Arnobius: ADVERSVS NATIONES LIBRI VII

1.1 Quoniam comperi nonnullos, qui se plurimum sapere suis persuasionibus credunt, insanire, bacchari et velut quiddam promptum ex oraculo dicere: postquam esse in mundo Christiana gens coepit, terrarum orbem perisse, multiformibus malis affectum esse genus humanum, ipsos etiam caelites, derelictis curis sollemnibus, quibus quondam solebant invisere res nostras, terrarum ab regionibus exterminatos, 2. statui pro captu ac mediocritate sermonis contraire invidiae et calumniosas dissolvere criminationes, ne aut illi sibi videantur, popularia dum verba depromunt, magnum aliquid dicere aut, si nos talibus continuerimus ab litibus, obtinuisse se causam putent, victam sui vitio, non adsertorum silentio destitutam. 3. Neque enim negaverim validissimam esse accusationem istam hostilibusque condignos odiis nos esse, si apud nos esse constiterit causas per quas suis mundus aberravit ab legibus, exterminati sunt dii longe, examina tanta maerorum mortalium inportata sunt saeculis.

1.1 Since I have learned that some, who think themselves very wise in their own persuasions, rave, bacchate, and as it were speak something ready from an oracle: that after the Christian people began to be in the world the orb of the lands has perished, the human race has been afflicted with manifold evils, even the celestials themselves, having abandoned the wonted cares by which they once used to behold our affairs, have been driven out from the regions of the earth, 2. I have resolved, according to the reach and mediocrity of my speech, to oppose envy and to dissolve slanderous accusations, lest either they seem to themselves, while they utter popular words, to have said something great, or, if we keep ourselves from such quarrels, they should think they have prevailed in the cause—victorious through their own fault, not left destitute by the silence of those who assert. 3. Nor indeed will I deny that this accusation is very powerful and that we are worthy of fitting hostile hatred, if it stands among us that the causes by which the world has wandered from its laws exist: the gods have been driven far away, such loads of mortal griefs have been borne into the ages.

2.1. Inspiciamus igitur opinionis istius mentem et hoc quod dicitur quale sit summotisque omnibus contentionum studiis, quibus obscurari et contegi contemplatio rerum solet, an sit istud quod dicitur verum, momentorum parium examinatione pendamus. 2. Efficietur enim profecto rationum consequentium copulatu, ut non impii nos magis, sed illi ipsi repperiantur criminis istius rei, qui se numinum profitentur esse cultores atque inveteratis religionibus deditos. 3. Ac primum ab his illud familiari et placida oratione perquirimus: postquam esse nomen in terris Christianae religionis | f.1b | occepit, quidnam inusitatum, quid incognitum, quid contra leges principaliter institutas aut sensit aut passa est rerum ipsa quae dicitur appellaturque natura?

2.1. Let us therefore inspect the mind of that opinion and, leaving aside all pursuits of contention by which the contemplation of things is wont to be obscured and covered, let us weigh whether that which is called true is so, by an examination of equal moments. 2. For by the joining together of consequent reasons it will assuredly be brought about that not we be judged more impious, but those very men be found guilty of that charge who profess themselves worshippers of the gods and devoted to long‑established religions. 3. And first from them we inquire, in a familiar and calm speech: after the name of the Christian religion began to be in the lands | f.1b | what was there in it unusual, what unknown, what principally instituted against the laws—did the things themselves called and named by nature perceive or suffer anything?

4. Numquid in contrarias qualitates prima illa elementa mutata sunt, ex quibus res omnes consensum est esse concretas? 5. numquid machinae huius et molis, qua universi tegimur et continemur inclusi, parte est in aliqua relaxata aut dissoluta constructio? numquid vertigo haec mundi, primigenii motus moderamen excedens, aut tardius repere aut praecipiti coepit volubilitate raptari?

4. Have those first elements been changed into contrary qualities, from which it is agreed that all things are concretely composed?
5. Or is some part of the machine and molestrucure by which we are covered and contained enclosed relaxed or dissolved in its construction? Or has this world’s vertigo, exceeding the moderation of the primordial motion, begun to creep more slowly or to be swept away with headlong whirling?

6. numquid ab occiduis partibus attollere se astra atque in ortus fieri signorum coepta est inclinatio? numquid ipse siderum sol princeps, cuius omnia luce vestiuntur atque animantur calore, exarsit, intepuit atque in contrarios habitus moderaminis soliti temperamenta corrupit? numquid luna desivit redintegrare se ipsam atque in veteres formas novellarum semper restitutione traducere?

6. Have the stars begun to lift themselves from the western parts, and has an inclination begun to make them into the risings of the signs? Have the sun himself, prince of the stars, whose all things are clothed in light and animated by heat, burned up, grown tepid, and corrupted the temperaments of his accustomed moderating habit into contrary states? Has the moon ceased to renew herself and, by an ever-renewing restitution, to be translated back into her former shapes?

7. numquid frigora, numquid calores, numquid tepores medii inaequalium temporum confusionibus occiderunt? numquid longos habere dies bruma et revocare tardissimas luces nox coepit aestatis? 8. numquid suas animas expiraverunt venti emortuisque flaminibus neque caelum coartatur in nubila nec madidari ex imbribus arva succedunt?

7. Have the colds, have the heats, have the tepidities of the middle been slain by confusions of unequal seasons? Has winter begun to have long days, and has night begun to summon back the latest lights of summer? 8. Have the winds breathed forth their souls and perished with their gusts, and is the sky no longer constricted into clouds nor do the fields grow wet from rains?

commendata semina tellus recusat accipere aut frondescere arbores nolunt? sapor frugibus esculentis et vitis liquoribus mutatus est? olearum ex baculis cruor taeter exprimitur nec lumini subministratur extincto?

Does the earth refuse to receive the entrusted seeds, or do the trees refuse to put forth leaves? Has the savor of edible fruits and the liquor of the vine been changed? Is foul blood pressed from the olive‑sticks, and, the light having been extinguished, is none supplied to the lamp?

9. animalia terris sueta atque in aquis degentia non suriunt, non concipiunt, | f.2 | fetus non in uteris sumptos suis moribus et sua lege custodiunt? 10. ipsi homines denique, quos per inhabitabiles oras terrae sparsit prima incipiensque nativitas, non matrimonia copulant nuptiarum sollemnibus iustis? non dulcissimas procreant liberorum stirpes?

9. do not the animals accustomed to the lands and living in the waters perish, do they not conceive, | f.2 | do they not guard the fetuses taken in their wombs according to their habits and their own law? 10. and men themselves at last, whom first birth scattered along the uninhabitable shores of the earth and beginning nativity, do they not join marriages with the solemn rites of nuptials? do they not beget the sweetest lineages of children?

11. non negotia publica, non privata et familiares res agunt? non, ut cuique libitum est, per diversas artium disciplinarumque rationes et ingenia derigunt et studiosae referunt navitatis usuras? 12. non regnant, non imperant quibus sors rerum adtributa est talium?

11. do they not transact public business, not private and household matters? do they not, as each pleases, by diverse arts and by the methods of disciplines and by their talents guide affairs, and do the studious not bring back the returns of birth? 12. do they not reign, do they not command, to whom such a lot of things has been allotted?

non auctiores cotidie dignitatibus et potestatibus fiunt, iudiciorum disceptationibus praesunt, leges interpretantur et iura? 13. nonne omnia cetera quibus vita succingitur et continetur humana, suis omnes in gentibus patriorum celebrant institutionibus morum?

do they not daily become more authoritative in dignities and powers, preside over the disputes of judgments, interpret laws and rights? 13. are not all the other things by which human life is girded and contained observed among all peoples in their nations by the ancestral institutions of their mores?

3.1. Cum igitur haec ita sint neque ulla inruperit novitas, quae tenorem perpetuum rerum dissociata continuatione diduxerit, quid est istud, quod dicitur invectam esse labem terris, postquam religio Christiana intulit se mundo et veritatis absconditae sacramenta patefecit? 2. ''Sed pestilentias, inquiunt, et siccitates, bella, frugum inopiam, locustas, mures et grandines resque alias noxias, quibus negotia incursantur humana, dii nobis inportant iniuriis vestris atque offensionibus exasperati''. 3. - Si in rebus perspicuis et nullam desiderantibus defensionem non stoliditatis esset diutius inmorari, ostenderem profecto replicatis prioribus saeculis, mala ista quae dicitis non esse incognita, non repentinas et postquam gens nostra felicitate donari | f. 2b | huius vocaminis meruit inrupisse has labes et infestare coepisse discriminum varietate mortalia. 4. Si enim nos sumus in causa et in nostri criminis meritum excogitatae sunt hae pestes, unde novit antiquitas miseriarum haec nomina, unde bellis significatum dedit?

3.1. Since then these things are so, and no novelty has broken in that has drawn the perpetual tenor of things apart by a severed continuation, what is this which is said to have burst upon the lands as a stain, after the Christian religion has introduced itself into the world and has disclosed the sacraments of hidden truth? 2. "But pestilences, they say, and droughts, wars, scarcity of crops, locusts, mice and hailstones and other noxious things by which human affairs are assailed, the gods bring upon us, exasperated by your injuries and offences." 3. — If, in clear matters and to those desiring no defence, it were not mere folly to linger longer, I would certainly show, recalling former centuries, that those evils which you name are not unknown, not sudden, nor did they burst in after our people had merited to be gifted with felicity | f. 2b | of this appellation, and begin to infest these blotches and torment us with a variety of mortal calamities. 4. For if we are the cause and these plagues were contrived as the desert of our crime, whence does antiquity know these names of miseries, whence has it given them meaning by wars?

pestilentias, grandines qua potuit ratione signare aut inter suas voces, quibus oratio explicabatur, adsumere? Nam si novella sunt haec mala et ab recentibus ducunt offensionibus causas, qui potuit fieri ut eis rebus verba formaret, quas nec ipsa sciebat expertam se esse neque ullis comperisset maiorum in temporibus factitatas? 5. ''Penuria, inquit, frugum et angustiae frumentariae artius nos habent''. - Antiqua enim et vetustissima saecula necessitatis istius aliquando fuerunt expertia?

to assume pestilences, hailstones as it could by reason mark or take up among its own words, with which the discourse was unfolded? For if these evils are novel and draw their causes from recent offenses, who could have fashioned words for those things which neither it itself knew to have experienced nor had learned by any means to have been done in the times of our ancestors? 5. "Scarcity," he says, "of crops and the straits of the grain-supply hold us more closely." — For were the ancient and most venerable ages ever at any time experienced in this necessity?

nonne ipsa nomina, quibus censentur haec mala, testificantur et clamant nullum ab his umquam immunem abisse mortalium? 6. Quodsi ad credendum difficilis res esset, testimoniis agere possemus auctorum, quantae, quoties et quae gentes famem senserint horridam et aggerata interierint vastitate. 7. ''Casus frequentissimi grandinis accidunt atque adterunt cuncta''. - In litteris enim priscis comprehensum et compositum non videmus, etiam imbres saxeos totas saepe comminuisse regiones?

Do not the very names by which these evils are judged testify and cry out that no mortal has ever gone untouched by them? 6. And if the matter were hard to believe, we could adduce the testimonies of authors—how great, how often, and which peoples have felt a horrid famine and perished heaped together in devastation. 7. "Very frequent occurrences of hail befall and bruise all things." — For do we not see in ancient writings, compiled and composed, that even stony rains have often smashed whole regions?

8. ''Difficiles pluviae sata faciunt emori et sterilitatem indicunt terris''. - Immunis enim antiquitas malis ab his fuit, cum etiam flumina cognoverimus ingentia limis inhorruisse siccatis? 9. ''Pestilentiae, contagia urunt genus humanum''. - Annalium scripta percurrite linguarum | f.3 | diversitatibus scripta: universas discetis gentes saepenumero desolatas et viduatas suis esse cultoribus. 10. ''Ab locustis, a muribus genus omne acciditur atque adroditur frugum''. - Historias ite per vestras et ab istis pestibus instruemini quotiens prior aetas adfecta sit et paupertatis ad miserias venerit.

8. "Difficult rains make sown things die and indicate sterility to the lands." — For was antiquity free from these evils, when even we have known great rivers to have withered from deposited silts when dried up? 9. "Pestilences, contagions burn the human race." — Run through the written annals, written with the diversities of tongues | f.3 |: you will learn that whole peoples very often were laid waste and widow‑made of their tillers. 10. "From locusts, from mice the whole species is struck and the fruits wasted." — Go through your histories and be instructed by those plagues how often an earlier age was afflicted and came to the miseries of poverty.

11. ''Terrarum validissimis motibus tremefactae nutant usque ad periculum civitates''. - Quid, hiatibus maximis interceptas urbes cum gentibus superiora tempora non viderunt aut ab huiusmodi casibus fortunas habuere securas?

11. ''Shaken by the most powerful quakings of the lands, cities totter even to the point of peril''. - What then? Have cities, cleft by the greatest chasms and cut off from their peoples, not seen earlier times, or have their fortunes been secure from such calamities?

4.1. Quando est humanum genus aquarum diluvis interemptum? - non ante nos? Quando mundus incensus in favillas et cineres dissolutus est?

4.1. When was the human genus destroyed by floods of waters? - not before us? When was the world, set on fire, dissolved into embers and ashes?

- non ante nos? Quando urbes amplissimae marinis coopertae sunt fluctibus? - non ante nos?

- not before us? When were the very ample cities covered by marine waves? - not before us?

2. Quando cum feris bella et proelia cum leonibus gesta sunt? - non ante nos? Quando pernicies populis venenatis ab anguibus data est?

2. When were wars and combats with wild beasts and with lions waged? - not before us? When was destruction bestowed upon peoples by venomous snakes?

- non ante nos? 3. Nam quod nobis obiectare consuestis bellorum frequentium causas, vastationes urbium, Germanorum et Scythicas inruptiones, cum pace hoc vestra et cum bona venia dixerim, quale sit istud quod dicitur calumniarum libidine non videtis.

- non ante nos? 3. For that which you are accustomed to object to us — the causes of frequent wars, the devastations of cities, the Germanic and Scythian incursions — with “peace” this is, and with good leave, if I may say so, what sort of thing that is which is called the lust for calumny you do not see.

5.1. Ut ante milia annorum decem ab insula quae perhibetur Atlantica Neptuni, sicut Plato [Tim. 25b] demonstrat, magna erumperet vis hominum et innumeras funditus deleret atque extingueret nationes, nos fuimus causa? 2. ut inter Assyrios et Bactrianos, Nino quondam Zoroastreque ductoribus, non tantum | f.3 b | ferro dimicaretur et viribus, verum etiam magicis et Chaldaeorum ex reconditis disciplinis, invidia nostra haec fuit?

5.1. That before ten thousand years the great force of men burst forth from the island which is called the Atlantic of Neptune, as Plato [Tim. 25b] demonstrates, and utterly destroyed and extinguished innumerable nations, were we the cause? 2. That among the Assyrians and the Bactrians, once under Ninus and Zoroaster as leaders, there was fought not only with iron and by strength, but also with magical arts and the Chaldaeans' secret disciplines, was this our envy? | f.3 b |

3. ut Helena, diis ducibus atque inpulsoribus rapta, et suis esset dirum et venturis temporibus fatum, religionis nostrae attributum est crimini? 4. ut ille immanis Xerses mare terris immitteret et gressibus maria transiret, nostri nominis effectum est ira? 5. ut ex Macedoniae finibus unus exortus adolescens Orientis regna et populos captivitate ac servitio subiugaret, nos fecimus atque excitavimus causas?

3. that Helen, seized by the gods as leaders and instigators, and doomed to a dire fate in present and coming times, should be attributed as a crime to our religion? 4. that that monstrous Xerxes should have poured the sea upon the lands and crossed the waters with his steps — was the wrath the effect of our name? 5. that from the borders of Macedonia one youth should arise and subdue the kingdoms and peoples of the East into captivity and servitude — did we make and stir up those causes?

6. ut modo Romani velut aliquod flumen torrens cunctas submergerent atque obruerent nationes, nos videlicet numina praecipitavimus in furorem? 7. Quodsi hominum nullus est, qui quae iamdudum gesta sunt nostris audeat temporibus imputare, quemadmodum possimus miseriarum esse praesentium causae, cum novi fiat nihil, sed sint omnia vetera et nullis antiquitatibus inaudita?

6. that now the Romans, as if a torrent of some river, would submerge and overwhelm all nations, did we then, plainly, hurl the numina into fury? 7. But if there is no man who would dare to impute to our times those things already done, how can we be the causes of present miseries, since nothing becomes new, but all things are old and unheard-of by any antiquities?

6.1. Quamquam ista quae dicitis bella religionis nostrae ob invidiam commoveri non sit difficile comprobare post auditum Christum in mundo non tantum non aucta, verum etiam maiore de parte furiarum compressionibus imminuta. 2. Nam cum hominum vis tanta magisteriis eius acceperimus ac legibus, malum malo rependi non oportere, iniuriam perpeti quam inrogare esse praestantius, suum potius fundere quam alieno polluere manus et conscientiam cruore, habet a Christo beneficium iamdudum orbis ingratus, per quem feritatis mollita est rabies atque hostiles manus cohibere | f. 4 | a sanguine cognati animantis occepit. 3. Quodsi omnes omnino qui homines esse non specie corporum sed rationis intellegunt potestate, salutaribus eius pacificisque decretis aurem vellent commodare paulisper et non fastu et supercilio tumidi suis potius sensibus quam illius commonitionibus crederent, universus iamdudum orbis mitiora in opera conversis usibus ferri tranquillitate in mollissima degeret et in concordiam salutarem incorruptis foederum sanctionibus conveniret.

6.1. Although it is not difficult to prove that those wars which you speak of were set in motion against our religion out of envy, after the hearing of Christ in the world they were not only not increased, but for the greater part were diminished by the suppression of their furors. 2. For when we have received so great a force of men by his teachings and laws, that evil ought not to be repaid with evil, that it is more becoming to endure an injury than to inflict one, to shed one’s own blood rather than pollute another’s hands and conscience with gore, the ungrateful world already has from Christ the benefit by which the rage of beastliness was softened and hostile hands began to restrain themselves | f. 4 | from the blood of a kinsman and fellow-soul. 3. But if all men at large who understand themselves to be men not by the aspect of bodies but by the power of reason would for a little lend an ear to his salutary and pacific decrees, and not in pride and arrogant brow trust their own senses rather than his admonitions, the whole world long since, turned to gentler uses in action, would be carried along in tranquillity and live in the mildest peace and meet in wholesome concord under uncorrupt sanctions of treaties.

7.1. ''Sed si per vos, inquiunt, nihil rebus incommodatur humanis, unde sunt haec mala, quibus urgetur et premitur iamdudum miseranda mortalitas?''. 2. - Sententiam me poscis huic necessariam nihil causae. Neque enim praesens atque in manibus posita disceptatio in id sumpta est a me ut ostenderem vel probarem quibus unaquaeque res causis et rationibus fieret, sed ut maledicta criminis tanti procul esse ab nobis ostenderem. 3. Quod si praesto, si facto et argumentis insignibus rei veritas explicatur, unde sint haec mala vel ex quibus profluant fontibus principiisque non curo.

7.1. ''But if, they say, nothing of harm is done to human affairs by you, whence are these evils by which wretched mortality has long been pressed and oppressed?''. 2. - ''You demand of me a judgment necessary to this without cause. For I have not taken up the present and at-hand dispute to show or to prove in what causes and reasons each thing happens, but to show that the malediction of so great a crime was far from us.'' 3. ''But if it were at hand—if by deed and by conspicuous arguments the truth of the matter were laid bare—whence these evils are, or from what springs and principles they flow, I do not concern myself with.''

8.1. Ac ne tamen omnino quid de rebus huiusmodi sentiam nihil videar interrogatus expromere, possum dicere: 2. quid enim, si prima materies quae in rerum quattuor elementa digesta est, miseriarum omnium causas suis continet in rationibus involutas? 3. quid si siderum motus certis signis, partibus, temporibus, lineis, pariunt haec mala et subiectis adferunt variorum discriminum necessitates? 4. quid si statis temporibus rerum vicissitudines fiunt atque ut in maritimis | f. 4b | aestibus modo secundae res adfluunt, modo rursus refluunt malis reciprocantibus prospera?

8.1. And lest I seem altogether unable, when questioned, to set forth anything about matters of this kind, I can say: 2. for what if the prima materia, which is distributed into the four elements of things, contains the causes of all miseries wrapped up in its own principles? 3. what if the motions of the stars, by certain signs, parts, times, and lines, beget these evils and, acting on subjacent things, bring about the necessities of diverse calamities? 4. what if at fixed times vicissitudes of things occur, and, as in the maritime | f. 4b | tides, now favorable things flow in, now again they ebb, evils reciprocating prosperities?

5. quid si materiae faex ista, quam sub nostris calcamus ingressibus, hanc habet sibi legem datam, ut expiret nocentissimos halitus, quibus corruptus aer iste et corporibus labem ferat et negotia infirmet humana? 6. quid si - quod proximum vero est - quicquid nobis videtur adversum, mundo ipsi non est malum omniaque quae fiunt nostris commoditatibus statuentes, opinionibus inprobis criminamur eventa naturae? 7. Plato [Tim.

5. what if that faeces of matter, which we tread under our entrances, has this law given to it, that it breathes forth the most noxious vapours, by which this air, corrupted, brings plague to bodies and weakens human affairs? 6. what if — which indeed is the nearest — whatever seems adverse to us is not evil for the world itself, and all the things that happen, though they are ordered for our conveniences, we, by unworthy opinions, arraign as events of nature? 7. Plato [Tim.

22d], ille sublimis apex philosophorum et columen, saeva illa diluvia et conflagrationes mundi purgationem terrarum suis esse in commentariis prodidit, nec vir prudens extimuit humani generis subversionem, cladem, ruinas, interitus, funera, rerum innovationem vocare et [in] iuventutem his quandam redintegratis viribus comparari.

[22d], that lofty apex of philosophers and column, in his commentaries declared that those savage diluvia and conflagrations are a purgation of the lands, and a prudent man did not shrink to call the overthrow of the human race — subversion, disaster, ruins, annihilation, funerals, the innovation of things — and to liken them to a certain [in] youth, to whom by these things some strength is restored.

9.1. ''Non pluit, inquit, caelum et frumentorum inopia nescio qua laboramus''. - Quid enim inservire elementa tuis necessitatibus postulas atque, ut vivere mollius et delicatius tu possis, obsequia temporum tuis debent commoditatibus se dare? 2. Quid enim si hoc pacto navigationis cupidissimus conqueratur ventos iamdiu non esse et caeli conquievisse flaturas? numquid ideo dicendum est, perniciosam esse tranquillitatem illam mundi, quia vectoribus impediat vota?

9.1. "It does not rain," he says, "and we suffer some kind of scarcity of grain." - For why do you demand that the elements serve your necessities, and that the obsequies of the seasons give themselves to your conveniences so that you may live more softly and delicately? 2. And what if, in this fashion, the most eager seeker of navigation complains that the winds have for a long time been absent and that the sky has become at rest and will not blow? Ought we therefore to say that that tranquility of the world is pernicious because it thwarts the wishes of mariners?

3. Quid si sole aliquis torrere se suetus et adquirere corpori siccitatem ratione consimili conqueratur frequentissimis nubilis iucunditatem serenitatis ablatam? | f.5 | numquid ideo dicenda sunt nubila inimica obductione pendere, quia libidini non permittitur otiose rutilare se flammis et causas potionibus praeparare? 4. Eventa haec omnia quae fiunt et accidunt mole sub hac mundi commodulis non sunt nostris sed ipsius pendenda sunt rationibus ordinibusque naturae.

3. But what if someone, accustomed to be scorched by the sun and to acquire dryness for his body by a similar reason, complains that by very frequent clouds the pleasantness of serenity is taken away? | f.5 | ought the clouds therefore to be called hostile, hanging in a covering, because pleasure is not permitted to idly glow with flames and to prepare causes with potions? 4. All these events which happen and befall under the mass of these worldly conveniences are not to be ascribed to us but must be referred to the reasons and orders of nature itself.

10.1. Nec si aliquid accidit quod nosmet ipsos aut res nostras parum laetis successibus fovit, continuo malum est et in exitiabilis rei opinione ponendum. 2. Pluit mundus aut non pluit: sibimet pluit aut non pluit et, quod forsitan nescias, aut uliginem nimiam siccitatis ardore decoquit aut longissimi temporis ariditatem pluviarum effusionibus temperat. 3. Pestilentias, morbos, fames atque alias suggerit malorum exitiabiles formas: unde tibi est scire ne quod exuberat sic tollat, ut per sua dispendia modum rebus luxuriantibus figat?

10.1. Nor if anything happens that has favored ourselves or our affairs with rather scant joyful successes is it immediately an evil and to be placed in the opinion of a ruinous thing. 2. The world rains or does not rain: it rains or does not rain for itself, and, which perhaps you do not know, it either dries excessive moisture by the ardor of dryness or tempers the aridity of a very long time by the effusions of rains. 3. It supplies pestilences, diseases, famines and other deadly forms of evils: how are you to know that it does not so remove what abounds, that by its own losses it may fix a measure for things luxuriant?

11.1. Tu audeas dicere: hoc et illud est in mundo malum, cuius explicare, dissolvere neque originem valeas neque causam et, quia tuas impediat deliciarum forsitan et libidinum voluptates, perniciosum esse atque asperum dicas? 2. Quid ergo? quia frigus membris tuis adversum est et congelare, constringere sanguinis tui fervorem solet, idcirco in mundo hiemps esse non debet?

11.1. Do you dare to say: this and that is an evil in the world, whose origin and cause you are not able to explain or dissolve, and because it perhaps impedes your own delights and the pleasures of your lusts you call it pernicious and harsh? 2. What then? Because cold is adverse to your limbs and is wont to congeal and to constrain the fervor of your blood, should winter therefore not be in the world?

et quia sustinere, perferre flagrantissimos soles nequeas, ex anno aestas tollenda est atque aliis legibus alia rursus ordinanda natura? 3. Veratrum venenum est hominibus: numquid ob hanc causam non debuit nasci? Ovilibus insidiatur lupus: numquid in culpa natura est, | f. 5b | quod lanitiis extulit inportunissimam beluam?

and because you cannot endure, bear, the most blazing suns, must summer be removed from the year and nature again ordered by other laws for other things? 3. Veratrum is a poison to humans: for this reason alone ought it not to have been born? A wolf lies in ambush for sheep: is nature at fault, | f. 5b | because she raised up for the wool-producers a most untimely beast?

Morsu animam serpens tollit: maledicam scilicet primordis rerum, quod tam saeva prodigia genituris spirantibus addiderunt.

A serpent takes life by a bite: plainly a malediction of the primordial origins of things, because they have added such savage prodigies to those about to be born and breathing.

12.1. Superciliosa nimium res est, cum ipse sis non tuus, aliena etiam in possessione verseris, potentioribus dare condicionem velle, ut id fiat quod cupias, non quod in rebus inveneris antiquis constitutionibus fixum. 2. Quare habere si locum vestras vultis querimonias, homines, prius est ut doceatis, unde vel qui sitis, vobisne sit genitus et fabricatus mundus, an in eum veneritis alienis ex regionibus inquilini. 3. Quod cum dicere non sit vestrum neque explicare possitis cuius rei causa sub hac caeli convexione versemini, desistite arbitrari pertinere ad vos quicquam, cum ea quae fiunt non partiliter fiant, sed ad census summam redeant referanturque totius.

12.1. It is a matter too supercilious, when you are not even your own but dwell in another’s possessions, to wish to impose terms on the more potent that what you desire be done rather than what has been fixed in ancient constitutions. 2. Therefore, if you wish your complaints to have any place, men, first teach from where or who you are, whether the world was born and fabricated for you, or whether you have come into it as an inquiline from alien regions. 3. But since it is not yours to tell or to explain the cause for which you are tossed under this convexity of heaven, desist from deeming that anything pertains to you, seeing that things which happen are not done by parts but return to the common sum and are referred to the whole.

13.1. ''Christianorum, inquiunt, causa mala omnia di serunt et interitus comparatur ab superis frugibus''. - Rogo, cum haec dicitis, non calumniari vos improbe in apertis conspicitis manifestisque mendaciis? 2. Trecenti sunt anni ferme, minus vel plus aliquid, ex quo coepimus esse Christiani et terrarum in orbe censeri: numquid omnibus his annis continua fuerunt bella, continuae sterilitates, pax nulla in terris, nulls protinus vilitas aut abundantia rerum fuit? 3. Hoc enim primum efficiendum est ei qui nos arguit, perpetuas et iuges calamitates fuisse has, numquam omnino respirasse mortalia et sine ullis, ut dicitur, feriis multiplicium | f.6 | formas sustinuisse discriminum.

13.1. "On account of the Christians," they say, "the gods sow all evils and destruction is brought down from the upper fruits." — I ask, when you say these things, do you not shamelessly calumniate yourselves with open, conspicuous, and manifest lies? 2. It is almost three hundred years, more or less, since we began to be Christians and to be counted among the peoples of the earth: were there continuous wars in all these years, continuous famines, no peace anywhere on earth, no continual dearth or abundance of things? 3. For this first must be made out by him who reproaches us: that these calamities were perpetual and unending, that mortals never at any time breathed at all, and, without any, as they say, holidays, endured manifold forms of peril. | f.6 |

14.1. Atquin videmus mediis his annis mediisque temporibus ex victis hostibus innumerabiles esse victorias reportatas, prolatos imperii fines et in potestatem redactas inauditi nominis nationes: saepenumero maximos annorum fuisse proventus, vilitates atque abundantias rerum tantas ut commercia stuperent universa, pretiorum auctoritate prostrata. 2. Quemadmodum enim res agi et usque ad hoc tempus genus quisset durare mortalium, si non omnia quae usus [ut] vitae posceret subministraret fertilitas rerum?

14.1. Moreover we see, in these middle years and middle times, innumerable victories reported from conquered enemies, the extended bounds of the empire and nations of unheard-of name brought under power: very often the greatest yields of the years have been, such cheapnesses and abundances of things that all commerce was astounded, the authority of prices overthrown. 2. For how could affairs be conducted and this race of mortals have endured up to this time, if the fertility of things did not supply all that the use of life demanded?

15.1. Sed fuerunt aliquando nonnulla in necessitatibus tempora: et relaxata sunt abundantiis rursus; contra voluntatem quaedam bella administrata: et victoriis postmodum successibusque correcta. 2. Quid ergo? dicemus iniuriarum nostrarum deos modo memores esse modo esse rursus immemores?

15.1. But there were once certain seasons of need: and they were again relaxed by abundances; certain wars were waged against the will: and afterwards were set right by victories and successes. 2. What then? shall we say that the gods of our injuries are now mindful, now again forgetful?

3. Si quo tempore fames est, irati esse dicuntur, sequitur ut abundantiae tempore irati et difficiles non sint; atque ita perducitur res eo ut vicibus ludicris et ponant et repetant iras et in integrum se semper offensionum recordatione restituant.

3. If at any time there is famine, they are said to be angry; it follows that in a time of abundance they are not angry and are tractable; and so the matter is carried to this point, that in playful alternations they both lay down and take up again their angers, and by the omission of the remembrance of offences they always restore themselves to wholeness .

16.1. Quamquam istud quod dicitur quale sit explicabili non potest conprehensione cognosci. Si Alamannos, Persas, Scythas, idcirco voluerunt devinci, quod habitarent et degerent in eorum gentibus Christiani, quemadmodum Romanis tribuere victoriam, cum habitarent et degerent in eorum quoque gentibus Christiani? 2. Si in Asia, Syria, idcirco mures et locustas | f. 6b | effervescere prodigialiter voluerunt, quod ratione consimili habitarent in eorum gentibus Christiani: in Hispania, Gallia, cur eodem tempore horum nihil natum est, cum innumeri viverent in his quoque provinciis Christiani?

16.1. Although that which is called "what sort" cannot be explained, it can be known by comprehension. If they therefore wished the Alamanni, Persians, Scythians to be defeated because Christians lived and dwelt among their peoples, why did they grant victory to the Romans, since Christians lived and dwelt also among their peoples? 2. If in Asia, Syria they therefore willed mice and locusts to swarm prodigiously because, by a similar rationale, Christians lived among their peoples: in Hispania, Gaul, why at the same time was nothing of these produced, when countless Christians lived in those provinces as well? | f. 6b |

3. Si apud Gaetulos Tinguitanos, huius rei causa siccitatem satis ariditatemque miserunt, eo anno cur messes amplissimas Mauris Nomadibusque tribuerunt, cum religio similis his quoque in regionibus verteretur? 4. Si in civitate unaqualibet fame plurimos emori nostri nominis aversione fecerunt, cur ibidem annonaria caritate non tantum corporis non nostri, verum etiam Christianos ditiores et locupletissimos reddiderunt? 5. Aut igitur cuncti nihil laetum habere debuerunt, si malorum causa nos sumus, nationibus enim sumus in cunctis, aut, cum mixta videatis cum incommodis laeta, desinite nobis adscribere id quod offendit res vestras, cum nihil laetis officiamus et prosperis.

3. If among the Gaetulians and Tingitans they sent drought and great aridity for this cause, why in that year did they grant very abundant harvests to the Moors and Nomads, since a like religio also prevailed among those regions? 4. If in any one city many perished from famine because of aversion to our name, why there did the scarcity of grain not only fail to impoverish their bodies but actually make Christians richer and more affluent? 5. Either therefore all ought to have had nothing joyful, if we are the cause of evils—for we are present among all nations—or, since you see blessings mingled with hardships, cease to ascribe to us that which offends your affairs, when we do nothing to injure the prosperous and the fortunate.

6. Si enim ego ut male sit facio, cur ut bene sit non obsto? si ut inopia magna sit meum nomen in causa est, cur nihil impedio ut sit feracitas maxima? si ut in bellis accipiatur vulnus ego dicor adferre fortunam, cur, duelles cum pereant, laevum augurium non sum nec in adversa spes bonas mali ominis obscenitate traduco?

6. For if I am said to make things turn ill, why do I not oppose when they turn well? If my name is the cause that there be great inpoverishment, why do I not in any way prevent there being greatest feracitas? If, when a wound is taken in wars, I am said to bring fortuna, why, when warriors perish, am I not an ill augurium, nor in adverse events translate good hopes into ruin by the obscenity of a bad omen?

17.1. Et tamen, o magni cultores atque antistites numinum, cur irasci populis Christianis augustissimos illos adseveratis deos? Ita non advertitis, non videtis, adfectus quam turpes, quam indecoras numinibus attribuatis insanias? 2. Quid est enim aliud irasci quam insanire, quam furere, | F. 7 | quam in ultionis libidinem ferri et in alterius doloris cruces efferati pectoris alienatione bacchari?

17.1. And yet, O great cultors and antistites of the numina, why do you assert that those most august gods are angry with Christian peoples? Do you not thus notice, do you not see how shameful, how indecorous the affections are which you ascribe to the numina, the insanities? 2. For what else is to be angry than to be insane, than to rage, | F. 7 | than to be borne into a lust for vengeance and, by the madness of a heart maddened at another’s pain, to revel in bacchic fury?

3. Hoc ergo dii magni norunt, perpetiuntur et sentiunt quod ferae, quod beluae, quod mortiferae continent venenato in dente natrices. 4. Quod levitatis in homine, quod terreno in animante culpabile est, praestans illa natura et in perpetuae virtutis firmitate consistens scire adseveratur a vobis: 5. - et quid ergo sequitur necessario, nisi ut ex eorum luminibus scintillae emicent flammeae, aestuet anhelum pectus, spuma iactetur ex ore et ex verbis ardentibus labrorum siccitas inalbescat?

3. Therefore the great gods know, endure, and perceive that beasts, that wild creatures, that deadly ones contain snakes with venomous teeth. 4. That which is levity in man, that which is earthly in the culpable animal, that surpassing nature and standing in the firmness of perpetual virtue you assert to know: 5. — and what then follows necessarily, unless that from their eyes flaming sparks flash forth, the panting breast seethes, foam is cast from the mouth, and from the burning words the dryness of the lips turns white?

18.1. Quod si verum est istud et est exploratum et cognitum, ecfervescere deos ira et huiusmodi motu, perturbatione iactari, immortales et perpetui non sunt nec in divinitatis alicuius existimatione ponendi. 2. Ubi enim est ullus, sicut sapientibus videtur, adfectus, ibi esse necesse est passionem; ubi passio sita est, perturbationem consentaneum est consequi; ubi perturbatio est, ibi dolor et aegritudo est; ubi dolor et aegritudo est, imminutioni et corruptioni iam locus est; quae duo si vexant, adest vicinus interitus, mors omnia finiens et cunctis adimens sentientibus vitam.

18.1. But if that is true and has been examined and known, that the gods boil up with anger and with such a motion, are tossed about by perturbation, they are not immortal and perpetual nor to be placed in the estimation of any divinity. 2. For where there is any affect, as it seems to the wise, there must be passion; where passion is placed, it is fitting that perturbation follow; where perturbation is, there is pain and sorrow; where pain and sorrow are, there is already room for diminution and corruption; if these two afflict, the neighboring ruin is present, death ending all things and depriving all sentient beings of life.

19.1. Quid quod isto modo non tantum illos leves ac fervidos, verum - quod ab diis convenit procul esse dimotum - et iniquos inducitis et iniustos et aequitatis vel modicae nullam prorsus obtinere rationem? 2. Quid est enim tam iniustum quam in aliis irasci et alios laedere, de hominibus conqueri et innoxia dilacerare frumenta, Christianum nomen odisse et dispendiis omnibus suos | f. 7b | labefactare cultores?

19.1. What then, in this manner do you not only make them light and fervid, but — what ought to be set far removed from the gods — also induce them to be iniquitous and unjust, and to have absolutely no regard for even a modest equity? 2. For what is so unjust as to be angry at others and to harm others, to complain about men and to rend harmless grain, to hate the Christian name and by every loss to undermine its cultores | f. 7b |?

20.1. At numquid idcirco in vos etiam saeviunt, ut intestinis vulneribus concitati in ultionem consurgatis illorum? - Ergo humana patrocinia dii quaerunt et, nisi vestra fuerint adsertione protecti, idonei non sunt ipsi, qui propulsare, defendere suas valeant contumelias? 2. Quinimmo si verum est ardere illos ira, permittite illis potestatem sui, defendant se ipsi atque in ultionem maiestatis offensae intestinas exerant experianturque virtutes.

20.1. But are they therefore even savage against you, so that, stirred up by inward wounds, you should rise up in vengeance against them? — So the gods seek human patrons, and, unless they have been protected by your advocacy, are they not themselves unfit to repel and defend their own affronts? 2. Nay rather, if it is true that they burn with anger, grant them the power of themselves: let them defend themselves and exercise inward vengeance for the offense against majesty, and let them prove their virtues.

3. Possunt nos, si voluerint, aestu, possunt nocentissimo frigore, possunt auris pestilibus, possunt morborum obscurissimis causis enecare, consumere atque ab omni penitus coetu exterminare mortali; 4. aut si malum consilium est adgredi nos vi, emittant aliquod iudicationis signum, per quod esse liquidum cunctis possit, invitissimis nos eis habitare sub caelo.

3. They can us, if they will, with heat, they can with the most noxious cold, they can with pestilent winds, they can by the most obscure causes of diseases drown, consume and utterly exterminate us by mortal destruction; 4. or if it is an evil counsel to attack us by force, let them send forth some sign of adjudication, by which it may be clear to all that we, most unwilling, dwell under their heaven.

21.1. Vobis secundas tribuant valetudines, adversas nobis ac pessimas. Opportunis imbribus vestra inrigent rura, pluviarum quicumque sunt rores nostris ab agellulis abigant. Lanitia curent vestra numerosis fetibus multiplicari, sterilitatem infaustam nostris pecuariis inferant.

21.1. May they grant you favorable healths, adverse and most bad to us. With timely rains may they irrigate your fields, and may whatever dews of showers there are drive away the mists from our little plots. May your woolly flocks be tended to multiply with numerous offspring, and may they inflict ill‑omened sterility on our cattle.

2. Ex olivis vestris atque vinetis plenam faciant autumnitatem fundi, at ex nostris exprimi unum prohibeant palmitis rorem. 3. Ad extremum et ultimum in vestro ore praecipiant suam fruges retinere naturam, at vero in nostro mel amarum fieri, olearum fluenta fracescere et sub ipsius potu labris in acoris perfidiam vinum repente mutari.

2. From your olives and vineyards may they make the estate’s autumn full, but from ours may they forbid even one drop to be pressed by the little shoots. 3. At the extreme and uttermost they may enjoin, in your mouth, that your fruits retain their nature; but in ours that honey become bitter, the streams of oils rot, and under the very lips of its drinking wine suddenly be changed into the treachery of gall.

22.1. Quod cum minime fieri testificentur res ipsae | f. 8 | neque minus ad nos quicquam neque ad vos plurimum redundare vitalibus ex beneficiis constet, libido quae tanta est inimicos atque hostes deos esse contendere Christianis, quos in rebus tristissimis atque laetis nihil abs te videas ratione in aliqua discrepare? 2. Si verum vobis permittitis ac sine ullis adsentationibus dici, verba sunt haec, verba sunt, res immo per calumnias creditae, non cognitionis alicuius testimonio comprobatae.

22.1. Since the things themselves testify that this is by no means so | f. 8 | and since it is no less established that nothing whatever from benefits redounds to us nor very greatly to you, the living, is the libido so great to contend that the gods are enemies and foes to Christians, whom in the most sorrowful and most joyful affairs you would see to differ from you in no respect by any reason? 2. If you permit them to be called true and to be said without any adulation, these are the words, these are the words: the matters, rather, were entrusted by calumnies, not corroborated by the testimony of any inquiry.

23.1. Ceterum dii veri et qui habere, qui ferre nominis huius auctoritatem condigni sunt, neque irascuntur neque indignantur neque quod alteri noceat insidiosis machinationibus construunt. 2. Etenim revera est impium et sacrilegia cuncta transcendens, sapientem illam credere beatissimamque naturam magnum aliquid putare, si se sibi aliquis adulatoria humilitate summittat, et si fuerit non factum, despectam se credere et ab summi culminis decidisse fastigio. 3. Puerile, pusillum est et exile, vix et illis conveniens, quos iamdudum experientia doctorum daemonas appellat errones, non nosse caelestia et in hac rerum materia crassiore condicionis suae sorte versari.

23.1. Moreover the true gods, and those who are worthy to possess and to bear the authority of this name, neither grow angry nor take offence nor contrive insidious machinations by which another might be harmed. 2. For truly it is impious and surpassing all sacrilege to suppose that that wise and most‑blessed nature would esteem aught great if any one abase himself before it with flattering humility, and, if he has not been made such, to believe himself despised and fallen from the pinnacle of the highest summit. 3. Childish, petty and mean is it, scarcely even fitting for those whom long experience of the learned calls errant demons, to be ignorant of heavenly things and to ply themselves in this matter of affairs in the coarser lot of their condition.

24.1. Vestra sunt haec, vestra sunt inreligiose opinata et inreligiosius credita. 2. Quinimmo, ut verius proloquar, huruspices has fabulas, coniectores, harioli, vates et numquam non vani concinnavere fanatici, qui, ne suae artes intereant ac ne stipes exiguas consultoribus excutiant iam raris, si quando vos velle rem venire in invidiam compererunt, 3. ''Negleguntur dii, clamitant, atque in templis iam raritas summa est, iacent antiquae derisui caerimoniae et sacrorum quondam veterrimi ritus | f. 8b | religionum novarum superstitionibus occiderunt, et merito humanum genus tot miseriarum angustiis premitur, tot laborum excruciatur aerumnis''. 4. Et homines, brutum genus et quod situm sub lumine est caecitate ingenita nequeuntes videre, audent adseverare furiosi quod vos credere non erubescitis sani.

24.1. These things are yours, these are held by you irreligiously and believed more irreligiously. 2. Nay, to speak more truly, the haruspices devised these fables, the conjectors, harioli, vates and ever-vain fanatics who, lest their arts perish and lest they shake off their meagre fees from consultants now rare, whenever they discovered that you wished the matter to fall into discredit, 3. "The gods are neglected, they cry, and in the temples now there is the utmost rarity, the ancient ceremonies lie derided and the sacred observances of very old rites | f. 8b | have died before the superstitions of new religions, and deservedly the human race is pressed by so many narrownesses of miseries, is tortured by so many labors of hardships." 4. And men, a brutish kind and those who are placed under the light, unable to see because of an inborn blindness, dare—madmen—to assert what you, who are not ashamed to believe, count as sane.

25.1. Ac ne quis nos tamen diffidentia responsionis tranquillitatis existimet deos donare muneribus, innoxias adfingere his mentes atque ab omni perturbatione dimotas, concedamus, sicut libitum vobis est, intendere in nos iras, sanguinem illos sitire nostrum et iamdudum nos cupere mortalium submovere de saeculis. 2. Sed si non est molestum, non grave, si communis officii res est, non ex gratia, sed ex vero disceptationis huius disceptare momenta, audire a vobis exposcimus, quaenam sit haec ratio, quae causa propter quam in nos tantum et dii saeviant superi et asperati homines inardescant. 3. ''Religiones, inquiunt, impias atque inauditos cultus terrarum in orbe tractatis''. - Quid, o participes rationis audetis homines proloqui, quid effutire, quid promere temerariae vocis desperatione temptatis?

25.1. And lest anyone however think from distrust of the answer that the gods grant gifts, that they attribute harmlessness to these minds and remove them from every perturbation, let us concede, as it pleases you, that they direct their wrath against us, that they thirst for our blood and for a long time have wished to remove us mortals from the ages. 2. But if it is not troublesome, not heavy, if it is a matter of common duty and not of favor, we ask to debate the points of this very dispute, to hear from you what this reason is, what the cause by which the gods alone rage so much against us and the upper ones are incensed and men enflamed. 3. "Religions," they say, "impious and unheard-of cults are spread through the lands in the world." — What, O sharers of reason, do you dare to speak on behalf of men, what to pour forth, what to utter, what do you attempt by the rash despair of your voice?

4. Deum principem, rerum cunctarum quaecumque sunt dominum, summitatem omnium summorum obtinentem, adorare, obsequio venerabili invocare, in rebus fessis totis, ut ita dixerim, sensibus amplexari, amare, suspicere, execrabilis religio est et infausta, impietatis et sacrilegii plena, caerimonias antiquitus institutas novitatis suae superstitione contaminans?

4. Is it an execrable and ill-omened religion, full of impiety and sacrilege, to adore God the Prince, the Lord of all things whatsoever, holding the supremacy of all suprema, to invoke him with venerable obedience, to embrace, to love, to behold with the whole, so to speak, senses in weary affairs, and to contaminate ceremonies anciently instituted with the superstition of its novelty?

26.1. Hoccine est quaeso audax illud facinus et inmane, propter quod maximi caelites | f. 9 | aculeos in nos intendunt irarum atque indignationum suarum, propter quod vos ipsi, cum libido incesserit saeva, exuitis nos bonis, exterminatis patriis sedibus, inrogatis supplicia capitalia, torquetis, dilaceratis, exuritis et ad extremum nos feris et beluarum laniatibus obiectatis? 2. Quisquis istud in nobis damnat aut in aliqua ducit criminatione ponendum, is aut nomine appellandus est hominis, quamvis ille videatur sibi, aut deus esse credendus est, quamvis ipse se esse mille profiteatur in vatibus? 3. Trophonius nos impios Dodonaeus aut Iuppiter nominat, et ipse dicetur deus atque in ordine conputabitur numinum, qui aut summo servientibus regi crimen impietatis adfingit aut sibi torquetur maiestatem eius cultumque praeponi?

26.1. Is this, I ask, that audacious and monstrous deed for which the highest celestials | f. 9 | point the barbs of their angers and indignations at us, for which you yourselves, when a savage lust has assailed, strip us of our goods, destroy our ancestral homes, inflict capital punishments on us, you torment, tear apart, burn us and finally expose us to the maulings of wild beasts and savage beasts? 2. Whoever condemns that in us or places it under any charge, is he to be called by the name of man, although he seems so to himself, or must he be believed to be a god, although he proclaims himself to be a thousand in the seers? 3. Trophonius, Dodonaean or Jupiter calls us impious, and he himself will be called a god and reckoned in the order of the divinities, who either, while serving the highest, ascribes to the king the crime of impiety, or torments himself that his majesty and its cult be set before him?

4. Delius Apollo vel Clarius, Didymaeus, Philesius, Pythius et hic habendus divinus est, qui aut summum imperatorem nescit aut ignorat a nobis cotidianis ei precibus supplicari? 5. Qui si pectorum secreta nesciret nec quid in intimis sensibus contineamus agnosceret, summum tamen invocare nos deum et ab eo quod postulamus orare vel auribus potuit scire vel ipsius vocis sono qua utimur in precibus noscitare.

4. Delius Apollo, or Clarius, Didymaeus, Philesius, Pythius — and he must be counted divine — who either does not know the supreme ruler or is ignorant that we daily supplicate him with prayers? 5. Who, if he did not know the secrets of hearts nor recognize what we contain in our innermost senses, could nevertheless know that we invoke the highest god and pray to him for what we ask either by our ears or by the sound of his own voice, by which we rouse ourselves in prayers.

27.1. Nondum est locus ut explicemus, omnes isti qui nos damnant qui sint vel unde sint, quantum possint vel noverint, cur ad Christi paveant mentionem, discipulos cur eius inimicos habent et invisos; quod tamen humanum pollicentibus sensum una pariter definitione figamus: nihil sumus aliud Christiani nisi magistro Christo summi regis ac principis veneratores; | f. 9b | nihil, si consideres, aliud invenies in ista religione versari. 2. Haec totius summa est actionis, hic propositus terminus divinorum officiorum, hic finis, huic omnes ex more prosternimur, hunc conlatis precibus adoramus, ab hoc iusta et honesta et auditui eius condigna deposcimus, non quo ipse desideret supplices nos esse aut amet substerni tot milium venerationem videre; utilitas haec nostra est et commodi nostri rationem spectans. 3. Nam quia proni ad culpas et ad libidinis varios adpetitus vitio sumus infirmitatis ingenitae, patitur se semper nostris cogitationibus concipi ut, dum illum oramus et mereri eius contendimus munera, accipiamus innocentiae voluntatem et ab omni nos labe delictorum omnium amputatione purgemus.

27.1. There is not yet room to explain who all those are who condemn us or whence they come, how much they can or know, why they tremble at the mention of Christ, why they hold his disciples as enemies and hateful; which, however, granting a human sense, let us fix together by one definition: we are nothing else as Christians but worshippers of the master Christ, the highest king and prince; | f. 9b | nothing, if you consider, else will you find to be at work in that religion. 2. This is the whole sum of the action, this the proposed terminus of divine offices, this the end; before this we all, by custom, prostrate ourselves, to this we bring our prayers and adore, from this we demand just and honest things and things fit to be heard by him — not that he desires that we be suppliants or loves to behold the veneration of so many thousands prostrate; this is our utility and regards the reason of our advantage. 3. For because we are prone to faults and to the various appetites of lust by the vice of innate weakness, he always permits himself to be conceived in our thoughts so that, while we pray to him and strive to merit his gifts, we may receive the will of innocence and purge ourselves by the amputation from every stain of all sins.

28.1. Quid dicitis, o sacri, quid, divini interpretes iuris? Meliorisne sunt causae, qui Grundulios adorant Lares, [Aios Locutios], Limentinos, quam sumus nos omnes, qui deum colimus rerum patrem atque ab eo deposcimus rebus fessis languentibus que tutamina? 2. Et illi cati, sapientes, prudentissimi vobis videntur nec reprehensionis ullius, qui Faunos, qui Fatuas civitatumque genios, qui Pavores reverentur atque Bellonas, nos hebetes, stolidi, fatui obtunsi pronuntiamur et bruti, qui dedidimus nos deo, cuius nutu et arbitrio omne quod est constat et in essentiae suae perpetuitate defixum est?

28.1. What do you say, O sacri, what, O divine interpreters of the law? Are the causes better who worship Grundulios, the Lares, [Aios Locutios], the Limentini, than we all who worship God, the father of things, and from him demand protections for things weary and languishing? 2. And those shrewd, wise, most prudent ones seem to you beyond all reproach, who revere Fauns, who the Fatuas and the genii of cities, who the Pavors and Bellonas, while we are pronounced dull, stupid, foolish, blunted and brutish, who have surrendered ourselves to God, by whose nod and arbitrium all that is exists and is fixed in the perpetuity of his essence?

3. Hancine sententiam promitis, hanc legem constituitis, hanc promulgatis ut honoribus adficiatur amplissimis quisquis vestros adoraverit servulos, crucem mereatur extremam | f. 10 | quisquis vobis ipsis dominis supplicarit? 4. In civitatibus maximis atque in potentioribus populis sacra publice fiunt scortis meritoriis quondam atque in volgarem libidinem prostitutis: nullus tumor indignationis in diis est. Templa faelibus, scarabeis et buculis sublimibus sunt elata fastigiis: silent inrisae numinum potestates nec livore afficiuntur ullo, quod sibi comparatas animantium vilium conspiciunt sanctitates.

3. Do you promise this judgment, do you establish this law, do you promulgate that he shall be afforded the highest honors who has adored your servants, that he shall deserve the extreme cross | f. 10 | who has supplicated you yourselves, the lords? 4. In the greatest and most powerful cities the sacred rites are publicly performed with prostitutes once meritorious and now prostituted to common lust: there is no swelling of indignation in the gods. Temples are raised aloft on pediments with harems, scarabs and bulls: the powers of the deities are mocked in silence and are not touched by any envy, because they behold the sanctities set beside them compared with vile animals.

5. Nobis solis sunt inimici, nobis asperrimi dii hostes, quia patrem veneramur illorum, per quem, si sunt, esse et habere substantiam sui nominis maiestatisque coeperunt, a quo ipsam deitatem, ut ita dicam, sortiti esse sentiunt et in rerum numero recognoscunt, cuius voluntate et arbitrio et interire et solvi nec solvi possunt nec interire? 6. Nam si omnes concedimus unum esse principem solum, quem nulla res alia vetustate temporis antecedat, post illum necesse est cuncta et nata esse et prodita et in sui nom et prodita et in sui nominis prosiluisse naturam. 7. Quod si fixum et ratum est, erit nobis consequens confiteri et deos esse nativos et a principe rerum fonte ortus sui originem ducere.

5. They are enemies only to us, the most cruel gods hostile to us, because we venerate their father, through whom, if they are, they began to be and to have the substance of their name and of their majesty; from whom they feel themselves to have been allotted the very deity, so to speak, and to be reckoned in the number of things, by whose will and decision neither to perish nor to be dissolved is possible — nor can they be dissolved nor can they perish. 6. For if we concede that all have one single prince alone, whom no other thing precedes in the antiquity of time, it must follow that after him all things were born and produced and brought forth and have sprung into their name and nature. 7. And if this is fixed and established, it will consequently be for us to confess that the gods are born, native, and derive their origin from the prince, the fountain of things.

Qui si sunt nativi et geniti, et interitionibus utique periculisque vicini. 8. ''At enim esse creduntur immortales, perpetui et nullius umquam participes finis''. - Ergo istud munus dei patris et donum est, ut infinita meruerint idem esse per saecula, cum sint labiles solubilesque natura.

Who, if they are native and begotten, are certainly near to perishings and dangers. 8. ''But indeed they are believed to be immortal, perpetual, and never participants of any end.'' — Therefore that is a munus of God the Father and a gift, that they should have deserved to remain the same through infinite ages, since they are of a labile and soluble nature.

29.1. Atque utinam daretur, in unius speciem contionis toto orbe contracto, oratione hac uti et humani in generis | f. 10b | audientia conlocari. 2. Ergone impiae religionis sumus apud vos rei et, quod caput rerum et columen venerabilibus adimus obsequiis, ut convicio utamur vestro, infausti et athei nuncupamur? 3. Et quis magis rectius horum feret invidiam nominum, quam qui alium prae hoc deum aut novit aut sciscitatur aut credit?

29.1. Would that it were granted, the whole world gathered into the semblance of a single assembly, to employ this oration and to place it in the hearing of the human race | f. 10b |. 2. Are we therefore, because we belong to an impious religion, a thing among you and—since we approach the head of affairs and the column with venerable observances—are we to be made an object of your reproach, called unlucky and atheists? 3. And who will more rightly bear the envy of these names than he who beforehand both knows of another as a god and inquires into him and believes?

4. Nonne huic omnes debemus hoc ipsum primum, quod sumus, quod esse homines dicimur, quod ab eo vel missae vel lapsae caecitate huius in corporis continemur? non quod incedimus, quod spiramus et vivimus, ab eo ad nos venit vi que ipsa vivendi efficit nos esse et animali agitatione motari? 5. Nonne ab hoc effluunt causae, per quas nostra fulcitur salus variarum munificentia voluptatum?

4. Are we not all indebted to this one above all for that very thing we are, that we are called men, that we are contained in these bodies by him either as sent souls or as souls fallen through blindness? is it not from him that the force which, being of life itself, makes us to be and to be moved with animal agitation comes to us whereby we walk, breathe, and live? 5. Are not from him poured forth the causes by which our salvation is sustained, by the munificence of manifold pleasures?

Mundus iste in quo degitis, cuius est aut quis eius vobis attribuit fructum possessionemque retinere? 6. quis, ut subiectas res cernere, ut contrectare, ut considerare possetis, publicum istud lumen dedit? quis, ne fixa pigritiae stupore torpescerent elementa vitalia, solis ignes constituit ad rerum incrementa futuros?

This world in which you dwell—whose is it, or who assigned to you to retain its fruit and possession? 6. Who gave this public light so that you might see the things beneath, touch them, and consider them? Who, lest the vital elements be benumbed in a fixed stupor of sloth, appointed the sun’s fires to bring about the increases of things?

7. Solem deum cum esse credatis, conditorem eius opificemque non quaeritis? Luna cum apud vos dea sit, non similiter scire curatis genitor eius et fabricator quis sit?

7. When you believe the Sun to be a god, do you not ask who is his creator and opificer? When the Moon is among you a goddess, do you not likewise care to know who her genitor and fabricator is?

30.1. Nonne cogitatio vos subit considerare, disquirere in cuia possessione versemini, cuia in re sitis, cuius ista sit quam fatigatis terra, cuius aer iste quem vitali reciprocatis spiritu, cuius abutamini fontibus, cuius liquore, quis ventorum disposuerit flamina, quis undosas excogitaverit nubes, quis se| f.11 |minum frugiferas potestates rationum proprietate distinxerit? 2. Apollo vobis pluit, Mercurius vobis pluit, Aesculapius, Hercules aut Diana rationem imbrium tempestatumque finxerunt? et hoc fieri qui potest, cum in mundo profiteamini eos natos certoque tempore sensum adripuisse vitalem?

30.1. Does not reflection seize you to consider, to inquire in whose possession you dwell, in whose thing you are, whose is that land which you till, whose is that air which you inhale with a vital returning spirit, whose springs do you make use of, whose liquid, who has arranged the blasts of the winds, who has devised the wave-bearing clouds, who has, by the proprietas of reason, distinguished the seed| f.11 |'s fruit-bearing powers? 2. Did Apollo rain for you, did Mercury rain for you, did Aesculapius, Hercules, or Diana invent the order of rains and tempests? And who can this be, when in the world you profess that they were born and at a fixed time seized upon a vital sense?

3. Si enim temporis antiquitate mundus eos antevenit et, priusquam nati sunt, iam noverat pluvias tempestatesque natura, nullum serius nati pluendi ius habent neque eis inserere rationibus se possunt quas invenerunt hic agi et maiore ab auctore tractari.

3. For if by the antiquity of time the world preceded them and, before they were born, nature already knew rains and storms, those born later have no right to command the rains, nor can they by their reason insert themselves into the causes which they found here at work and dealt with by a greater Author.

31.1. O maxime, o summe rerum invisibilium procreator, o ipse invisus et nullis umquam conprehense naturis, dignus, dignus es vere, si modo te dignum mortali dicendum est ore cui spirans omnis intelligensque natura et habere et agere numquam desinat gratias, cui tota conveniat vita genu nixo procumbere et continuatis precibus supplicare. 2. Prima enim tu causa es, locus rerum ac spatium, fundamentum cunctorum quaecumque sunt, infinitus, ingenitus, inmortalis, perpetuus, solus, quem nulla deliniat forma corporalis, nulla determinat circumscriptio, qualitatis expers, quantitatis, sine situ, motu et habitu, de quo nihil dici et exprimi mortalium potis est significatione verborum, qui ut intellegaris tacendum est atque, ut per umbram te possit errans investigare suspicio, nihil est omnino muttiendum. 3. Da ueniam, rex summe, tuos persequentibus | f. 11b | famulos et - quod tuae benignitatis est proprium - fugientibus ignosce tui nominis et religionis cultum.

31.1. O greatest, O highest procreator of invisible things, O self unseen and by no natures ever comprehended, worthy, worthy indeed are you, if only it may be said worthy by a mortal mouth, to whom every breathing and intelligent nature may never cease both to have and to do thanks, to whom it wholly accords to fall prostrate with a bowed knee and to supplicate with continuous prayers. 2. For you are the first cause, the locus and space of things, the foundation of all that exists, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, perpetual, alone, whom no bodily form delineates, no circumscription determines, free from quality, from quantity, without position, motion, or posture, of whom nothing can be said or expressed by the signification of mortal words, who must be kept silent in order to be understood, and, lest a wandering suspicion seek you out only by a shadow, nothing at all must be uttered. 3. Grant pardon, highest King, to your servants pursued | f. 11b | and — which is proper to your benignity — forgive to those fleeing the worship of your name and of religion.

Non est mirum, si ignoraris: maioris est admirationis, si sciaris; nisi forte audet quisquam - hoc enim furiosae restat insaniae - ambigere, dubitare an sit iste deus an non sit, explorata fidei veritate an rumoris cassi opinatione sit creditus. 4. Audimus enim quosdam philosophandi studio deditos partim ullam negare vim esse divinam, partim an sit cotidie quaerere; alios casibus fortuitis et concursionibus temerariis summam rerum construere atque diversitatis impetu fabricari, cum quibus hoc tempore nullum nobis omnino super tali erit obstinatione certamen. 5. Aiunt enim sana sentientes contradicere rebus stultis stultitiae esse maioris.

It is not wonderful if you are ignorant; it is of greater wonder if you know; unless perhaps anyone dares — for this remains to furious madness — to waver, to doubt whether this be a god or not, whether, the truth of faith having been examined, he be believed by the empty opinion of rumor. 4. For we hear that some, devoted to the study of philosophizing, partly deny that any force is divine, partly seek daily whether it is; others construct the sum of things from fortuitous chances and rash collisions, and fashion them by the impulse of diversity, with whom at this time we will have no contest at all on account of such obstinacy. 5. For they say that those thinking sanely maintain that to contradict foolish matters is a greater folly.

32.1. Sermo cum his nobis est, qui divinum esse consentientes genus de maioribus dubitant, cum idem esse plebeia atque humiliora fateantur. Quid ergo, res tantas argumentis nitemur atque elaborabimus obtinere? Discedat haec longe atque a nobis procul, procul inquam, ut dicitur, averruncetur amentia.

32.1. Our conversation is with those who, while agreeing that the genus is divine, yet doubt about the ancestors, and who confess that the same are plebeian and more humble. What then — shall we strive and toil to win over such great matters by arguments? Let this be driven far away and kept distant from us, far, I say; as the saying goes, let madness be warded off.

2. Tam est enim periculosum argumentis adgredi deum principem conprobare quam ratione huiusmodi esse illum velle cognoscere. Nec quicquam refert aut discrepat, utrumne neges illum an asseras atque existere fatearis, cum in eadem culpa sit et adsertio talis rei et abnegatio refutatoris increduli.

2. For it is as perilous to set about, by arguments, to prove that God is the primal principle as it is to seek by such reason to know that He wills to be so. Nor does it matter or differ whether you deny Him or affirm and confess His existence, since both the affirmation of such a thing and the denial of the unbelieving refuter lie in the same fault.

33.1. Quisquamne est hominum qui non cum istius principis notione diem primae nativitatis intraverit? cui non sit ingenitum, non adfixum, immo ipsis | f. 12 | paene in genitalibus matris non inpressum, non insitum esse regem ac dominum cunctorum quaecumque sunt moderatorem? 2. Ipsa denique hiscere si animantia muta potuissent, si in linguarum nostrarum facilitatem solvi, immo si arbores glaebae, saxa, sensu animata vitali, vocis sonitum quirent et verborum articulos integrare, ita non, duce natura et magistra, non incorruptae simplicitatis fide et intellegerent esse deum et cunctorum dominum solum esse clamarent?

33.1. Is there any of mankind who has not, with the notion of that prince, entered upon the day of first nativity? to whom it is not innate, not attached, nay almost imprinted in the very genitals of the mother rather than implanted, not sown, that a king and lord of all things is the governor of whatever exists? | f. 12 | 2. Moreover, if the very mute animals could gape, if they could be loosened into the facility of our tongues, yea if trees, clods, stones, animated with a vital sense, should seek the sound of voice and frame the articulations of words, would they not, with nature as leader and teacher, by the faith of incorrupt simplicity, understand that there is a god and alone cry that he is the lord of all?

34.1. ''Sed frustra, inquit, nos falso et calumnioso incessitis et adpetitis crimine, tamquam eamus infitias esse deum maiorem, cum a nobis et Iuppiter nominetur et optimus habeatur et maximus cumque illi augustissimas sedes et Capitolia constituerimus immania''. 2. - Dissimilia copulare atque in unam speciem cogere inducta confusione conamini. Nam deus omnipotens mente una omnium et communi mortalitatis adsensu neque genitus scitur neque novam in lucem aliquando esse prolatus nec ex aliquo temporis coepisse esse vel saeculo. 3. Ipse est enim fons rerum, sator saeculorum ac temporum.

34.1. "But in vain," he says, "you press upon us with a false and calumnious charge, and assail us as if we were asserting that there is a greater god, when Jupiter is named by us and is held to be best and greatest, and when we have set up for him the most august seats and the Capitolia, vast ones." 2. — You strive to couple dissimilar things and to force them into one species, led by induced confusion. For the omnipotent god, by the one mind of all and by the common assent of mortals, is neither reckoned as begotten nor ever brought newly into the light, nor to have begun from any point of time or in any age. 3. For he himself is the fons of things, the sator of the ages and of times.

Non enim ipsa per se sunt sed ex eius perpetuitate perpetua et infinita semper continuatione procedunt. 4. At vero Iuppiter, ut vos fertis, et patrem habet et matrem, avos, avias, fratres; nunc nuper in utero matris suae formatus, absolutus mensibus et consummatus decem ignotam sibi in lucem sensu inruisse vitali. 5. Ergo, si haec ita sunt, Iuppiter esse deus qui potest, cum illum esse perpetuum constet, perhibeatur alter a vobis | f. 12b | et dies habuisse natales et pavefactus re nova lamentabilem extulisse vagitum?

For they are not things in themselves but proceed from his perpetuity, from a perpetual and infinite ever-continuing continuance. 4. But indeed Jupiter, as you report, has both a father and a mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers; just recently formed in his mother’s womb, completed in months and consummated ten, he rushed into the light unknown to him with a vital sense. 5. Therefore, if these things are so, can Jupiter be held to be a god, since it is established that he is perpetual, if he is by you reported to have had a father | f. 12b | and to have had natal days, and, terrified by a new thing, to have raised a lamentable cry?

35.1. Sed sint, ut vultis, unum nec in aliqua vi numinis et maiestate distantes: et quid ergo iniustis persequimini nos odiis? Quid ut ominis pessimi nostri nominis inhorrescitis mentionem, si quem deum colitis, eum et nos? Aut quid in eadem causa vobis esse contenditis familiares deos, inimicos atque infestissimos nobis?

35.1. But let them be, as you wish, one, and not differing in any force of numen and majesty: and why then do you pursue us with unjust hatreds? Why do you shudder at the mention of the very worst of our name, if you worship any god, is he not also ours? Or why, in the same case, do you insist that the household gods are to you friends, but enemies and most hostile to us?

2. Etenim si una religio est nobis vobisque communis, cessat ira caelestium: sin nobis infesti sint solis, manifestum est nescire et vos et illos deum, quem Iovem non esse ipsis clarum est indignationibus numinum.

2. For if indeed one religion is common to us and to you, the anger of the celestial ones ceases: but if the suns themselves are hostile to us, it is manifest that both you and they do not know the god, whom, because of the indignations of the numina, it is not clear even to them to be Jove.

36.1. ''Sed non, inquit, idcirco dii vobis infesti sunt, quod omnipotentem colatis deum, sed quod hominem natum et, quod personis infame est vilibus, crucis supplicio interemptum et deum fuisse contenditis et superesse adhuc creditis et cotidianis supplicationibus adoratis''. 2. - Si vobis iucundum est, amici, edissertate, quinam sint hi dii, qui a nobis Christum coli suam credant ad iniuriam pertinere: Ianus Ianiculi conditor et civitatis Saturniae Saturnus auctor; Fenta Fatua, Fauni uxor, Bona Dea quae dicitur sed in vini melior et laudabilior potu; 3. Indigetes illi qui flumen repunt et in alveis Numici cum ranis et pisciculis degunt Aesculapius et Liber pater, Coronide ille natus et ex genitalibus matris alter fulmine praecipitatus; Mercurius utero fusus Maiae et, quod est divinius, candidae; 4. arquitenentes Diana et Apollo, circumlati per fugas matris atque in insulis errantibus Virtuti; Dioneia Venus proles, | f. 13 | viri materfamilias Troici atque intestini decoris publicatrix; in Trinacriae finibus Ceres nata atque in floribus legendis occupata Proserpina; 5. Thebanus aut Tyrius Hercules, hic in finibus sepultus Hispaniae, flammis alter concrematus Oetaeis; Tyndaridae Castores, equos unus domitare consuetus, alter pugillator bonus et crudo inexuperabilis caestu; Titanes et Bocchores Mauri et ovorum progenies dii Syri; 6. Apis Peloponensi proditus et in Aegypto Serapis nuncupatus; Aethiopicis solibus Isis furva maerens perditum filium et membratim coniugem lancinatum; praeterimus et transgredimus Opis suboles regias, quas in libris auctores vestri quae fuerint et quales vobis ediscentibus prodiderunt: 7. hine ergo Christum coli et a nobis accipi et existimari pro numine vulneratis accipiunt auribus, et obliti paulo ante sortis fuerint et condicionis cuius, id quod sibi concessum est inpertiri alteri nolunt? 8. Haec est iustitia caelitum, hoc deorum iudicium sanctum? Nonne istud livoris est atque avaritiae genus, non obtrectatio quaedam sordens, suas eminere tantummodo velle fortunas, aliorum res premiet in contempta humilitate calcari?

36.1. "But not," he says, "for that reason are the gods hostile to you, because you worship the omnipotent god, but because you assert that a man born — and, which is infamous for his person, slain by the torture of the cross — was a god and that he still exists and is adored by your daily supplications." 2. — If it pleases you, friends, declare, who are these gods who, according to you, are worshipped by us and believed to attach dishonour to Christ: Janus, founder of little Janus and of the city; Saturnus, progenitor of Saturnine rule; Fenta Fatua, the wife of the Faun, called Bona Dea, more excellent and praiseworthy in drunkness; 3. the Indigetes who haunt the river and dwell in the channels of the Numici with frogs and little fishes — Aesculapius and Liber pater, that one born of Coronis and by a bolt hurled from his mother's genitals; Mercurius, poured forth from Maia's womb and, what is more divine, fair; 4. Diana and Apollo, arch-shooters, borne about by their mother's flights and wandering on isles in pursuit of Virtue; Dionean Venus, offspring, mother of the householders of Troy and public harlot of intimate honour; in the borders of Trinacria Ceres born and Proserpina occupied in gathering blossoms; 5. Theban or Tyrian Hercules, here buried in the bounds of Hispania, the other burned in the Oetaean flames; the Tyndarid Castores, one accustomed to tame horses, the other a fine pugilist and by the raw fist unsurpassed; the Titans and Bocchores of Mauretania and the egg-descended gods of Syria; 6. Apis betrayed to the Peloponnese and called Serapis in Egypt; Isis, dark, sorrowing beneath the Ethiopian suns for a lost son and a dismembered spouse; lastly and beyond them Opis, a royal scion, whom in books your authors have related what they were and what sort they were to you as you instruct: 7. hence then they accept Christ as worshipped and received by us and deemed a divinity — do they take this with injured ears, and having just a little before been forgetful of the lot and condition of which they were partakers, refuse to grant to another that which has been granted to themselves? 8. Is this the justice of the heavens, this the sacred judgment of the gods? Is it not a kind of envy and avarice, a certain sordid detraction, a desire only that one's own fortunes should rise, to trample down another's affairs in scorned humility?

37.1. ''Natum hominem colimus''. - Quid enim, vos hominem nullum colitis natum? non unum et alium? non innumeros alios?

37.1. ''We worship a man born.'' - For what then, do you worship no man born? Not one and another? Not countless others?

quinimmo non omnes, quos iam templis habetis vestris, mortalium sustulistis ex numero et caelo sideribusque donastis? 2. Si enim forte vos fugit, sortis eos humanae et condicionis | f. 13b | fuisse communis, replicate antiquissimas litteras et eorum scripta percurrite qui vetustati vicini sine ullis adsentationibus cuncta veritate in liquida prodiderunt. 3. Iam profecto discetis, quibus singuli patribus, quibus matribus fuerint procreati, qua innati regione, qua gente, quae fecerint egerint pertulerint actitarint, quas in rebus obeundis adversorum senserint secundantiumque fortunas.

nay rather, have you not taken from the number of mortals all those whom you now hold in your temples, and bestowed them upon heaven and the stars? 2. For if it perhaps escapes you that they were of the common human lot and condition | f. 13b |, consult again the most ancient letters and run through their writings — those who, near to antiquity, without any flattery, have transmitted all things in clear truth. 3. Now indeed you will learn by which particular fathers, by which mothers they were begotten, in what region born, among what people, what they have done, acted, endured, and striven for, what adversities they experienced in conducting affairs and what fortunes of those who opposed or supported them.

4. Sin autem scientes uteris esse gestatos et frugibus eos victitasse terrenis, nihilominus tamen nobis nati hominis obiectatis cultum, res agitis satis iniustas, ut id in nobis constituatis esse damnabile quod et ipsi vos factitatis, aut quae vobis licere permittitis consimiliter aliis licitum esse nolitis.

4. But if, knowing that you were borne in a womb and nourished by earthly fruits, yet you, having hurled at us the reproach “born of a man,” cultivate that charge, you do things sufficiently unjust: insofar as you judge to be blameworthy in us what you yourselves have made, or refuse to allow as lawful to others what you permit to be lawful among yourselves.

38.1. Sed concedamus, interdum manum vestris opinationibus dantes, unum Christum fuisse de nobis, mentis animae corporis fragilitatis et condicionis unius: nonne dignus a nobis est tantorum ob munerum gratiam deus dici deus que sentiri? 2. Si enim vos Liberum, quod usum reppererit vini, si quod panis, Cererem, si Aesculapium, quod herbarum, si Minervam, quod oleae, si Triptolemum, quod aratri, si denique Herculem, quod feras, quod fures, quod multiplicium capitum superavit conpescuitque natrices, divorum retulistis in censum: 3. honoribus quantis adficiendus est nobis, qui ab erroribus nos magnis insinuata veritate traduxit, qui velut caecos passim ac sine ullo rectore gra| f. l4 |dientes ab deruptis, ab deviis locis planioribus reddidit: 4. qui, quod frugiferum primo atque humano generi salutare, deus monstravit quid sit, quis, quantus et qualis: qui profundas eius atque inenarrabiles altitudines, quantum nostra quivit mediocritas capere, et intellegere permisit et docuit: 5. qui quo auctore, quo patre mundus iste sit constitutus et conditus, fecit benignissime sciri: qui nativitatis eius exprompsit genus et nullius aliquando cognitione praesumptam materiam illius, unde ignibus solis genitalis fervor adscitur, cur luna semper in motu, isdemne quis creditur an aliis causis lucem semper atque obscuritatem resumens; 6. animalium origo quae sit, rationes quas habent semina, quis ipsum finxerit hominem, quis informarit vel ex materiae quo genere constructionem ipsam confirmaverit corporum, quid sit sensus, quid anima, advolaritne ad nos sponte an cum ipsis sata sit et procreata visceribus, mortis particeps degat an inmortalitatis perpetuitate donata sit, qui status nos maneat, cum dissolutis abierimus a membris, visurine nos sumus an memoriam nullam nostri sensus et recordationem habituri; 7. qui adrogantiam constringit nostram et elatas supercilio cervices modum fecit suae infirmitatis agnoscere: qui animantia monstravit informia nos esse, vanis opinionibus fidere, nihil comprehensum habere, nihil scire et quae nostros | f. 14b | sita sunt ante oculos non videre; 8. qui, quod omnia superavit et transgressum est munera, ab religionibus nos falsis religionem transduxit ad veram: qui ab signis inertibus atque ex vilissimo formatis luto ad sidera sublevavit et caelum et cum domino rerum deo supplicationum fecit verba atque orationum conloquia miscere.

38.1. But let us concede, at times giving a hand to your opinions, that there was one Christ from among us, of one mind, soul, bodily frailty and condition: is he not worthy to be called and to be felt as god by us on account of so great gifts? 2. For if you have enrolled Liber (Bacchus), because he discovered the use of wine, if Ceres, because of bread, if Aesculapius, because of herbs, if Minerva, because of the olive, if Triptolemus, because of the plough, if finally Hercules, because he subdued beasts, checked thieves and mastered many heads, among the gods: 3. with what honours ought he be treated who led us, from great errors, conveyed into truth; who, as it were a guide, restored the blind going everywhere without any director from broken, from devious places to smoother paths: 4. who, having first shown what a fruitful thing and salutary for the human race a god is, declared what he is, who, how great and of what kind: who disclosed its profound and ineffable heights, as much as our mediocrity could contain and allowed and taught us to understand: 5. who by what author, by what father this world was established and founded made most kindly known: who set forth the kind of his nativity and the material of him never presumptively known before, from which the natal heat is admitted to the fires of the sun, why the moon is always in motion, whether it is believed to be the same or by other causes ever resuming light and darkness; 6. what the origin of animals is, the reasons which their seeds have, who fashioned mankind itself, who informed or from what kind of matter confirmed the very construction of bodies, what sense is, what the soul is, whether it flies to us of its own accord or was sown and procreated with the viscera, whether it partakes of death or is gifted with the perpetuity of immortality, what state remains for us when we have departed with our members dissolved, whether we shall be seen or shall have no sense and no remembrance of ourselves; 7. who has constrained our arrogance and made our necks high with a raised brow acknowledge the measure of their infirmity: who showed that animals are shapeless, that we trust vain opinions, comprehend nothing, know nothing and do not see the things placed before our eyes; 8. who, having surpassed and transgressed all gifts, transferred us from false religions to the true: who lifted us from inert signs and from clay fashioned most meanly up to the stars and heaven, and with the Lord of things, God, made the words of supplication and colloquies of prayer mingle.

39.1. Venerabar, o caecitas, nuper simulacra modo ex fornacibus prompta, in incudibus deos et ex malleis fabricatos, elephantorum ossa, picturas, veternosis in arboribus taenias; si quando conspexeram lubricatum lapidem et ex olivi unguine sordidatum, tamquam inesset vis praesens, adulabar, adfabar et beneficia poscebam nihil sentiente de trunco, et eos ipsos divos, quos esse mihi persuaseram, adficiebam contumeliis gravibus, cum eos esse credebam ligna lapides atque ossa aut in huius rerum habitare materia. 2. Nunc doctore tanto in vias veritatis inductus omnia ista quae sint scio, digna de dignis sentio, contumeliam nomini nullam facio divino, et quid cuique debeatur vel personae vel capiti, inconfusis gradibus atque auctoritatibus tribuo. 3. Ita ergo Christus non habeatur a nobis deus neque omni alioquin vel maximus potest excogitari divinitatis adficiatur cultu, a quo iamdudum tanta et accepimus dona viventes et expectamus, dies cum venerit, ampliora?

39.1. I used to worship, O Blindness, images just now brought forth from furnaces, gods forged on anvils and fashioned with hammers, elephant bones, paintings, garlands on ancient trees; if ever I had glimpsed a smoothed stone and smeared with olive oil, as if a present force were in it, I adored it, addressed it and asked benefits, perceiving nothing of the trunk, and I visited those same gods, which I had persuaded myself were, with grave contumelies, when I believed them to be wood, stones and bones or matter dwelling insuch things. 2. Now, led into the ways of truth by so great a teacher, I know what all these things are, I judge the worthy from the worthy, I make no contumely to the divine name, and what is due to each, whether to the person or to the head, I assign in clear ranks and authorities. 3. Therefore let Christ not be held by us a god, nor let any other one, <qui> however greatest that can be conceived of divinity, be honoured with the same cult, from whom long since we have received so many gifts while living and from whom we await, when the day shall come, greater ones.

40.1. ''Sed patibulo adfixus interiit''. - Quid istud ad causam? Neque enim qualitas et deformitas mortis dicta eius immutat aut facta, aut eo minor videbitur disciplinarum eius auctoritas, | f. 15 | quia vinculis corporis non naturali dissolutione digressus est sed vi inlata decessit. 2. Pythagoras Samius suspicione dominationis iniusta vivus concrematus in fano est: numquid ea quae docuit vim propriam perdiderunt, quia non spiritum sponte sed crudelitate adpetitus effudit?

40.1. "But he perished fixed to the gibbet." — What of that to the cause? For neither the quality nor the deformity of his death makes his teaching changed or his deeds less, nor will the authority of his disciplines seem the less because he departed from the bonds of the body not by natural dissolution but by violence inflicted. | f. 15 | 2. Pythagoras of Samos, burned alive in a temple under the unjust suspicion of aspiring to domination; did those things which he taught lose their proper force because he poured out his spirit not of his own accord but assailed by cruelty?

3. Similiter Socrates civitatis suae iudicio damnatus capitali adfectus est poena: numquid inrita facta sunt quae sunt ab eo de moribus virtutibus et officiis disputata, quia iniuria expulsus e vita est? 4. Innumerabiles alii gloria et virtute et existimatione pollentes acerbissimarum mortium experti sunt formas, ut Aquilius Trebonius Gegulus: numquid idcirco post vitam iudicati sunt turpes, quia non publica lege fatorum sed mortis asperrimo genere lacerati excruciatique perierunt? 5. Nemo umquam innocens male interemptus infamis est, nec turpitudinis alicuius conmaculatur nota, qui non suo merito poenas graves sed cruciatoris perpetitur saevitatem.

3. Similarly Socrates, condemned by the judgment of his city, was afflicted with capital punishment: are the things which he disputed concerning morals, virtues, and duties therefore made void because he was unjustly expelled from life? 4. Countless others, abounding in glory, virtue, and reputation, experienced the shapes of the most bitter deaths, as Aquilius Trebonius Gegulus: are they for that reason judged disgraceful after life, because, not by the public law of fate but by a most savage kind of death, they perished torn and tormented? 5. No one ever innocent and wrongly slain is infamous, nor is he stained with any mark of disgrace, who, not by his own merit suffering grave penalties, but by the cruelty of a tormentor endures his fate.

41.1. Et tamen, o isti, qui hominem nos eolere morte functum ignominiosa ridetis, nonne Liberum et vos patrem membratim ab Titanis dissipatum fanorum consecratione mactatis? 2. non Aesculapium medicaminum repertorem, post poenas et supplicia fulminis, custodem nuncupavistis et praesidem sanitatis valetudinis et salutis? 3. nonne ipsum Herculem magnum sacrificiis hostiis et ture invitatis incenso, quem ipsi vos fertis vivum arsisse [post poenas] et concrematum in funestis busticetis?

41.1. And yet, O you people, who ignominiously laugh at the man who has undergone death, do you not, limb by limb, consecrate Liber and your father—scattered by the Titans—with the sanctification of shrines? 2. Did you not name Aesculapius, the discoverer of medicines, after the penalties and punishments of the thunderbolt, the guardian and president of health, of well-being and safety? 3. Did you not burn mighty Hercules himself with sacrifices, victims and incense invited, whom you yourselves relate to have burned alive [post poenas] and consumed on mournful funeral pyres?

4. nonne illum Attin Phrygem | f.15b | abscisum et spoliatum viro magnae matris in adytis deum propitium, deum sanctum Gallorum conclamatione testamini? 5. nonne ipsum Romulum patrem senatorum manibus dilaceratum centum et Quirinum esse Martium dicitis et sacerdotibus et pulvinaribus honoratis et in aedibus adoratis amplissimis et post haec omnia caelum ascendisse iuratis? 6. Aut igitur ridendi et vos estis, qui homines gravissimis cruciatibus interemptos deos putatis et colitis, aut si certa est ratio cur id vobis faciendum putetis, et nobis permittite scire quibus istud causis rationibusque faciamus.

4. surely that Attin the Phrygian, cut down and stripped in the adytum by the man of the great mother, you attest to be a propitious god, a holy god by the acclamation of the Gauls? 5. surely Romulus himself, torn limb from limb by the hands of the senators, you say is Quirinus and Mars, honored by priests and pulvina and adored in the most ample shrines and, after all these things, is said to have ascended to heaven with oaths? 6. therefore either you are to be laughed at, who hold men killed by the gravest tortures to be gods and worship them, or if there is a certain reason why you think this ought to be done, allow us to know by what causes and reasons we should do it.

42.1. ''Natum hominem colitis''. - Etiamsi esset id verum, locis ut in superioribus dictum est, tamen pro multis et tam liberalibus donis quae ab eo profecta in nobis sunt deus dici appellarique deberet. 2. Cum vero deus sit re certa et sine ullius rei dubitationis ambiguo, infitiaturos arbitramini nos esse, quam maxime illum ab nobis coli et praesidem nostri corporis nuncupari? 3. ''Ergone, inquiet aliquis furens iratus et percitus, deus ille est Christus?''. - Deus, respondebimus, et interiorum potentiarum deus et, quod magis infidos acerbissimis doloribus torqueat, rei maximae causa a summo rege ad nos missus.

42.1. "You worship a born man." - Even if that were true, as has been said above in places, yet for the many and so liberal gifts which have flowed from him into us he ought to be called and named god. 2. But since god is a thing certain and without any doubt of ambiguity, do you think we would deny that he is most certainly worshiped by us and called the presider of our body? 3. "Then, is that Christ a raging, furious and wounded madman?" - God, we answer, and god of inward powers and, what will torment the most faithless with the bitterest pains, sent to us from the highest king as the cause of the greatest matter.

4. Postulabit forsitan insanior et furiosior factus, an se ita res habeat, quemadmodum dicimus, comprobari. 5. - Nulla maior est comprobatio, quam gestarum ab eo fides rerum, quam virtutum novitas, quam omnia vieta decreta dissolutaque fatalia, quae populi gentesque suo geri sub lumine nullo dissentiente viderunt, | f. 16 | quae nec ipsi audent falsitatis arguere, quorum antiquas et patrias leges vanitatis esse plenissimas atque inanissimae superstitionis ostendit.

4. Perhaps he, grown more insane and more furious, will demand that it be proved that matters stand thus as we say. 5. - There is no greater proof than the faithfulness of the things done by him, than the novelty of his virtues, than all the vows, decrees, and dissolved fatalities, which peoples and nations saw carried out under their own light with no one dissenting, | f. 16 | which they themselves do not dare to charge with falsehood, and which show that their ancient and ancestral laws are fullest of vanity and of the most empty superstition.

43.1. Occursurus forsitan rursus est eum aliis multis calumniosis illis et puerilibus vocibus: ''Magus fuit, clandestinis artibus omnia illa perfecit, Aegyptiorum ex adytis angelorum potentium nomina et remotas furatus est disciplinas''. 2. - Quid dicitis, o parvuli, incomperta vobis et nescia temerariae vocis loquacitate garrientes? Ergone illa quae gesta sunt daemonum fuere praestigiae et magicarum artium ludi? 3. Potestis aliquem nobis designare, monstrare ex omnibus illis magis, qui umquam fuere per saecula, consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fecerit?

43.1. Perhaps he will again be assailed by many others with those slanderous and childish voices: "He was a magus, he accomplished all those things by clandestine arts, and stole from the sanctuaries of the Egyptians the names of powerful angels and remote disciplines." 2. - What do you say, O little ones, babbling with the loquacity of a rash voice about things unknown and unknowable to you? Were then those things which were done the conjurations and plays of demons and of magical arts? 3. Can you point out to us any one among all those magi who ever were through the ages who has done anything even a thousandth part like to what Christ did?

Qui sine ulla vi carminum, sine herbarum et graminum sucis, sine ulla aliqua observatione sollicita sacrorum, libaminum, temporum? 4. Non enim urgemus et quaerimus quae sese spondeant facere vel in quibus generibus actum soleat omnis illorum doctrina et experientia contineri. 5. Quis enim hos nesciat aut inminentia studere praenoscere, quae necessario velint nolint suis ordinationibus veniunt aut mortiferam inmittere quibus libuerit tabem aut familiarium dirumpere caritates aut sine clavibus reserare quae clausa sunt aut ora silentio vincire aut in curriculis equos debilitare incitare tardare aut uxoribus et liberis | f. 16b | alienis, sive illi mares sunt sive feminei generis, inconcessi amoris flammas et furiales immittere cupiditates, aut si utile aliquid videantur audere, non propria vi posse sed eorum quos invocant potestate?

Who without any force of charms, without the juices of herbs and grasses, without any careful observance of sacred rites, libations, times? 4. For we do not press or ask what they promise to perform or in what kinds all that doctrine and experience is wont to be contained. 5. For who does not know or foresee that they ply the study of imminent things, which, whether they will or not, necessarily come by their ordinances, or to send a deadly pestilence where they please, or to rend domestic affections asunder, or without keys to unbolt what is shut, or to bind mouths with silence, or in chariots to enfeeble horses, to urge them on or to slacken them, or into the wives and children | f. 16b | of others, whether those be males or of the female sex, to thrust the flames of illicit love and fierce desires, or, if they seem to dare anything profitable, to do it not by their own force but by the power of those whom they invoke?

44.1. Atquin constitit Christum sine ullis adminiculis rerum, sine ullius ritus observatione vel lege omnia illa quae fecit nominis sui possibilitate fecisse 2. et quod proprium consentaneum dignum deo fuerat vero, nihil nocens aut noxium sed opiferum, sed salutare, sed auxiliatibus plenum nobis potestatis munificae liberalitate donasse.

44.1. But Christ stood without any props of things, without observance of any rite or law; all those things which he did he did by the possibility (potentia) of his name, and that which was proper, consonant, and worthy of God he indeed, nothing harmful or noxious but helpful, salutary, and full of aids, bestowed upon us by the munificent liberality of his power.

45.1. Quid dicitis o iterum? Ergo ille mortalis aut unus fuit e nobis, cuius imperium, cuius vocem popularibus et cotidianis verbis missam valetudines morbi febres atque alia corporum cruciamenta fugiebant? 2. unus fuit e nobis, cuius praesentiam, cuius visum gens illa nequibat ferre mersorum in visceribus daemonum conterritaque vi nova membrorum possessione cedebat?

45.1. What do you say, O again? Then was that mortal one of us, by whose imperium, by whose voice, uttered in popular and daily words, illnesses, maladies, fevers and other tortures of the body fled? 2. was he one of us, whose presence, whose sight that people could not endure—those plunged in the entrails of demons, and, terrified by the new force of possession of their limbs, yielded?

3. unus fuit e nobis cuius foedae vitiligines iussioni obtemperabant pulsae statim et concordiam colorum commaculatis visceribus relinquebant? 4. unus fuit e nobis, cuius ex levi tactu stabant profluvia sanguinis et inmoderatos cohibebant fluores? 5. unus fuit e nobis, cuius manus intercutes et veternosae fugiebant undae, penetrabilis ille vitabat liquor et turgentia viscera salutari ariditate deflabant?

3. Was there one of us whose foul vitiligines obeyed his command; when struck they departed at once and left a concord of colours in the maculated viscera? 4. Was there one of us, at whose slightest touch the profuse flows of blood stood and who restrained immoderate effluxes? 5. Was there one of us, whose hands the palsies and age‑worn waves fled, the penetrating liquid avoided, and the turgent viscera withered by a salutary aridity?

6. unus fuit e nobis qui claudos currere praecipiebat, et iam operis res erat; porrigere mancos | f. 17 | manus, et articuli mobilitates iam ingenitas explicabant; captos membris adsurgere, et iam suos referebant lectos alienis paulo ante cervicibus lati; viduatos videre luminibus, et iam caelum diemque cernebant nullis cum oculis procreatis?

6. was there one of us who commanded the lame to run, and now it was a matter of work; to stretch out the maimed | f. 17 | hands, and the articulations’ mobilities already naturally unfolded; the seized to rise on their limbs, and now they were carrying back their own beds which a little before had sustained alien necks; to see the bereft with their lights, and now they beheld heaven and day though no eyes had been created?

46.1. Unus, inquam, fuit e nobis qui debilitatibus variis morbisque vexatos centum aut hoc amplius semel una intercessione sanabat? 2. cuius vocem ad simplicem furibunda et insana explicabant se maria, procellarum turbines tempestatesque sidebant? qui per altissimos gurgites pedem ferebat inlutum, calcabat ponti terga undis ipsis stupentibus in famulatum subennte natura?

46.1. One, I say, was among us who, by various debilitations and vexed with maladies, cured a hundred or more at once by a single intercession? 2. whose voice to the simple the raging and insane seas unloosed, the whirlwinds of squalls and the tempests stood aside? who through the deepest gulfs bore his foot unwashed, trod the backs of the bridge while the very waves were stupefied, with nature herself coming up to serve?

3. qui sequentium se milia quinque saturavit e panibus, ac ne esse praestigiae incredulis illis viderentur et duris, bis senarum sportarum sinus reliquiarum fragminibus aggerabat? 4. Unus fuit e nobis qui redire in corpora iamdudum animas praecipiebat efflatas, prodire ab aggeribus conditos et post diem funeris tertium pollinctorum voluminibus expediri? 5. unus fuit e nobis qui quid singuli volverent, quid sub obscuris cogitationibus continerent tacitorum in cordibus pervidebat?

3. who fed five thousand of his followers with bread, and, lest such things seem mere prestidigitation to those unbelieving and hard‑hearted, twice with the folds of worn cloaks he heaped together the fragments of the remains? 4. One was among us who commanded souls already long breathed out to return into bodies, to come forth from the mounds in which they lay buried, and after the third day of the funeral to be freed from the wrappings of the embalmers? 5. one of us who could see through what each person pondered, what they contained under the obscure cogitations held in their tacit hearts?

6. unus fuit e nobis qui, cum unam emitteret vocem, ab diversis populis et dissona oratione loquentibus familiaribus verborum sonis et suo cuique utens existimabatur eloquio? 7. unus fuit e nobis qui, cum officia religionis certae suis sectatoribus traderet, | f. 17b | mundum totum repente conplebat quantusque et qui esset revelata nominis inmensitate monstrabat? 8. unus fuit e nobis qui deposito corpore innumeris se hominum prompta in luce detexit, qui sermonem ledit atque accepit, docuit castigavit admonuit, qui ne illi se falsos vanis imaginationibus existimarent, semel iterum saepius familiari conlocutione monstravit, qui iustissimis viris etiamnunc inpollutis ac diligentibus sese non per vana insomnia sed per purae speciem simplicitatis apparet, 9. cuius nomen auditum fugat noxios spiritus, inponit silentium vatibus, haruspices inconsultos reddit, adrogantium magorum frustrari efficit actiones, non horrore ut dicitis nominis sed maioris licentia potestatis?

6. there was one among us who, when he sent forth a single voice, was thought by diverse peoples, speaking with dissonant speech, to use familiar sounds of words and to address each one in his own idiom? 7. there was one among us who, when he delivered the offices of a certain religion to his followers, | f. 17b | suddenly filled the whole world and showed how great and what he was by the revealed immensity of his name? 8. there was one among us who, having laid aside his body, revealed himself ready in the light to countless men, who uttered and received discourse, taught, chastised, admonished, who, lest they count his signs false by vain imaginations, once, twice, often showed himself in familiar colloquy, who even now appears to the most just men, undefiled and diligent, not through vain visions but by the appearance of pure simplicity, 9. whose heard name puts to flight noxious spirits, imposes silence on prophets, renders haruspices unconsulted, causes the actions of presumptuous magicians to be frustrated, not by the horror, as you say, of the name but by the greater freedom of power?

47.1. Et haec quidem summatim exposita non ea ratione protulimus, tamquam magnitudo facientis solis in his esset perspicienda virtutibus. Quanta sint enim haec vel exilitatis cuius repperientur et ludi, si traditum fuerit nosci, ex quibus ad nos regnis, cuius numinis ministrator advenerit! 2. Quae quidem ab eo gesta sunt et factitata, non ut se vana ostentatione iactaret sed ut homines duri atque increduli scirent non esse quod spondebatur falsum et ex operum benignitate quid esset deus verus iam addiscerent suspicari.

47.1. And these things, summed up briefly, we have set forth not on the ground that the magnitude of the doer alone in them should be apprehended by virtues. For how great these are, or rather how of littleness and mere play they will be found, if it is handed down to be known from which kingdoms to us a minister of whose numen has come! 2. Which things indeed were wrought and effected by him, not that he should vaunt himself with vain ostentation, but that hard and unbelieving men might know that what was promised was not false, and, from the benignity of the works, might begin to learn and suspect what a true god is.

3. Simul et illud volumus sciri, cum summatim ut dictum est enumeratio facta gestorum est; non ea Christum potuisse quae fecit, sed constituta etiam exsuperasse fatorum. 4. Nam, si ut liquet et constat, debilitates | f. 18 | et corporum passiones surdi manci et muti, nervorum contractio et amissio luminis fatalibus accidunt inroganturque decretis, solus haec Christus correxit restituit atque sanavit: sole ipso est elarius, potentiorem illum fuisse quam fata sunt, cum ea solvit et vicit quae perpetuis nexibus et immobili fuerant necessitate devincta.

3. And we wish this likewise to be known at the same time, that when, as has been said, a summary enumeration of deeds was made; not that Christ was merely able to do the things he did, but that he even surpassed the established decrees of the fates. 4. For, if, as is plain and agreed, debilities | f. 18 | and bodily maladies — the deaf, the lame, and the mute — the contraction of nerves and the loss of sight befall and are imposed by fatal decrees, Christ alone corrected, restored, and healed these things: in him alone it is manifest that he was more powerful than the fates, since he loosed and conquered those things which had been bound by perpetual bonds and immovably tied by necessity.

48.1. ''Sed frustra, inquit nescio quis, tantum adrogas Christo, eum saepe alios sciamus et scierimus deos et laborantibus plurimis dedisse medicinas et multorum hominum morbos valetudinesque curasse''. 2. - Non inquiro, non exigo, quis deus aut quo tempore cui fuerit auxiliatus aut quem fraetum restituerit sanitati: illud solum audire desidero, an sine ullius adiunctione materiae, id est medicaminis alicuius, ad tactum morbos iusserit ab hominibus evolare; imperaverit fecerit et emori valetudinum causam et debilium eorpora ad suas remeare naturas. 3. Christus enim scitur aut admota partibus debilitatis manu aut vocis simplicis iussione aures aperuisse surdorum, exturbasse ab oculis caecitates, orationem dedisse mutis, articulorum vincula relaxasse, ambulatum dedisse contractis, vitiligines querqueras atque intercutes morbos omniaque alia valetudinum genera, quae humana eorpora sustinere nescio qua voluit inportuna crudelitas, verbo solitus imperioque sanare. 4. Quid simile dii omnes, a quibus opem dicitis aegris et periclitantibus latam?

48.1. "But in vain," one, I know not who, says, "you arrogate so much to Christ; we often know and shall know that other gods have given medicines to many sufferers and have cured the diseases and infirmities of many men." 2. - I do not ask, I do not demand, which god or at what time he gave aid to whom or which brother he restored to health: that alone do I wish to hear, whether, without the aid of any material, that is of any medication, he ordered diseases at a touch to fly from men; whether he commanded, effected, and caused the very cause of illnesses to die and debilitated bodies to return to their own natures. 3. For Christ is known to have, either with a hand applied to the parts of debility or by the simple command of his voice, opened the ears of the deaf, expelled blindness from eyes, given speech to the mute, loosened the bonds of joints, given walking to the crippled, healed vitiligo, ulcers and plague-diseases and all other kinds of infirmities which, by some cruel unkindness I know not how, human bodies were unable to endure, accustomed to heal by word and command. 4. What like do all the gods have, of whom you say help was given to the sick and those in peril?

Qui si quando, ut fama est, nonnullis adtribuere medicinam, aut cibum aliquem | f. 18b | iusserunt capi aut qualitatis alicuius ebibi potionem aut herbarum et graminum sucos superponere inquietantibus causis, ambulare, cessare aut re aliqua quae officiat abstinere. 5. Quod esse non magnum nec admirationis alicuius stupore condignum promptum est, si volueritis attendere: et medici enim sic curant, animal humi natum nec confisum scientiae veritate sed in arte suspicabili positum et coniecturarum aestimationibus nutans. 6. Nulla autem virtus est medicaminibus amovere quae noceant: beneficia ista rerum, non sunt curantium potestates: et, ut sit laudabile scire qua quibus conveniat medicina aut arte curari, locus huius laúdis non in deo sed in homine constitutus est.

Who if ever, as the rumor goes, attributed to certain gods some medicinal remedy, or ordered that some food | f. 18b | be taken, or that a potion of some quality be drunk, or that the juices of herbs and grasses be applied for troubling causes, to walk, to cease, or to abstain from some thing that hinders service. 5. That this is not great nor worthy of any admiration is plain, if you will attend: and physicians likewise treat thus — an animal born on the ground, not trusting in the truth of science but placed in a doubtful art and nodding under estimations of conjectures. 6. No virtue, however, is in medicines to remove what harms: those benefits belong to things, they are not powers of the healers: and, though it is laudable to know by what means a medicine is fitting or to be cured by art, the seat of this praise is constituted not in God but in man.

7. Hunc enim non est turpe rebus extrinsecus sumptis valetudinem hominis fecisse meliorem: indecorum deo est non ipsum per se posse, sed externarum adminiculis rerum sanitatem incolumitatemque praestare.

7. For it is not shameful that a man’s valetudinem should be made better by things taken from outside: it is unbecoming in God that he should not be able per se, but should bestow sanitatem and incolumitatem by external adminicles of things.

49.1. Et quoniam beneficia salutis datae aliorum numinum comparatis et Christi, quot milia vultis a nobis debilium vobis ostendi, quot tabificis adfectos morbis nullam omnino rettulisse medicinam, cum per omnia supplices irent templa, cum deorum ante ora prostrati limina ipsa converrerent osculis, cum Aesculapium ipsum datorem ut praedicant sanitatis, quoad illis superfuit vita, et precibus fatigarent et invitarent miserrimis votis? 2. Nonne alios scimus malis suis commortuos, cruciatibus alios consenuisse morborum, perniciosius alios sese | f. 19 | habere coepisse, postquam dies noctesque in continuis precibus et pietatis expectatione triverunt? Quid ergo prodest ostendere unum aut alterum fortasse curatos, cum tot milibus subvenerit nemo et plena sunt omnia miserorum infeliciumque delubra?

49.1. And since the benefits of health given by other gods are compared with those of Christ, how many thousands, think you, of the weak have we shown to you, how many struck by wasting diseases have reported absolutely no medicine, though they went suppliant to all the temples, though prostrate before the faces of the gods they kissed the very thresholds, though they wearied Aesculapius himself, the giver of health, as they say, with the most miserable prayers and entreaties so long as life remained to them? 2. Do we not know others who died lingering in their evils, others who grew old with the tortures of their diseases, others who began to fare more harmfully, after they spent day and night in continual prayers and the expectation of piety? What then avails it to show one or another perhaps cured, when no aid has come to so many thousands and all the temples are full of the miserable and unhappy?

3. Nisi forte dicetis, opem bonis ab diis ferri, malorum miserias despici. - Atquin Christus aequaliter bonis malisque subvenit nec repulsus ab hoc quisquam est [qui] rebus qui auxilium duris contra impetum postulabat iniuriasque fortunae. 4. Hoc est enim proprium dei veri potentiaeque regalis, benignitatem suam negare nulli nec reputare quis mereatur aut minime, cum naturalis infirmitas peccatorem hominem faciat, non voluntatis et iudicationis electio.

3. Unless perhaps you will say that aid is borne to the good by the gods and the miseries of the wicked are despised. — But behold, Christ equally succours both good and bad, and no one was repelled by this who in affairs sought help against the harsh assault and the injuries of fortune. 4. For this is proper to the true God and to regal potency: to deny his benignity to no one, nor to reckon that any one merits it at all, since natural infirmity makes a man a sinner, not a choice of will or adjudication.

5. Dicere porro meritis opem laborantibus ab diis ferri, hoc est in medio ponere et dubitabile quod adseras facere, ut et ille qui sanus est factus fortuito possit videri esse servatus et ille qui non est non meriti causa sed firmitate credatur valetudinem expellere non potuisse divina.

5. To say moreover that help is carried to those labouring by the gods is to place in the middle and assert something doubtful, namely that both he who was made healthy by chance may be seen as having been saved, and he who is not, not for merit’s cause but firmness, is to be believed unable to expel sickness by divine means.

50.1. Quid quod istas uirtutes, quae sunt a nobis summatim, non ut rei poscebat magnitudo, depromptae, non tantum ipse perfecit vi sua, verum, quod erat sublimius, multos alios experiri et facere sui nominis cum adiectione permisit. 2. Nam cum videret futuros vos esse gestarum ab se rerum divinique operis abrogatores, ne qua subesset suspicio, magicis se artibus | f. 19b | munera illa beneficiaque largitum, ex immensa illa populi multitudine, quae suam gratiam sectabatur admirans, piscatores opifices rusticanos atque id genus delegit imperitorum, qui per varias gentes missi cuncta illa miracula sine ullis fucis atque adminiculis perpetrarent. 3. Verbo ille compescuit verminantium membrorum cruces, et illi verbo compescuerunt furialium vermina passionum.

50.1. What shall I say — that those virtues, which are attributed to me in brief, were not, as the greatness of the thing demanded, drawn forth by my own force alone, but, what is higher, that he permitted many others to try and to perform them with the addition of his name? 2. For when he saw that you were to be destroyers of the deeds done by him and of the divine work, lest any suspicion remain that he had bestowed those gifts and benefits by magical arts, marveling at that immense multitude of the people who sought his favour, he chose fishermen, craftsmen, rustics and that sort of unskilled folk from the populace, who, sent among various nations, would accomplish all those miracles without any trickery or props. | f. 19b | 3. With a word he checked the crosses of their vermin‑ridden limbs, and they with a word checked the raging worms of passions.

Imperio ille uno exturbavit a corporibus daemonas et exanimatis suos restituit sensus, sub eorum tortantes et illi se casibus iussione non alia sanitati et constantiae reddiderunt. 4. Ille notas albicantium vitiliginum manu admota detersit, liniamenta et hi corporum haud dissimili conciliavere contactu. 5. Uliginosa ille et turgentia viscera siccitatem iussit reciperare nativam, et famuli eius hoc modo statuerunt errantes aquas et a pernicie corporum suos labi iussere per tramites.

By that single command he drove out demons from bodies and restored the senses of the unconscious; those writhing beneath their torments — and they themselves, by his command and by nothing else, were returned to health and constancy. 4. He wiped away the pale marks of whitening vitiligo when his hand was laid on them, and those lines and streaks of the bodies were reconciled by a touch not unlike. 5. He ordered watery and swollen entrails to recover their native dryness, and his servants thus caused the wandering waters — and those streams which had flowed from the wasting of the bodies — to be directed away through channels.

6. Ille ulcera oris inmensi et recusantia perpeti sanitatem intra unius verbi moram continuato frenavit a pastu, et illi haud aliter contumaciam canceris saevi ad subeundam cicatricem circumscriptis evaginationibus compulerunt. 7. Incessum ille claudis dedit, visum luminibus caecis, interemptos revocavit ad vitam, nec minus et hi quoque contractionem relaxavere nervorum, luce oculos implevere iam perdita et ab tumulis remeare defunctos exequiarum conversione iusserunt. | f. 20 | 8. Neque quicquam est ab illo gestum per admirationem stupentibus cunctis, quod non omne donaverit faciendum parvolis illis et rusticis et eorum subiecerit potestati.

6. He, with a single continued word, restrained from feeding the immense ulcers of the mouth, which were unwilling to endure healing, and they in like manner forced the obstinacy of the savage cancer to submit to taking on a scar by circumscribed excisions. 7. He gave gait to the lame, sight to blind eyes, recalled the slain to life, and no less did they likewise relax the contraction of the nerves, fill with light eyes already lost, and ordered the dead to return from their tombs at the turning of funeral rites. | f. 20 | 8. Nor is there anything done by him to the amazement of all which he did not wholly entrust to be performed by those little ones and rustics and subject to their power.

51.1. Quid dicitis, o mentes incredulae difficiles durae, alicuine mortalium Iuppiter ille Capitolinus huiusmodi potestatem dedit? Curionem aut pontificem maximum, quinimmo dialem, quod eius est, flaminem isto iure donavit? 2. Non dicam, ut mortuos excitaret, non ut caecis restitueret lucem, non ut membrorum situs curvatis redderet et dissolutis, sed ut pustulam reduviam papulam aut vocis imperio aut manus contrectatione comprimeret.

51.1. What do you say, O unbelieving minds, hard and stubborn, did that Capitoline Jupiter give such power to any of mortals? Did he grant it to Curio or to the chief pontiff — nay, to the Dialis flamen, which is his, did he bestow that priesthood by that right? 2. I will not say, that he might raise the dead, nor that he might restore light to the blind, nor that he might restore the positions of limbs bent and dissolved, but that he might compress a recurring pustule, a papule, either by the command of the voice or by the handling of the hand.

3. Ergo illud humanum fuit aut ex ore terrenis stercoribus innutritotale potuit ius dari, talis licentia proficisci, et non divinum et sacrum, aut si aliquam superlationem res capit, plusquam divinum et sacrum? 4. Nam si facias ipse quod possis et quod tuis sit viribus potentatui que conveniens, admiratio non habet quod exclamet; id enim quod potueris feceris et quod praestare debuerit vis tua, ut operis esset una et ipsius qui operaretur aequalitas. 5. Transscribere posse in hominem ius tuum et quod facere solus possis fragilissimae rei donare et participare faciendum, supra omnia sitae est potestatis continentisque sub sese est rerum omnium causas et rationum facultatumque naturas.

3. Therefore was that human, or nourished from the mouth on earthly dung, such that a right could be granted, such a licence to depart, and not divine and sacred; or if the matter admits any exaltation, more than divine and sacred? 4. For if you yourself do what you can and what is fitting to your powers and to the authority of your strength, wonder has no cause to cry out; for that which you were able you will have done, and that which your power ought to have supplied, so that there would be equality between the work and the one who works. 5. That your right could be transcribed into a man, and that which you alone can do could be given to the most fragile thing and made participable, is placed above all as the seat of power and holds under itself the causes of all things and the natures of reasons and faculties.

52.1. Age nunc veniat quaeso per igneam zonam magus interiore ab orbe Zoroastres, Hermippo ut adsentiamur auctori, | f. 20b | Bactrianus et ille conveniat, cuius Ctesias res gestas historiarum exponit in primo, Armenius Zostriani nepos et familiaris Pamphylus Cyri, Apollonius Damigero et Dardanus, Belus, Iulianus et Baebulus, et si quis est alius qui principatum et nomen fertur in talibus habuisse praestigiis: 2. permittant uni ex populo in officium sermonis dandi ora coarticulare mutorum, surdorum auriculas returare, sine luminibus procreatis oculorum redintegrare naturas et in frigentia olim membra sensus animasque redducere. 3. Aut si ardua res ista est neque aliis permittere talium possunt operum potestates, ipsi faciant, et cum suis ritibus faciant, quidquid malefici graminis nutricant terrarum sinus, quidquid virium continet fremor ille verborum atque adiunctae carminum necessitates, non invidemus, adiciant, non interdicimus, colligant: 4. experiri libet et recognoscere an cum suis efficere diis possint quod ab rusticis Christianis iussionibus factitatum est nudis.

52.1. Come now, I pray, let the magician Zoroastres arrive from the inner orb through the fiery zone, let Hermippus assent as author, |. f. 20b | and let that Bactrian also convene, whose deeds Ctesias sets forth in the first book of his histories, Armenius, grandson of Zostrianus and intimate of Pamphylus of Cyrus, Apollonius Damigeron and Dardanus, Belus, Julianus and Baebulus, and if there is any other who is said to have borne preeminence and a name among such conjurations: 2. let them permit one of the people to bind together the mouths of those giving speech into an office, to stop the ears of the deaf, to restore the natures of eyes without newly created lights, and to bring back senses and souls into limbs once chilled. 3. Or if this matter is arduous and their powers cannot suffer others to perform such works, let them do it themselves, and with their rites let them accomplish whatever the earth’s wombs nourish of baleful herb, whatever force contains that tremor of words and the necessities of appended charms — we do not envy, let them add, we do not forbid, let them gather: 4. it pleases to try and to learn whether with their gods they can effect what has been wrought by rustic Christians through simple commands.

53.1. Desistite, o nescii, in maledicta convertere res tantas nihil ei nocitura qui fecit, periculum adlatura sed vobis, periculum inquam non parvum, sed in rebus eximiis, sed in praecipuis constitutum, si quidem res anima pretiosa est, nec ipso se homini quicquam potest carius inveniri. 2. Nihil, ut remini, magicum, nihil humanum, praestigiosum aut subdolum, nihil fraudis delituit in Christo, derideatis licet ex more atque in lasciviam dissolvamini cachinnorum. 3. Deus ille sublimis fuit, deus radice ab intima, deus ab incognitis | f. 21 | regnis et ab omnium principe deo sospitator est missus, quem neque sol ipse neque ulla, si sentiunt, sidera, non rectores, non principes mundi, non denique dii magni, aut qui fingentes se deos genus omne mortalium territant, unde aut qui fuerit potuerunt noscere vel suspicari: et merito.

53.1. Cease, O ignorant ones, to turn such great matters into curses that will harm nothing him who made them, but will bring peril to you — peril, I say, not small, but placed among exalted things, among the foremost, since the thing is the precious soul, and nothing can be found dearer to a man than himself. 2. Nothing, as I remind you, magical, nothing human, prestiditious or subdolous, nothing of fraud lurked in Christ; you may deride him according to custom and dissolve into the lasciviousness of laughter. 3. That God was high, a god from the innermost root, a god sent as preserver from unknown | f. 21 | realms and by the god who is prince of all; whom neither the sun itself nor any, if they perceive, of the stars, not rulers, not princes of the world, nor finally the great gods, or those who, pretending to be gods, terrify the whole race of mortals, could know or even suspect — and rightly.

4. Exutus at corpore, quod in exigua sui circumferebat parte, postquam videri se passus est, cuius esset aut magnitudinis sciri, novitate rerum exterrita universa mundi sunt elementa turbata, tellus mota contremuit, mare funditus refusum est, aer globis involutus est tenebrarum, igneus orbis solis tepefacto ardore deriguit. 5. Quid enim restabat ut fieret, postquam deus est cognitus is, qui esse iamdudum unus iudicabatur e nobis?

4. Stripped, however, of the body which he carried about in a small part of himself, after he allowed himself to be seen, that it might be known whose he was and of what magnitude, startled by the novelty of things all the elements of the world were disturbed: the earth, moved, trembled; the sea was overturned from its depths; the air was wrapped in globes of darkness; the fiery orb of the sun, its tepid ardor chilled, grew rigid. 5. For what indeed remained to be done, after that god was recognized who long had been judged to be one of us?

54.1. Sed non creditis gesta haec. Sed qui ea conspicati sunt fieri et sub oculis suis viderunt agi, testes optimi certissimique auctores, et crediderunt haec ipsi et credenda posteris nobis haud exilibus cum adprobationibus tradiderunt. 2. Quinam isti sint fortasse quaeritis?

54.1. But you do not believe these deeds. Yet those who beheld them and saw them done under their own eyes—most excellent and most certain witnesses and authors—believed these things themselves and handed them down to posterity and to us, things by no means slight, with attestations to be approved as credible. 2. Perhaps you ask who these are?

Gentes populi nationes et incredulum illud genus humanum quod, nisi aperta res esset et luce ipsa quemadmodum dicitur clarior, numquam rebus huiusmodi credulitatis suae commodaret adsensum. 3. At numquid dicemus illius temporis homines usque adeo fuisse vanos mendaces stolidos brutos, ut quae numquam viderant vidisse se fingerent et quae facta omnino non erant falsis proderent | f. 2lb | testimoniis aut puerili adsertione firmarent, cumque possent vobiscum et unanimiter vivere et inoffensas ducere coniunctiones, gratuita susciperent odia et execrabili haberentur in nomine?

Nations, peoples, tribes, and that incredulous human kind which, unless the matter were open and even the very light, as it is said, clearer, would never lend assent to such things by its credulity. 3. But shall we say that the men of that time were so vain, mendacious, foolish, brutish, that they would invent that which they had never seen as if they had seen it, and would produce as testimony things that were in no wise done, or confirm them by childish assertion, | f. 2lb | when they could live with you in unanimity and maintain unoffending bonds, yet would gratuitously take up hatreds and be held execrable in the name?

55.1. Quodsi falsa ut dicitis historia illa rerum est, unde tam brevi tempore totus mundus ista religione completus est, aut in unam coire qui potuerunt mentem gentes regionibus dissitae, ventis caeli convexionibusque dimotae? 2. Adseverationibus inlectae sunt nudis, inductae in spes cassas, et in pericula capitis immittere se sponte temeraria desperatione voluerunt, cum nihil tale vidissent quod eas in hos cultus novitatis suae posset excitare miraculo? 3. Immo quia haec omnia et ab ipso cernebant geri et ab eius praeconibus, qui per orbem totum missi beneficia patris et munera dei animis hominibus que portabant, veritatis ipsius vi victae et dederunt se deo nec in magnis posuere dispendiis membra vobis proicere et viscera sua lanianda praebere.

55.1. But if that history of things is false, as you say, whence in so short a time was the whole world filled with that religion, or how could peoples scattered through regions, driven apart by the winds of heaven and by the convoys of travel, come together into one mind? 2. Were they beguiled by naked asseverations, led into vain hopes, and, in rash desperation, desired of their own accord to cast themselves into perils of life, when they had seen nothing of that sort which by a miracle could excite them into these cults of their novelty? 3. Nay rather, because they perceived all these things to be done both by him himself and by his heralds, who, sent throughout the whole orb, bore to the souls of men the benefits of the Father and the gifts of God, they were overcome by the very force of truth and gave themselves to God, nor in great losses did they refrain from casting their bodies to you and offering their entrails to be torn.

56.1. ''Sed conscriptores nostri mendaciter ista prompserunt, extulere in immensum exigua gesta et angustas res satis ambitioso dilatavere praeconio''. 2. - Atque utinam cuncta referri in scripta potuissent, vel quae ab ipso gesta sunt vel quae ab eius praeconibus pari iure et potentia terminata. Magis vos incredulos faceret vis tanta virtutum, et adprehendere locum fortasse possetis, quo videretur esse simillimum veri, et incrementa rebus adposita et inditas scriptis et commentariis falsitates. | f. 22 | 3. Sed neque omnia conscribi aut in aures omnium pervenire potuerunt gesta gentibus in ignotis et usum nescientibus litterarum, aut siqua sunt litteris conscriptionibusque mandata, malevolentia daemonum, quorum cura et studium est hanc intercipi veritatem, et consimilium his hominum interpolata quaedam et addita, partim mutata atque detracta verbis syllabis litteris, ut et prudentium tardaret fidem et gestorum corrumperet auctoritatem.

56.1. ''But our writers falsely set forth those things; they exalted small deeds into the immense and, with rather ambitious publicity, inflated narrow matters.'' 2. - And would that all had been able to be set down in writing, either those things done by him himself or those completed by his heralds with equal right and power. The force of so great virtues would the more strongly convince you, and perhaps you could apprehend the place where it would seem most like the truth, and the additions appended to affairs and the falsities implanted in writings and commentaries. | f. 22 | 3. But neither could all the deeds be written or come into the ears of all peoples, among unknown nations and those ignorant of the use of letters; or if any things have been entrusted to letters and records, by the malevolence of demons — whose care and study it is to intercept this truth — and by similar men some things have been interpolated and added, partly altered and taken away in words, syllables, and letters, so that they might both delay the faith of the prudent and corrupt the authority of the deeds.

4. Sed numquam fuerit, his bene ut Christus qui fuerit litterarum testimoniis, colligatur, cuius in id solum dimissa est causa, ut, si esse constiterit ea vera quae dicimus, confessione omnium deus fuisse monstretur.

4. But it will never be inferred from the testimonies of the writings that Christ was such as he was, since his cause is set aside for that sole purpose, namely that, if it shall be established that those things we assert are true, by the confession of all he may be shown to have been God.

57.1. ''Non Creditis scriptis nostris'': - et nos vestris non credimus scriptis. ''Falsa de Christo conpingimus'': - et vos de diis vestris inania et falsa iactatis; neque enim caelo deus aliquis lapsus est aut suis res vestras commentatus est manibus aut ratione consimili nostris rebus et religionibus derogavit. 2. ''Ab hominibus haec scripta'': - et illa sunt ab hominibus scripta, mortalibus edissertata sermonibus; et quidquid dicere de nostris conscriptoribus intenderitis, et de vestris haec dicta paribus sumite atque habetote momentis.

57.1. "You do not believe our writings": — and we do not believe your writings. "We compose falsehoods about Christ": — and you vaunt empty and false things about your gods; for no god has fallen from heaven nor has he devised your affairs with hands, nor by a reason similar to ours has he derogated from our matters and religions. 2. "These things are written by men": — and those too are written by men, expounded to mortals in discourses; and whatever you intend to say about our writers, take these words about yours as equal and hold them of equal weight.

3. Vultis vera esse quae in vestris conprehensa sunt scriptis: - et quae in nostris consignata sunt litteris confiteamini necesse est esse vera. Falsitatis arguitis res nostras: - et nos vestras arguimus falsitatis. | 22b | 4. ''Sed antiquiora, inquitis, nostra sunt ac per hoc fidei et veritatis plenissima'': - quasi vero errorum non antiquitas plenissima mater sit et non ipsa pepererit res eas quae turpissimas diis notas ignominiosis concinnaverunt in fabulis.

3. You wish the things which are contained in your writings to be true: - and those which are inscribed in our letters you must confess to be necessarily true. You impeach our matters of falsity: - and we impeach yours of falsity. | 22b | 4. ''But the more ancient, you say, are ours and therefore fullest of faith and truth'': - as if antiquity were not the most abundant mother of errors, nor had she herself begotten those things which, in ignominious fables, fashioned the vilest matters made known concerning the gods.

5. Ante milia enim annorum decem non potuerunt falsa et audiri et eredi aut non simillimum veri est, fidem vicinis et finitimis quam spatiorum inesse longinquitate distantibus? 6. Testibus enim haec, illa opinionibus adseruntur et proclivius multo est, minus esse in recentibus fictionis quam in antiqua obscuritate summotis.

5. For ten thousand years before they could not both be heard and be handed down false things; or is it not most similar to the truth that faith dwells with neighbors and those bordering close, rather than with those distant by the breadth of spaces? 6. For these things are asserted by witnesses, those by opinions, and it is much more probable that there is less fiction in recent times than when ancient obscurity is set aside.

58.1. ''Sed ab indoctis hominibus et rudibus scripta sunt et idcirco non sunt facili auditione credenda''. - Vide ne magis haec fortior causa sit, cur illa sint nullis coinquinata mendacis, mente simplici prodita et ignara lenocinis ampliare. 2. ''Trivialis et sordidus sermo est''. - Numquam enim veritas sectata est fucum nec quod exploratum et certum est circumduci se patitur orationis per ambitum longiorem. Collectiones enthymemata definitiones omniaque illa ornamenta quibus fides queritur adsertioni suspicantes adiuvant, non veritatis liniamenta demonstrant?

58.1. "But they were written by unlearned and rude men and therefore are not to be believed on facile hearing." — Consider whether this rather is the stronger cause: that those things were not polluted by any lies, delivered to a simple and ignorant mind to be amplified by seductions. 2. "It is a trivial and sordid speech." — For truth never pursued artifice, nor does that which is examined and certain allow itself to be led about by the longer circuit of oration. Collections, enthymemes, definitions, and all those ornaments by which faith seeks to bolster an assertion, do they aid suspicion rather than demonstrate the lineaments of truth?

3. Ceterum qui scit, quid sit illud quod dicitur, nec definit nec colligit neque alia sectatur artificia verborum, quibus capi consueti sunt audientes et ad consensum rei circumscriptionis necessitate traduci.

3. Moreover, he who knows what that thing is which is spoken of, neither defines nor collects nor pursues other artifices of words, by which the hearers are wont to be ensnared and led to assent by the necessity of circumscribing the matter.

59.1. ''Barbarismis, soloecismis obsitae sunt, | f. 23 | inquit, res vestrae et vitiorum deformitate pollutae''. 2. - Puerilis sane atque angusti pectoris reprehensio, quam si admittemus ut vera sit, abiciamus ex usibus nostris quorundam fructuum genera, quod cum spinis nascuntur et purgamentis aliis, quae nec alere nos possunt nec tamen impediunt perfrui nos eo, quod principaliter antecedit et saluberrimum nobis voluit esse natura. 3. Quid enim officit, o quaeso, aut quam praestat intellectui tarditatem, utrumne quid grave an hirsuta cum asperitate promatur, inflectatur quod acui an acuatur quod oportebat inflectis? 4. Aut qui minus id quod dicitur verum est, si in numero peccetur aut casu praepositione participio coniunctione?

59.1. ''Your matters are beset with barbarisms and solecisms,'' he says, ''and defiled by the deformity of vices.'' 2. - A childish and narrow‑hearted reproach indeed; and if we were to admit it as true, we should cast out from our usages certain kinds of fruits, which, though they are born with thorns and other refuse, neither can nourish us nor yet prevent our enjoying that which primarily precedes and which nature wished to be most wholesome for us. 3. For what does it hinder, I ask, or what does slowness of intellect avail, whether something weighty is produced rough with harshness, whether what ought to be bent is bent so as to be sharpened, or what ought to be sharpened is sharpened by being bent? 4. Or is that which is said any the less true if one errs in number, or by chance in case, preposition, participle, or conjunction?

Pompa ista sermonis et oratio missa per regulas contionibus litibus foro iudiciisque servetur deturque illis immo qui, voluptatum delinimenta quaerentes, omne suum studium verborum in lumina contulerunt. 5. Cum de rebus agitur ab ostentatione summotis, quid dicatur spectandum est, non quali cum amoenitate dicatur, nec quid aures commulceat, sed quas adferat audientibus utilitates: maxime cum sciamus etiam quosdam sapientiae deditos non tantum abiecisse sermonis cultum verum etiam, cum possent ornatius atque uberius eloqui, trivialem studio humilitatem secutos, ne conrumperent scilicet gravitatis rigorem et sophistica se potius ostentatione iactarent. 6. Et enimvero dissoluti est pectoris in rebus seriis quaerere voluptatem, et cum tibi sit ratio cum male se habentibus atque aegris, sonos auribus infundere dulciores, non medi cinam | f. 23b | vulneribus admovere.

Let that pomp of speech and an oration delivered according to rules be preserved and be granted even to those who, seeking the delights of pleasures, have devoted all their zeal for words to public display. 5. When matters are handled with ostentation removed, attention must be paid to what is said, not to the manner in which it is said with charm, nor to what soothes the ears, but to what utilities it brings to the hearers: especially since we know that some devoted to wisdom have not only abandoned the cultivation of speech but, though they could speak more ornately and more copiously, have followed a trivial humility of study, lest, to be sure, they should break the sternness of gravity and rather vaunt themselves with sophistical ostentation. 6. For truly it is a looseness of heart in serious affairs to seek pleasure, and when your reason is with those who fare badly and the sick, to pour sweeter sounds into their ears is not to apply medicine to their wounds | f. 23b |.

7.Quamquam si verum spectes, nullus sermo natura est integer, vitiosus similiter nullus. Quaenam est enim ratio naturalis aut in mundi constitutionibus lex scripta, ut hic paries dicatur et haec sella, cum neque sexus habeant femininis generibus masculinisque discretos neque quisquam docere doctissimus me possit ipsum hic et haec quid sint aut cur ex his unum sexum virilem designet, femininis generibus id quod sequitur adplicetur. 8. Humana ista sunt placita et ad usum sermonis faciendi nòn sane omnibus necessaria: nam et haec paries forsitan et hic sella dici sine ulla reprehensione potuissent, si ab initio sic dici placuisset et a sequentibus saeculis communi esset in sermocinatione servatum.

7. Although if you regard the truth, no speech is by nature intact, likewise no speech is entirely faultless. For what natural reason or what law written in the constitution of the world ordains that one should say hic paries and haec sella, when they have neither sexes distinguished into feminine and masculine genders, nor can any most learned teacher tell me what hic and haec in themselves are or why from these one designates one sex as virile and applies to the feminine genders that which follows. 8. These are human placita and not indeed necessary to all for the use of making speech: for even haec paries and hic sella might perhaps have been said without any blame, if it had pleased to be so said from the beginning and if it had been preserved in common sermocination by succeeding ages.

9. Et tamen o isti, qui pollutas res nostras vitiorum criminamini foeditate, stribiligines et vos istas libris illis in maximis atque admirabilibus non habetis? 10. Nonne aliud haec utria aliud dicitis hos utres, caelus et caelum, non item pileus et pileum, non item crocus et crocum, non item fretus et fretum? Non item apud vos est positum hoc pane et hic panis, hic sanguis et hoc sanguen, candelabrum et iugulum ratione eadem iugulus et candelaber?

9. And yet, O you who foul our affairs with the accusation of the filth of vices — do you not yourselves possess those very stains (stribiligines) and those same things in those greatest and most admirable books? 10. Do you not say that these two are different — haec and utria, aliud and aliud — and that hos and utres are distinct; caelus and caelum are not the same, nor pileus and pileum, nor crocus and crocum, nor fretus and fretum? Is it not likewise with you arranged: hoc pane and hic panis, hic sanguis and hoc sanguen, candelabrum and iugulum — by the same reasoning iugulus and candelaber?

11. Nam si singula nomina non possunt genera plura habere quam singula neque eadem possunt huius esse generis et illius, genus enim transire genus in alterum | f. 24 | non potest, tam peccat qui genera masculina femininis pronuntiat legibus quam ab eo peccatur qui articulos masculinos femininis generibus anteponit. 12. Atqui vos conspicimus et res masculinas et femineas masculine et quas esse dicitis neutras et illo et hoc modo sine ulla discretione depromere. 13. Aut igitur nulla est culpa indifferenter his uti et frustra nos dicitis soloecismorum obscenitate deformes, aut si certum est singula quibus debeant rationibus explicari, in similibus vitiis vos quoque versamini, quamvis Epicados omnes, Caesellios Verrios Scauros teneatis et Nisos.

11. For if single names cannot have more than one genus and cannot belong to both this and that genus, for a genus cannot pass into another genus | f. 24 |, he errs as much who by laws pronounces masculine genera as feminine as is erred by him who places masculine articles before feminine genders. 12. And yet we behold you to set forth masculine things and feminine things masculine and those which you call neuter both this way and that, without any discrimination. 13. Either therefore there is no fault in using these indiscriminately and you name us in vain deformed by the obscenity of solecisms, or if it is certain by what reasons each ought to be explained, in similar vices you too are engaged, although you hold fast all the Epicadi, Caesellii, Verrii, Scauri and Nisos.

60.1. ''Sed si deus, inquiunt, fuit Christus, cur forma est in hominis visus et cur more est interemptus humano?''. 2. - An aliter potuit invisibilis illa vis et habens nullam substantiam corporalem inferre et commodare se mundo, conciliis interesse mortalium, quam ut aliquod tegmen materiae solidioris adsumeret, quod oculorum susciperet iniectum et ubi se figere ineptissimae posset contemplationis obtutus? 3. Quis est enim mortalium qui quiret eum videre, quis cernere, si talem voluisset inferre se terris qualis ei primigenia natura est et qualem se ipse in sua esse noluit vel qualitate vel numine? 4. Adsumpsit igitur hominis formam et sub nostri generis similitudine potentiam suam clausit, ut et videri posset et conspici, verba faceret et doceret atque omnis exequeretur res eas propter quas | f. 24b | in a mundum venerat faciendas, summi regis imperio et dispositione servatis.

60.1. "But if God," they say, "was Christ, why is there a form in the sight of men and why was he put to death in a human manner?" 2. — Could that invisible power, they ask, which has no corporal substance, otherwise enter and accommodate itself to the world, attend the councils of mortals, than by taking some covering of firmer matter, which the eyes might receive as impressed and in which gaze most unfit for contemplation it could fix itself? 3. For who of mortals would desire to see him, who to perceive him, if he had wished to bring himself down to the earth such as his primordial nature is and such as he would not have himself to be either in quality or in divine power? 4. Therefore he assumed the form of a man and enclosed his power under the similitude of our race, so that he could both be seen and be perceived, speak and teach, and accomplish all those things for which he had come into the world, the command and disposition of the supreme king being preserved. | f. 24b |

61.1. ''Quid enim, dicit, rex summus ea quae in mundo facienda esse decreverat sine homine simulato non quibat efficere?''. - Si oporteret ita fieri quemadmodum dicitis, ita fortasse fecisset; quia non oportuit, aliter fecit. 2. Quare isto voluit et illo genere noluit, latent [aliter] involutae et vix ullis comprehensibiles causae, quas accipere fortasse potuisses, si non esses iamdudum ad non accipiendum paratus et prius te formares ad non credendi frontem quam tibi esset exositum id quod novisse atque audire conquireres.

61.1. ''For what, he says, could the highest king not effect those things which he had decreed were to be done in the world without a simulated man?'' - If it had been necessary that things be done just as you say, perhaps he would so have done; because it was not necessary, he did otherwise. 2. Wherefore he willed this and in that sort he would not, the causes lie hidden, involved otherwise and scarcely comprehensible to any, which you might perhaps have received, if you had not long since been prepared for not receiving and had not first formed yourself to the front/forehead of unbelief before that which you sought to know and hear was set forth to you.

62.1. ''Sed more est hominis interemptus''. - Non ipse: neque enim cadere divinas in res potest mortis occasus nec interitionis dissolutione dilabi id quod est unum et simplex nec ullarum partium congregatione conpactum. 2. ''Quis est ergo visus in patibulo pendere, quis mortuus?''. - Homo quem induerat et secum ipse portabat. 3. ''Incredibile dictu est et caecis obscuritatibus involutum''. - Si velis, non caecum est et similitudine proxima constitutum.

62.1. "But he was slain in the manner of a man." — Not he himself: for the events of death cannot fall upon divine things, nor can that which is one and simple, nor compacted by any congregation of parts, be dissolved by the dissolution of destruction. 2. "Who then was seen to hang on the gibbet, who was dead?" — The man whom he had assumed and was carrying with himself. 3. "It is incredible to tell and wrapped in blind obscurities." — If you will, it is not blind, but constituted by the nearest similitude.

Si quo tempore Sibylla praesagia, oracula illa depromens, fundebat vi ut dicitis Apollinis plena, ab impiis esset caesa atque interempta latronibus: numquid Apollo diceretnr in ea esse occisus? 4. Si Bacis, si Helenus, Marcius aliique similiter vates hariolantes essent vita et luce privati: nurmquid aliquis diceret lege eos humanitatis extinctos qui illorum per ora loquentes vias rerum | f. 25 | postulantibus explicabant? 5. Mors illa quam dicitis adsumptio hominis fuit non ipsius, gestaminis non gestantis, quam nec ipsam perpeti succubuisset vis tanta, si non agenda res esset et inexplicabilis ratio fati clausis patefacienda mysteriis.

If at any time the Sibyl, drawing forth those presagings, poured them out with a force, as you say, full of Apollo, and was cut down and slain by wicked robbers: would Apollo be said to have been slain in her? 4. If Bacis, if Helenus, Marcius and others likewise, prophetic seers, were deprived of life and light: would anyone say by law that they were extinguished of humanity, who, speaking through their mouths, explained the ways of things to those demanding them | f. 25 |? 5. That death which you call the assumption (adsumptio) of the man was not his own — not of a burden-bearer who did not bear — nor would such mighty force itself have yielded to endure it, if the matter were not to be done and the inexplicable rationale of fate, with its closed mysteries, to be made manifest.

63.1. ''Quae sunt ista, inquies, clausa atque obscura mysteria?''. - Quae nulli nec homines scire nec ipsi, qui appellantur dii mundi, parte queunt aliqua suspicionis atque opinationis attingere, nisi quos ipse dignatus est cognitionis tantae inpertire muneribus et in abditos recessus thesauri interioris inducere. 2. Vides enim, si nollet inferri sibi a quoquam manus, summa illi fuisse contentione nitendum, ut hostes ab se suos vel potestate universa prohiberet? 3. Qui caecis restituerat lumina, is efficere si deberet non poterat caecos?

63.1. "What are these, you will say, closed and obscure mysteries?" - Which no one, neither men nor those themselves who are called gods of the world, can touch with any part of suspicion or conjecture, except those whom he himself deigned to bestow the gifts of such knowledge upon and to lead into the hidden recesses of the inner treasury. 2. For you see, if he did not wish hands to be laid upon him by anyone, that he would have to strive with the utmost exertion to forbid his enemies from approaching him or to bar them by absolute power? 3. He who had restored light to the blind—could he, if he ought to do so, not make the blind see?

qui debilibus integritatem, is debiles reddere difficultati habuit aut labori? qui claudos praecipiebat incedere, is motus conligare membrorum nervorum duritia nesciebat? qui extrahebat ab tumulis mortuos, huic arduum fuerat letum cui vellet indicere?

he who restored integrity to the weak—did he have difficulty or toil in rendering the weak whole? he who bade the lame to walk—did he not know the hardness of binding together the movements of the nerves of the limbs? he who dragged the dead from their tombs—would it have been arduous for him to inflict death on whomsoever he pleased?

4. Sed quia fieri ratio ea quae fuerant destinata poscebat et hic in ipso mundo nec modo quám gestum est alio, inaestimabilis illa atque incredibilis lenitas iniurias in se hominum puerilibus pro ineptiis ducens manus in se porrigi ab inmanibus passa est durissimisque latronibus nec reputandum putavit quid illorum | f. 25b | dissignasset audacia, dummodo suis ostenderet, quid ab sese expectare deberent. 5. Cum enim de animarum periculis multa, multa de illarum contra insinuaret, magister, atque auctor ad officiorum convenientium fines suas leges et constituta direxit: non superbiae fastum comminuit, non libidinum extinxit flammas, non hiatum compressit aviditatis, non tela extorsit e manibus atque omnia seminaria totius vitiositatis abscidit? 6. Ipse denique non lenis, non placidus, non accessu facilis, non familiaris adfatu, non humanas miserias indolescens omnes omnino crucibus et corporalibus adfectos malis, morbis, unica illa benignitate miseratus reddidit et restituit sanitati?

4. But because reason demanded that those things which had been destined should come to pass, and here in this very world not otherwise than as they were accomplished, that priceless and incredible gentleness, suffering injuries from men and yielding her hands to be stretched forth by monstrous and most cruel robbers, and thinking it not to be reckoned what their boldness had marked out, so long as she showed to her own what they ought to expect from her. 5. For when the Master and Author was insinuating many, many things concerning the dangers of souls and concerning their defense against, and set forth his laws and ordinances to the bounds of fitting duties: did he not threaten the pride of arrogance, did he not quench the flames of lusts, did he not compress the gulf of avarice, did he not wrench weapons from hands and cut away all the seedbeds of entire viciousness? 6. He himself, finally — not gentle, not placid, not easy of access, not familiar in address, not unmoved by human miseries — pitied and restored to health, by that unique benignity, all who were wholly afflicted with torments and bodily evils, diseases, and infirmities?

64.1. Quid ergo vos subigit, quid hortatur maledicere conviciari inexpiabiles cum eo conserere simultates quem redarguere, quem tenere nemo omnium possit ullius facinoris in reatu? 2. Tyrannos ac reges vestros, qui postposito deorum metu donaria spoliant populanturque templorum, qui proscriptionibus exilis caedibus nudant nobilitatibus civitates, qui matronarum pudorem ac virginum vi subruunt atque eripiunt licentiosa, appellatis indigetes atque divos, et quoscodiis acrioribus conveniebat a vobis carpi, pulvinaribus aris templis atque alio mactatis cultu ludorum et celebritate natalium. 3. Nec non et illos omnes, qui conscriptione voluminum multiformi maledictis mordacibus carpunt | f. 26 | publicos mores, qui luxurias ac vitas vestras secant urunt dilacerant, qui sui temporis posteris notas scriptorum perpetuitate prolatant: qui matrimonia persuadent habenda esse communia, qui cum pueris cubitant formonsis lascivientibus nudis, qui pecudes vos esse, qui fugitivos, qui exules, qui vilissimae servos notae, furiosos praedicant et insanos, admirantes plaudentes ad caeli sustollitis sidera, bybliothecarum reponitis in arcanis, quadrigis et statuis muneramini et quantum est in vobis velut quadam aeternitate donatis inmortalium testificatione titulorum: 4. solum Christum conpellare dilacerare, potestis si deum, vultis, immo solum si liceat beluarum agrestium ritu cruentis oribus mandere, comminutis cum ossibus transvorare.

64.1. Why then does it impel you, what urges you to revile and to heap inexpiable abuse upon him with whom you must engage in strife — whom to rebuke, whom to hold, no one of you can in any crime find guilty? 2. Your tyrants and kings, who, having set aside fear of the gods, despoil gifts and plunder the temples, who by proscription leave noble estates bare with slaughter and exile, who overthrow and carry off by violent license the modesty of matrons and the virgins, yet call forth the indigetes and the gods and those whom it was meet for you to lacerate with bitterer scorns — the pulvina, the altars, the temples — and elsewhere, after sacrificial cults, with games and the celebration of birthdays. 3. Nor less all those who, by a manifold composition of books, bite at public morals with mordant curses, who cut, burn, and tear away your luxuries and lives, who prolong for the posterity of their own age the notices of writers by perpetuity: who persuade that marriages ought to be common, who lie with handsome youths, lascivious in the nude, who proclaim you beasts, who call you fugitive, exiled, infamously enslaved, mad and insane, applauding and marveling as if the heavens were raised, by placing libraries in vaults, | f. 26 | rewarded with chariots and statues and, as much as is in you, endowed with a kind of eternity by the immortal testimony of titles: 4. you can only assail and tear Christ apart, if you will, if you wish to, nay only if it is permitted to give him over to the bloody mouths of savage beasts, to triturate him with broken bones and devour him.

5. Quodnam quaeso ob meritum dicite, euius ob peccati culpam? Quid ab eo conmissum est, quod tenorem inflecteret recti et in odia vos aspera furialibus stimulis concitaret? Quia animarum vestrarum custodem se missum solo indicavit ab rege, quia vobis inmortalitatem ferre, quam vos habere confiditis humanis paucorum adseverationibus suasi?

5. What then, I ask, do you say was his merit, or rather on account of whose guilt of sin? What was committed by him that would bend the tenor of right and, with harsh, fury-like stimuluses, stir you up into hatred? Because he declared himself sent as guardian of your souls by the king alone, because I persuaded you that he would bring you the immortality which you trust to have by the human attestations of a few?

6. Quodsi esset apud vos certum falsa illum dicere, spes etiam vanissimas polliceri, nec sic video fuisse causam, cur eum deberetis odisse, cur hostili animadversione damnare, immo, si animus vobis clemens fuisset et mitis, vel propter id solum eum deberetis | f. 26b | amplecti, quod optabilia vobis sponderet et prospera, quod bonarum esset nuntius rerum, quod ea praedicaret quae nullius animum.laederent, securioris quinimmo expectationis implerent.

6. But if it were certain among you that he spoke false things, that he promised even the most vain hopes, I do not see that this would be a reason why you ought to hate him, why to condemn him with hostile animadversion; nay, if your mind had been merciful and mild, you ought for that very reason to embrace him | f. 26b |, because he vowed things desirable and prosperous to you, because he was a messenger of good things, because he proclaimed those things which would wound no one’s mind, indeed would fulfill the expectations of a more secure kind.

65.1. O ingratum et impium saeculum, o in privatam perniciem incredibili pectoris obstinatione pravatum. 2. Si aliquis ad vos medicus ex summotis venisset et numquam vobis regionibus cognitis rmedicamen pollicens tale quod a vestris corporibus omnia omnino prohiberet morborum et valetudinum genera: non certatim omnes accurreretis, non blanditiis omnibus atque honoribus fotum familiaria susciperetis in moenia, non illud medicaminis genus optaretis esse certissimum, non verum, quod immunes vos fore ab tam innumeris vexationibus corporum usque ad ultimos fines sponderet aetatis? 3. Et licet ambigua res esset, committeretis vos tamen nec potionem incognitam dubitaretis haurire spe salutis proposita atque amore incolumitatis incensi.

65.1. O ungrateful and impious age, o corrupted into private ruin by the incredible obstinacy of heart. 2. If some physician had come to you from distant regions and, promising a medicine unknown in your parts that would altogether prevent from your bodies every kind of disease and ailment: would you not all run eagerly, would you not receive him into your walls with every flattery and honor as a cherished member of the household, would you not desire that kind of medicine to be most certain, would you not deem true that which promised you to be immune from so innumerable vexations of the body even to the final bounds of life? 3. And although the matter were doubtful, yet you would commit yourselves and would not hesitate to drain an unknown potion, inflamed by the hope of health proposed and by love of safety.

4. Eluxit atque apparuit Christus rei maximae nuntiator, auspicium faustum portans et praeconium salutare credentibus. 5. Quaenam est ista crudelitas, inhumanitas quae tanta, quinimmo, ut verius eloquar, fastidium, supercilium, nuntiatorem muneris et portitorem tanti non tantum verborum maledictionibus scindere, verum etiam bello gravi atque omnibus persequi telorum effusionibus et ruinis? 6. Non placent ea quae dicit et cum | f. 27 | offensionibus audiuntur a vobis: pro ludicris ea vaticinationibus computate.

4. Christ shone forth and appeared as the herald of the greatest matter, carrying an auspicious omen and a salutary proclamation to believers. 5. What is this cruelty, this inhumanity so great — indeed, to speak more truly, this disdain, this arrogance — to rend the messenger of a gift and the bearer of so great a thing not only with curses of words, but even to pursue him with grievous war and with all effusions of weapons and with ruination? 6. Those things which he says do not please you, and when they are heard they are received by you with affronts: reckon them for ludicrous vaticinations.

Stolidissimas res loquitur et fatua dona promittit: ridete ut sapientes vos viri et in suis erroribus fatuitantem relinquite volutari. 7. Quaenam est haec feritas, ut repetamus quae dicta sunt saepius, quae libido tam carnifex, inexiabile bellum indicere nihil de te merito, dilacerare si detur eum velle per viscera, qui non modo nullum intulerit malum nulli sed aequaliter benignus hostibus diceret, quidnam his salutis deo portaretur a principe, quid esset facto opus ut interitum fugerent et immortalitatem consequerentur ignotam? 8. Cumque novitas rerum et inaudita promissio audientium turbaret mentes et credulitatem faceret haesitare, virtutum omnium dominus atque ipsius mortis extinctor hominem suum permisit interfici, ut ex rebus consequentibus scirent in tuto esse spes suas quas iamdudum acceperant de animarum salute nec periculum mortis alia se posse ratione vitare.

He utters the most stolid matters and promises foolish gifts: laugh, you men as wise, and leave him, making a fool of himself, to revel in his own errors. 7. What is this ferocity, that we should repeat what has been said often, what lust so carnivorous, to declare inexorable war, to tear apart—if it were permitted that he would wish it by the entrails—him who not only would bring no harm to anyone but would say himself equally benign even to enemies; what, then, would the prince bring to these as a salvation to God, what deed would be required so that they might flee destruction and attain an unknown immortality? 8. And when the novelty of the things and the unheard-of promise disturbed the minds of the hearers and made credulity waver, the lord of all virtues and destroyer of death itself permitted his man to be slain, so that by the ensuing events they might know that the hopes they had long since received concerning the salvation of souls were in safety, nor could the peril of death be avoided by any other reasoning.