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APOLOGETICVS 45, 46 127
in view of the reality of innocence. A man's knowledge for
the pointing out of what is really good, is just as great as his
authority for exacting it: the former is just as easily deceived
as the latter is shghted. And further which is the more comprehensive,
to say: 'Thou shaft do no murder,' or to teach:
'Do not even become angry' ? What is more absolute, to forbid
adultery, or even to bar man from the solitary desire of the
eyes? Which shows a deeper experience, the prohibition from
evil-doing, or the further prohibition from evil-speaking?
Which shows better instruction, not to permit injury, or not
even to allow retahation for injury? Provided, however, you
know that your very laws also, which seem to tend in the direction
of uprightness, have borrowed their form from the divine
law as the older pattern. We have spoken already about the
age of Moses. But how little is the authority of human laws,
since a man has a chance both to escape them, and very often
to lie hid in his crimes, and sometimes to set them at nought,
sinning involuntarily^ or of necessity? Reflect also on them in
view of the shortness of any punishment, which will not in any
ease last beyond death. So also Epicurus makes light of all
torture and pain, by declaring indeed that if shght it is contemptible,
while if great it -will not last long. In very truth
we who are examined before God who searches all, we who look
forward to everlasting punishment from Him as our due, are
the only ones who attain uprightness, both in view of the
fullness of knowledge and in view of the difficulty of concealment
and in view of the greatness of the torture, which
is not lasting only but everlasting, fearing Him,, whom even he
himself who judges the fearful will have to fear, that is, fearing
God, not the pro-consul.
CHAP. XLVI. We have maintained our ground, I think,
against the denunciation of all charges, which clamours for the
blood of the Christians. We have shown our whole position,
and in what ways we can prove it to be such as we have shown,
by the trustworthiness, of course, and the antiquity of our
sacred writings, and also from the confession of spiritual powers.
Who will dare to refute us, not by skill in words, but by the same
method, by which we established our proof, namely on the ground
of truth ? But while our truth is displayed to every man, meantime
unbehef, confounded as it is by the goodness of this sect,
which has now become known to experience, as well as from
intercourse with it, does not of course regard it as a di-vine
question, but rather as a kind of philosophy. Philosophers also,
^ inuoluntate.