Ad Scapulam

We, for our part, are neither alarmed nor greatly afraid at the things we suffer from those who are ignorant, since we came to this sect, surely, having taken up the condition of that covenant — that we should enter upon these contests having pledged our very souls — desiring to obtain the things which God promises, and fearing to suffer the things which he threatens against the contrary life. And so we contend against all your savagery, even bursting forth of our own accord, and we rejoice more when condemned than when acquitted. We have sent forth this little book, therefore, not fearing for ourselves, but for you and for all our enemies, to say nothing of our friends. For we are so bidden by our discipline to love even our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us, that this may be our perfect and proper goodness, not a common one. For to love friends is the way of all men, but to love enemies belongs to Christians alone. We, then, who grieve over your ignorance, and have pity on human error, and look forward to the things to come, and see the signs of them daily threatened — we must of necessity break forth even in this manner, to set before you the things which openly you will not hear.

We worship one God, whom you all by nature know, at whose thunders and lightnings you tremble, at whose benefits you rejoice. The rest, whom we know to be demons, you yourselves too think to be gods. Yet it is of human right and of natural liberty for each man to worship what he has thought fit; nor does the religion of one man either harm or profit another. But neither does it belong to religion to compel religion, which ought to be taken up of one's own will, not by force — since even the sacrificial victims are demanded from a willing mind. So even if you should compel us to sacrifice, you will render no service to your gods. For they will not desire sacrifices from the unwilling, unless they are quarrelsome; and a god is not quarrelsome. In short, he who is the true God bestows all his goods equally upon the profane and upon his own, and therefore has appointed an eternal judgment also concerning the thankful and the unthankful. Yet we, whom you esteem sacrilegious, you have never caught in a theft, much less in a sacrilege. But all those who plunder the temples, and swear by the gods and worship those same gods, are both not Christians and yet are caught in sacrilege. It would be a long matter, if we should recount in what other ways too all the gods are mocked and despised by their own worshippers. So, too, we are defamed concerning the majesty of the emperor; yet never could there be found any Albinian or Nigrian or Cassian Christians, but those very same men who, up to the day before, had sworn by their genii, who had both made and vowed sacrifices for their welfare, who had often condemned Christians, were found to be their enemies. A Christian is the enemy of no one, much less of the emperor, whom, knowing him to be appointed by his own God, he must of necessity both love and reverence and honour and wish well, together with the whole Roman empire, so long as the world shall stand — for so long it shall stand. We worship the emperor, therefore, in such a way as is both lawful for us and expedient for him: as a man second to God, and one who has obtained whatever he is from God, and inferior to God alone. This he himself too will wish. For thus he is greater than all, while he is less than the true God alone. Thus he is greater even than the gods themselves, while they too are in his power. And so we sacrifice for the emperor's welfare too, but to our God and his, yet in the way God has commanded — by pure prayer. For God, the founder of the universe, has no need of any odour or blood. For these are the food of demons. But demons we not only reject, but even refute, and daily expose, and cast out of men, as is known to very many. So we rather pray for the emperor's welfare, demanding it from him who is able to bestow it. And surely it can be plain enough to you that we act out of a discipline of divine patience, when, though so great a multitude of men — almost the greater part of every city — we live in silence and modesty, known perhaps singly rather than all together, and recognizable in no other way than by the amendment of our former vices. For far be it from us that we should bear with indignation the suffering of those things which we desire, or contrive any vengeance of our own, which we await from God.

Yet, as we have said above, we must needs grieve that no city shall escape with impunity for the shedding of our blood; as also under the governor Hilarian, when they had shouted concerning the plots of our burials, "Let there be no burial-grounds!" — their own burial-grounds were not theirs! For they did not gather in their harvests. And the rains of the past year — what they have reminded the human race of, has appeared: that there was a deluge of old too, on account of the unbeliefs and iniquities of men; and the fires which lately hung over the walls of Carthage through the night — what they threatened, those who saw them know; and what the recent thunders sounded, those who hardened themselves know. All these are signs of the impending wrath of God, which we must, in whatever way we can, both announce and proclaim and entreat to be for the present only local. For the universal and final wrath those will feel in its own time who interpret its tokens otherwise. For even that sun, in the assembly at Utica, with its light almost extinguished, was so much a portent that it could not have suffered this from an ordinary eclipse, being set in its exaltation and its house. You have your astrologers. We can likewise set before you the ends of certain governors, who at the close of their lives remembered that they had offended in having vexed Christians. Vigellius Saturninus, who first here wielded the sword against us, lost his sight. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, when, taking it ill that his wife had gone over to this sect, he had cruelly handled the Christians, and, alone in his praetorium, laid waste by a plague, had boiled up with worms while still living, kept saying, "Let no one know it, lest the Christians rejoice, or the Christian women hope." Afterward, recognizing his error, that by torments he had made certain ones fall away from their purpose, he died almost a Christian. Caecilius Capella, in that end at Byzantium, cried out, "Christians, rejoice!" But those who seem to themselves to have got off unpunished will come to the day of the divine judgment. For you too we wish that it has been only an admonition, that, when you had condemned Mavilus of Hadrumetum to the beasts, this affliction at once followed, and now, by the same cause, this demand for blood. But remember it henceforth.

We do not terrify you, who do not even fear; but I could wish that we might be able to save all, by warning them not to fight against God. You can both discharge the office of your jurisdiction and remember humanity — if only because you too are under the sword. For what more is committed to you than to condemn the guilty who confess, but to recall to torture those who deny? You see, then, how you yourselves act against your own mandates, in that you compel those who confess to deny. So you confess that we are innocent, whom you are unwilling to condemn at once upon their confession. But if you contend to crush us, then surely you are assailing innocence. But how many governors, both more steadfast and more cruel, have dissembled from cases of this kind! — as Cincius Severus, who himself at Thysdrus gave the remedy, how the Christians should answer that they might be let go; as Vespronius Candidus, who dismissed a Christian, as one tumultuous, to satisfy his fellow-citizens; as Asper, who did not compel a man, slightly vexed and at once giving way, to sacrifice, having professed beforehand, among the advocates and assessors, that he grieved to have fallen upon this case. Pudens too, when a Christian had been sent to him, perceiving from the indictment that it was a piece of extortion, dismissed him, tearing up the same indictment, denying that, according to the mandate, he would hear a man without an accuser. All these things can be suggested to you, both concerning your office, and by those same advocates who themselves too have benefits from Christians — however much they may clamour what they please. For the secretary of a certain man, when he was being hurled down by a demon, was set free; and likewise the kinsman and the little child of certain others; and how many men of honour (for of the common sort we do not speak) have been healed either of demons or of sicknesses? Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of the Christians. For he sought out Proculus the Christian, surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodia, who had once cured him by means of oil, and kept him in his palace until his death; whom Antoninus too knew very well, having been reared on Christian milk. But also the most illustrious women and the most illustrious men, Severus, knowing them to be of this sect, not only did not harm, but even adorned with his testimony, and openly withstood the people raging against us. Marcus Aurelius too, in the German expedition, by the prayers of the Christian soldiers made to God, obtained rains in that drought. When have not droughts also been driven away by our kneelings and fastings? At that time the people too, crying out to the God of gods, who alone is mighty, under the name of Jupiter, bore witness to our God. Besides these things, we deny no deposit entrusted to us; we adulterate no one's marriage; we treat orphans dutifully; we relieve the needy; we render evil to no one for evil. Let those see to it who falsely claim our sect, whom we too disown. Who, in short, complains of us on any other ground? What other charge does a Christian undergo than that of his own sect, which in so long a time no one has proved to be either incestuous or cruel? For so great an innocence, for so great an integrity, for righteousness, for chastity, for faith, for truth, for the living God, we are burnt — which not even the sacrilegious, nor true public enemies, nor so many guilty of treason are wont to suffer. For even now this Name is vexed by the governor of the Legion and by the governor of Mauretania, but only as far as the sword — as also from the beginning it was commanded that men of this kind be dealt with. But the greater the conflicts, the greater the rewards.

Your cruelty is our glory. Only see to it that, by this very thing, that we endure such things, we may not seem to break forth for this purpose alone — to prove this very point, that we do not fear these things, but invite them of our own accord. Arrius Antoninus, when in Asia he was persecuting vigorously, all the Christians of that city, in a body formed, presented themselves before his tribunal. Then he, having ordered a few to be led off, said to the rest, "O wretched men, if you wish to die, you have cliffs and halters." If it should please you to do this here too, what will you do with so many thousands of men, with so many men and women, of every sex, of every age, of every rank, offering themselves to you? How many fires, how many swords will be needed? What will Carthage itself have to suffer, to be decimated by you, when each man recognizes there his kinsmen, his messmates — when he sees there perhaps even men of your own order, and matrons, and all the leading persons, and either the kinsmen or the friends of your own friends? Spare yourself, then, if not us. Spare Carthage, if not yourself. Spare the province, which, at the showing of your intent, has been made liable to the extortions both of the soldiers and of each man's own enemies. We have no master save God alone. He is before you, and cannot be hidden; but he is one to whom you can do nothing. For the rest, those whom you think your masters are men, and themselves too destined to die at some time. Yet this sect will not fail — which, you should know, is then the more built up, when it is seen to be cut down. For whoever beholds so great an endurance, being struck by some scruple, is both kindled to inquire what may be the cause of it, and, when he has recognized the truth, himself too straightway follows it.