Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Argument: Tortures Most Unjustly Inflicted for the Confession of Christ's Name are Spectacles Worthy of God. A Comparison Instituted Between Some of the Bravest of the Heathens and the Holy Martyrs. He Declares that Christians Do Not Present Themselves at Public Shows and Processions, Because They Know Them, with the Greatest Certainty, to Be No Less Impious Than Cruel. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XXXVII.—Argument: Tortures Most Unjustly Inflicted for the
Confession of Christ’s Name are Spectacles Worthy of God. A
Comparison Instituted Between Some of the Bravest of the Heathens and
the Holy Martyrs. He Declares that Christians Do Not Present
Themselves at Public Shows and Processions, Because They Know Them,
with the Greatest Certainty, to Be No Less Impious Than
Cruel.
“How beautiful is the spectacle to God when
a Christian does battle with pain; when he is drawn up against threats,
and punishments, and tortures; when, mocking1834
1834
“Arridens,” but otherwise “arripiens,”
scil. “snatching at,” suggesting possibly the idea
of the martyrs chiding the delays of the executioners, or provoking the
rush of the wild beasts. |
the noise of death, he treads under foot the horror of the executioner;
when he raises up his liberty against kings and princes, and yields to
God alone, whose he is; when, triumphant and victorious, he tramples
upon the very man who has pronounced sentence against him! For he
has conquered who has obtained that for which he contends. What
soldier would not provoke peril with greater boldness under the eyes of
his general? For no one receives a reward before his trial, and
yet the general does not give what he has not: he cannot preserve
life, but he can make the warfare glorious. But God’s
soldier is neither forsaken in suffering, nor is brought to an end by
death. Thus the Christian may seem to be miserable; he cannot be
really found to be so. You yourselves extol unfortunate men to
the skies; Mucius Scævola, for instance, who, when he had failed
in his attempt against the king, would have perished among the enemies
unless he had sacrificed his right hand. And how many of our
people have borne that not their right hand only, but their whole body,
should be burned—burned up without any cries of pain, especially
when they had it in their power to be sent away! Do I compare men
with Mucius or Aquilius, or with Regulus? Yet boys and young
women among us treat with contempt crosses and tortures, wild beasts,
and all the bugbears of punishments, with the inspired1835
1835 Otherwise,
“unhoped-for.” [This chapter has been supposed to
indicate that the work was written in a time of persecution.
Faint tokens of the same have been imagined also, in capp. 29 and 33,
supra.] | patience of suffering. And do you not
perceive, O wretched men, that there is nobody who either is willing
without reason to undergo punishment, or is able without God to bear
tortures? Unless, perhaps, the fact has deceived you, that those
who know not God abound in riches, flourish in honours, and excel in
power. Miserable men! in this respect they are lifted up the
higher, that they may fall down lower. For these are fattened as
victims for punishment, as sacrifices they are crowned for the
slaughter. Thus in this respect some are lifted up to empires and
dominations, that the unrestrained exercise of power might make a
market of their spirit to the unbridled licence that is characteristic
of a ruined soul.1836
1836 This passage is
peculiar; the original is, “Ut ingenium eorum perditæ mentis
licentiæ potestatis liberæ nundinentur,” with various
modifications of reading. | For, apart
from the knowledge of God, what solid happiness can there be, since
death must come? Like a dream, happiness slips away before it is
grasped. Are you a king? Yet you fear as much as you are
feared; and however you may be surrounded with abundant followers, yet
you are alone in the presence of danger. Are you rich? But
fortune is ill trusted; and with a large travelling equipage the brief
journey of life is not furnished, but burdened. Do you boast of
the fasces and the magisterial robes? It is a vain mistake of
man, and an empty worship of dignity, to glitter in purple and to be
sordid in mind. Are you elevated by nobility of birth? do you
praise your parents? Yet we are all born with one lot; it is only
by virtue that we are distinguished. We therefore, who are
estimated by our character and our modesty, reasonably abstain from
evil pleasures, and from your pomps and exhibitions, the origin of
which in connection with sacred things we know, and condemn their
mischievous enticements. For in the chariot games who does not
shudder at the madness of the people brawling among themselves? or at
the teaching of murder in the gladiatorial games? In the scenic
games also the madness is not less, but the debauchery is more
prolonged: for now a mimic either expounds or shows forth
adulteries; now nerveless player, while he feigns lust, suggests it;
the same actor disgraces your gods by attributing to them adulteries,
sighs, hatreds; the same provokes your tears with pretended sufferings,
with vain gestures and expressions. Thus you demand murder, in
fact, while you weep at it in fiction.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|