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Apologeticum

IX.

[1] Haec quo magis refutaverim, a vobis fieri ostendam partim in aperto, partim in occulto, per quod forsitan et de nobis credidistis. [2] Infantes penes Africam Saturno immolabantur palam usque ad proconsulatum Tiberii, qui eosdem sacerdotes in eisdem arboribus templi sui obumbratricibus scelerum votivis crucibus exposuit, teste militia patriae nostrae, quae id ipsum munus illi proconsuli functa est. [3] Sed et nunc in occulto perseveratur hoc sacrum facinus. Non soli vos contemnunt Christiani, nec ullum scelus in perpetuum eradicatur aut mores suos aliqui deus mutat. [4] Cum propriis filiis Saturnus non pepercit, extraneis utique non parcendo perseverabat, quos quidem ipsi parentes sui offerebant et libentes respondebant et infantibus blandiebantur, ne lacrimantes immolarentur. Et tamen multum homicidio parricidium differt. [5] Maior aetas apud Gallos Mercurio prosecatur. Remitto fabulas Tauricas theatris suis. Ecce in illa religiosissima urbe Aeneadarum piorum est Iupiter quidam quem ludis suis humano sanguine proluunt. [6] Sed bestiarii, inquitis. Hoc, opinor, minus quam hominis? An hoc turpius, quod mali hominis? certe tamen de homicidio funditur. O Iovem Christianum et solum patris filium de crudelitate! Sed quoniam de infanticidio nihil interest sacro an arbitrio perpetretur, licet parricidium homicidio intersit, convertar ad populum.

Quot vultis ex his circumstantibus et in Christianorum sanguinem hiantibus, ex ipsis etiam vobis iustissimis et severissimis in nos praesidibus apud conscientias pulsem, qui natos sibi liberos enecent? [7] Siquidem et de genere necis differt, utique crudelius in aqua spiritum extorquetis aut frigori et fami et canibus exponitis. Ferro enim mori aetas quoque maior optaverit. [8] Nobis vero semel homicidio interdicto etiam conceptum utero, dum adhuc sanguis in hominem delibatur, dissolvere non licet. Homicidii festinatio est prohibere nasci, nec refert natam quis eripiat animam an nascentem disturbet. Homo est et qui est futurus; etiam fructus omnis iam in semine est.

[9] De sanguinis pabulo et eiusmodi tragicis ferculis legite, necubi relatum sit (est apud Herodotum, opinor), defusum brachiis sanguinem ex alterutro degustatum nationes quasdam foederi conparasse. Nescio quid et sub Catilina degustatum est. Aiunt et apud quosdam gentiles Scytharum defunctum quemque a suis comedi. [10] Longe excurro. Hodie istic Bellonae sacratus sanguis de femore proscisso in palmulam exceptus et esui datus signat. [11] Item illi qui munere in arena noxiorum iugulatorum sanguinem recentem de iugulo decurrentem exceptum avida siti comitiali morbo medentes auferunt, ubi sunt? Item illi qui de arena ferinis obsoniis coenant, qui de apro, que de cervo petunt? Aper ille quem cruentavit, conluctando detersit. Cervus ille in gladiatoris sanguine iacuit. Ipsorum ursorum alvei appetuntur cruditantes adhuc de visceribus humanis. Ructatur proinde ab homine caro pasta de homine. [12] Haec qui editis, quantum abestis a conviviis Christianorum? Minus autem et illi faciunt qui libidine fera humanis membris inhiant, quia vivos vorant? minus humano sanguine ad spurcitiam consecrantur, quia futurum sanguinem lambunt? Non edunt infantes plane, sed magis puberes.

[13] Erubescat error vester Christianis, qui ne animalium quidem sanguinem in epulis esculentis habemus, qui propterea suffocatis quoque et morticinis abstinemus, ne quo modo sanguine contaminemur vel intra viscera sepulto. [14] Denique inter temptamenta Christianorum botulos etiam cruore distensos admovetis, certissimi scilicet inlicitum esse penes illos per quod exorbitare eos vultis. Porro quale est, ut quos sanguinem pecoris horrere confiditis, humano inhiare credatis, nisi forte suaviorem eum experti? [15] Quem quidem et ipsum proinde examinatorem Christianorum adhiberi oportebat ut foculum, ut acerram. Proinde enim probarentur sanguinem humanum adpetendo quemadmodum sacrificium respuendo, alioquin negandi si non gustassent, quemadmodum si immolassent, et utique non deesset vobis in auditione custodiarum et damnatione sanguis humanus.

[16] Proinde incesti qui magis quam quos ipse Iupiter docuit? Persas cum suis matribus misceri Ctesias refert. Sed et Macedones suspecti, quia, cum primum Oedipum tragoediam audissent, ridentes incesti dolorem, Ἤλαυνε, dicebant, εἰς τὴν μητέρα. [17] Iam nunc recogitate quantum liceat erroribus ad incesta miscenda, suppeditate materias passivitate luxuriae. Imprimis filios exponitis suscipiendos ab aliqua praetereunte misericordia extranea, vel adoptandos melioribus parentibus emancipatis. Alienati generis necesse est quandoque memoriam dissipari, et simul error inpegerit, exinde iam tradux proficiet incesti serpente genere cum scelere. [18] Tunc deinde quocunque in loco, domi, peregre, trans freta comes est libido, cuius ubique saltus facile possunt alicubi ignaris filios pangere vel ex aliqua seminis portione, ut ita sparsum genus per commercia humana concurrat in memorias suas, neque eas caecus incesti sanguinis agnoscat.

[19] Nos ab isto eventu diligentissima et fidelissima castitas sepsit, quantumque ab stupris et ab omni post matrimonium excessu, tantum et ab incesti casu tuti sumus. Quidam multo securiores totam vim huis erroris virgine continentia depellunt, senes pueri. [20] Haec in vobis esse si consideraretis, proinde in Christianis non esse perspiceretis. Idem oculi renuntiassent utrumque. Sed caecitatis duae species facile concurrunt, ut qui non vident quae sunt, videre videantur quae non sunt. Sic per omnia ostendam. Nunc de manifestioribus dicam.

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The Apology

Chapter IX.

That I may refute more thoroughly these charges, I will show that in part openly, in part secretly, practices prevail among you which have led you perhaps to credit similar things about us. Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple--so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul. And even now that sacred crime still continues to be done in secret. It is not only Christians, you see, who despise you; for all that you do there is neither any crime thoroughly and abidingly eradicated, nor does any of your gods reform his ways. When Saturn did not spare his own children, he was not likely to spare the children of others; whom indeed the very parents themselves were in the habit of offering, gladly responding to the call which was made on them, and keeping the little ones pleased on the occasion, that they might not die in tears. At the same time, there is a vast difference between homicide and parricide. A more advanced age was sacrificed to Mercury in Gaul. I hand over the Tauric fables to their own theatres. Why, even in that most religious city of the pious descendants of AEneas, there is a certain Jupiter whom in their games they lave with human blood. It is the blood of a beast-fighter, you say. Is it less, because of that, the blood of a man? ¹ Or is it viler blood because it is from the veins of a wicked man? At any rate it is shed in murder. O Jove, thyself a Christian, and in truth only son of thy father in his cruelty! But in regard to child murder, as it does not matter whether it is committed for a sacred object, or merely at one's own self-impulse--although there is a great difference, as we have said, between parricide and homicide--I shall turn to the people generally. How many, think you, of those crowding around and gaping for Christian blood,--how many even of your rulers, notable for their justice to you and for their severe measures against us, may I charge in their own consciences with the sin of putting their offspring to death? As to any difference in the kind of murder, it is certainly the more cruel way to kill by drowning, or by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs. A maturer age has always preferred death by the sword. In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed. As to meals of blood and such tragic dishes, read--I am not sure where it is told (it is in Herodotus, I think)--how blood taken from the arms, and tasted by both parties, has been the treaty bond among some nations. I am not sure what it was that was tasted in the time of Catiline. They say, too, that among some Scythian tribes the dead are eaten by their friends. But I am going far from home. At this day, among ourselves, blood consecrated to Bellona, blood drawn from a punctured thigh and then partaken of, seals initiation into the rites of that goddess. Those, too, who at the gladiator shows, for the cure of epilepsy, quaff with greedy thirst the blood of criminals slain in the arena, as it flows fresh from the wound, and then rush off--to whom do they belong? those, also, who make meals on the flesh of wild beasts at the place of combat--who have keen appetites for bear and stag? That bear in the struggle was bedewed with the blood of the man whom it lacerated: that stag rolled itself in the gladiator's gore. The entrails of the very bears, loaded with as yet undigested human viscera, are in great request. And you have men rifting up man-fed flesh? If you partake of food like this, how do your repasts differ from those you accuse us Christians of? And do those, who, with savage lust, seize on human bodies, do less because they devour the living? Have they less the pollution of human blood on them because they only lick up what is to turn into blood? They make meals, it is plain, not so much of infants, as of grown-up men. Blush for your vile ways before the Christians, who have not even the blood of animals at their meals of simple and natural food; who abstain from things strangled and that die a natural death, for no other reason than that they may not contract pollution, so much as from blood secreted in the viscera. To clench the matter with a single example, you tempt Christians with sausages of blood, just because you are perfectly aware that the thing by which you thus try to get them to transgress they hold unlawful. ² And how unreasonable it is to believe that those, of whom you are convinced that they regard with horror the idea of tasting the blood of oxen, are eager after blood of men; unless, mayhap, you have tried it, and found it sweeter to the taste! Nay, in fact, there is here a test you should apply to discover Christians, as well as the fire-pan and the censer. They should be proved by their appetite for human blood, as well as by their refusal to offer sacrifice; just as otherwise they should be affirmed to be free of Christianity by their refusal to taste of blood, as by their sacrificing; and there would be no want of blood of men, amply supplied as that would be in the trial and condemnation of prisoners. Then who are more given to the crime of incest than those who have enjoyed the instruction of Jupiter himself? Ctesias tells us that the Persians have illicit intercourse with their mothers. The Macedonians, too, are suspected on this point; for on first hearing the tragedy of OEdipus they made mirth of the incest-doer's grief, exclaiming, helaune eis ten metera. Even now reflect what opportunity there is for mistakes leading to incestuous comminglings--your promiscuous looseness supplying the materials. You first of all expose your children, that they may be taken up by any compassionate passer-by, to whom they are quite unknown; or you give them away, to be adopted by those who will do better to them the part of parents. Well, some time or other, all memory of the alienated progeny must be lost; and when once a mistake has been made, the transmission of incest thence will still go on--the race and the crime creeping on together. Then, further, wherever you are--at home, abroad, over the seas--your lust is an attendant, whose general indulgence, or even its indulgence in the most limited scale, may easily and unwittingly anywhere beget children, so that in this way a progeny scattered about in the commerce of life may have intercourse with those who are their own kin, and have no notion that there is any incest in the case. A persevering and stedfast chastity has protected us from anything like this: keeping as we do from adulteries and all post-matrimonial unfaithfulness, we are not exposed to incestuous mishaps. Some of us, making matters still more secure, beat away from them entirely the power of sensual sin, by a virgin continence, still boys in this respect when they are old. If you would but take notice that such sins as I have mentioned prevail among you, that would lead you to see that they have no existence among Christians. The same eyes would tell you of both facts. But the two blindnesses are apt to go together; so that those who do not see what is, think they see what is not. I shall show it to be so in everything. But now let me speak of matters which are more clear.