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| Chapter II.
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Chapter II.
We give offence by proclaiming that there is one
God, to whom the name of God alone belongs, from whom all things come,
and who is Lord of the whole universe.1478
| 1478 [The student of
Plato will recall such evidence, readily. See The Laws, in
Jowett’s Translation, vol. iv. p. 416. Also Elucidation
I.] |
Bear thy testimony, if thou knowest this to be the truth; for openly
and with a perfect liberty, such as we do not possess, we hear thee
both in private and in public exclaim, “Which may God
grant,” and, “If God so will.” By expressions such as
these thou declarest that there is one who is distinctively God, and
thou confessest that all power belongs to him to whose will, as
Sovereign, thou dost look. At the same time, too, thou deniest any
others to be truly gods, in calling them by their own names of Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars, Minerva; for thou affirmest Him to be God alone to whom
thou givest no other name than God; and though thou sometimes callest
these others gods, thou plainly usest the designation as one which does
not really belong to them, but is, so to speak, a borrowed one. Nor is
the nature of the God we declare unknown to thee: “God is good,
God does good,” thou art wont to say; plainly suggesting further,
“But man is evil.” In asserting an antithetic proposition,
thou, in a sort of indirect and figurative way, reproachest man with
his wickedness in departing from a God so good. So, again, as among us,
as belonging to the God of benignity and goodness,
“Blessing” is a most sacred act in our religion and our
life, thou too sayest as readily as a Christian needs, “God bless
thee;” and when thou turnest the blessing of God into a curse, in
like manner thy very words confess with us that His power over us is
absolute and entire. There are some who, though they do not deny the
existence of God, hold withal that He is neither Searcher, nor Ruler,
nor Judge; treating with especial disdain those of us who go over to
Christ out of fear of a coming judgment, as they think, honouring God
in freeing Him from the cares of keeping watch, and the trouble of
taking note,—not even regarding Him as capable of anger. For if
God, they say, gets angry, then He is susceptible of corruption and
passion; but that of which passion and corruption can be affirmed may
also perish, which God cannot do. But these very persons elsewhere,
confessing that the soul is divine, and bestowed on us by God, stumble
against a testimony of the soul itself, which affords an answer to
these views. For if either divine or God-given, it doubtless knows its
giver; and if it knows Him, it undoubtedly fears Him too, and
especially as having been by Him endowed so amply. Has it no fear of
Him whose favour it is so desirous to possess, and whose anger it is so
anxious to avoid? Whence, then, the soul’s natural fear of God,
if God cannot be angry? How is there any dread of Him whom nothing
offends? What is feared but anger? Whence comes anger, but from
observing what is done? What leads to watchful oversight, but judgment
in prospect? Whence is judgment, but from power? To whom does supreme
authority and power belong, but to God alone? So thou art always ready,
O soul, from thine own knowledge, nobody casting scorn upon thee, and
no one preventing, to exclaim, “God sees all,” and “I
commend thee to God,” and “May God repay,” and
“God shall judge between us.” How happens this, since thou
art not Christian? How is it that, even with the garland of Ceres on
the brow, wrapped in the purple cloak of Saturn, wearing the white robe
of the goddess Isis, thou invokest God as judge? Standing under the
statue of Æsculapius, adorning the brazen image of Juno, arraying
the helmet of Minerva with dusky figures, thou never thinkest of
appealing to any of these deities. In thine own forum thou appealest to
a God who is elsewhere; thou permittest honour to be rendered in thy
temples to a foreign god. Oh, striking testimony to truth, which in the
very midst of demons obtains a witness for us
Christians!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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