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| Other Charges Repelled by the Same Method. The Story of the Noble Roman Youth and His Parents.
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Chapter
XVI.698
| 698 Comp. The
Apology, c. ix. | —Other Charges Repelled by the Same
Method. The Story of the Noble Roman Youth and His Parents.
I am now come to the hour for extinguishing the
lamps, and for using the dogs, and practising the deeds of darkness.
And on this point I am afraid I must succumb to you; for what similar
accusation shall I have to bring against you? But you should at once
commend the cleverness with which we make our incest look modest, in
that we have devised a spurious night,699
to
avoid polluting the real light and darkness, and have even thought it
right to dispense with earthly lights, and to play tricks also with our
conscience. For whatever we do ourselves, we suspect in others when we
choose (to be suspicious). As for your incestuous deeds, on the
contrary,700
men enjoy them at
full liberty, in the face of day, or in the natural night, or before
high Heaven; and in proportion to their successful issue is your own
ignorance of the result, since you publicly indulge in your incestuous
intercourse in the full cognizance of broad day-light. (No ignorance,
however, conceals our conduct from our eyes,) for in the very darkness
we are able to recognise our own misdeeds. The Persians, you know very
well,701
according to Ctesias, live quite
promiscuously with their mothers, in full knowledge of the fact, and
without any horror; whilst of the Macedonians it is well known that
they constantly do the same thing, and with perfect approbation: for
once, when the blinded702
Œdipus came upon
their stage, they greeted him with laughter and derisive cheers. The
actor, taking off his mask in great alarm, said, “Gentlemen, have
I displeased you?” “Certainly not,” replied the
Macedonians, “you have played your part well enough; but either
the author was very silly, if he invented (this mutilation as an
atonement for the incest), or else Œdipus was a great fool for his
pains if he really so punished himself;” and then they shouted
out one to the other, ῝Ηλσυνε εἰς
τὴν μητέρα.
But how insignificant, (say you,) is the stain which one or two nations
can make on the whole world! As for us, we of course have infected the
very sun, polluted the entire ocean! Quote, then, one nation
which is free from the passions which allure the whole race of men to
incest! If there is a single nation which knows nothing of concubinage
through the necessity of age and sex—to say nothing of lust and
licentiousness—that nation will be a stranger to incest. If any
nature can be found so peculiarly removed from the human state as to be
liable neither to ignorance, nor error, nor misfortune, that alone may
be adduced with any consistency as an answer to the Christians.
Reflect, therefore, on the licentiousness which floats about amongst
men’s passions703
as if they were the
winds, and consider whether there be any communities which the full and
strong tides of passion fail to waft to the commission of this great
sin. In the first place, when you expose your infants to the mercy of
others, or leave them for adoption to better parents than yourselves,
do you forget what an opportunity for incest is furnished, how wide a
scope is opened for its accidental commission? Undoubtedly, such of you
as are more serious from a principle of self-restraint and careful
reflection, abstain from lusts which could produce results of such a
kind, in whatever place you may happen to be, at home or abroad, so
that no indiscriminate diffusion of seed, or licentious reception
thereof, will produce children to you unawares, such as their very
parents, or else other children, might encounter in inadvertent incest,
for no restraint from age is regarded in (the importunities of) lust.
All acts of adultery, all cases of fornication, all the licentiousness
of public brothels, whether committed at home or perpetrated out of
doors,704
| 704 Sive stativo vel
ambulatorio titulo. | serve to produce confusions of blood and
complications of natural relationship,705
and
thence to conduce to incest; from which consummation your players and
buffoons draw the materials of their exhibitions. It was from such a
source, too, that so flagrant a tragedy recently burst upon the public
as that which the prefect Fuscianus had judicially to decide. A boy of
noble birth, who, by the unintentional neglect of his
attendants,706
had strolled too far
from home, was decoyed by some passers-by, and carried off. The paltry
Greek707
who had the care of him, or somebody
else,708
| 708 “Aliquis” is
here understood. | in true Greek fashion, had gone into the
house and captured him. Having been taken away into Asia, he is
brought, when arrived at full age, back to Rome, and exposed for sale.
His own father buys him unawares, and treats him as a Greek.709
| 709 Utitur Græco, i.e.,
cinædo, “for purposes of lust.” | Afterwards, as was his wont, the youth is
sent by his master into the fields, chained as a slave.710
Thither the tutor and the nurse had already
been banished for punishment. The whole case is represented to them;
they relate each other’s misfortunes: they, on the one hand, how
they had lost their ward when he was a boy; he, on the other hand, that
he had been lost from his boyhood. But they agreed in the main, that he
was a native of Rome of a noble family; perhaps he further gave sure
proofs of his identity. Accordingly, as God willed it for the
purpose of fastening a stain upon that age, a presentiment about the
time excites him, the periods exactly suit his age, even his eyes help
to recall711
his features, some
peculiar marks on his body are enumerated. His master and mistress, who
are now no other than his own father and mother, anxiously urge a
protracted inquiry. The slave-dealer is examined, the unhappy truth is
all discovered. When their wickedness becomes manifest, the parents
find a remedy for their despair by hanging themselves; to their son,
who survives the miserable calamity, their property is awarded by the
prefect, not as an inheritance, but as the wages of infamy and incest.
That one case was a sufficient example for public exposure712
of the sins of this sort which are secretly
perpetrated among you. Nothing happens among men in solitary isolation.
But, as it seems to me, it is only in a solitary case that such a
charge can be drawn out against us, even in the mysteries of our
religion. You ply us evermore with this charge;713
yet
there are like delinquencies to be traced amongst you, even in your
ordinary course of life.714
| 714 Vestris non sacramentis,
with a hyphen, “your non-mysteries.” | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
