Apologia secunda

Second Apology.

And the events that occurred yesterday and the day before in your city under Urbicus, O Romans, and the things everywhere similarly done without reason by those in authority, have compelled me, on your behalf—since you are of like passions and are brothers, even if you are ignorant and unwilling because of the glory of your supposed dignities—to compose this discourse. For everywhere, whoever is admonished by a father or neighbor or child or friend or brother or husband or wife on account of deficiency (apart from those who are persuaded that the unjust and licentious will be punished in eternal fire, and that the virtuous and those who have lived like Christ will dwell in impassibility with God—we speak of those who have become Christians), because of their difficulty in changing, love of pleasure, and reluctance to strive for the good, and the evil demons, hostile to us and having such judges as their subjects and servants, as rulers possessed by demons, they cause us to be put to death. And so that the cause of the whole affair that occurred under Urbicus may become clear to you, I will relate what was done.

A certain woman was living with a husband who was licentious, she herself having previously been licentious as well. But when she learned the teachings of Christ, she became self-controlled and tried to persuade her husband likewise to be self-controlled, setting forth the teachings and announcing the punishment in eternal fire that will be for those who do not live temperately and in accordance with right reason. He, persisting in the same debaucheries, made his wife estranged through his actions. The woman, considering it impious henceforth to lie with a husband who, contrary to the law of nature and contrary to justice, tried to procure pleasures from every means, wished to be separated from the marriage. And when she was entreated by her own people, who advised her to remain still, in the hope that her husband might someday change, she forced herself to stay. But when it was reported that her husband, having gone to Alexandria, was doing even worse things, so that she might not become a sharer in his crimes and impieties by remaining in the marriage and being his housemate and bedfellow, she gave him what is called among you a repudium and separated. This noble and good husband of hers, though he ought to have rejoiced that she, who formerly readily did with the servants and hired men what she delighted in with drunkenness and every vice, had ceased from these practices and wished him also to cease doing the same, instead, because she had left him against his will, brought an accusation, saying that she was a Christian.

And she presented a petition to you, the Emperor, first asking that she be permitted to manage her own affairs, and then to make her defense concerning the charge after the management of her affairs, and you granted this. But her former husband, being unable to say anything further against her, turned against a certain Ptolemaeus, whom Urbicus had summoned, who had become her teacher in the Christian teachings, in the following manner. He persuaded a centurion, who had put Ptolemaeus in chains, a friend of his, to seize Ptolemaeus and ask him only this one thing: whether he was a Christian. And Ptolemaeus, being truth-loving and not deceitful or false in character, confessed himself to be a Christian, and the centurion put him in chains and punished him for a long time in the prison. Finally, when the man was brought before Urbicus, he was similarly asked only this one thing: whether he was a Christian. And again, being conscious of his own good conduct through the teaching from Christ, he confessed the teaching of divine virtue. For one who denies something either has condemned the matter and becomes a denier, or, knowing himself unworthy and alien to the matter, avoids the confession; none of which applies to the true Christian.

And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away, a certain Lucius, himself also a Christian, seeing the judgment so unreasonably made, said to Urbicus: "What is the cause that you have punished this man, who is convicted of neither adultery nor fornication nor murder nor theft nor robbery nor any crime whatsoever, but only confesses the name Christian? You are judging in a manner unworthy of a pious emperor, or of a philosopher son of Caesar, or of the sacred senate, Urbicus." And he, answering nothing else, said also to Lucius: "You seem to me also to be such a one." And when Lucius said, "Certainly," he ordered him also to be led away. And he acknowledged gratitude, knowing that he was being delivered from such evil masters and was going to the father and king of the heavens. And a third also came forward and was sentenced to be punished.

Lest someone say, "Then all of you should kill yourselves and go now to God and cause us no trouble," I will state the reason why we do not do this and why, when examined, we confess without fear. We have been taught that God did not make the world idly, but for the sake of the human race; and we have learned that he rejoices in those who imitate his attributes and is displeased with those who embrace evil in word or deed. If, therefore, we were all to kill ourselves, we would be responsible, as far as we are concerned, for no one being born and instructed in the divine teachings, or for the human race not existing, acting contrary to the will of God and doing so ourselves if we did this. When examined, we do not deny because we are conscious of no evil in ourselves, considering it impious not to speak the truth in all things, which we know is dear to God, and now hastening to free you from your unjust prejudice.

If this thought should occur to anyone—that if we truly believed God was our helper, we would not, as we say, be overpowered and punished by unjust men—I will also resolve this. God, having made the entire world, subordinated earthly things to men, arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of crops and the changes of seasons, and ordained a divine law for them—all of which he evidently made for the sake of men—entrusted the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels, whom he appointed for this purpose. But these angels, transgressing this order, were overcome by intercourse with women and begot children, who are the so-called demons. Moreover, they subsequently enslaved the human race to themselves: partly through magical writings, partly through the fears and punishments they inflicted, and partly through the teaching of sacrifices, incense, and libations, of which they became needy after being enslaved by the passions of desires; and they sowed among men murders, wars, adulteries, debaucheries, and every kind of evil. Hence poets and mythologists, ignorant that it was the angels and the demons born from them who did these things to males and females, cities and nations, which they recorded, attributed them to God himself, to the sons born from his seed, and likewise to his so-called brothers and children of those, Poseidon and Pluto. For they gave each the name that each of the angels and their children had given to themselves.

There is no name for the father of all, since he is unbegotten; for whatever name one might call him, he who set the name is older. But father and god and creator and lord and master are not names, but appellations derived from his benefactions and works. His son, the one alone called son in the proper sense, the word who was before the creatures and was with him and was begotten when through him he created and ordered all things in the beginning, is called Christ according to his being anointed and to god’s ordering all things through him, a name also containing an unknown meaning, just as the appellation god is not a name, but an opinion innate in human nature concerning an inexpressible thing. Jesus has the name and meaning of both man and savior. For he also became man, as we said before, being born according to the will of god and father for the sake of believing men and for the overthrow of demons; and now you can learn from what happens before your eyes. For many demon-possessed people throughout the whole world and in your own city, many of our people, the Christians, exorcising by the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and still heal those who were not healed by all other exorcists and enchanters and sorcerers, vanquishing and driving out the demons that possess men.

Hence God also refrains from bringing about the confusion and dissolution of the whole world, so that the wicked angels, demons, and men may no longer exist, because of the seed of the Christians, which he knows in nature is the cause. For if this were not so, it would not even be possible for you to continue doing these things and for them to be set in motion by the wicked demons, but the fire of judgment would have descended and openly separated everything, just as previously the flood left no one except the one called by us Noah, and by you Deucalion, from whom again so many have come, some wicked, some good. For thus we say the conflagration will occur, but not, as the Stoics hold, according to the principle of the transformation of all things into one another, which seemed most shameful; nor yet that men act or suffer what happens according to fate, but that each succeeds or errs according to his own choice, and that according to the activity of the wicked demons, the good, such as Socrates and those like him, are persecuted and kept in bonds, while Sardanapalus and Epicurus and those like them seem to flourish in abundance and glory. Not understanding this, the Stoics declared that everything happens by necessity of fate. But that God originally made the race of angels and of men self-determined, they will justly receive punishment in eternal fire for whatever transgressions they commit. And the nature of everything that is created is this: to be capable of vice and virtue; for nothing among them would be praiseworthy if it did not have the power to turn in both directions.

This is also demonstrated by all people everywhere who have legislated and philosophized according to right reason, from their prescribing that certain things be done and others abstained from. And the Stoic philosophers, in their discourse on ethics, honor the same things steadfastly, as is made clear by the fact that in their discourse on principles and incorporeal things they do not succeed. For if they say that events occur by fate, or that there is no god apart from things that are changed, altered, and resolved into the same things always, they will appear to have attained an understanding only of perishable things, and to have made god himself, through both the parts and the whole, subject to every evil, or else to hold that there is neither evil nor virtue—which is contrary to every sound conception, reason, and intellect.

And we know that even those who followed the doctrines of the Stoics, since they became orderly in their moral reasoning, as also some of the poets did, because of the seed of the Word implanted in every race of men, were hated and put to death: Heraclitus, as we said before, and Musonius in our own time, and others we know. For as we indicated, the demons have always contrived that all who in any way strive to live according to reason and to flee vice should be hated. And it is no wonder if the demons, being refuted, contrive that those who live not according to a part of the seminal Word, but according to the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Word, which is Christ, are much more hated; they will receive the fitting punishment and retribution, being confined in eternal fire. For if they are already defeated by men through the name of Jesus Christ, this is a lesson of the punishment in eternal fire that will befall them and those who serve them. Thus all the prophets foretold that this would happen, and our teacher Jesus taught it.

I therefore expect to be plotted against by one of those named and to be impaled on a pole, or at least by Crescens, the lover of noise and of boasting. For it is not worthy to call the man a philosopher, who publicly testifies against us about things he does not know, that we are atheists and impious Christians, doing this for the favor and pleasure of the many who are deceived. For if he has not encountered the teachings of Christ and attacks us, he is utterly wicked and much worse than private individuals, who often refrain from speaking and bearing false witness about things they do not know; or if he has encountered them and did not understand the greatness in them, or understanding it does these things so as not to be suspected of being such a person, he is much more ignoble and utterly wicked, being inferior to private and irrational opinion and fear. For I wish you to know that I, having approached and questioned him with certain questions of this kind, both to learn and to refute, that truly he knows nothing. And that I speak the truth, if the records of our conversations have not been brought to you, I am ready to share the questions again before you; and this would be a royal deed. But if my questions and his answers have become known to you, it is evident to you that he knows nothing of our matters; or if he does know, but on account of his hearers does not dare to speak, like Socrates, as I said before, he is shown to be not a philosopher but a lover of fame, who does not even honor the Socratic quality that is worthy of love. But "no man is to be honored before the truth." It is impossible for a Cynic, who has set indifference as his end, to know the good except as indifference.

But so that no one might say what is said by those who are considered philosophers, that the things said by us—that the unjust are punished in eternal fire—are boasts and terrors, and that we demand that people live virtuously out of fear and not because it is good and pleasing, I will answer this briefly: if this is not the case, then either there is no God, or, if there is, he does not care for human beings, and there is no virtue nor vice, and, as I said before, lawgivers unjustly punish those who transgress the ordained goods. But since those lawgivers and their father are not unjust, teaching the same thing through reason, those who agree with them are not unjust. And if someone should bring forward the different laws of human beings, saying that among some people these things are considered good and those things shameful, while among others the things shameful among the former are considered good and the good things shameful, let him also hear what is said on this point. We know that the wicked angels have ordained laws similar to their own wickedness, in which men who become like them take delight, and right reason, when it comes, does not show all opinions nor all doctrines to be good, but some are base, others good; so that to such people also the same and similar things will be said, and will be said at greater length, if need be. But now I return to the matter at hand.

Our teachings are evidently more sublime than any human instruction, because the whole rational principle—the Word—which appeared for our sake became Christ, both body and Word and soul. For whatever was well spoken and discovered at any time by philosophers or lawgivers was worked out by them through a part of the Word, by means of discovery and contemplation. But since they did not know the whole of the Word, who is Christ, they often said things contradictory to each other. And those who lived before Christ, attempting by human reason to contemplate and examine matters, were brought to court as impious and meddlesome. The most vigorous of them all in this regard was Socrates, who was accused of the same things as we are: for they said that he introduced new divinities, and that he did not acknowledge the gods whom the city recognizes. But he, expelling from the state the wicked demons and the poets—Homer and the others—who described them, taught men to renounce them, and urged them, through inquiry by reason, to attain knowledge of the God unknown to them, saying: “But the father and maker of all is neither easy to find, nor, having found him, is it safe to speak of him to all.” This our Christ accomplished through his own power.

For no one was persuaded by Socrates to die for this doctrine; but for Christ, who was even partially known by Socrates (for he was and is the Word that is in all, and who through the prophets foretold what was to come, and who through himself, having become subject to like passions, taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars were persuaded, but also craftsmen and utterly uneducated people, who have despised glory, fear, and death; because he is a power of the ineffable Father, and not a product of human reason.

We would not be put to death, nor would the unjust men and demons be stronger than us, if it were not absolutely necessary that every human being who is born must also die; hence, even as we pay this debt, we give thanks. And yet we think it is now good and timely to say that saying of Xenophon against Crescens and those who are similarly foolish. Xenophon said that Heracles, walking at a certain crossroads, found Virtue and Vice appearing in the forms of women. And Vice, with luxurious clothing and a face made seductive and blooming from such things, and being immediately alluring to the eyes, said to Heracles that if he followed her, she would always make him live pleasantly and adorned with the most splendid and similar adornment to that around her. And Virtue, being with a squalid face and attire, said: "But if you obey me, you will adorn yourself not with adornment or with beauty that is fleeting and perishable, but with the eternal and beautiful adornments." And we are fully persuaded that anyone, fleeing what seems beautiful and pursuing what is considered harsh and irrational, attains happiness. For Vice, by imitation of the imperishable, putting on herself the attributes that belong to Virtue and are truly beautiful (for she has nothing imperishable nor can she produce it), enslaves the groveling among men, placing her own base qualities upon Virtue.

Those who have understood what is truly beautiful and are incorruptible in virtue—and this must be supposed by every sensible person concerning Christians and those who have undergone the contest, and concerning the men who have done such things as the poets have said about the so-called gods—draw the conclusion from the fact that we despise even death, which is to be shunned.

For I myself, delighting in the teachings of Plato, when I heard Christians being slandered, but saw them fearless before death and everything else considered fearful, I considered it impossible that they could be wicked and pleasure-loving. For what pleasure-lover or incontinent person, or one who considered the eating of human flesh a good, could welcome death, so as to be deprived of his own goods, and not rather try by every means to live always this present life and to escape the notice of the rulers, not to mention denouncing himself to be put to death? Already the wicked demons have caused this to be done through certain evil men. For they themselves, murdering some on false charges against us, have dragged into tortures our household slaves or children or women, and by terrible torments force them to confess these fabled things, which they themselves openly practice; since none of these things pertain to us, we do not care, having the unbegotten and ineffable God as witness of both our thoughts and actions. For why do we not also publicly acknowledge these things as good and demonstrate them as divine philosophy, claiming to celebrate the mysteries of Kronos by murdering men, and by being filled with blood, as it is said, in the same way as the idol honored among you, to which not only the blood of irrational animals is sprinkled but also human blood, through the most distinguished and noblest man among you making the aspersion of the blood of those murdered, and becoming imitators of Zeus and the other gods in pederasty and in freely having intercourse with women, bringing forward the writings of Epicurus and the poets as a defense?

Since we persuade people to flee from these teachings and from those who have practiced and imitated them, and have now contended through these words, we are attacked in various ways. But we do not care, because we know that God, the overseer of all, is just. Would that someone might now cry out in a tragic voice, standing on some high platform: "Be ashamed, be ashamed of what you are openly doing, attributing to the innocent, and casting upon them what belongs to yourselves and to your gods, of which they have no share whatsoever. Change your ways, come to your senses.

For I myself, having learned that a wicked covering had been placed by the evil demons upon the divine teachings of the Christians for the purpose of turning away other people, and that these things were falsely spoken, I laughed at both the covering and the reputation among the many. I confess that I am found to be a Christian, both praying and contending with all my might, not because the teachings of Plato are foreign to those of Christ, but because they are not entirely similar, just as also those of the others, Stoics, poets, and writers, are not. For each one, seeing from a part of the spermatic divine word what is akin, spoke well; but those who have said things contrary to themselves on more essential matters do not appear to have possessed infallible knowledge and irrefutable understanding. Therefore, whatever has been well said belongs to us Christians; for we worship and love the word from the unbegotten and ineffable God, next to God himself, since he also became man for our sake, in order that, having become a partaker of our sufferings, he might also bring about a cure. For all writers, through the innate seed of the word implanted in them, were able to see things dimly. For one thing is a seed of something and a likeness given according to capacity, and another is that very thing, from which, by grace, the participation and imitation come.

And so we ask you to subscribe what seems good to you and to set forth this little book, so that our affairs may become known to others as well and they may be freed from false opinion and ignorance of good things, who, through no fault of their own, become liable to punishments [in order that these things be known to men], because in human nature there exists the capacity to discern good and evil, and because they condemn us, whom they do not know to do such shameful things as they allege, and because they take delight in gods who have done such things and still now demand similar things from men, so that by punishing us, as if we did such things, with death or bonds or something else of the sort, they condemn themselves, as not needing other judges.

[And I have despised the teaching of the impious and deceitful Simonian in my own nation.] But if you should publish this, we would make it manifest to all, so that if they are able, they might change their minds; for the sake of this alone we have composed these words. Our teachings are not shameful according to sound judgment, but are superior to all human philosophy; and if not, at least they are not like the teachings of Sotades, Philaenis, Archestratus, Epicurus, and other such poets, which it is permitted for all to encounter, both in speech and in writing. And we will cease hereafter, having done what was in our power, and having prayed that all people everywhere might be deemed worthy of the truth. May you, therefore, judge what is just for yourselves in a manner worthy of piety and philosophy. And what happened yesterday and the day before in your city under Urbicus, O Romans, and what is everywhere similarly done irrationally by those in authority, has compelled me to compose these words on your behalf, since you are of like passions and are brothers, even if you are ignorant and unwilling because of the glory of supposed dignities.

For everywhere, whoever is corrected by a father or neighbor or child or friend or brother or husband or wife due to deficiency (apart from those who have been persuaded that the unjust and licentious will be punished in eternal fire, and that the virtuous and those who have lived like Christ will dwell in impassibility with God—and we speak of those who have become Christians), because of the difficulty of change, love of pleasure, and reluctance to set out toward the good, the evil demons, hostile to us and having such judges as their subjects and worshippers, as rulers possessed by demons, they cause us to be killed. And so that the cause of the whole affair that occurred under Urbicus may become clear to you, I will relate what was done. A certain woman lived with a husband who was licentious, she herself having previously been licentious. But when she learned the teachings of Christ, she became self-controlled and tried to persuade her husband likewise to be self-controlled, citing the teachings and announcing the future punishment in eternal fire for those who do not live temperately and with right reason. But he, persisting in the same debaucheries, through his actions made his wife a stranger. For the woman considered it impious thereafter to lie with a husband who, contrary to the law of nature and contrary to what is right, tried to make ways of pleasure from every source, and she wished to be separated from the marriage. And since she was entreated by her own people, who advised her to remain still, on the hope that her husband might someday come to a change, she forced herself and remained.

Since her husband, having gone to Alexandria, was reported to be committing even more grievous acts, in order not to become a participant in his crimes and impieties by remaining in the marriage and sharing his table and bed, she gave him what you call a repudium and separated from him. That noble and good husband of hers, though he ought to have rejoiced that she, who formerly took pleasure in drunkenness and every vice and readily engaged in such acts with his servants and hired men, had ceased from these practices and wished him also to cease from the same, instead, when she left against his will, brought an accusation against her, saying she was a Christian. And she submitted a petition to you, the Emperor, first asking to be permitted to manage her own affairs, and then to defend herself against the charge after the management of her affairs, and you granted this. But her former husband, no longer able to proceed against her, turned against a certain Ptolemy, whom Urbicus had summoned, who had become her teacher in Christian teachings, in the following manner. He persuaded a centurion, who had put Ptolemy, a friend of his, in chains, to take hold of Ptolemy and ask him only this: whether he was a Christian. And Ptolemy, being truthful in character and not deceitful or false, having confessed himself to be a Christian, the centurion had him put in bonds and punished him for a long time in the prison. Finally, when the man was brought before Urbicus, he was likewise asked only this: whether he was a Christian.

And again, knowing well the noble things in himself because of the teaching from Christ, he confessed the instruction of divine virtue. For he who denies anything either condemns the matter and becomes a denier, or, knowing himself unworthy and alien to the matter, he avoids the confession; none of which applies to the true Christian. And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away, a certain Lucius, himself also a Christian, seeing the judgment so unreasonably made, said to Urbicus: "What is the reason that you have punished this man, who is proven to be neither an adulterer nor a fornicator nor a murderer nor a thief nor a robber nor to have committed any wrongdoing at all, but only confesses the name of Christian? You are judging in a manner unworthy of a pious emperor, or of a philosopher son of Caesar, or of the sacred senate, O Urbicus." And he, answering nothing else, said also to Lucius: "You seem to me to be such a one as well." And when Lucius said, "Certainly," he ordered that he also be led away. And he confessed gratitude, knowing that he was being delivered from such evil masters and was going to the father and king of the heavens. And a third man, coming forward, was also sentenced to be punished. But so that no one may say, "Then do you all go and kill yourselves to go to God at once and not cause us trouble," I will state the reason why we do not do this and why, when examined, we fearlessly confess.

We have been taught that God did not make the world in vain, but for the sake of the human race; and we have declared that he rejoices in those who imitate the attributes that belong to him, and is displeased with those who embrace base things either in word or deed. If, therefore, we were all to kill ourselves, so that no one might be born and instructed in the divine teachings, or so that the human race might not exist, we would, as far as it depends on us, be responsible, acting contrary to the will of God, if we were to do this. But when examined, we do not deny, because we are conscious of no baseness in ourselves, and we consider it impious not to speak the truth in all things, which we know is dear to God, and we are now eager to free you from your unjust prejudice. But if this thought should occur to someone, that if we confessed God as our helper, we would not, as we say, be overpowered and punished by unjust men, I will also resolve this. God, having made the whole world, and having subjected earthly things to men, and having ordered the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and the changes of seasons, and having set a divine law for them—things which he evidently made for the sake of men—entrusted the providence of men and of things under heaven to angels, whom he appointed for these purposes. But these angels, having transgressed this order, were overcome by intercourse with women and begot children, who are the so-called demons.

Furthermore, they enslaved the human race to themselves: partly through magical writings, partly through the fears and punishments they inflicted, and partly through the teaching of sacrifices, incense, and libations, of which humans became in need after being enslaved by the passions of desires; and they sowed among humans murders, wars, adulteries, debaucheries, and every evil. Hence also poets and mythologists, ignorant that the angels and the demons born from them did these things to males and females, cities and nations, which they recorded, attributed them to God himself and to the sons born from him by seed, and likewise to his so-called brothers and children, and to those descended from them, Poseidon and Pluto. For they named each one by the name which each of the angels gave to himself and to his children. But the father of all, being unbegotten, has no set name; for whatever name he might be called, the one who set the name is older. But "father," "god," "creator," "lord," and "master" are not names, but appellations derived from his benefactions and works. His son, the one properly called son, the Word, who was before the creations and was with him and was begotten when through him he began to create and order all things, is called Christ according to his being anointed and to God's ordering all things through him, a name also containing an unknown meaning, just as the appellation "god" is not a name but an innate opinion in human nature of a thing difficult to explain. "Jesus" has the meaning and name of both a man and a savior.

For indeed, as we said before, a man was born according to the will of God and Father, brought forth for the sake of believing men and for the overthrow of the demons; and now you can learn this from what happens before your eyes. For many demon-possessed persons throughout the whole world, and in your own city, many of our people, the Christians, by exorcising in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and still heal those who were not cured by all other exorcists, enchanters, and sorcerers, vanquishing and driving out the demons that possess men. Hence God also refrains from bringing about the confusion and destruction of the whole world, so that the evil angels and demons and men may no longer exist, because of the seed of the Christians, which he knows in nature is the cause. For if this were not so, it would not be possible for you still to do these things and for them to be effected by the evil demons, but the fire of judgment would have come down and openly separated everything, as formerly the flood left no one but the one called by us Noah, and by you Deucalion, from whom again so many have come, some evil, some good.

Thus we say that the conflagration will occur, but not, as the Stoics hold, according to the principle of the transformation of all things into one another, which seemed most shameful; nor yet that men act or suffer what happens according to fate, but that each individual succeeds or errs according to his own choice, and that earnest men, such as Socrates and those like him, are persecuted and imprisoned through the activity of evil demons, while Sardanapalus and Epicurus and those like them seem to flourish in abundance and renown. The Stoics, not understanding this, declared that everything happens by necessity of fate. But because God originally made the race of angels and of men self-determined, they will justly receive punishment in eternal fire for whatever offenses they commit. And it is the nature of everything created to be capable of vice and virtue; for none of them would be praiseworthy if it did not have the power to turn in both directions. This is also shown by those everywhere who have legislated and philosophized according to right reason, in that they prescribe doing certain things and abstaining from others. And you Stoic philosophers, in your discourse on ethics, steadfastly honor the same things, as is evident from the fact that in your discourse on principles and incorporeal things you do not succeed.

For whether they say that what happens among men occurs according to fate, or that there is no god apart from things that change and alter and are always resolved into the same things, they will be shown to have grasped only perishable things, and that god himself, through the parts and through the whole, is involved in every evil, or that there is no evil nor virtue—which is contrary to every sound notion, reason, and intellect. And we know that even those of the Stoic doctrines, since they have been orderly in their ethical teaching, as also in some of the poets, because of the seed of the Logos implanted in every race of men, have been hated and put to death: Heraclitus, as we said before, and Musonius in our own time, and others we know. For as we indicated, the demons have always brought it about that all who in any way strive to live according to reason and to flee evil are hated. And it is no wonder if the demons, being refuted, work much more to cause hatred against those who live not according to a part of the seminal Logos, but according to the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Logos, which is Christ; they will receive the fitting punishment and retribution, being confined in eternal fire. For if they are already defeated by men through the name of Jesus Christ, this is a lesson of the punishment in eternal fire that will befall them and those who serve them. Thus all the prophets foretold that it would happen, and our teacher Jesus taught. And I therefore expect to be plotted against by one of those named, and to be fixed to a stake, or at least by Crescens, the lover of noise and boastfulness.

It is not worthy to call a man a philosopher who publicly bears false witness against us, asserting that Christians are atheists and impious, for the sake of pleasing the many who are in error. For if he has not read the teachings of Christ and attacks us, he is utterly wicked and far worse than ordinary people, who often refrain from speaking and bearing false witness about things they do not know. Or if he has read them and did not understand the greatness in them, or understanding it, acts thus to avoid being suspected of being such a person, he is all the more ignoble and utterly wicked, being inferior to vulgar and irrational opinion and fear. For I added and questioned him with certain questions of this kind, both to learn and to refute, that he truly knows nothing, I wish you to know. And that I speak the truth, if the records of our discussions were not brought to you, I am ready to share the questions again before you; and this would be a royal deed. But if my questions and his answers have been made known to you, it is clear to you that he knows nothing of our matters; or if he does know, but does not dare to speak because of his hearers, like Socrates, as I said before, he is shown to be not a philosopher but a lover of glory, who does not even honor the Socratic, which is worthy of love. But no man is to be honored before the truth. It is impossible for a Cynic, who has set indifference as his end, to know the good except as indifference.

But so that no one might say what is said by those who are considered philosophers—that what we say about the unjust being punished in eternal fire is mere boasts and terrors, and that we demand that people live virtuously out of fear and not because it is good and pleasing—I will answer this briefly: if this were not the case, then either there is no god, or if there is, he does not care for human beings, and there is no virtue nor vice, and, as I said before, lawgivers unjustly punish those who transgress the ordained goods. But since those lawgivers and their father are not unjust, teaching through reason to do the same as he does, those who agree with them are not unjust. And if someone should bring forward the different laws of humans, saying that among some people these things are considered good and those shameful, while among others what is shameful among the former is considered good and what is good is considered shameful, let him also hear what is said on this point. We know that the wicked angels ordained laws similar to their own wickedness, in which humans who become like them take delight, and right reason, when it comes, does not show all opinions nor all doctrines to be good, but some are base, others good; so that to such people also I will say the same and similar things, and more will be said at greater length if need be. But now I return to the matter at hand. Our teachings appear greater than all human instruction, then, because the entire rational principle, the Christ who appeared for our sake, has become both body and word and soul.

For all that those who have philosophized or legislated have ever spoken and discovered well, it is by a part of the Word, through discovery and contemplation, that it has been labored by them. But since they did not know the whole of the Word, who is Christ, they often said things contrary to one another. And those who lived before Christ, having attempted by human reason to contemplate and examine matters, were brought to court as impious and meddlesome. The most vigorous of them all in this regard was Socrates, who was accused of the same things as we are; for they said that he was introducing new divinities, and that he did not hold the gods that the city recognizes. But he, casting out of the state the evil demons and those who did what the poets said, and rejecting Homer and the other poets, taught men to renounce them, and urged them to seek, through inquiry by reason, knowledge of the God unknown to them, saying: “But the father and maker of all is neither easy to find, nor, having found him, is it safe to speak of him to all.” This our Christ accomplished through his own power. For no one was persuaded by Socrates to die for this doctrine; but to Christ, who was even known in part by Socrates (for he was and is the Word that is in all, and who foretold through the prophets what was to come, and who, through himself, having become of like passions and having taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars were persuaded, but also craftsmen and completely uneducated people, despising both glory and fear and death; because he is a power of the ineffable father, and not the instruments of human reason.

We would not be put to death, nor would the unjust men and demons be stronger than us, if it were not absolutely necessary for every human being who is born also to die; hence, even as we pay this debt, we give thanks. And yet we consider it good and timely now to utter that saying of Xenophon against Crescens and those who are similarly foolish. Xenophon said that Heracles, walking at a certain crossroads, found both Virtue and Vice appearing in the forms of women. And Vice, with luxurious clothing and a face made seductive and blooming from such things, being immediately alluring to the eyes, said to Heracles that if he followed her, she would always make him live delightfully and adorned with the most splendid and similar adornment to that around her. And Virtue, being with a squalid face and attire, said: "But if you obey me, you will adorn yourself not with adornment or with beauty that is fleeting and perishable, but with the eternal and beautiful adornments." And we are persuaded that anyone, fleeing what seems pleasant and pursuing what is considered harsh and irrational, attains happiness. For Vice, by putting on as a cover for its own actions the qualities that belong to Virtue and are truly beautiful through imitation of the imperishable (for it has nothing imperishable nor can it produce any), enslaves the base among men, attributing to Virtue the base qualities that belong to itself.

But those who have understood what truly belongs to the beautiful and are incorruptible in virtue—and this must be supposed by every sensible person concerning Christians and those from the contest and the men who have done such things as the poets said about the so-called gods—drawing the conclusion from the fact that we despise even avoidable death. For I myself, while delighting in the teachings of Plato, when I heard Christians being slandered, but saw them fearless before death and everything else considered terrifying, I realized that it was impossible for them to be in wickedness and love of pleasure. For what lover of pleasure or incontinent person, or one who considered the eating of human flesh a good, could welcome death, so as to be deprived of his own goods, and not rather try always to live this present life and escape the notice of the rulers, let alone denounce himself to be put to death? Already the wicked demons have caused this to be done through certain evil men. For they themselves, after murdering some on false charges against us, have dragged into tortures the slaves of our people, or children, or women, and through fearful torments force them to confess these fabled things, which they themselves openly practice; but since none of these things pertain to us, we do not care, having God the unbegotten and ineffable as witness of both our thoughts and our actions.

For what reason do we not also publicly acknowledge these things as good and demonstrate them to be divine philosophy, claiming to celebrate the mysteries of Kronos by committing murder and by being filled with blood, as it is said, in the same way as the idol honored among you, to which not only the blood of irrational animals is sprinkled but also human blood, through the most distinguished and noblest man among you making the libation of the blood of those who have been killed, and becoming imitators of Zeus and the other gods in committing pederasty and having intercourse with women without restraint, while the writings of Epicurus and the poets serve as a defense? But since we persuade people to flee from these teachings and from those who have done and imitated these things, as we have now contended through these words, we are variously attacked; but we do not care, because we know that God is the just overseer of all things. Would that someone now might cry out with a tragic voice, having ascended some high platform: Be ashamed, be ashamed of what you openly do, attributing it to the innocent, and casting upon those who have no share at all, even to a small degree, the things that belong to yourselves and to your gods. Change, become prudent. For I myself, having learned that a wicked covering was placed by the evil demons around the divine teachings of Christians to turn away other people, and that these things are falsely spoken, I laughed at both the covering and the opinion held by the many.

I confess that I have been found to be a Christian, and I both pray and struggle with all my might. I do so not because the teachings of Plato are foreign to those of Christ, but because they are not entirely similar, just as the teachings of the Stoics, poets, and historians are not. For each of these, from a portion of the spermatic divine Word, saw what was akin and spoke well; but those who have said things contrary to each other on more essential matters clearly did not possess infallible knowledge and irrefutable understanding. Therefore, whatever has been well said belongs to us Christians. For we worship and love the Word from the unbegotten and ineffable God, next to God himself, since he became man for our sake, in order that he might share in our sufferings and bring healing. For all writers, through the innate seed of the Word implanted in them, were able to see reality dimly. For one thing is a seed of something and a likeness given according to capacity, and another is that very thing from which participation and imitation come by grace.

We therefore ask you to post this little book, after you have subscribed what seems good to you, so that our teachings may become known to others as well, and they may be able to be freed from false opinion and ignorance of what is good—those who, through no fault of their own, become liable to punishments [so that these things may be known to men], because in human nature there exists the capacity to discern good and evil, and because they pass judgment on us, whom they do not know to do such shameful things as they allege, and because they take pleasure in gods who did such things and even now demand similar things from men, so that by condemning us to death or bonds or some such penalty, as if we did such things, they condemn themselves, as needing no other judges. [And I have despised the teaching of the impious and wandering Simon in my own nation.] But if you post this, we would make it clear to all, so that if they are able, they may change their ways; it is for this reason alone that we have composed these words. Our teachings are not shameful by sound judgment, but are superior to all human philosophy; if not, they are at least not like the teachings of Sotades, Philaenis, Archestratus, Epicurus, and the other such poets, which all are permitted to encounter, both spoken and written. And we will stop now, having done as much as was in our power, and having prayed further that all men everywhere may be deemed worthy of the truth. May you, therefore, judge what is just for yourselves in a manner worthy of piety and philosophy.