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Ad Demetrianum [PL]

XV.

O si audire eos velles et videre quando a nobis adjurantur et torquentur spiritalibus flagris, et verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur, quando ejulantes et gementes voce humana, et potestate divina flagella et verbera sentientes venturum judicium confitentur! Veni et cognosce vera esse quae dicimus. Et quia sic deos colere te dicis, vel ipsis quos colis crede; aut si volueris et tibi credere, de te ipso loquetur, audiente te, qui nunc tuum pectus obsedit, qui nunc mentem tuam ignorantiae nocte caecavit. Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas, [Col. 0555B] timeri ab eis quos tu times, quos tu adoras; videbis sub manu nostra stare vinctos et tremere captivos quos tu suscipis et veneraris ut dominos. Certe vel sic confundi in istis erroribus tuis poteris quando conspexeris et audieris deos tuos quid sint interrogatione nostra statim prodere et, praesentibus [Col. 0556A] licet vobis, praestigias illas et fallacias suas non posse celare.

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An Address to Demetrianus

15.

Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are adjured by us, and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are ejected from the possessed bodies with tortures of words, ¹ when howling and groaning at the voice of man and the power of God, feeling the stripes and blows, they confess the judgment to come! Come and acknowledge that what we say is true; and since you say that you thus worship gods, believe even those whom you worship. Or if you will even believe yourself, he--i.e., the demon--who has now possessed your breast, who has now darkened your mind with the night of ignorance, shall speak concerning yourself in your hearing. You will see that we are entreated by those whom you entreat, that we are feared by those whom you fear, whom you adore. You will see that under our hands they stand bound, and tremble as captives, whom you look up to and venerate as lords: assuredly even thus you might be confounded in those errors of yours, when you see and hear your gods, at once upon our interrogation betraying what they are, and even in your presence unable to conceal those deceits and trickeries of theirs.