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| Chapter XXIII.
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Chapter
XXIII.
Moreover, if sorcerers call forth ghosts, and even
make what seem the souls of the dead to appear; if they put boys to
death, in order to get a response from the oracle; if, with their
juggling illusions, they make a pretence of doing various miracles; if
they put dreams into people’s minds by the power of the angels
and demons whose aid they have invited, by whose influence, too, goats
and tables are made to divine,—how much more likely is this power
of evil to be zealous in doing with all its might, of its own
inclination, and for its own objects, what it does to serve the ends of
others! Or if both angels and demons do just what your gods do, where
in that case is the pre-eminence of deity, which we must surely think
to be above all in might? Will it not then be more reasonable to hold
that these spirits make themselves gods, giving as they do the very
proofs which raise your gods to godhead, than that the gods are the
equals of angels and demons? You make a distinction of places, I
suppose, regarding as gods in their temple those whose divinity you do
not recognize elsewhere; counting the madness which leads one man to
leap from the sacred houses, to be something different from that which
leads another to leap from an adjoining house; looking on one who cuts
his arms and secret parts as under a different furor from another who
cuts his throat. The result of the frenzy is the same, and the manner
of instigation is one. But thus far we have been dealing only in
words: we now proceed to a proof of facts, in which we shall show
that under different names you have real identity. Let a person
be brought before your tribunals, who is plainly under demoniacal
possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of
Christ,112
| 112 [This testimony must be
noted as something of which Tertullian confidently challenges
denial.] | will as readily make the truthful confession
that he is a demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a
god. Or, if you will, let there be produced one of the
god-possessed, as they are supposed, who, inhaling at the altar,
conceive divinity from the fumes, who are delivered of it by retching,
who vent it forth in agonies of gasping. Let that same Virgin
Cælestis herself the rain-promiser, let Æsculapius discoverer
of medicines, ready to prolong the life of Socordius, and Tenatius, and
Asclepiodotus, now in the last extremity, if they would not confess, in
their fear of lying to a Christian, that they were demons, then and
there shed the blood of that most impudent follower of Christ. What
clearer than a work like that? what more trustworthy than such a
proof? The simplicity of truth is thus set forth; its own worth
sustains it; no ground remains for the least suspicion. Do you
say that it is done by magic, or some trick of that sort? You will not
say anything of the sort, if you have been allowed the use of your ears
and eyes. For what argument can you bring against a thing that is
exhibited to the eye in its naked reality? If, on the one hand, they
are really gods, why do they pretend to be demons? Is it from fear of
us? In that case your divinity is put in subjection to Christians; and
you surely can never ascribe deity to that which is under authority of
man, nay (if it adds aught to the disgrace) of its very enemies. If, on
the other hand, they are demons or angels, why, inconsistently with
this, do they presume
to set themselves forth as acting the part of gods? For as beings
who put themselves out as gods would never willingly call themselves
demons, if they were gods indeed, that they might not thereby in fact
abdicate their dignity; so those whom you know to be no more than
demons, would not dare to act as gods, if those whose names they take
and use were really divine. For they would not dare to treat with
disrespect the higher majesty of beings, whose displeasure they would
feel was to be dreaded. So this divinity of yours is no divinity; for
if it were, it would not be pretended to by demons, and it would not be
denied by gods. But since on both sides there is a concurrent
acknowledgment that they are not gods, gather from this that there is
but a single race—I mean the race of demons, the real race in
both cases. Let your search, then, now be after gods; for those
whom you had imagined to be so you find to be spirits of evil. The
truth is, as we have thus not only shown from our own gods that neither
themselves nor any others have claims to deity, you may see at once who
is really God, and whether that is He and He alone whom we Christians
own; as also whether you are to believe in Him, and worship Him, after
the manner of our Christian faith and discipline. But at once they will
say, Who is this Christ with his fables? is he an ordinary man? is he a
sorcerer? was his body stolen by his disciples from its tomb? is he now
in the realms below? or is he not rather up in the heavens, thence
about to come again, making the whole world shake, filling the earth
with dread alarms, making all but Christians wail—as the Power of
God, and the Spirit of God, as the Word, the Reason, the Wisdom, and
the Son of God? Mock as you like, but get the demons if you can to join
you in your mocking; let them deny that Christ is coming to
judge every human soul which has existed from the world’s
beginning, clothing it again with the body it laid aside at death; let
them declare it, say, before your tribunal, that this work has
been allotted to Minos and Rhadamanthus, as Plato and the poets agree;
let them put away from them at least the mark of ignominy and
condemnation. They disclaim being unclean spirits, which yet we must
hold as indubitably proved by their relish for the blood and fumes and
fœtid carcasses of sacrificial animals, and even by the vile
language of their ministers. Let them deny that, for their wickedness
condemned already, they are kept for that very judgment-day, with all
their worshippers and their works. Why, all the authority and
power we have over them is from our naming the name of Christ, and
recalling to their memory the woes with which God threatens them at the
hands of Christ as Judge, and which they expect one day to overtake
them. Fearing Christ in God, and God in Christ, they become subject to
the servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and breathing,
overwhelmed by the thought and realization of those judgment fires,
they leave at our command the bodies they have entered, unwilling, and
distressed, and before your very eyes put to an open shame. You believe
them when they lie; give credit to them, then, when they speak the
truth about themselves. No one plays the liar to bring disgrace upon
his own head, but for the sake of honour rather. You give a readier
confidence to people making confessions against themselves, than
denials in their own behalf. It has not been an unusual thing,
accordingly, for those testimonies of your deities to convert men to
Christianity; for in giving full belief to them, we are led to believe
in Christ. Yes, your very gods kindle up faith in our Scriptures, they
build up the confidence of our hope. You do homage, as I know, to them
also with the blood of Christians. On no account, then, would they lose
those who are so useful and dutiful to them, anxious even to hold you
fast, lest some day or other as Christians you might put them to the
rout,—if under the power of a follower of Christ, who desires to
prove to you the Truth, it were at all possible for them to
lie.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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