Tfhio - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

APOLOGETICVS 30, 31, 32 99
also that is foul; so that I wonder, when the -victims are tested
among you by vicious priests, when any one judges the hearts
rather of the victims than of the sacrificers themselves. Therefore
let hooks thus dig into us while our hands are spread out to
God, let crosses suspend us, let fires play about us, let swords
behead us, let wild-beasts leap upon us; the very attitude of
the praying Christian is ready for every kind of capital punishment.
This is your duty, ye exceUent governors, wrench out
a soul that is praying to God for the emperor. The crime will
be formd there, where is the truth of a God and piety to him.
CHAP. XXXI. Now they tell us that we have f a-wned upon
the emperor and uttered lying prayers, of course with the
view of escaping -violence. Cleariy this deception is to our
benefit; for you allow that we make good whatever point we
defend. You therefore who have thought that we care nothing
for the safety of the Caesars, look into our Scripture, the oracles
of God, which we ourselves do not conceal and many accidents
bring into the hands of strangers. Know from these that we
are taught to the point of superfiuity of kindness even to pray
God for our enemies and to entreat benefits for our persecutors.
Who are to a greater extent enemies and persecutors
of the Christians than -those about whose majesty we are
arraigned? But even by name and clearly: 'Pray,' says (the
scripture), 'for kings' and for chiefs and for powers, that all
things may be at peace for you.' For when the empire is
shattered, and when the other parts of it also are shattered,
we too of course, although the crowd considers us foreigners,
are involved in some quarter of the disaster.
CHAP. XXXII. There is also another greater necessity for
us to pray for emperors, even for the -whole state of the Empire
and the fortunes of Rome, since we know that the great force
which is threatening the whole world and the end itself of worldhistory
which threatens terrible afflictions is being kept back
by the respite granted to the Roman empire. Therefore we
are un-wilhng to experience this, and while we pray for its postponement
we are favouring the long continuance of Rome. But
we also swear, though not by the genii of the Caesars, yet by
their safety, which is more divine than any genii. Do you not
know that genii is a name for daemones and for daemonia, a
diminutive word derived from it ? We look up to the judgment
of God in the emperors, for He set them over the races of the
world. We know that that is in them which God willed, and
so we wish that also to be safe which God willed, and we consider
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