when we pray to God. There are none declares to us the words we are to say, because it is our heart that acteth rather than our tongue: We pray for all the Emperors, and ask of God that he would give them along life; that their Empire enjoy a profound peace; their house a happy concord; their armies be invincible; themselves assisted with good counsels; the people remain in their duties, no trouble arise in the world against their authority. In the end, we forget nothing the Prince can wish for, either as a man, or as an Emperor.  
Nevertheless, we cannot ask these things but of him of whom we know we shall obtain them: as he is the only one that must grant them, we are they alone that must pray for them, because we and none but we are his true subjects, for of all men he is worshipped of none but us, let them put us to death because we follow his doctrine, and offer this rich and fat sacrifice, which he will have us consecrate unto him, to wit a prayer conceived and produced from a chaste body, an innocent soul, a spirit filled with holiness, and not with the grains of incense of little value, the tears of that tree of Arabia, two drops of wine, the blood of an Ox ready to die of old age, and for that reason even to be rejected in true sacrifices; finally after all sort of uncleanness, with a contaminated conscience. In effect there is where withal to wonder that among you, the Priests (vicious as they are) exactly consider it the sacrifices are pure and entire, they examine rather the inwards of the sacrifices, than the insides of them that offer them, then whilst we implore the grace of God for the Emperors, with our hands lifted up, and stretched toward heaven, let irons pierce us, gibbets put us on crosses, fires consume us, knives cut our throats, beasts devour us: A Christian while in prayer lifting up his hands to God is in a condition fit to receive all sorts of punishments; and therefore continue, O magistrates, so affected to justice; ravish our souls, whilst they are in prayers for the welfare of the Emperors, and make a crime of truth and the service of God.   

CHAP. XXXI.  
BUT it may be you imagine our hearts belie our words, that what we come from saying, of the vows we make for the welfare of our Emperors, is but flattery, by which we think to shelter ourselves from the torments prepared for us: But if we use feigning, this feigning is not unprofitable, seeing you admit us to prove what we allege for our justification: we entreat them who believe our Religion takes no care of the preservation of the Emperors, to examine the laws of our God, to read our books which we hide not, and which by divers accidents fall into other hands than ours. They will learn there that it is commanded us by a superabundant charity to pray to God for our enemies, and to wish good to them that persecute us.  
Now have we greater enemies, and ruder persecuters, than those who make offended majesty the ground of the crime they impute unto us? Holy Scriptures content not themselves with this commandment; they have another more precise and clearer, pray, say they, for Kings, Princes, and powers, that you may live in peace in the midst of public tranquillity; for, if the Empire be shaken, all its members suffer a general shaking, it is impossible we should not feel it, because although people take us for strangers, yet seeing we occupy certain places, as well as they, we make a part of the state as well as they, and together with them participate of its good and evil fortune.   

CHAP. XXXII.  
WE have yet an obligation greater than that, of praying to God for the Emperors, all estates of the Empire and prosperity of the Roman affairs. We are assured that the general dissolution that threatens the Universe, and this consummation of ages which must bring such fearful confusions in the world, is retarded so long as the glorious majesty, and triumphant Roman Empire shall last.  
We desire not to be present at the subversion of all nature, and when we pray to God to defer it we pray to him that the power of the Romans may long subsist. If we swear not by the Genius of the Caesars we swear by their welfare, which is more precious than all manner of spirits together. Know you not that they call Genies Devils? we reverence the providence of God in the persons of the Emperors, that raised them above all nations. We know they govern the world with this supreme authority, because God would have it so; and we desire their conservation, because God would have us desire it. And the prayers we make for the welfare of Emperors, are in the same esteem with us, as most solemn oaths.  
As for Devils, or Genies, we are wot to conjure them to drive them away from the bodies of men, whereof they are seized, and render them not the honours due to God only, by swearing by them.   

CHAP. XXXIII.  
BUt why should I stay longer in making known with what sense of Religion and piety Christians honour Emperors? It sufficeth to say we are obliged to render them our duties, as to whom our master hath commanded us so to do: I can easily add, the Emperor is more Emperor of the Christians, then of his other subjects, because the God of the Christians hath established him, in regard whereof we labour more to purpose for his welfare, than other men, because we ask it not only of the only God who alone can grant it us, not only we that demand it who are fitly qualified for obtaining the same, but the prayers moreover which we make for him have so much the more efficacy, as we abase the Emperor's Majesty under that of gods, we submit it to his only power; to the greatness of God, because we equal it not to him; for I give not the name of God to the Emperor, either because I cannot lie, or have not the forehead to mock him withal, or that himself will not have me call him God.  
If he be man, he hath reason to acknowledge that God is more than he, it being sufficient for him to be called Emperor: this name which God hath given him is full of dignity, he that calls him God, denies that he is Emperor, because if he be not man he cannot be Emperor. Even when he is set on his triumphant chariot, and sees himself raised up to the highest degree of humane felicities in this world, he should be advertised then, that he is man. There is a voice that saith, look behind you, remember what pomp soever environs you, you are still but man: we should diminish without doubt very much of his greatness, if in this estate we should call him God, because its a title that belongs not unto him, and contrarily we honour him agreeably to the majesty of his estate, when we call back his spirit to the consideration of what he is, that he may not believe he is a God.   

CHAP. XXXIV.  
AUgustus to whom the Empire owes its establishment because Lord is the firname which we give unto God, would not suffer his subjects to call him their Lord; yet I will make no difficulty to acknowledge the Emperor is my Lord, but it shall be, when not forced to call him my Lord, in the same sense that appertains to my God.  
When I say the Emperor is my Lord, I will not forbear in so saying to preserve my liberty. This kind of reverence makes me not his slave. For I have but one only true Lord, to wit the powerful and Eternal God, who is his God also as well as mine.  
But how can it be that the father of a country is the Lord of the same? cerres, a name of piety is much more agreeable to such a man, than a name of power and authority. Secondly, therefore it is that we call the chief of particular houses, fathers, rather than Lords of families: If Augustus would never take upon him the name of Lord, the● less appearanc of reason to attribute that of God unto Emperors. It's a flattery that's not only infamous, but also of a pernicious consequence: as if forgetting the respect due to the Prince, (to whom this great Empire renders obedience) you should thereby transfer the title of Emperor to another; is it not true you do an extreme injury to the Emperor, whom you acknowledged before for your master? by this caution you render him irreconcilable to you, and his hatred kindled by you, is dreadful to him as well as unto you whom you have honoured with the name of Emperor; You yourselves must be pious to God, if you desire to have God propitious to your Emperor. You must cease to believe there's any other God, by forbearing to call your Emperor so who hath need of the assistance of God.  
But if the pleasure of the world so governs your spirits that you blush not when you call man God against your own knowledge, you ought, at least, to fear this title you attribute to him, be not an ilOmen; for its the making of an imprecation against the life of the Emperor, to call him God before his apotheosis.   

CHAP. XXXV.  
SO than Christians are public enemies, because the honours they render to the Emperors, are neither vain, flattering, nor rash; because that in the sense of the true Religion, they profess, they celebrate their solemn days, rather by the motions of a pure conscience, than the disorders of a filthy deboystnesse, Think you these are such great testimonies of affection, to kindle fires in the midst of the streets, to set up tables there, to make feasts in the public places; to change the face of the City into that of a great Tavern, to spill so much wine upon the pavement, that dirt is made therewith, and afterwards to run in troops, for quarrels, for committing insolences, for seeking of meats answerable to unruly appetites? Must a public shame be the mark of a public joy? must these things be counted seemly on the solemn days of Princes, which at no other time, on no other days are either fitting or decent.  
What? they who live according to the rules of exact discipline, that their prayers may obtain from God the welfare of the Emperor, shall they I say, change the manner of living, thus to honour the Emperor? shall liberty, and corruption pass for piety? What serves to inflame concupiscence shall it be imputed an act of Religion? I confess it is just to condemn us; for why while observers of chastity, temperance, and all other Christian and moral virtues, deny we them the licentiousness of making such like brutish rejoicings and bedlam sports for the welfare of the Emperors? why when all the world besides in joy, shade we not our doors at the same time with laurels? why set we not up candles and burn (as we use to say) in the proverb dayelight with torches? for it is counted a meritoriour thing with you, in celebrating public solemnities to adorn your dwellings with all manner of vicious ornaments agreeable to licentious youth in harlots houses.  
But let us see if they that envy us the name of Romans, and suppose us enemies, to the Roman Empire, fall not into the selfsame crimes they reproach us with that are Christians, let us look into your lives, examine your histories that therein discover whether or no you (the people I mean) who accuse us after this manner, offend not more than we this second Majesty, whether you commit not more than we, this second sacrilege, a crime laid to our charge, because we solemnise not with you the days you feast on in honour to the Emperors, with all kind of beastly ceremonies repugnant to our modesty, chastity and purity. I address myself to this common people of Rome, to this popularity who occupy the seven hills of this great City, and ask them if their language, as Roman ask is, hath spared any of their Caesars. The placcards fixed to the Statues of Tiber, and the Cirques where they bring the wild beasts, that are taught to tear men in pieces, and whether they hear the people in the midst of these public spectacles speak ill of the Prince, can render sufficient testimonies hereof. If nature had given to man a body of as transparent a matter as a looking glass, is there any in this great multitude, that appears not with the image of some new Emperor engraven on his heart, set on a throne lifted up, giving order for the distributing of the presents the Princes are wont to make to the public at his coming to the Empire, at which instant he hears these confused voices which cry, De nostris annis tibi Jupiter augeat annos? From our own years, should Jupiter add more to thine.  
A Christian can neither pronounce these words, nor make wishes for the change of Emperors. You say these are actions of the vulgar, but they are the actions of the Romans, and of those that are the greatest enemies we can have, for its this popularity that cry the loudest against the Christians. But it may be other Orders have been faithful to their Princes to the proportion of the authority they have in the State; that there is come out no conjuration from the body of the Senate, and of the Knights, that the Soldiers have not attempted the Emperor's lives, they are safe in their own palaces: from whence then an Avidius Cassius, a Piscenius Niger, and a Claudius Albinius? from whence those that assieged the Emperor Comodus between the two laurel woods? from whence those in the exercise of the At hletes got the force they employed to strangle that Prince? From whence those that forced the palace with their arms in their hands, with more impudence than the Sigeres had, and the Parthenians? If I be not deceived they are all Romans, all these Parricides are of the Religion of them that profess not Christianity. So that these people, at the same moment they went to commit these attempts so full of impiety, did sacrifice for the welfare of the Emperor, swore by his Genius, showing themselves outwardly much different from that they were within, and gave to the Christians the names of public enemies. But so many persons as are daily discovered to be confederates, or approvers of this detestable party made against Severus, these rests of so great a harvest of parricides; what laurels newly gathered, and covered with branches, did they not put up before their doors? with what elevated and lighted torches did they not black the entry of their houses withal? what rich and magnificent tables did they not set up in the chief places of Rome? not to take part in the public joys, but that by the occasion of a solemnity ordained for another, they made the Deities they called on understand, that the prayers they had conceived, and changing in their minds the name of Prince, by the image of this pomp, they consecrated that of their hopes.  
They that consult with Astrologers, Divines, Augurs, and Magicians concerning the welfare of their Emperors, render them all theseduties; these curious sciences were taught men by the revolted Angels. God hath forbid the use thereof, and therefore Christians male no use of them no not to my what should be the success of their own affairs; but it is true, one cannot without crime inquire of these impostors of the welfare of the Prince. For who can have an interest in it, but he that hath a design up on his death, who wisheth it, hopes it, and expects something should happen against it? We do not inform ourselves of the fortune of our neighbours, with the same intention we inform ourselves of that of our masters. The curiosity that produceth the affection of blood hath other motions than that which enters in the mind of a subject by the hatred it carries to servitude.   

CHAP. XXXVI.  
NOw seeing they who had the names of Romans, were enemies of the State, why do they deny us the title of Romans, we whom they call enemies? but cannot we be Romans without being enemies, because it is found they were enemies who passed for Romans? Certes the piety we should, have to the Emperors, the judgement of Religion, with which we are obliged to pray for their welfare, and the testimonies of the fidelity due to them, consist not in these exterior duties whereof we have spoken; contrarily under the veil of these ceremonies men may hide their ill will; but it consists in the ceremonies of the actions of virtue that commands the law of God, and that Christians are bound to practise, as much for the Emperor in particular, as for all the world in general; for the good we do, is not a tribute we owe but to our Prince. Our good works distinguish not the qualities of persons, because we labour not for ourselves, and look not for the praise, or recompense of men, but of God, who hath a faithful register of our good actions, and gives us a rich recompense when they are indifferent, and have not for an object any other consideration in the world. We live with our Emperors even as with our neighbours.  
It is equally forbidden us to wish evil, to do evil, and to speak evil of our neighbours, yea to think evil of whosoever it be: that which is not lawful for us to undertake against the person of the Emperor, is not permitted us against any other person whatsoever: that which is not lawful for us to undertake against a particular, is perhaps less lawful against him God hath raised up to so great dignity.   

CHAP. XXXVII.  
IN effect, if (as we have said here before), it be commanded us to love our enemies; remains there any we must hate? if revenging injury received, be forbid us, as also to commit the same faults they fall into that have offended us; remains there any one, to whom it is lawful for us to do a displeasure unto? judge of it by your own knowledge? How often by a blind obedience, render you as mach to your passions, as to your laws; you employ the sword and fire against Christians? How, often do these people, being our enemies, of their own accord, without your authority, assault us with stones, or burn us? Certes, they are so enraged against us, that during the furies of the Bacchinales, they spare not, even Christians that are dead, but trouble the rest of their graves, they violate their Sepulchers, which are as sanctuaries of the dead, they draw forth their bodies, not to be known whose bodies they are, after mangled by them, which with extreme inhumanity they tear and drag in the streets. In the midst of all these outrages, have you observed that these people, Who (as you think) have form so strange a conspiracy, and on the other side might be animated enough for revenge by the punishments, wherewith you make them lose their lives, endeavoured any thing against you to ressent the evil treating they have received? Think you that they want an occasion? When in one night only a small number of torches would be enough to satisfy their revenge, if with us it were permitted to render evil for evil; but God forbid we should do so.  
A Religion that is all Divine ought not to revenge by the instigation of men; and must not think it strange to suffer that which is made use of to prove them. If we would declare against you, as open, rather than pursue you as secret enemies, might we not have forces and troops enough? It may be the Moors and Marcomanes, the Parthians, or whatsoever people they are, shut up in the bounds of the Country they inhabit, make a greater number of men, than they that are spread throughout all the Universe and have no other limits then that of the world. Our original is but of late, and we fill already all that your power acknowledgeth, Cities, Fortresses, Isles, provinces, the assemblies of the people the armies also, the wards, and tenths of Rome, the, Palace, the Senate, and the public places; Finally we leave you but the Temples. What wars were we not able to undertake? With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves, although we should be the weaker; we that suffer ourselves so willingly to be killed, if in our Religion it were, not rather lawful to let ourselves be killed, then to kill others? We would also make war against you without taking up arms, and casting ourselves into a revolt; It were enough not to live with you, and to separate ourselves, our divorce would print shame in your foreheads. For if the Christians who make so great a multitude of all sorts of persons, should abandon you, to retire into some Country of the world dispersed from all society; truly the loss of so many Citizens, of what condition soever they are, would disparage your government and also our retreat would be a rude punishment to you; without doubt the solitude that would remain with you; this silence of all things, this general astonishment of nature, even as if all the world were dead, would frighten you, you might go seek subjects to command, there would remain to you more enemies than Citizens: now you have more Citizens than enemies, because there are greater number of Christians among you. But if we were not near you, who would snatch you a way from these secret enemies, whose malignant operations make so strange a confusion in your minds, and so horrible an alteration of your healths? I have heard speak of the possession of Devils, where with you are tormented from whence we deliver you freely and Without reward; if we had the spirit of revenge, it were enough to satisfy us, that these corrupted spirits might at all times seize on your bodies, and that entrance therein were always open to them. But as you do not think of that you ought, to wit, so dear a protection, you cease not to declare a people, to be your enemies, who do you no hurt, whose assistance is so absolutely necessary to you. It is true we are enemies, yet not of men, but of their errors.   

CHAP. XXXVIII.  
THen being you see no evil can be imputed to our Religion, and on the contrary, the piety it teacheth, is saving to men, you should let them have better usage than that have had: you should, approve of them as of a law full and permitted society, beacause there is no such thing committed by them as is wont to be feared from factious societies, and such as is forbid by the laws.  
If I be not deceived, the cause why Magistrates forbid them, is the care they have of the public tranquillity: that the City be not divided in parties, for that sooner disturbs all the orders of the Roman people, makes tumults in the midst of the assemblies of the multitude, and also disquiets the use of the lawful pleasures of this people, when the pleasures they affect with so much desire possess their eyes; for it is subject to receive divers impressions. They interest themselves in the factions made by the ambition of evil Citizens. They share their affections among them, and one may fear these disorders now more than ever, because we live in a time, in which men fell their services to commit violences. As for us, as we care not for gaining honour, and possessing great matters of this world, nothing obligeth us to assemble ourselves against the prohibitions of Laws; and it's far from our thoughts, to meddle with public affairs. We acknowledge, but one only republic of all men, which is the world; We renounce your shows, as we condemn their divers originals, by the knowledge, we have that they are the effects of superstition and idolatry.  
Finally, we regard not what passeth there, have no commerce with the furies of the Cirques, with the unchastity, of the Theatre, the vain exercise of the Athletes, and the cruelties of the amphitheatre. If lawful for the Epicurians to feign a volupruousnesse to themselves, wherein they established the truth of the Sovereign good. In what then do we offend you if we take other pleasures than yours? but if we will be ignorant of all kind of delights, me thinks it is not for your interest; and if there be any loss, it falls all upon us. We reject, say you, the things that please you: we have reason so to do, because our pleasures are not yours.   

CHAP. XXXIX.  
AFter showing Christian Religion (which you call a factious society) innocent of all crimes by you attributed to it; its time I discover unto you its manners, to the end, that having refuted the evil wherewith it is reproached, I show you the good wherewith it is replenished. We make a body, or by certain knowledge all conspire in the service of the true God, where we live united under one Discipline, and one only Faith, or, by a happy conjunction, conceive all of us the like hope of eternal felicity. We assemble together by troops in our prayers to God, as if thereby we would carry as by force, the grant of whatever prayers we present unto him; it is a violence that is agreeable to him; we pray to him for the Emperors, their Ministers, the magistrates that have the exercise of their power, for the politic estate, the tranquillity of the Empire, the retarding of the general dissolution that must put an end to all things. We assemble together to read the holy Scriptures, and we read them according to the condition of the times, what serves either to admonish, or confirm the faithful. In effct the Scriptures nourish our faith, lift up our hope, and assure the confidence we have in God, nevertheless we cease not to confirm our discipline by the strength of precepts we continually repeat.  
In these assemblies we make exhortations, and threatenings, and exercise Divine censure, that banisheth sinners, and excludes them from our communion we judge them with very much circumspection, because we know that God is in the midst of us, and sees what we do; and certainly it is a great fortelling of the judgement God will, one day, pronounce against the wicked, when the Church, moved with the enormity of their crimes, darts out upon wilful sinners the thunderbolts of excommunication, and deprives them from the participation of its prayers, its society, and all sort of holy commerce with it. In our assemblies there are Bishops that preside, and have authority over all the faithful committed to their charge; they are approved by the suffrages of them whom they ought to conduct, and it is not bribes that acquire them this honour, but testimonies given of their good life. For in the Church of God nothing is done by the allurement of gifts: if there be among us any kind of treasure, the money laid up makes our Religion not ashamed; neithercan it be said what brought unto us is a tribute, or price paid to participate of its ho inesse: everyone contributes a little sum, at the end of the month, or, when he will: but it is, if he will, and can: for none are constrained to give: if we get any alms, it is of good will, riches gathered in this manner are as the pledges of piety; we do not confound them in eating and drinking with excess; we make not use of them for the fowl and loathsome exercise of gluttony: but we employ them in feeding the poor, and burying them, in comforting children that are destitute of parents and goods, in helping old men who have spent their best days in the service of the faithful, in helping the poor that have lost by shipwreck what they had, and in assisting them that serve in the mines, are banished into Islands, or shut up in prisons, because the profess the Religion of the true God, that during the time they suffer for the confession of his name they may be nourished with the stock of the Church. But it's a strange thing that this charity among us gives occasion to some to blame us. See, say they, how they love one another; this astonitheth them, because they hate one another, See, say they, how they are ready to die one for another, hut as for them they are ready, to kill one another; & I think, they have nothing to say against the name of Christian we give one another, for with them paternal names, & the affinity that blood produceth, expresseth but a feigned affection, & disguised amity. It must not seem strange to you if we call one another brethren, seeing we are all your brethren by the right of nature, which is mother to us all. We have the same principles as you, but you renounce the humanity common to us; because you are evil brethren to us: but with how much more reason are they called and esteemed brethren; who acknowledge one same father, to wit, the living God, that have received the same spirit of Sanctity, who being shut up in the same darkness, and ignorance, as children in the belly of their mother, came forth happily, and in opening their eyes were frighted at the sight of the same light, which is that o● truth? But, it may be, it is not believed we are brethren indeed, because there are no tragedies, that speak of the bloody disorders of Christians, or because we are brethren, but unto the common usage of the goods of the world, which with you have the power to dissolve the union of brotherhood; therefore, as we live with the same intelligence, as if we had all but one spirit, and one soul, we make no difficulty to put all things between us in common; we have nothing in particular but our wives, of all things in the world there is nothing but wives, whereof we reject community; and, on the contrary, among them, of their wives only there is community with other men, for as they have used to desile the marriages of their friends, they prostiture also marriages with very much patience to the unchastity of their friends: that which they have learned, if I be not deceived, in the school of a Greek Socrates, and Roman Cato, who have sometimes lent their wives to their friends, those they married to have children by, to be engendered by others than themselves and out of their houses. I know not if they lent them against their wills; for why should they have any care of their chastity, whom their husbands abandon so lightly? O famous example of a Grecians wisdom, and Roman severity! A Philosopher and a Censor make a shameful trade of the chastity of their wives.  
Now seeing we live together with so much charity, that all our goods are common; why should they wonder if we make good cheer? for it is one of the excesses you reproach us with, besides the infamous crimes where of you accuse our repasts, you reproove us with prodigality; it may be it is of us Diogenes hath said, the Megarians make feasts, as if they would die tomorrow and they build also, as if they would never die. Certes, each of you fees easier the straw in his neighbour's eye, than the beam in his own. The air is corrupted with the ill scents that go out of the mouths of so many people, that spew in the streets.  
What, the Saliens could not make one repast, unless they found some body that lent them money to supply their expenses? your stewards would be troubled to make ready the accounts of the money spent in feasts, where you vow the tenth of your goods to Hercules? In Athens they choose the excellentest cooks to celebrate the feast of the Apaturies, wherein the midst of their deboystnes, they call upon the Deity of father Denis; the soldiers who have the charge of watching by night, to hinder the burning of the City, are troubled at the sight of the smoke that riseth in the air, in making ready supper in honour of Serapis? And yet they will talk of nothing, but the excess of the Tables of the Christians? But you need but consider the name given to our repast to know the quality thereof. They express themselves with the same word that signifies dilection with the greeks, whatsoever the cost is that is made, it is profitable, for they gain always in this expense; because it hath piety for its foundation. It's a sweetness, wherewith we comfort the want of the poor, but we do not treat them, as you those infamous gluttons, who glory in selling you their liberty for the price of the good bits, where with they fill their bellies in the midst of a thousand indignities. But we will have the least served with our goods, because we know they, among all men, are, the most acceptable to God.  
Then seeing our banquets have so honest an end, consider what our Discipline should be in the rest of our actions, even those which more concern the duties of Religion; it permits nothing that is dishonest, nor far from modesty. Before we go to table we are fed with heavenly meat; which is the prayer we make to God; we eat as much, as is necessary to satisfy one's appetite, we drink as much as is permitted to persons that have a care of their purity. They that sit there take their refection with so much temperance, as they may remember they are obliged to worship God, even at night. They entertain one another as people that know God hears what they say. After the repast done, and washed their hands, and lighted the candles, they are invited to praise God, and to sing Psalms, taken out of the holy Scripture, or Hymns; every one composeth according to the capacity of his mind. By this it may be known, it they have committed any excess at table; as the repast began with prayer, so it ends; they go forth, no● in divers troops to defile their hands with the blood of men, not in several bands running in the streets, not to do insolences; but with the same care they had in coming in, preserving their modesty and chastity.  
Finally, Christians retire with so much staidness, that we may very well see, they are not fed so much with corporal meats, as the substance of heavenly and holy discipline. Certes, it were but reason, that this society of the Christians should be reputed unlawful, if it were like to that the laws forbid; it were but good reason it should be condemned, if it were not different to that which deserves to be condemned; if one would reproach it with the same things wherewith they accuse factious societies. But tell me, did we ever assemble to procure the hurt of any one? As we are separated, we are the same also in a body: as we are in particular, so we are in general that is to say, in whatsoever estate we are found, we offend no body, we injure no body; when any virtuous or godly people are associated, when any pious or chaste persons assemble together, their union should not be called a faction, but a lawful society.   

CHAP. XL.  
BUT, contrarily, the title of factious appertains truly to them, who form intelligences of undoing good men, whom they hate, who, by a wicked combination, lift up their voices against the blood of innocents', and ground not their hatred but on the false opinion they have, that Christians are the cause of all the calamities arrive in the world, and evils that people suffer.  
If Tiber overflows, if Nilus have not watered the plains, if Heaven hath stopped its course, and not poured its reins here below, if the earth quake, there be famine, or plague, immediately they cry out, cast the Christians to the Lions. What is one Lion able to devour so many Christians? But consider, I pray you, how many evils have afflicted the Universe & Cities which make a part thereof before the Empire of Tiberius that is to lay, before the birth of Jesus Christ. We read that the Island of Hierapolis, Delos, Rhode, and Co, were heretofore lost with many thousands of men that inhabited them. Plato reports, that the Atlantic Sea hath covered an Island of a greater exten●, than Asia, and Africa together. An Earthquake made the Sea of Corinth appear dry, and the impetuosity of the waves separating Lucarna from the firm land of Italy, and banishing it from its continent, hath made an Island, which is now known by the name of Sicily. Certainly all these accidents could not happen, but the people must have suffered strange misfortunes. But, I will not only say, where were the Christians, the contemners of your gods, but your gods themselves, when the deluge covered & drowned all the world, or (as Plato supposeth) the flat countries only? for, indeed, we cannot but doubt your gods are since this general, inundation, the Cities where they took birth, & where they died, and those they built render testimonies thereof: they would not have been, they had not lasted till our time, if their original were not after this Universal disorder, when the justice of God punished all the world? Palestina had not yet served for a retreat to the people of Israel at their going out of Egypt. The jews, whose law is the source of the Christian Religion, was not yet established, when as two Cities near to this province, Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by a rain of fire: the Country retaineth still the odor of that ancient burning, and if the trees bear any fruits, they are fruits only to the sight, so soon as one toucheth them they are turned into ashes. Tuscany, and Campania did not complain of the Christians, when fire from Heaven consumed the City of Vulsina, and that of Pompeyeses, was burnt by flames the neighbour mountain vomited. Nobody, as yet, called on the true God at Rome, when Hannibal, after he had got the great victory of Cans, by the number of gold rings he got of the Romans, and measured by the bushel, which made the count of the men killed in the battle. All people indifferently adored your gods; when the Gauls came with their arms in their hands unto the Capitol, and besieged it: but is it not a powerful argument against your error which we see in your histories, that when Cities were forced, temples and walls had the same destiny? for, from, thence I boldly conclude, that your gods send not these evils on the earth, because they are mortal, as well as you. If discover the source of the evils, wherewith the race of men have been afflicted in all ages, know it hath been their ingratitude hath excited against them the anger of God. For, they have always offended this great author of nature, because not acknowledged the graces received of him. He hath given them the knowledge of a part of his greatness, in exposing before their eyes the beauty of the Universe, which publisheth his honour so highly; and instead of employing themselves in so noble a search; they feigned to themselves other gods, to whom they have rendered the honour that appertained not, but to him alone.  
After this fault, they committed another, which is, in not seeking out him that is the master, and example of innocence, and who is also the judge and revenger of sin, abandoning themselves to all sorts of vices, and shamefully defiling themselves with execrable crimes: the which, if they had looked into, as they were obliged, without doubt, they had known him, and in knowing, honoured him, and after that had sooner resented his favours, than his wrath. Let them not then trouble themselves about the cause of these evils, but know they are the effects of the fury of this same God, who, in all ages, hath given them proofs of his indignation, before they heard speak of the name of Christians. Man this wicked race that enjoyed at case all the goods God created for him, before all false gods? adored by him were forged, will he not comprehend that these evils came from the hand of him to whom he hath not rendered homage for his goods? In sum, his ingratitude is his crime, he hath offended the majesty of God, in failing to make due acknowledgement of him. Yet if make comparison of the calamities of the time past, with this time, we shall find since the very moment God sent the first Christians on the earth, public evils have been more tolerable then before they were. It's very easy to discover the reason of it, the innocence whereof they make profession hath diminished the iniquities of the world, and begun to turn away, with their prayers, the just vengeance of God. But, see here a manifest proof of your blindness. During the great draught of summer, when an excessive heat stayed the rain, and hindered that it fell not on the earth, in the time when every one desired water, that the fruits of the earth might come to maturity, you lose not the use of your pleasures, and deboistness, and among the pastimes you take in your baths, your taverns, and your unchaste houses, you demand of Jupiter, by divers kind of sacrifices, and by the use of many superstitions, the help whereof you have need; you ordain public prayers, where the people being baresooted invoke the affistance of the Gods, you seek in the Capitole that which you cannot find, but in heaven; you stay till the ceilings of your temples be changed into clouds, to give you rain, and think to obtain that you desire, without addressing yourself to God, and turning yourself towards heaven, where he pours down his graces upon men. Our proceedings are much different from yours, in these public necessities we mortify ourselves by fastings; we practise continency, with all the severity we can; we abstain, for a time, from all corporal nourishment, we take sackcloth and ashes, as marks of our affliction; and in this condition, we strike at heaven with our cries; we constrain him to have pity on us; we make him ashamed of our misery; and when we have overcome the anger of God, and pulled down his mercy, you honour your Jupiter, and thank him for a benefit comes not from him.   

CHAP. XLI.  
CErtainly, that which you say unjustly of Christians, Christians may, with good reason, say of you, that you do nothing but hurt the society of men, and by your crimes, every day, draw public evils upon them; for the evil of punishment is the effect of the neglect you have of God, and the worship you render to statues: in a word it's more credible, that God neglected by mankind, should be sooner irritated against you, than those that receive his services, otherwise the Gods you honour would be very unjust, if in punishing Christians they make no difficulty to punish them also that adore them. They should separate their servants from the condition of Christians, their enemies. You likewise oppose to us that this argument resists the justice of our God; because he suffers that they who serve him feel the public evils, even as the profane that do not acknowledge him. But observe the order our God hath established, and when comprehended it, you will forbear this objection. He that hath ordained at the end of all ages the judgement of men, and to distribute to alrecompenses or everlasting punishments, puts no difference between them before the consummation of time, doth not, before hand, make a separation of the good and evil, but reservesit for his last judgement; in the mean time, he equally treats all mankind, whether he shows them mercy, or reproves them in his anger; He will have both good and bad things common to his servants and the profane; that we may, in the society of the world, without any distinction, be all tried by his clemency and severity; as for us, as we have learned all these things of him, we love his clemency, and fear his severity; contrarily, you neglect both the one and the other, and from thence it comes that all the miseries the world receives from the hand of God, are, to us, voices from heaven, that admonish, and exhort us to do well, and to you, they are chastisements of your crimes. In the midst of these calamities, we feel no displcasure, for nothing ties us to the world, and we have no interest, but to be gone ere long; besides, we know, they are the disorders of your lives, that procure these evils, wherewith the world is afflicted; and if there falls any part upon us, because we are mingled with you, we take occasion to rejoice, because it puts before our eyes the truth of the holy scriptures, that confirm in us the confidence we have in the promises made to us; that fortisies our faith, and assures our hope. If it be true, they are the Gods you honour afflict you so cruelly because of us, how is it possible you continue, still to worship so ungrateful, and unjust gods; seeing, contrarily, to injure the Christians, they should rather assist, and defend you?   

CHAP. XLII.  
BUt, after all these crimes, they object against us, and say, we are not any way profitable in commerce of the world. I know not how that can be said of us, seeing we live with you, we use the same meats, and the same habits as you, we have been brought up the one as the other, and the necessities of life are common between us. For, we are not like the Brachmanes, or the Gymnosophists of India, we retire not into the woods; we banish not ourselves from all things necessary for life, we continually remember, we have great obligations to our God, our Lord, our Creator: we reject not any good thing, his goodness hath produced, for our use: we contain ourselves in a just moderation, that we may not take with excess, or without having need: we remain with you in the world, but not separate from the ordinary commerce: we are not without your public places, your markets, your baths, your shops, your Inns, your Fairs. We sail, bear arms, cultivate the ground, and traffic with you; so that we mingle our functions with yours; and make open profession of working for your service. I cannot comprehend how you can imagine we are not profitable to you, and that we contribute nothing to the offices of society, seeing it is with it, and by it we live: But if I do not assist at your ceremonies, if I celebrate not your feasts, yet I am a man as well that day as other days. During the Saturnals I go not into the bath before day, because I will not employ the hours of night and day unprofitably, yet I wash myself at a convenient hour, that the bath may serve to preserve my health and conserve my life and blood: is it not enough, When I am dead, that all my body grows stiff and pale after it is washed? the days on which are represented games in honour of your Gods, I eat not publicly, as you do, according to the custom of these wretched creatures, who at the instant they are to be devoured by wild beasts, fill their bellies before all the world for their last repast; yet in any other place where I eat, I eat the same meats as you do. I buy no flowers to make a garland to put on my head: what is it to you what use I make of the flowers I have bought? me thinks they are more pleasing to me when they are free, unbound, and scattered without order. But, if we must put them into the form of a garland, we are used, when they are in this condition, to put them near our noses to smell to them. Let them that put them on their heads, try if it be more to purpose to smell by the hairs, or by the organ of the smelling part? I am not at your shows, but, if my appetite moves me to taste the good bits that are sold in these assemblies, I will rather buy them in the places where they are ordinarily sold. I buy no incense: if the merchants of Arabia complain on it, let these strangers know more wares are spent, and with greater profuseness in burying Christians, then to sum the images of the God. You say, the tributes of the temples are less every day by the malice of men, that there is less given to them that keep those holy places; but hardly can we suffice to give comfort both to men, and to your gods that implore our charity. We think, it is enough to use liberality towards them that ask it of us: Let Jupiter give us his hand, and he shall not take it away empty; we will do him the favour, which our mercy refuseth to no body: We distribute more goods, in every street, than your Religion, with all its sacrifices do in all your temples; and, on the other side, if the tributes of the temple suffer any diminution, the republic is obliged for her own to the piety of the Christians, because they pay what they owe with the same fidelity, which makes them abstain from all frauds, by which men are wont to retain unjustly the goods of others. If one consider but the loss the public receives by these tricks and lies, where you strive to frustrate her rights, it will be found that the damage your evil conscience causeth to the State in this only ran-counter, carries away quite all the good you can do in any other thing whatsoever.   

CHAP. XLIII.  
I Acknowledge there are certain persons that have reason to complain of us, and may truly say, there is nothing to be gained for them of the Christians. They are first these infamous corrupters of chastity; these brokers of foul pleasures, and dishonest loves, these wretched creatures that serve the vildest ministers of unchastity; after these, Murderers, they which meddle with giving of poison, and Magicians, and finally soothsayers, Deviners, and Astrologers. But it is very profitable in this life, to be unuseful to these people; Yet in what manner soever it be, that our Religion causeth damage to your affairs, it hath neither lost where withal to recompense you by the help you may expect from it. How much do you esteem them, I say not them that deliver you from the power of Devils, them that pray for you to the true God: But, them you may have near you, as assured guards, from whom there is nothing to be feared?   

CHAP. XLIIII.  
IN effect, there is cause to wonder your passion is so irregular, that in prosecuting the Christians, you make no difficulty to take away the life of men that are profitable to the common wealth. The State receives by your injustice an evident damage, and important loss: and yet no body looks to it: no body weighs of what consequence the sufferings are of so many persons of good life, and the punishment of so great a number of innocents'. We speak as boldly of the Christians you put to death, for we have an unreproachable testimony of their integrity, which we take also from your registers, Sirs, who are employed, every day, in judging those that are kept in prisons, and who terminate their processes, by the sentences you give against them, of all the malefactors accused before you, of so many sorts of crimes; is there any of them charged with Murder, Robbery, Sacrilege, and other faults, to whom they impute also that he is a Christian? or else, when Christians are presented to be punished as criminals, because they are Christians, is there, any amongst them, whose life like that of other prisoners? all the faulty wherewith your prisons are so filled that they are overcharged, are of your Religion; they are also of your Religion that make the mines groan under the weight of their blows, they are the wretched creatures of the same Religion you are wherewith the wild beasts fill their enttayles. All these poor criminals, your Citizens breed up to make them cruelly kill one another before a bloody people, have the same opinion you have of the deity.  
Finally, among all these wretched creatures, there's not one Christian, unless he be charged by justice, because of his name Christian: Or, if there be found a Christian attainted of any crime, he hath no more the name Christian, because he hath lost that Divine quality, in losing his innocence.   

CHAP. XLV.  
ARe there none then in the world innocent but we, what marvel? it must needs be so; and otherwise it cannot be: Forasmuch as God, having taught us innocency; we know it perfectly, as revealed from a perfect master, and keep it faithfully as dispensed by one who will not be mocked by us in a seeming obedience unto what he commands. As for you its the opinion of men that makes you innocent, and their rules that govern all; thence it comes your injunctions establish not fully the truth of this excellent virtue; and, as the things most offectuall to perfection are there wanting, so have they not the power of imprinting fear, in the hearts of those, that owe them obedience. For, tell me, what light hath humane learning to teach that which is truly good? What authority humane power to free men from embracing the true happiness? If it be easy to be deceived by the one, it is no less common to neglect the other.  
Let us consider a little your laws, and compare them with those of our God; which law is more accomplished, that which saith, Thou shalt not kill: or that which saith Thou shalt not be angry? which perfecter, that which forbids adultery, or which turns the eyes from the object, surprising the mind when idle, causeth evil desires to enter into the soul thereby? which law wiser, that which condemns evil deeds, or forbids evil speakings? ●hich purer, that which permits not to do wrong to others, or which suffers not so much as to revenge wrong after done unto ourselves? but this is not all; for you must know your laws, which seemed to set out innocence, whereof notwithstanding they represent but an imperfect image, have borrowed that they have of good from the law of God as far more ancient than what in laws established by men.  
I have already spoken of the time wherein Moses lived, and therefore not necessary to repeat what before said, to show the laws then published to be the first, before all other humane laws since, which have not the virtue of that primitive law: for, I pray you, what force have those laws, whereof men may avoid the severity because very often their crimes are covered, and we may sometimes freely violate them when it is by accident, or constraint they are offended by us. But we need do nothing to make them be neglected, but this consideration, that the punishments are not of long continuance, and end with death: so Epicurus mocks at all sorrows and torments that afflict the body, because he saith, one should not apprehend them it mean, and tolerable, and if violent they will not last long. As for us, who are to answer before a God, who knows the most hidden things, and that his justice will revenge the faults of men, with pains that shall never end, it is with good reason we labour only to attain true innocence; the perfect knowledge we have of so rare a virtue, the difficulty we have to hide our actions from him that sees all, the horror of torments this great God prepares for the wicked, torments that are not only long, but eternal, obliging us to conserve purity, whereof Jesus Christ hath given us an example; for we fear this God, the judges ought also to fear that condemn them, whose hearts are touched with this fear; that is to say, Christians, who fear God, and not man, whatsoever power man hath on the earth to afflict them with.   

CHAP. XLVI.  
I Think, I have cleared the Christians of all the crimes, wherewith calumnious imputations make men thirst for their blood. Explained all that tends to our justification; shown, by what means, we can prove the verity of the grounds of our Religion, in that I have produced the saith of antiquity consistent with the Holy Scriptures, and the confession spiritual powers make of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. He that shall be bold enough to make us pass for impious, should not rest on the skill of vain eloquence, and the weak endeavours of fine words: but he must make his proof in the same form, as we have established ours. Certes, these testimonies are of great authority, but the admirable fruits our Doctrine produceth, the knowledge whereof is become public by the commerce we have in the world, makes so downright a conflict with rude incredulity, that to defend herself, she is forced to say our profession, hath no matter in it Divine, but is only a sect of Philosophy, that obligeth Christians to rank themselves there, in the exercise of moral virtues. The Philosophers, saith she, teach and practise the same things, Innocence, Justice, Patience, Temperance, and Chastity. If our Doctrine be like that of Philosophers, if the comparison you make of us with them be just, how comes it, we are not treated as they are? for with you their sects are tolerated, and you do not punish them? But, contrarily, the Doctrine we publish is forbid by your laws, and exposeth us to all sorts of punishments? or else, why are not they, you esteem like unto us, forced to do the same things you impose upon us as necessary, and which we refuse on peril of our lives? for, is there any that forceth a Philosopher to sacrifice, or swear by their gods, or to light candles at noon? But, contrarily, they have the liberty to overthrow the worship of your gods openly, and to reprehend your superstitions in the books they compose, which when they make, you commend them, evidencing thereby that you approve of their opinions. Many among them rail impudently against the Princes of the world, and you suffer them, and the justice of the land hath rather recompenses than punishments for them. They set up Statues for them, they recompense them with rewards, and we hear not that they are delivered to the fury of wild beasts, and must avow that it is with a great deal of reason, because they bear the name of Philosophers, and not Christians. This name Philosopher driveth not away Devils how should they drive them away, seeing they put them in the rank of gods, and take them and Devils, to be for one and the same nature? Socrates had always this word in his mouth, if my Daemon permit me; and the same Philosopher, who witnesseth he had the same light of truth, when he taught we must not honour the gods, ceased not to ordain when giving up the Ghost, they should sacrifice a cock to AEsculapius, I think it was an act of gratitude he would render to Apollo, father of AEsculapius, because he said, Socrates was the wisest of all men: O strange imprudence of a God he bore witness of the wisdom of a man, who denied the power of the gods. Now as truth is wont to kindle hatred, whosoever is faithful to it and presents it all pure, and without disguise, is liable to be checked by the lovers of this passion; but contrarily every man that makes profession of corrupting truth, acquireth by an action so detestable the favour of those who persecute it. The Philosophers will appear followers of the truth; and because glory is the end they propose to themselves, in feigning to love it, they corrupt it; but the Christians that have their salvation for an object, earnestly desire it, with an holy necessity, and after they have met with it, conserve its purity, and publish it without bringing any change. It is not true then, whatsoever you imagine, that the knowledge and Discipline of Philosophers are like to ours; but there are other arguments of difference between them and us. What is this Thales Prince of Physicians who when Croesus solicited him to deliver what believe with certainty of God? Did he not put him off with sundry delays to think further upon it? every handicraftmen, the least Christian knows God, and is able to show how his greatness is to be comprehended. He shows by the sensible things all that humane understanding finds in God, although Plato affirms this author of the Universe cannot easily be known, and when know him, it is hard to express his nature, and make his essence be conceived. Besides, if you object to us that the practice of moral virtues is common between the Philosophers and us, let us examine them in particular. And to begin with chastity, I read the Athenians gave sentence against Socrates, as a defiler of young boys; a Christian man as making love to a woman only, accustomes not to seek a brutish pleasure in changing the sex which nature hath ordained. I have heard a Phrynè hath been made use of for Diogenes deb●ystnesse, and submitted her body to his fowl affections That Speusippus a Philosopher of plato's school, was killed n adultery; a Christian is permitted to accompany with his lawful wife only. Democritus deprived himself of his sight, because he could not look upon women without lusting after them, and afflicted himself when he could not enjoy them, and so by consequence witnessed his own incontinence.  
A Christian hath eyes, and yet in looking upon women, sees them not; that is, with any unlawful concupiscence, being wholly blind in his mind to such desires; though quick sighted enough to behold such like objects with the eyes of his body. If question of common civility, behold Diogenes with his filthy feet in greater arrogance treads on sumptuous carpets, than Plato whose sumptuous carpets they were; Neither is a Christian high minded towards the poor. If speak of moderation, Pythagoras among the Turiens, and Zeno among them of Priene, play the Tyrants, when as a Christian hath not the ambition to be in the least power or office over the people among whom he lives; if we treat of contentment in mind, Lycurgus will famish himself, because the Lacedæmonians went about but to reform and amend his laws; A Christian even when condemned to die, is thank full to those that condemn him. If question of faithfulness in things committed to another's trust, Anaxagoras refuseth the restitution of goods left with him, to his guests; A Christian even by those that are not Christians is reckoned trusty, because made proof they have of his fidelity. If touch on lowliness, I find Aristotle, made his friend Hermias go shamefully from the place he had assumed; A Christian offers wrong to no body, no not his greatest enemy. The same Aristotle, in design to govern Alexander, the easier, flatters him with as much infamy, as Plato Dionysius, when for good cheer he soothed up the Tyrant in his liberty. Aristippus, in the midst of his purple, carrying the marks of great severity in his looks, gives himself over to all kind of excesses: And Hippias, when about to betray his country, is suddenly murdered: an act of barbarous revenge never yet undertook by a Christian to a man linked with him in the interest of the same Religion, though with never so much fury persecuted by them. But some will say even among us, there are a people that gives themselves the liberty of doing evil, that free themselves from subjection to our laws, from any what ever exact observation of what legally commanded by us. It is true, there are some such, but so soon as they fall into this disorder, we hold them on more for Christaians'. But, contrarily, these Philosophers, notwithstanding the irregularity of their lives, keep still with you the name of wise men, and the honour which appertaineth to so glorious a title; so than what resemblance is there between a Philosopher, and a Christian, a Disciple of Greece, and a Disciple of Heaven, a mind desirous of vain reputation, and a soul that seeks his salvation only? A man that is virtuous in words only, and he that is so indeed: one that is wholly occupied in doing good, and another that makes no conscience in committing what ever wickednesses: he that corrupts the truth to establish error, and he that by subduing error renders to truth the beauty of its original: he that turns truth out of doors as a thief, and steals it away from the sight of men, and he that keeps it faithfully, that it may be known by all the world.   

CHAP. XLVII.  
THe antiquity of the holy Scriptures, which I have heretofore discovered, is a famous testimony, which may serve me still in this place, to let you know this holy book is a treasure from whence these wise men of the world who are come since, have taken all they have left to posterity: this proof is proper, but long; and the only thing that hinders me to undertake it, is the fear I have to make too great a volume. Is there any Poet or Sophister that hath not drawn what he hath of excellent concernment from the rich sources of the Prophets? It is in these delicious fountains the Philosophers plunged themselves to qualify the desires of their minds, and some people have also banished Philosophy from them, as the Thebans, those of Sparta, and of Argos, because their Philosophers corrupting what they had read in the writings of these men sent from God, composed pestilent doctrines, which a man could not hear but with horror: so these people, who as I have said, laboured not but for glory, and had no affection but for eloquence, having met in the holy Scriptures, with things that might be gainful to them made their profit of them, and as they had no intention but to Content their curiosity, accommodated the same to their designs, not acknowledging its holiness, which should have hindered them from corrupting it; and not understanding well the sense, then covered with clouds, and which the jews themselves, for whom the Prophets had written it, apprehended not, but through shadows that wrapped them up. They saw truth there with simplicity always accompanied; but humane prudence blinded with her errors, not willing to believe in this truth which was showed to her, remains more doubtful and unresolved then before; from whence it comes these wise men of the world have form opinions variable and uncertain touching the same things they found, or declared proved with infallible certainty. They have learned only from the holy Scriptures there is one God, and the opinions they have had of the nature of God divides them into many sects: One assitming God hath no body: other, that he is corporeal1, (as the Platonics & Stoics) one, that God is composed of Atoms; other, of numbers, (as Epicurus & Pythagoras) one, that his substance is of fire (as it seems to Heraclitus) the Platonics hold he takes care of the conduct of the world: contrarily, the Epicurians that he remains in an idle tranquillity without exercise, & meddles not at all with human things. The Stoics believe God hath his seat out of the Universe, from whence he manageth & removes, as a potter turns his frame. The Platonics put him in the world, and say, he governs it within, as he that holds the rudder of a ship; so they are of different opinions concerning the nature of the world, to know whether it hath not been made, or whether it hath not been; if it must end one day, or must last always; so, they are not agreed of the condition of our soul; some maintain, it is divine and eternal; others, that it is subject death; each of them hath spoken according to his sense, given way to his thoughts, changed, and corrupted the truth, to follow their own motions; but we must not wonder, if Philosophers have made this work of the oracles of the old Testament, seeing we have amongst us people, who show themselves children worthy of such fathers, infecting the purity of our new Gospel with the corruption of their own opinions, animated with the spirit of Philosophy; and who by this only way, which brought to the knowledge of the truth, have drawn many crooked paths, wherein men cannot engage themselves without losing themselves: whereof I would willingly advertise you that the diversity found between us, makes you not imagine our profession is like that of the Philosophers, and that you judge not ill of the truth, because we descend it by different means, and are divided in our doctrine. These people that are separated from us, have violated the faith of Jesus Christ, and we beat down their crrours by this only exception, that the true rule of truth is that which hath been taught by our Master, and transmitted to us by these holy persons, who had the happiness to hear his word, and receive his Divine instructions.  
We shall show in another place, that all which is not conformable to this rule, hath been invented by new Doctors, who came not till after the blessed companions of the son of God; to destroy the truth, men have made use of truth itself by the suggestions of the spirits of error, who have inspired them to fight with it with its own arms; they are they who have excited them to corrupt so saving a doctrine: they are they, have invented fables, wherewith its holiness hath been profaned, that by their resemblance, they take away the belief from truth, or rather get it for themselves. They would ruinate faith by this detestable trick, persuading men they must not believe Christians, by the same reason not believe the Poets, nor Philosophers; or rather we should believe the Poets and Philosophers, because not believe the Christians. It is this sacrilegious imitation, that makes them laugh at us, when we preach the last judgement; the Poets and Philosophers, upon the ground of this truth, set up a tribunal in Hell. They mock at us also, when we threaten them with eternal torments, which are those hidden flames the earth shuts up in her bosom, and are reserved by the justice of God, as in a treasure, for the punishment of the wicked: for these prophaners have invented, that there is is hell a River of burning fire; if we speak to them of Paradise, a place filled with agreeable and Divine beauties, ordained to be the residence of the souls of the blessed, and separated from the world by the interposition of this Zone of fire which God hath put before it, presently the Elysian fields comes in their thoughts; they imagine that there is that delicious place we declare unto them. Tell me I pray you where the Poets and Philosophers have drawn these things so like to our doctrine? if it be not from our books and Discipline? if they have drawn them from our Discipline, they have without doubt the prerogative of antiquity upon them; therefore it follows, that what we teach is truer, and aught to have more belief than all these vain opinions. In effect: these opinions are but the shadows of truth, and seeing the world hath given faith to these veils, they ought rather to believe the truth that is the substance. If the Poets and Philosophers are the first authors of these things which they have written, it must be then that our Discipline is but the figure of that which is come after it, which nature permits not, because the shadow is not before the body, and the figure cannot have been before the truth, from whom it takes its original.   

CHAP. XLVIII.  
IT must be acknowledged that the usage we receive from you, and that you give the Philosophers, are very different: if a Philosopher sets out what Laberius left in writing, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, that a mule is changed into a man, & a woman into an adder; if he displays all the cunning of his eloquence, if he sets out with address all his arguments to settle this opinion, is it not true that he moves your minds? that he draws you to his party? that he forceth you to believe you must abstain from the flesh of beasts? and that after there are some found with you, that make some scruple to taste it, because in eating a piece of beese, they fear to devour some of their ancestors? contrarily, if a Christian assures you, a man that is dead shall live again one day, that he that is in the grave shall come out and take again the same form he had, he is abused by the people, not only with blows of the fist, but also with stones cast at him. Now, me thinks, there is much blindness in receiving the opinions of these Philosophers, and in condemning the Doctrine we propose to you upon the point of the resurrection; for if there be reason persuades that the soul of a dead man reenters into a body; why may not we believe it enters into the same body again; and returns into the same matter from whence it is separated; seeing the effect of a true Resurrection, is to be that which it was before? the souls after they have changed their bodies, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, and his Disciples, are no more the same they were heretofore: because they could not become what they are not, unless they cease to be what they were: we might find wherewithal to jest on this subject, if disposed to sport our minds, and entertain our leisure with mirth: it would be a very pleasant thing to inquire in what beasts, persons have been changed that lived before us: but it is better we resolve to determine the truth of this proposition. We say then, it is more convenient to the dignity of our nature, to believe man shall become man again, that every one in particular shall rise again to be the same he was, and informed with the same soul, that animated him, with the same qualities wherewith he was endowed, although the body receive some change in his exterior figure. In sum, the design of the Universal judgement, being the effectual reason of our resurrection, it is necessary the same man that is dead live again, that God may recompense, or punish for his good or evil actions the same persons. And the same bodies that are in the dust of the grave must appear at this judgement, because the soul cannot suffer alone, and without a sensible matter, that is to say, without its flesh, and as it hath not sinned but in its flesh, it also hath not merited but with its flesh the punishments the justice of God hath ordained for its crimes. But you say to me, how can it be that a matter reduced to dust should represent itself? consider with thyself O man! that makest this objection to me, thou shalt find in thy own person the proof of so rare a miracle. Think on what thou wast before created, thou wert nothing. For if any thing before, thou wouldst remember it. Thou then that wert nothing before thy creation, and when cease to live, shalt return to nothing: why canst thou not once again be brought out of nothing by the will of the same Creator, who created thee of nothing? will there come any new thing unto thee? Thou who before wert not, art made again: after thou ceasest to live here, thou shalt be restored in the resurrection, and after this we would have thee ask by what means God will raise thee up again?  
But seeing he made no difficulty to make thee what before thou wert, thou oughtest not to think that he finds any to an easier thing, that is, to make thee what thou wert heretofore. Can one doubt of the power of God, that hath made this vast and immense body of the world of that which was not? of nothing, and out of a Chaos? and who at the same moment animated this world with a spirit, that giveth life to all things? he hath given testimonies, that witness, and sets forth examples to us of the resurrection of man. We see every day, the light after it hath lost its darkness, takes it again; and by turns the darkness dissipates itself, and succeeds to light again: the Stars deprived of their splendour, as if they were not, in being clothed with their lustre seem to be reanimated: the time begins at the same term where it finished; the fruits fall off the trees, and come again in their season; the corn puts not forth its ears plentifully, till after its former grain is corrupted, and rotten in the earth: all things in perishing are conserved, spring again after dead; and thou, O man! that shouldst be so glorious by the excellency of thy nature, if thou knewest it, and that learnest also by the Oracle of Apollo, thyself to be master of all creatures, as well of them that die not to live again, as of those must die to rise again. Is it possible thou shouldst die to be no more? and that thy death ought not have a return to life again? No certainly, in what place soever thy soul is separated form thy body, whatsoever element hath destroyed thy being, swallowed up, consumed, and reduced thee to nothing; it shall render thee all entire, because nothing and all the Universe appertain to one and the same Lord. It follows by this discourse, say you, that we must always die, and always rise again: and I answer you; If God, the great Lord of all things hath so ordained it, so it shall be whether you like of it or no: but that which his providance hath ordained touching the Resurrection of man, is conducted by a more equitable order: It's a mystery newly revealed by his only Son Jesus Christ. This wisdom that hath composed the Universe with substances of different natures, and makes it subsist in a body, by the uniting of so many contrary qualities, of void, and solid, of things animate, and inanimate, of that in our power, and that above us, of life, and death, the same hath ordained time, with this difference of conditions, that this first part in which we live, since the very Creation of the World, was perpetually to the term that must accomplish the number of its years; and the other part that follows, and which we stay for, is infinite in its durance, and perpetuates unto eternity. Between these two, there is a middle time, which after arrived to its end, the beauty of this Universe, which must end one day also, and is for the present, hung up before all eternity, shall change face; and then all mankind shall arise and appear before the same God, to be recompensed according to all the good or evil we have done upon earth, either with infinite joy, or pain in the world to come. After which we shall neither die, nor rise again any more. But without other change keep still the being we appear in at the hour of our Universal resurrection; that is to say, the servants of God, being clothed with the substance of eternity, which is that of the Angels, shall remain always united to God; and the Profane, and those that violate the laws of God, be buried in flames, where suffer perpetually without consuming; because partake of the nature of this fire, which is of such a sublime quality, as shall make them live in pains without being subject to corruption. The Philosophers acknowledge the difference between hidden fire, and fire discovered to our eyes: so the fire ordained for the use of man, is other than that which serves for the justice of God: whether it forms the lightnings which heaven darts upon the earth, or disgorgeth itself from the deep Caverns of mountains; it consumes not that it burns, it repairs rather that it destroys, so that the mountains maintain themselves in their order, and man is struck with the lightning without offending his body, or being reduced to ashes by the fire wherewith he hath been touched.  
This miracle is a proof of the nature of these eternal flames, and an example of the virtue they have by the decree of the judgement of God, to preserve punishments, wherewith his justice will punish the wicked; the mountains burn, and remain entire: why should it not so come to pass with men found heinous offenders before God, and enemies of their Creator?   

CHAP. XLIX.  
THese things while we declare to you under the notion of truth, in us alone you hold for presumptuous assertions, when the self same uttered by your Philosophers, you esteem admirable lights of mind, and sublime sciences. They are wise, we simple: they deserve to be honoured, we to be laughed at: yea, I dare say, more severely punished. But suppose the doctrine we preach false, admit it consists in vain opinions; if vain, they are necessary for the salvation of men's souls. If follies, wonderful profitable; in regard they who believe them, are thereby excited to live well, for fear of eternal punishment if they do not; and again if they do, in hope of eternal felicity. Therefore it behoves us not to call these things false and impertinent, which so much import us, to find true; neither condemn that which produceth nothing but good: which granted, the opinions you have for persecuting our doctrine, rather than the doctrine we profess, should pass for imaginations conceived without ground.  
Again, this doctrine of ours being so profitable to men, deserves not to be held impertinent: if, notwithstanding, you will have it to be false, and ridiculous, you must yet acknowledge its innocency; and consequently, that it deserves not to draw punishments upon the Christians. Know we not, that when other men have given way to vain, and fabulous opinions, they have not been reproved, your Laws have not been armed with so much severity, as to punish them, they having told freely their thoughts without being treated as criminals. The worst a man can do to those, who after their example, publish their follies, is, to laugh at them; We find not that ever they persecuted them with sword, and fire, that they have been exposed, for that only, to the infamy of gibbets, and rage of wild beasts. This cruelty is not exercised, but against Christians; and it is a strange thing, that not only this people blind in their passions, take delight to see us suffer; but some also among you, cause our blood inhumanely to be shed, to gain the favour of the vulgar, and by this means seek glory in their injustice: as if, all you can do to us, dependeth not of our good will. In effect, I am a Christian, if I will be one, and therefore you cannot condemn me, if I will not have you condemn me. Now seeing you cannot use the power you have on me, unless I will, it follows, that it is of my will, you have this power, and not of the authority of your Magistracy. Therefore in vain do this people rejoice at our torments; our punishments that make them rejoice, make us rejoice also, because we had rather die, then lose the grace of God. Contrarily, they that hate us, should be afflicted, and not rejoice at our evils, because they make us obtain what we desire.   

CHAP. L.  
THerefore say you to us, what reason have you to complain of the evils we cause you to suffer, seeing you will needs suffer them? are not you obliged rather to love those that make you endure the punishments you desire? it is true, we are resolved to endure them; but the reason is, because, without doing worse, we know not how to avoid them: even as no body exposeth himself to the fury of war, by his good will, because, he cannot come near it, without being afraid, and hazarding his life, and yet they, that find themselves engaged there, fight with all their might, and whatsoever aversion they had before, they rejoice when they get the victory, because they acquire glory, and enrich themselves with the spoils of their enemies. We enter into a combat, when we appear before your Tribunals, and there it is, we fight for the truth, in peril of our lives; our victory is, to make this truth reign, for which we contend, and the fruit we have of it, is the glory of pleasing God, and the precious booty of eternal life: in the mean time we perish, but it is after we have been conquerors of error; so we are conquerors when we perish, and, at the same instant we perish, we are freed out of your hands, and receive our liberty. Give us if you will, names taken from the instruments, of our punishments, to wit, from the posts where you tie us, and from the ba●ins you kindle about us, when you burn our bodies, and reduce them to ashes; this is the ornament of our victory; this our robe of State; this pitiful condition wherein your cruelty puts us, is our triumphant chariot. You must not wonder then, if we do not please them, that overcome us, our constancy makes us pass with them, for mad and desperate, and yet with you, these actions of rage and despair are as standards, under which virtue seeks glory, and marcheth to the conquest of reputation. Scevola, of his own motion, left his hand in the flames: O greatness of courage! Empedecoles' precipitated himself into the burning of Mount AEtna: O strength of mind! the foundress of Carthage cast herself into the fire, to avoid a second marriage: O commendation of chastity! Regulus, not willing his life should cost his country the setting free so many of its enemies, suffered in every part of his body: O generous man, and victorious in his captivity! Anaxarchus, so long as they pounded his body, as barley beat in a mortar, beat, beat, saith he, the bladder of Anaxarchus, it is not Anaxarchus you outrage: O generosity of a Philosopher, that in so miserable an end ceased not to laugh! I speak not of them, that kill themselves with their own hands, or, have taken an easier death, to merit a vain praise withal You approve also of contentions in torments, and honour is the prize you give them that suffer them. A Courtesan of Athens, after she had wearied her executioners, and bit her tongue between her teeth, in casting it into the Tyrant's face who made her suffer, threw to him the instrument of her speech, that if she were overcome by the force of tortures she could not, if she would, discover them, who were of the conspiracy. Dionysius enquiring of Zeno Eleates, what good, Philosophy brought to men; and the Philosopher having answered him that it taught them to contemn death, he signed his answer with his blood, unto the last groans of his life, by the inhumanity of this Tyrant who made him cruelly to die by whipping. The rods which tried the patience of the Lacedæmonians, and made them feel the sharpest strokes thereof in the sight of their nearest kindred, who, in the mean time, exhorted them to endure it constantly, gave them so much the more honour, as they lost or had their blood spilt more in abundance; O lawful glory! because it is of the world; for it is the neglect or death, all that the cruelty of men hath insupportable, is not imputed to an enraged obstinacy, and a desperate resolution; it is permitted to whosoever desires, to suffer for his Country, Kingdom, Friend, that which is not permitted to suffer for God's cause; it is strange, you abhor our constancy, and yet you make Statues for all these people, you set up their Statues with rare inscriptions; engrave Eulogies in stone, and marble for them, that they may last to Eternity, and, by your public monuments, strive, to the utmost of your power, to give, in some kind, a resurrection to the dead; and, contrarily; you hold him for a mad man, that endures torments for the name of God, hopes from him, for a true resurrection. Continue, O magistrates, so full of integrity, juster in the opinion of this kind of people, if you sacrifice the Christians to fury, torment us, apply your tortures to us, judge us, and, in the end, exterminate us; your injustice is the proof of our innocence; therefore, God will have us endure, that our sufferings may make our purity shine the clearer. And indeed, a few days since, you condemned a Christian maid to be rather prostituted to an infamous corrupter of her chastity, then to be exposed to the rage of a Lion; you acknowledge there is no punishment, nor kind of death which is so intolerable to Christians, as the loss of their chastity: but, do what you please, all inventions the most exquisite cruelty can advise you unto, are to no purpose, so far are they from profiting you, that contrarily they draw all the world to our Religion. The oftener you make a harvest of the Christians, the oftener their number increaseth: their blood is a seed which dies not on the earth, but puts forth prosperously. Many, among you, have laboured, to persuade men to suffer constantly pain, & death, (as Cicero in his Tusculans, Seneca in his Treatise against casual things, Diogenes, Pyrrhon, & Callinicus,) but Christians have better taught constancy, by the examples they have given, in supporting patiently so many evils, than all the Philosophers, with all their discourses. This same obstinacy, you reproach us with, is an excellent mistress of truth, which we believe: for, who is it not, that striveth with contemplation, to seek what it is? who after made his search, comes not on our side? who, having embraced the faith of Jesus Christ, desires not to suffer for him, that by his sufferings he may get the infinite treasures of the grace of God, and that, in the price of his blood, they may obtain the pardon of their faults; for the remission of all our sins is the assured recompense of our punishments. This is the reason, that when they read your sentences of death unto us we render you thanks; because by a happy emulation that meets between the judgements of God, and the judgement of men, at the same instant when you condemn us here below God pronounceth our absolution in Heaven.  
FINIS.    

A Table of the principal matters contained in this Book.  

A  
ACcusations of the Romans against the Christians, false 8.9 other of high treason and sacrilege 47  
Actions, not to be safely judged of whose Author we know not 6, 7  
Adrian a Prince, curious of all rare and excellent things 25  
The Author of irregular affections, not sure to make them pass for good actions 5  
Albinius 128  
Amity of Christians, odious to Idolaters 138  
Anacharsis, his astonishment 4  
Anaxagoras, his dealing with his guests 161  
Anaxarchus, his generosity 176  
Antoninus Pius Emperor 25  
Anubis immodest 65  
Apicius 17  
Appton 78  
Apaturien feasts 140  
Apollo's imprudency 159  
Aristeus left a public monument of the holy Scripture, in a book composed by him in Greek 76  
Aristotle's pride and flattery 161  
Aristippus notwithstanding his severe countenance addicted to riot 161  
Aristides famous for his justice 56  
Augurs, Diviners, Astrologers, gain nothing of Christians 152  
Augustus would not be called Lord 124 His humility 125   

B  
Bacchus' his worship, forbid by the Consuls throughout all Italy 28, set up again 29  
Bacchanalian furies 132  
Banquets of Christians 141 their entertainments 142  
Behaviour admirable and excellent of Christians to the Pagon Emperors 130, 131  
Bellona's Priests shed their own blood and consecrate it to her 43  
Brachmanes and Gymnosophists manner of living 150  
Bears entrails full of men's body 43  
Bargains for committing adultery made in the temple 67  
Belenus 105  
Belventinus 105  
Berosus the Caldean 78   

C  
Cassius' Severus 40  
Cassius 128  
Castor and Pollux in an instant carry to Rome the news of the victory won over Perseus 96 and at the same instant change the colour of Domitius his beard ibid.  
Cato and Socrates sometimes lent their wives to their friends 140  
Cicero persuaded to suffer death constantly 178  
Christian chastity 46, 47  
Christian, the original of the word 17  
Christians voluntary confession 6  
The Romans take away from them only the liberty of justifying themselves and the only confession of the name Christian was their condemnation 10 They are put to the rack to deny it, contrary to other criminals ibid.  
Their being sentenced to death for no other crime then for the name Christian 14 Its a glory to them to be persecuted for the name of Jesus 82 their power over the Devil's 100, 101, are obliged to pray to God for their Kings, although idolaters 120, 121 call one another brethren 139 after meals are wont to sing Psalms and Hymns 142 since they had being, all public calamities more tolerable 146 all things are common among them 140 The manner of burying their dead 151 They are a sure safeguard to idolaters 152 And profitable to the common wealth 153  
Are punished for the only name Christian and yet innocent of all crimes 154  
They only know God and teach what he is 159, 160  
Their continency 160, 161 their belief of the resurrection 168 they suffer persecution willingly 178 are compared to Soldiers ibid. their blood a seed that dies not 178 Christianity's progress 4  
Christians show the difference between their own manner of solemnising the festivals of the Emperors, and that of the Pagans 127, 128  
christians commerce with the Idolaters 149, 150, 151  
Comparisons 6  
The comparison of the confession of a Christian, with that of other criminals 11  
The comparison of Christians torments, with the same fabrics on which the false Gods are form 57  
The owning the name Christian, carries with it the guilt of all other crimes 10  
Confession of Devils to their confusion 98  
Conjuration of Idolaters against Christians, whereon grounded 143  
Conscience not to be forced 113, 114  
Celestis 105  
Constancy of Christians unprositable to the Romans 4  
The courage of the Couritisan of Athens 176, 177  
Croesus and Pyrrhus abused by the Oracles 96  
Confession that's voluntary, sooner to be believed then denial by constraint 10  
The cross compared to the materials of Idolaters 69  
We worship the the godhead without a cross ibid. excellent reasons on this subject 70  
Cleanthes 84  
Cornelius Nepos 105  
Comneodus the Emperor besieged between the two laurel woods 128  
Children sacrificed in Africa to Saturn 39 and the punishment of the Priests that sacrificed them ibid.  
The Church what it doth 137 and why assembled 138  
Human Curiosity not asleep but for the christian Religion 4  
Cynocephales' and Sciapodes monsters of India, and Lybia 36  
Cyclops with their bloody mouths 31   

D  
Danaus 78  
Delights and pleasures of christians contrary to those of the Romans 136  
Delos 143  
Demetrius Phalerus, the learnedst of all the Gramarians 76  
Democritus why he put out his eyes 160  
Demosthenes eloquence 56  
Diana whipped 65  
Diodorus Siculus 49  
Difference between Divine and human laws 155  
Diogenes mocked at the Deity of Hercules 65  
Diogenes, his arrogancy 160  
Distinction of the jews from the christians 81  
Domitian recalls the Jews banished by him 24  
Christian Doctrine began from the time of the Emperor Tiberius 31  
Dostrine of Philosophers compared to that of christians 150  
151 a question on this subjec; t ibid.  
Disorders very great on the selemne days of the Emperors 126, 127  
Devils spiritual substances 93 their fall ibid. what employed in 94 their admirable manner of working ibid. compared to the corruption of the air 96. their agility and promptitude 95, ●6. Authors of evil but never of good 95. How they foretell things to come, ibid.   

E  
THe Empire troubled, all its members suffer 111, 112  
Emperors in their triumph put in mind what they are 123 mocked when called golls 124  
Empedocles 176  
Epithets of some great persons 55, 56  
Erasistratus 17  
Excommunication, a foretelling the judgement God pronounceth against the wicked 137  
Excuse, that which seems to serve for it, renders the passion more criminal 3  
Epicurus mocks at all sorrows and torments, and his reason 156   

F  
THe Fable of the ass, under the figure whereof, Idolaters say we worship Jesus Christ 68, 69  
Fame, the only cause wherefore christians hated by the Romans 33  
Feasts of the Romans, why called hundreds 27  
Fire hid, and fire visible, the difference 172  
Fidelity consists not in exterior duties 130  
Fruit, it's equally evil to destroy it in the womb, as after when brought forth in the world 42   

G  
GAules, offered men on the altars of Mercury 40  
Gauls beseige the Capitol 145  
Glory the end of many philosophers 159  
God needs not the creatures 52 what God is 72 prooses that he is 73  
Gods of the Idolaters no gods, because men formerly as well as idolaters themselves 48  
Gods of infidels none of them lived without vice 55 all good actions attributed to them, fabulous 57  
Gods of Idolaters broken, melted, pawned, changed, and sold by Idolaters 60, 61  
Gods unknown to the Romans 103  
Gods of the Romans, bear witness in favour of the christian Religion 90  
Gods of pagans conjured at the name of Jesus Christ, acknowledge his Divinity, and dare not belie him 100  
Gods of Pagans many of them felt Caesar's anger 117 from whom they hold their welfare ibid.  
Gods of heathen, as well as their idolaters implore the charity of christians 151, 152 the son of Gods coming 86  
Greeks, from whom they learned their superstition 92   

H  
Hannibals' victory over the Romans at Cans 144, 145  
Hatred, the causes and pretences examined 2  
Hatred of what we know not, what more unreasonable? 3  
Hell approved of by Idolaters 54  
Hermias 161  
Herodotus 42  
Hierapolis Island 143  
Higronymus a phaenician King 78  
Hippias wherefore killed 161  
Hippone, a goddess of creatures adored together with beasts 69   

I  
Ianus' or janes' 49  
Innachus 78  
jealous men sooner left their wives for being Christians, then for any other crime 16  
Idolaters possessed by Devils 134  
Idolaters, their manner of interceding to their gods 146, 147  
Idolaters, Gods ungrateful to them 148, 149  
Jesus Christ King of the faithful 17. called a Magician by the Jews 87. The miracles he did ibid. Signs of his Divinity, when a dying 88 He expired about midday, ibid. His resurrection 89. He taught his Disciples, ibid. His ascension 90. why he came into the world. 92  
Impertinent tales of Idolaters and their evil speaking of their gods 62, 63, 64  
Ignorance the first cause that rendered the Romans hatred against Christians unjust 2, 3  
Impostures against Christians 30  
Incarnation of the son of God 85, 86 foretold to the Jews by the Prophets ibid.  
Inductions, to prove one God powerfuller than all other 51, 54  
Ingratitude of men, causeth the anger of God against them 146  
Innocence that's true, necessary for christians 153, 154  
Josephus author of the Jews antiquity 78  
Ironies of the Author against the Gods and Goddesses of the Romans 107, 108, 109  
Islands of great extent swallowed up 143  
Judgement universal, to what end 169. what shall happen after it 171  
Jews so attered over all the world 83  
Jews were the only people beloved of God 82. their punishment 83. foretold by the Prophets ibid.  
Juba King 78  
Jupiter less feared by the Romans then Caesar 115, 116  
Jupiter much resembles Jesus Christ, an irony 41  
Justice, according to its rules, not to use different proceedings in punishing the same criminals that have failed 8, 10   

L  
LAberius the Pythagorean, what he thought of man, 167  
Larentine, an unchaste woman adored 62  
Lares, household gods 60  
Laws, what they command 11, 12  
Laws of Insidels condemned of error by the Author 20  
Papy Laws, what they compelled unto 21  
Julian Laws 21  
Laws not to be esteemed, but for their justice 22  
Laws divine, what they promise to them that observe them 74, 75  
Laws and Books of Christians not hid 175  
Lentulus his ridiculous conceits 65  
Lucania, known now by the name of Sicily 144  
Lucullus, the first that planted cherry-trees in Italy, which he brought from Pontus 53  
Lycurgus, his Laws sweetened by the Lacedæmonians, 20  
The displeasure he took at it ibid.  
Lycurgus, wherefore he died by famine 161   

M  
MAcedonians mocked at the complaints of Oedipus, and against his incest 45, 46  
Magicians in their enchantments, bear witness of Angels, and Devils 93  
Manethon, an Egyptian 78  
Manner of the Christian Religion 137  
The Manner of swearing treaties of certain Nations 42, 43  
The cruel Manner of sacrificing children to Saturn in Africa 57, 58.  
Marcus Aurelius, pro●ector of the christians, 25  
Marcus AEmilius his idle named the god Alburnus, 23  
Mecenius absolved for killing his wife, who drunk Wine, 28  
Megarians, how they make Feasts 140  
Melampus 91  
Menedemus, a Pagan Philosopher, admires the holy Scripture 76  
Menander, an Ephesian 78  
The M●ssiah ordained to change the Laws of the Jews, and accomplish the Prophecies, 83. How conceived, ibid. His Mother a Virgin 84. He is called the Word by the Ancients, ibid.  
Miracles done by the Christian Soldiers 25  
Mysteries always to be kept secret 32  
Moslesty of Christians odious to the Insidels, 15  
Moses his age 78. Moses sent of God, to learn the Jews how to serve him, 19  
Musaeus 19 Mutunus 106. Moores and Marcomanes, 133   

N  
NEro, the first Emperor that persecuted the Christian Religion, 24  
Niger 123  
Nor●ia 105  
Numa Pompilius, the Religion he instituted 91, 92  
Nursia 105   

O  
OEnotrian 49  
Onochoetes, what it is 71  
Opinions, not to be condemned for their Author's name 17  
Order of judgement compels not to deny 13 the Order God hath established over us 148  
Orpheus 91   

P  
Parallel of the Christians laws to those of Idolaters 155  
Pallas Athenian 69  
Parthenius 129  
Parthians 133  
Pagan Philosophers, notwithstanding their evil life, conserve the name of Sages 158  
Roman People spoke evil of their Caesars 128 made them be assassinated 128, 129 loved change ibid.  
Philadelphus, the learnedst of the Ptolemies put the holy Scriptures in his library 76  
Persians mingle themselves incestuously with their own mothers 45  
phryne 62  
philosophy why banished from Sparta, and Argos 163  
philosophers opinions of Divinily 164  
Pisistratus 76  
Plato acknowledged the nature of the angels 93  
Plato's opinion of the deluge 144  
Plato for his gluttony engageth his liberty 161  
pliny the second advertiseth Trajan, that severity diminisheth not the number of Christians, and what he saith of them 8  
Poets and Philosophers opinions of Paradise and Hell 166  
Poets have drawn their best doctrine from the Prophets 163  
Polycrates that was so happy 56  
Pontius Pilate Governor of Judea for the Romans 87  
Pontius Pilate wrote to the Emperor the miracles that happened at the death of Jesus Christ 90  
why Christians Pray with hands stretched out, and heads bore 119  
Prayer how it ought to be conceived 120  
Preachers have been named Prophets 75  
Priests idolatrous, vicious 120  
Prooses infallible of the true Religion 98  
Proceedings strange against Christians 9, 10  
The Progress of the Christian Religion 133, 134  
Precepts confirm ecclesiastical discipline 136, 137  
Prophets have foretold all that's come to pass in our days 78 the which is a true mark of 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, etc.   

R  
Radamanthus' and Minos' 101  
Reasons of Insidels weak against the Christian Religion 19  
Reasons that confound the divinity of the false gods 52  
Reason's, wherefore 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 do, draws her original from heaven?. should not be condemned without knowing her ibid. they that will be instructed therein, must address 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 sacrilege 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 Kingdoms 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  
Satur's inventions given to men 53  
Scaevola the greatness 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 Palace of the gods by Pison and ●abinius ●8. reestablished again by the Romans 29  
Severus a very wise Emperor 20  
Socrates, his manner of speaking, 158 sacrificeth a Cock to AEjculaplus, 159 a corrupter of young boys, 160 undervalved his gods, calleth for witness 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 Physicians, his answer to Croesus' 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 Senate, to receive Jesus Christ among the number of their Gods 23  
Trophonius 51  
Tuscans and Grecians were the inventors of carving images to the deities 110  
Tyrants and their customs 12  
Tyrants in vain rejoice 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 be condemned unless they be barbarous, or express some evil speaking 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 we see in Nature, calls it Destiny, the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things 84  
Will usurp tyranny over the Prieniaes' 161  
His death 177    


ERRATA.  
Page 1 line 7. read capital.  
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 do 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. wh●● is it that Plato.  
p. 122. l. 14. and 22. r. G●ni●  
p. 129. l. 5. r. profess not.  
p. 146. l. 25. r. drought.   
FINIS.