Athenagoras
[an early Christian] was an Ante-Nicene Christian apologist who lived during the second half of the
2nd century of whom little is known for certain, besides that he was Athenian,
a philosopher, and a convert to Christianity.
In your empire, greatest
of sovereigns, different nations have different customs and laws; and no one is
hindered by law or fear of punishment from following his ancestral usages,
however ridiculous these may be. A citizen of Ilium calls Hector a god, and
pays divine honours to Helen, taking her for Adrasteia. The Lacedæmonian
venerates Agamemnon as Zeus, and Phylonoë the daughter of Tyndarus; and the man
of Tenedos worships Tennes. The Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus as Poseidon.
The Athenians also perform religious rites and celebrate mysteries in honour of
Agraulus and Pandrosus, women who were deemed guilty of impiety for opening the box. In short, among every
nation and people, men offer whatever sacrifices and celebrate whatevermysteries
they please. The Egyptians reckon among their gods even cats, and crocodiles,
and serpents, and asps, and dogs. And to all these both you and the laws give
permission so to act, deeming, on the one hand, that to believe in no god at
all is impious and wicked, and on the other, that it is necessary for each man
to worship the gods he prefers, in order that through fear of the deity, men
may be kept from wrong-doing. But why—for do not, like the multitude, be led
astray by hearsay—why is a mere name odious to you? Names are not deserving of
hatred: it is the unjust act that calls for penalty and punishment. And
accordingly, with admiration of your mildness and gentleness, and your peaceful
and benevolent disposition towards every man, individuals live in the
possession of equal rights; and the cities, according to their rank, share in
equal honour; and the whole empire, under your intelligent sway, enjoys
profound peace. But for us who are called Christians you have not in like
manner cared; but although we commit no wrong—nay, as will appear in the sequel
of this discourse, are of all men most piously and righteously disposed towards
the Deity and towards your government—you allow us to be harassed, plundered,
and persecuted, the multitude making war upon us for our name alone. We
venture, therefore, to lay a statement of our case before you—and you will team
from this discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and
reason—and we beseech you to bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may
cease at length to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. For the
fine imposed by our persecutors does not aim merely at our property, nor their
insults at our reputation, nor the damage they do us at any other of our
greater interests. These we hold in contempt, though to the generality they
appear matters of great importance; for we have learned, not only not to return
blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those
who smite us on one side of the face to offer the other side also, and to those
who take away our coat to give likewise our cloak. But, when we have
surrendered our property, they plot against our very bodies and souls, pouring
upon us wholesale charges of crimes of which we are guiltless even in thought, but
which belong to these idle praters themselves, and to the whole tribe of those
who are like them. A plea… 1
If, indeed, any one can
convict us of a crime, be it small or great, we do not ask to be excused from
punishment, but are prepared to undergo the sharpest and most merciless
inflictions. But if the accusation relates merely to our name—and it is
undeniable, that up to the present time the stories told about us rest on
nothing better than the common undiscriminating popular talk, nor has any
Christian been convicted of crime—it will devolve on you, illustrious and benevolent
and most learned sovereigns, to remove by law this despiteful treatment, so
that, as throughout the world both individuals and cities partake of your
beneficence, we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we are no longer
the victims of false accusation. For it does not comport with your justice,
that others when charged with crimes should not be punished till they are
convicted, but that in our case the name we bear should have more force than
the evidence adduced on the trial, when the judges, instead of inquiring
whether the person arraigned have committed any crime, vent their insults on
the name, as if that were itself a crime. But no name in and by itself is
reckoned either good or bad; names appear bad or good according as the actions
underlying them are bad or good. You, however, have yourselves a clear
knowledge of this, since you are well instructed in philosophy and all
learning. For this reason, too, those who are brought before you for trial,
though they may be arraigned on the gravest charges, have no fear, because they
know that you will inquire respecting their previous life, and not be
influenced by names if they mean nothing, nor by the charges contained in the
indictments if they should be false: they accept with equal satisfaction, as regards
its fairness, the sentence whether of condemnation or acquittal. What,
therefore, is conceded as the common right of all, we claim for ourselves, that
we shall not be hated and punished because we are called Christians (for what
has the name to do with our being bad men?), but be tried on any charges which
may be brought against us, and either be released on our disproving them, or punished
if convicted of crime—not for the name (for no Christian is a bad man unless he
falsely profess our doctrines), but for the wrong which has been done. It is
thus that we see the philosophers judged. None of them before trial is deemed
by the judge either good or bad on account of his science or art, but if found
guilty of wickedness he is punished, without thereby affixing any stigma on
philosophy (for he is a bad man for not cultivating philosophy in a lawful
manner, but science is blameless), while if he refutes the false charges he is
acquitted. Let this equal justice, then, be done to us. Let the life of the
accused persons be investigated, but let the name stand free from all imputation.
I must at the outset of my defence entreat you, illustrious emperors, to listen
to me impartially: not to be carried away by the common irrational talk and
prejudge the case, but to apply your desire of knowledge and love of truth to the
examination of our doctrine also. Thus, while you on your part will not err
through ignorance, we also, by disproving the charges arising out of the
undiscerning rumour of the multitude, shall cease to be assailed. A Plea…2
Three things are alleged
against us: atheism, Thyestean feasts, OEdipodean intercourse. But if these
charges are true, spare no class: proceed at once against our crimes; destroy
us root and branch, with our wives and children, if any Christian707 is found
to live like the brutes. And yet even the brutes do not touch the flesh of
their own kind; and they pair by a law of nature, and only at the regular
season, not from simple wantonness; they also recognise those from whom they receive
benefits. If any one, therefore, is more savage than the brutes, what
punishment that he can endure shall be deemed adequate to such offences? But,
if these things are only idle tales and empty slanders, originating in the fact
that virtue is opposed by its very nature to vice, and that contraries war
against one another by a divine law (and you are yourselves witnesses that no
such iniquities are committed by us, for you forbid informations to be laid
against us), it remains for you to make inquiry concerning our life, our
opinions, our loyalty and obedience to you and your house and government, and
thus at length to grant to us the same rights (we ask nothing more) as to those
who persecute us. For we shall then conquer them, unhesitatingly surrendering,
as we now do, our very lives for the truth’s sake. A Plea…3
As regards, first of all,
the allegation that we are atheists…But to us, who distinguish God from matter,
and teach that matter is one thing and God another, and that they are separated
by a wide interval (for that the Deity is uncreated and eternal, to be beheld
by the understanding and reason alone, while matter is created and perishable),
is it not absurd to apply the name of atheism?... But, since our doctrine acknowledges one God, the Maker of this
universe, who is Himself uncreated (for that which is does not come to be, but that
which is not) but has made all things by the Logos which is from Him, we are
treated unreasonably in both respects, in that we are both defamed and
persecuted. A Plea…4
For poets and
philosophers, as to other subjects so also to this, have applied themselves in
the way of conjecture, moved, by reason of their affinity with the afflatus
from God, each one by his own soul, to try whether he could find out and
apprehend the truth; but they have not been found competent fully to apprehend
it, because they thought fit to learn, not from God concerning God, but each
one from himself; hence they came each to his own conclusion respecting God,
and matter, and forms, and the world. But we have for witnesses of the things
we apprehend and believe, prophets, men who have pronounced concerning God and
the things of God, guided by the Spirit of God. And you too will admit,
excelling all others as you do in intelligence and in piety towards the true
God (τὸ ὄντως θεῖον), that it would be irrational for us to cease to believe in
the Spirit from God, who moved the mouths of the prophets like musical
instruments, and to give heed to mere human opinions. A Plea…7
If we satisfied ourselves
with advancing such considerations as these, our doctrines might by some be
looked upon as human. But, since the voices of the prophets confirm our
arguments—for I think that you also, with your great zeal for knowledge, and
your great attainments in learning, cannot be ignorant of the writings either
of Moses or of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the other prophets, who, lifted in
ecstasy above the natural operations of their minds by the impulses of the
Divine Spirit, uttered the things with which they were inspired, the Spirit
making use of them as a flute-player breathes into a flute. A Plea…9
But the Son of God is the
Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and
by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son
being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit,
the understanding and reason (νοῦς καὶ λόγος) of the Father is the Son of God.
But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is
meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the
Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God,
who is the eternal mind [νοῦς], had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity
instinct with Logos [λογικός]); but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea
and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without
attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with
the lighter. The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our statements. “The Lord,”
it says, “made me, the beginning of His ways to His works.” The Holy Spirit
Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of
God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who,
then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of
God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and
their distinction in order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what
relates to the divine nature confined to these points; but we recognise also a
multitude of angels and ministers, whom God the Maker and Framer of the world
distributed and appointed to their several posts by His Logos, to occupy
themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the things
in it, and the goodly ordering of them all.
A Plea…10
If I go minutely into the
particulars of our doctrine, let it not surprise you. It is that you may not be
carried away by the popular and irrational opinion, but may have the truth
clearly before you. For presenting the opinions themselves to which we adhere,
as being not human but uttered and
taught by God, we shall be able to persuade you not to think of us as atheists.
What, then, are those teachings in which we are brought up? “I say unto you,
Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that persecute you;
that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven, who causes His sun to
rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Allow
me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do
before philosophic princes. For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear
up ambiguities, and explain etymologies, or of those who teach homonyms and
synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and what the
predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and such like instructions
to make them happy: who of them have so purged their souls as, instead of
hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those who
have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean
forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their
lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil intent to search out skillfully
the secrets of their art, and are ever bent on working some ill, making the art
of words and not the exhibition of deeds their business and profession. But
among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if
they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their
deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do
not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike
again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them,
and love their neighbours as themselves.
A Plea…11
But, as most of those who
charge us with atheism, and that because they have not even the dreamiest
conception of what God is, and are doltish and utterly unacquainted with
natural and divine things, and such as measure piety by the rule of sacrifices,
charges us with not acknowledging the same gods as the cities, be pleased to
attend to the following considerations, O emperors, on both points. And first,
as to our not sacrificing: the Framer and Father of this universe does not need
blood, nor the odour of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and
incense, forasmuch as He is Himself perfect fragrance, needing nothing either
within or without; but the noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know who
stretched out and vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a
centre, who gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the
darkness, who adorned the sky with stars and made the earth to bring forth seed
of every kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding God to be this
Framer of all things, who preserves them in being and superintends them all by
knowledge and administrative skill, we “lift up holy hands” to Him, what need
has He further of a hecatomb?... And
what have I to do with holocausts, which God does not stand in need of?—though
indeed it does behove us to offer a bloodless sacrifice and “the service of our
reason. A Plea…13
But grant that they
acknowledge the same. What then? Because the multitude, who cannot distinguish
between matter and God, or see how great is the interval which lies between
them, pray to idols made of matter, are we therefore, who do distinguish and
separate the uncreated and the created, that which is and that which is not,
that which is apprehended by the understanding and that which is perceived by
the senses, and who give the fitting name to each of them,—are we to come and
worship images?...
So that, if we were to regard the various
forms of matter as gods, we should seem to be without any sense of the true
God, because we should be putting the things which are dissoluble and
perishable on a level with that which is eternal. A Plea…15
You sovereigns, indeed,
rear and adorn your palaces for yourselves; but the world was not created because
God needed it; for God is Himself everything to Himself,—light unapproachable,
a perfect world, spirit, power, reason. If, therefore, the world is an
instrument in tune, and moving in well-measured time, I adore the Being who
gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings the accordant strain, and not
the instrument. For at the musical contests the adjudicators do not pass by the
lute-players and crown the lutes. A
Plea…16
May you, by considering
yourselves, be able to discover the heavenly kingdom also! For as all things
are subservient to you, father and son, who have received the kingdom from
above (for “the king’s soul is in the hand of God,” saith the prophetic
Spirit), so to the one God and the Logos proceeding from Him, the Son,
apprehended by us as inseparable from Him, all things are in like manner
subjected. A Plea…18
For, a thing is either
uncreated and eternal, or created and perishable…Moreover, matter requires an
artificer, and the artificer requires matter. For how could figures be made
without matter or an artificer? Neither, again, is it reasonable that matter
should be older than God; for the efficient cause must of necessity exist
before the things that are made. A
Plea…19
But because he thought it
impossible to believe that gods beget and are brought forth, since everything
that begins to be is followed by an end, and (for this is much more difficult)
to change the views of the multitude, who receive the fables without
examination. A Plea…23
What need is there, in
speaking to you who have searched into every department of knowledge, to
mention the poets, or to examine opinions of another kind? Let it suffice to
say thus much. If the poets and philosophers did not acknowledge that there is
one God, and concerning these gods were not of opinion, some that they are
demons, others that they are matter, and others that they once were men,—there
might be some show of reason for our being harassed as we are, since we employ
language which makes a distinction between God and matter, and the natures of
the two. For, as we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit,
united in essence,—the Father, the Son, the Spirit, because the Son is the
Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence, as
light from fire…For this is the office of the angels,—to exercise providence
for God over the things created and ordered by Him; so that God may have the
universal and general providence of the whole, while the particular parts are
provided for by the angels appointed over them. Just as with men, who have
freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice (for you would not either honour
the good or punish the bad, unless vice and virtue were in their own power. A Plea…24
They who draw men to
idols, then, are the aforesaid demons, who are eager for the blood of the
sacrifices, and lick them; but the gods that please the multitude, and whose
names are given to the images, were men, as may be learned from their history.
And that it is the demons who act under their names, is proved by the nature of
their operations. For some castrate, as Rhea; others wound and slaughter, as
Artemis; the Tauric goddess puts all strangers to death. I pass over those who
lacerate with knives and scourges of bones, and shall not attempt to describe
all the kinds of demons; for it is not the part of a god to incite to things
against nature. A Plea…26
When, too, a tender and
susceptible soul, which has no knowledge or experience of sounder doctrines,
and is unaccustomed to contemplate truth, and to consider thoughtfully the
Father and Maker of all things, gets impressed with false opinions respecting
itself, then the demons who hover about matter, greedy of sacrificial odours
and the blood of victims, and ever ready to lead men into error, avail
themselves of these delusive movements of the souls of the multitude; and,
taking possession of their thoughts, cause to flow into the mind empty visions
as if coming from the idols and the statues.
A Plea…27
Apollodorus, too, asserts
the same thing in his treatise concerning the gods. But Herodotus calls even
their sufferings mysteries. “The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of
Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude, both
of men and women, many thousands in number, beat themselves at the close of the
sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious scruple forbids me to
mention.” A Plea…28
But they have further also
made up stories against us of impious feasts and forbidden intercourse between
the sexes, both that they may appear to themselves to have rational grounds of
hatred, and because they think either by fear to lead us away from our way of
life, or to render the rulers harsh and inexorable by the magnitude of the
charges they bring. But they lose their labour with those who know that from of
old it has been the custom, and not in our time only, for vice to make war on
virtue. A Plea…31
For as you excel all men
in intelligence, you know that those whose life is directed towards God as its rule,
so that each one among us may be blameless and irreproachable before Him, will
not entertain even the thought of the slightest sin. For if we believed that we
should live only the present life, then we might be suspected of sinning,
through being enslaved to flesh and blood, or overmastered by gain or carnal
desire; but since we know that God is witness to what we think and what we say both
by night and by day, and that He, being Himself light, sees all things in our
heart, we are persuaded that when we are removed from the present life we shall
live another life, better than the present one, and heavenly, not earthly
(since we shall abide near God, and with God, free from all change or suffering
in the soul, not as flesh, even though we shall have flesh, but as heavenly spirit),
or, falling with the rest, a worse one and in fire; for God has not made us as
sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that we should perish and be
annihilated. On these grounds it is not likely that we should wish to do evil,
or deliver ourselves over to the great Judge to be punished. A Plea…31
But we are so far from
practising promiscuous intercourse, that it is not lawful among us to indulge
even a lustful look. “For,” saith He, “he that looketh on a woman to lust after
her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.” Those, then, who are
forbidden to look at anything more than that for which God formed the eyes,
which were intended to be a light to us, and to whom a wanton look is adultery,
the eyes being made for other purposes, and who are to be called to account for
their very thoughts, how can any one doubt that such persons practice self-control?
For our account lies not with human laws, which a bad man can evade (at the outset
I proved to you, sovereign lords, that our doctrine is from the teaching of
God), but we have a law which makes the measure of rectitude to consist in
dealing with our neighbour as ourselves. On this account, too, according to
age, we recognise some as sons and daughters, others we regard as brothers and
sisters, and to the more advanced in life we give the honour due to fathers and
mothers. On behalf of those, then, to whom we apply the names of brothers and
sisters, and other designations of relationship, we exercise the greatest care
that their bodies should remain undefiled and uncorrupted; for the Logos again
says to us, “If any one kiss a second time because it has given him pleasure,
[he sins];” adding, “Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be
given with the greatest care, since, if there be mixed with it the least
defilement of thought, it excludes us from eternal life.” A Plea…32
Therefore, having the hope
of eternal life, we despise the things of this life, even to the pleasures of
the soul, each of us reckoning her his wife whom he has married according to
the laws laid down by us, and that only for the purpose of having children. For
as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not
sowing more upon it, so to us the procreation of children is the measure of our
indulgence in appetite. Nay, you would find many among us, both men and women,
growing old unmarried, in hope of living in closer communion with God. But if
the remaining in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings nearer to God,
while the indulgence of carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those
cases in which we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds. For we
bestow our attention, not on the study of words, but on the exhibition and
teaching of actions,—that a person should either remain as he was born, or be content
with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious adultery. “For
whosoever puts away his wife,” says He, “and marries another, commits
adultery;” not permitting a man to send her away whose virginity he has brought
to an end, nor to marry again. For he who deprives himself of his first wife,
even though she be dead, is a cloaked adulterer, resisting the hand of God,
because in the beginning God made one man and one woman, and dissolving the
strictest union of flesh with flesh, formed for the intercourse of the race. A Plea…33
But though such is our
character (Oh! why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things
said of us are an example of the proverb, “The harlot reproves the chaste.” For
those who have set up a market for fornication and established infamous resorts
for the young for every kind of vile pleasure,—who do not abstain even from
males, males with males committing shocking abominations, outraging all the
noblest and comeliest bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonouring the fair
workmanship of God (for beauty on earth is not self-made, but sent hither by
the hand and will of God),—these men, I say, revile us for the very things
which they are conscious of themselves, and ascribe to their own gods, boasting
of them as noble deeds, and worthy of the gods. These adulterers and pæderasts
defame the eunuchs and the once-married (while they themselves live like fishes;
for these gulp down whatever falls in their way, and the stronger chases the
weaker: and, in fact, this is to feed upon human flesh, to do violence in
contravention of the very laws which you and your ancestors, with due care for
all that is fair and right, have enacted), so that not even the governors of
the provinces sent by you suffice for the hearing of the complaints against
those, to whom it even is not lawful, when they are struck, not to offer
themselves for more blows, nor when defamed not to bless: for it is not enough
to be just (and justice is to return like for like), but it is incumbent on us
to be good and patient of evil. A
Plea…34
What man of sound mind,
therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? For
we cannot eat human flesh till we have killed some one. The former charge,
therefore, being false, if any one should ask them in regard to the second,
whether they have seen what they assert, not one of them would be so barefaced
as to say that he had. And yet we have slaves, some more and some fewer, by
whom we could not help being seen; but even of these, not one has been found to
invent even such things against us. For when they know that we cannot endure
even to see a man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of
murder or cannibalism? Who does not reckon among the things of greatest
interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are
given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same
as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How, then, when we do not even
look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to
death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion
commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on
what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same
person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore
an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not
to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with
child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. But
we are in all things always alike and the same, submitting ourselves to reason,
and not ruling over it. A Plea…35
Who, then, that believes
in a resurrection, would make himself into a tomb for bodies that will rise
again? For it is not the part of the same persons to believe that our bodies
will rise again, and to eat them as if they would not; and to think that the
earth will give back the bodies held by it, but that those which a man has
entombed in himself will not be demanded back. On the contrary, it is reasonable
to suppose, that those who think they shall have no account to give of the
present life, ill or well spent, and that there is no resurrection, but
calculate on the soul perishing with the body, and being as it were quenched in
it, will refrain from no deed of daring; but as for those who are persuaded
that nothing will escape the scrutiny of God, but that even the body which has
ministered to the irrational impulses of the soul, and to its desires, will be
punished along with it, it is not likely that they will commit even the
smallest sin. But if to any one it appears sheer nonsense that the body which
has mouldered away, and been dissolved, and reduced to nothing, should be reconstructed,
we certainly cannot with any reason be accused of wickedness with reference to those
that believe not, but only of folly; for with the opinions by which we deceive
ourselves we injure no one else. A
Plea…36
And now do you, who are
entirely in everything, by nature and by education, upright, and moderate, and
benevolent, and worthy of your rule, now that I have disposed of the several accusations,
and proved that we are pious, and gentle, and temperate in spirit, bend your
royal head in approval. For who are more deserving to obtain the things they
ask, than those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is
most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may
receive increase and addition, all men becoming subject to your sway? And this
is also for our advantage, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life, and may
ourselves readily perform all that is commanded us. A Plea…37
