Tfhio - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

APOLOGETICVS 35, 36, 37 107
inquire into the safety of Caesar, except he who meditates or
desires something against it, or who hopes and waits for something
to follow after ? For one does not consult about friends
•with the same feeling as about masters. The sohcitude of
kinship is of a different nature from that of ser-vitude.
CHAP. XXXVI. If this is so, that those are found out to be
enemies who were called Romans, why are we, who are but
thought to be enemies, denied to be Romans? We cannot be
at the same time non-Romans and enemies, since those who were
considered Romans are found to be enemies. The fact is that
the loyalty and worship and faith that are due to the emperors
do not consist in services such as even enmity can perform
rather as a cloak to itself, but in those habits, which are as
truly demanded by the godhead as they must be shown
towards mankind in general. For indeed it is not to the
emperors alone that such services of good will are due from us.
No benefit that we accomphsh pays any regard to special
indi-viduals, because it is to ourselves th%t we perform it, and
we do not snatch at payment from a man either of praise or
of reward, but from God, who exacts and rewards impartial
kindness. We are the same to the emperors as we are to our
neighbours. For we are forbidden to wish evil, to do evil, to
say e-vil, to think e-vil, about any one without distinction.
Whatsoever is not permitted against the emperor, neither is
it permitted against any one;. and what is permitted against
no one, is perhaps all the more forbidden against him whom
God has made so great.
CHAP. XXXVII. If we are ordered, as we said above, to
love our enemies, whom have we left to hate ? Like-wise, if when
injured we are forbidden to retaliate, lest by our action we should
put ourselves on the level of our enemy, whom can we injure ?
For consider this matter yourselves. How often do you rage
fiercely against the Christians in obedience partly to your
own feehngs, partly to the laws? How often also, passing
you over, does the hostile rabble of its own right attack us
-with stones and fires? With the very rage of Bacchanals,
they do not spare Christians even when they are dead, nay from
the rest of the tomb, from the sort of refuge that death affords,
they would drag them away, cut them up, tear them to pieces,
when they are already decomposed, when already not even
entire. Yet what instance did you ever note^ of our retaliation
Reading denotastis.