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| Chapter XXXIX.
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Chapter
XXXIX.
I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the
peculiarities of the Christian society, that, as I have refuted the
evil charged against it, I may point out its positive good.131
We are a body knit together as such by a
common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of
a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that,
offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him
in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for
the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the
welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the
final consummation.132
| 132 [Chap. xxxii.
supra p. 43.] | We assemble to read
our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either
forewarning or reminiscence needful.133
| 133 [An argument for Days of
Public Thanksgiving, Fasting and the like.] | However it be in
that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate
our hope, we make our confidence more stedfast; and no less by
inculcations of God’s precepts we confirm good habits. In the
same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are
administered. For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried
on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the
sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come
when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from
us in prayer, in the congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The
tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honour not by
purchase, but by established character. There is no buying and selling
of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasure-chest, it
is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price.
On the monthly day,134
| 134 [On ordinary Sundays,
“they laid by in store,” apparently: once a month they
offered.] | if he likes, each
puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if
he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts
are, as it were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not
taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and
eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants
of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons
confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and
if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or
shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of
God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their confession. But
it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand
upon us. See, they say, how they love one135
| 135 [A precious testimony,
though the caviller asserts that afterwards the heathen used this
expression derisively.] | another, for themselves are animated
by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for
they themselves will sooner put to death. And they are wroth with us,
too, because we call each other brethren; for no other reason, as I
think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity are assumed
in mere pretence of affection. But we are your brethren as well,
by the law of our common mother nature, though you are hardly men,
because brothers so unkind. At the same time, how much more fittingly
they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the knowledge
of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit of
holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have agonized
into the same light of truth! But on this very account, perhaps, we are
regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy
makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions,
which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds
among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly
goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives.
We give up our community where it is practised alone by others, who not
only take possession of the wives of their friends, but most tolerantly
also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the example, I
believe, of those wise
men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared
with their friends the wives whom they had married, it seems for the
sake of progeny both to themselves and to others; whether in this
acting against their partners’ wishes, I am not able to say. Why
should they have any care over their chastity, when their husbands so
readily bestowed it away? O noble example of Attic wisdom, of Roman
gravity—the philosopher and the censor playing pimps! What wonder
if that great love of Christians towards one another is desecrated by
you! For you abuse also our humble feasts, on the ground that
they are extravagant as well as infamously wicked. To us, it
seems, applies the saying of Diogenes: “The people of Megara
feast as though they were going to die on the morrow; they build as
though they were never to die!” But one sees more readily the
mote in another’s eye than the beam in his own. Why, the
very air is soured with the eructations of so many tribes, and
curiæ, and decuriæ. The Salii cannot have their
feast without going into debt; you must get the accountants to tell you
what the tenths of Hercules and the sacrificial banquets cost; the
choicest cook is appointed for the Apaturia, the Dionysia, the Attic
mysteries; the smoke from the banquet of Serapis will call out the
firemen. Yet about the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a
great ado is made. Our feast explains itself by its name.
The Greeks call it agapè, i.e., affection. Whatever it
costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good
things of the feast we benefit the needy; not as it is with you, do
parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious
propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful
treatment,—but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is
shown to the lowly. If the object of our feast be good, in the light of
that consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious
service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before
reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies
the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste.
They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night
they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is
one of their auditors. After manual ablution, and the bringing in of
lights, each136
| 136 [Or,
perhaps—“One is prompted to stand forth and bring to God,
as every one can, whether from the Holy Scriptures, or of his own
mind”—i.e. according to his taste.] | is asked to stand
forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the holy
Scriptures or one of his own composing,—a proof of the measure of
our drinking. As the feast commenced with prayer, so with prayer it is
closed. We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of
vagabonds, nor to break out into licentious acts, but to have as much
care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been at a school of
virtue rather than a banquet. Give the congregation of the Christians
its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is like assemblies of the illicit
sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any complaint can be validly
laid against it, such as lies against secret factions. But who has ever
suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just
what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what
we are individuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody. When the
upright, when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure
assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction, but a
curia—[i.e., the court of God.]E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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