Tfhio - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

APOLOGETICVS 29, 30 97
of the emperors, because we do not subject them to their own
creatures, because we do not make sport of the duty of (praying
for) their safety, since we do not think that it hes in hands
soldered with lead. But you are the irrehgious people, who seek
it where it is not, ask it of those who cannot give it, passing
over him in whose power it is. Furthermore you persecute
those who know how to ask it, who can also obtain it, since
they know how to ask.
CHAP. XXX. For we invoke on behalf of the safety of the
emperors a God who is everlasting, a God who is real, a God
who is h-ving, whom even the emperors themselves prefer should
be propitious to them beyond all others. They know who gave
them empire, they know, as human beings, who gave them hfe
also, they feel that he is the only God, in whose power alone
they are, to whom they are second, after whom they are first,
before all and above all gods. Why not ? since they are above
all men, who of course are alive and take precedence of the dead.
They reflect how far the strength of their empire extends, and
thus they understand God; they recognise that they are strong
through him, against whom they have no strength. Let the
emperor then subdue heaven, let him lead heaven captive in
his triumph, let him. set his watch, let him impose his
tribute on heaven. He cannot; he is great for the reason
that he is only less' than heaven. For he himself belongs to
Him whose are both heaven and all created things. He derives
his position of emperor from the. same source from which
he derived his humanity before he became emperor. He gets
his power from the source from which he gets his breath.
Thither the Christians look up, with hands spread out because
innocent, with head uncovered, because we are not ashamed,
finaUy -without a prompter, because we pray from the heart.
We pray always for all the emperors, that they may have a long
life, a safe rule, a family free from danger, courageous armies,
a faithful senate, loyal subjects, a peaceful world, all that a man
and a Caesar pray 'for. These things I cannot pray for from
any one else than from him from whom I know I shall get them,
since he himself alone can give them, and I am he to whom the
obtaining is due, his slave, who alone worship him, who on
account of his teaching am put to death, who o'fier him a rich
and greater -victim than he himself commanded, prayer arising
from a pure body, from an innocent soul, from the Holy Spirit,
not grains of incense costing a penny, the tears of an Arabian
tree, nor two drops of unmixed wine, nor the blood of an unsound
ox, anxious for death, and after all these stains a conscience
M. T. 7