The Cross and the Folly of Deifying Humans
Octavius is answering Caecilius's charge that Christians worship a crucified criminal, and he now turns the charge of cross-worship back onto pagan practice.
We are not permitted even to hear of such shameful acts as these, and it is disgraceful for many to defend them. You invent stories about people who are chaste and modest that we would never believe happened, unless you proved them true of yourselves.
As for your charge that you ascribe a criminal and his cross to our religion, you wander far from the neighborhood of truth when you think that God could be believed either to have deserved punishment as a criminal or to have been capable of earthly existence.
How pitiable is the man whose whole hope rests on a mortal human being! All his help comes to an end when that human being dies.
The Egyptians, to be sure, choose a man for themselves to worship. They propitiate him alone, consult him above all others, and slaughter victims for him. But he who is a god to everyone else is certainly a man to himself, whether he wishes or not. He does not deceive his own conscience, even if he deceives someone else's.
Even princes and kings are shamefully courted with false flattery—not as great and chosen men, as is proper, but as gods. Yet honor is more truly given to a distinguished man, and love is more sweetly offered to a good one. So people call their deity by name, kneel before their images, and implore their genius, that is, their demon. And they think it safer to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by the king.
We neither worship crosses nor wish for them. You, however, who consecrate wooden gods, perhaps adore wooden crosses as parts of your gods. For what else are your standards, banners, and camp flags but crosses gilded and decorated? Your victorious trophies imitate not only the shape of a simple cross, but also of a man nailed to it.
We certainly see the sign of the cross naturally in a ship when it sails with swelling sails and glides along with outspread oar-blades. And when a yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of the cross; and when a man worships God with pure mind and outstretched hands. Thus either natural reason rests upon the sign of the cross, or your own religion is shaped by it.
Latin
Haec et huiusmodi propudia nobis non licet nec audire, etiam pluribus turpe defendere est: ea enim de castis fingitis et pudicis, quae fieri non crederemus, nisi de uobis probaretis.
nam quod religioni nostrae hominem noxium et crucem eius adscribitis, longe de uicinia ueritatis erratis, qui putatis Deum credi aut meruisse noxium aut potuisse terrenum.
ne ille miserabilis, cuius in homine mortali spes omnis innititur; totum enim eius auxilium cum extincto homine finitur.
Aegyptii sane hominem sibi quem colant eligunt: illum unum propitiant, illum de omnibus consulunt, illi uictimas caedunt. at ille, qui ceteris deus, sibi certe homo est, uelit nolit: nec enim conscientiam suam decipit, si fallit alienam.
etiam principibus et regibus, non ut magnis et electis uiris, sicut fas est, sed ut deis turpiter adulatio falsa blanditur, cum et praeclaro uiro honor uerius et optimo amor dulcius praebeatur. sic eorum numen uocant, ad imagines supplicant, genium, id est daemonem eorum implorant, et est eis tutius per Iouis genium peierare quam regis. cruces etiam nec colimus nec optamus.
uos plane, qui ligneos deos consecratis, cruces ligneas ut deorum uestrorum partes forsitan adoratis.
nam et signa ipsa et cantabra et uexilla castrorum quid aliud quam inauratae cruces sunt et ornatae? tropaea uestra uictricia non tantum simplicis crucis faciem, uerum et adfixi hominis imitantur.
signum sane crucis naturaliter uisimus in naui, cum uelis tumentibus uehitur, cum expansis palmulis labitur: et cum erigitur iugum, crucis signum est, et cum homo porrectis manibus Deum pura mente ueneratur. ita signo crucis aut ratio naturalis innititur aut uestra religio formatur.