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| Chapter VIII.
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Chapter
VIII.
See now, we set before you the reward of these
enormities. They give promise of eternal life. Hold it meanwhile as
your own belief. I ask you, then, whether, so believing, you think it
worth attaining with a conscience such as you will have. Come, plunge
your knife into the babe, enemy of none, accused of none, child of all;
or if that is another’s work, simply take your place beside a
human being dying before he has really lived, await the departure of
the lately given soul, receive the fresh young blood, saturate your
bread with it, freely partake. The while as you recline at table, take
note of the places which your mother and your sister occupy; mark them
well, so that when the dog-made darkness has fallen on you, you may
make no mistake, for you will be guilty of a crime—unless you
perpetrate a deed of incest. Initiated and sealed into things like
these, you have life everlasting. Tell me, I pray you, is eternity
worth it? If it is not, then these things are not to be credited.
Even although you had the belief, I deny the will; and even if you had
the will, I deny the possibility. Why then can others do it, if you
cannot? why cannot you, if others can? I suppose we are of a different
nature—are we Cynopæ or Sciapodes?86
You are
a man yourself as well as the Christian: if you cannot do it, you ought
not to believe it of others, for a Christian is a man as well as you.
But the ignorant, forsooth, are deceived and imposed on. They were
quite unaware of anything of the kind being imputed to Christians, or
they would certainly have looked into it for themselves, and searched
the matter out. Instead of that, it is the custom for persons wishing
initiation into sacred rites, I think, to go first of all to the master
of them, that he may explain what preparations are to be made. Then, in
this case, no doubt he would say, “You must have a child still of
tender age, that knows not what it is to die, and can smile under thy
knife; bread, too, to collect the gushing blood; in addition to these,
candlesticks, and lamps, and dogs—with tid-bits to draw them on
to the extinguishing of the lights: above all things, you will
require to bring your mother and your sister with you.” But what
if mother and sister are unwilling? or if there be neither the one nor
the other? What if there are Christians with no Christian relatives? He
will not be counted, I suppose, a true follower of Christ, who has not
a brother or a son. And what now, if these things are all in store for
them without their knowledge? At least afterwards they come to
know them; and they bear with them, and pardon them. They fear, it may
be said, lest they have to pay for it if they let the secret out: nay,
but they will rather in that case have every claim to protection; they
will even prefer, one might think, dying by their own hand, to living
under the burden of such a dreadful knowledge. Admit that they have
this fear; yet why do they still persevere? For it is plain enough that
you will have no desire to continue what you would never have been, if
you had had previous knowledge of it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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