The incest slander is a demonic lie; pagan nations practice it, Christians keep chastity
Octavius is answering Caecilius's charge that Christians practice incest at their feasts, and he turns the charge back onto pagan myths and customs.
And about the incestuous banquet, the gathering of demons has invented a great story against us. They wanted to stain the glory of our chastity by sprinkling it with shameful infamy, and to turn people away from us through terror of an unspeakable rumor before the truth could be examined.
So about this matter your Fronto too did not give testimony as one who affirms the charge. Rather, as an orator he sprinkled abuse. For these things were born rather from your own nations.
Among the Persians it is lawful to have intercourse with mothers. Among the Egyptians and Athenians marriages with sisters are legitimate. Your histories and tragedies glory in incests, which you gladly both read and hear. So you also worship incestuous gods, joined with mother, with daughter, with sister.
Rightly therefore incest is often detected among you, and always committed. Even without knowing it, wretched people, you can rush headlong into forbidden acts. While you scatter your lust for Venus promiscuously, while you sow children everywhere, while you frequently expose even children born at home to the mercy of strangers, you must of necessity run back upon your own, and stray into your own children. So you weave the story of incest even when you are unaware of it.
But we display modesty not by face but by mind. We gladly cling to the bond of one marriage. For the desire of procreation we know either one wife or none. We cultivate banquets that are not only chaste but also sober, for we do not indulge in feasts or prolong the banquet with wine, but we temper cheerfulness with seriousness. With chaste speech and a body more chaste still, many of us enjoy rather than boast of the perpetual virginity of an inviolate body. So far is the desire of incest from us that for some even a chaste union is a cause of shame.
And we do not consist of the lowest dregs of the people if we refuse your honors and purple robes. Nor are we seditious if we all understand one good, gathered together in the same quiet as individuals. Nor are we chatterers in corners if you are either ashamed or afraid to hear us publicly.
And that our number grows daily is not a crime of error but a testimony of praise. For in a beautiful manner of living, the native both stands firm and perseveres, and the outsider grows.
So finally we easily recognize one another not by a mark on the body, as you think, but by the sign of innocence and modesty. So we love one another with mutual love, which you resent, because we have not learned to hate. So we call one another brothers, which you begrudge, as people of one God the parent, as sharers in faith, as co-heirs of hope. For you do not recognize one another, and you rage in mutual hatreds, and you only acknowledge brothers indeed for parricide.
Latin
Et de incesto conniuio fabulam grandem aduersum nos daemonum coitio mentita est, ut gloriam pudicitiae deformis infamiae aspersione macularet, ut ante exploratam ueritatem homines a nobis terrore infandae opinionis auerteret.
sic de isto et tuus Fronto non ut adfirmator testimonium fecit, sed conuicium ut orator adspersit: haec enim potius de uestris gentibus nata sunt.
ius est apud Persas miscen cum matribus, Aegyptiis et Atheniensibus cum sororibus legitima conubia, memoriae et tragoediae uestrae incestis gloriantur, quas uos libenter et legitis et auditis; sic et deos colitis incestos, cum matre, cum filia, cum sorore coniunctos.
merito igitur incestum penes uos saepe deprehenditur, semper admittitur. etiam nescientes, miseri, potestis in inlicita proruere: dum Venerem promisce spargitis, dum passim liberos seritis, dum etiam domi natos alienae misericordiae frequenter exponitis, necesse est in uestros recurrere, in filios inerrare. sic incesti fabulam nectitis, etiam cum conscientiam non habetis.
at nos pudorem non facie, sed mente praestamus: unius matrimonii uinculo libenter [inhaeremus, cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam, conuiuia non tantum pudica colimus sed et sobria: nec enim indulgemus epulis aut conuiuium mero ducimus, sed grauitate hilaritatem temperamus: casto sermone, corpore castiore plerique inuiolati corporis uirginitate perpetua fruuntur potius quam gloriantur: tantum denique abest incesti cupido, ut nonnullis rubori sit etiam pudica coniunctio.
nec de ultima statim plebe consistimus, si honores uestros et purpuras recusamus, nec factiosi sumus, si omnes unum bonum sapimus eadem congregati quiete qua singuli, nec in angulis garruli, si audire nos publice aut erubescitis aut timetis.
et quod indies nostri numerus augetur, non est crimen erroris, sed testimonium laudis; nam in pulcro genere uiuendi et perstat et perseuerat suus et adcrescit alienus.
sic nos denique non notaculo corporis, ut putatis, sed innocentiae ac modestiae signo facile dinoscimus: sic nos mutuo, quod doletis, amore diligimus, quoniam odisse non nouimus: sic nos, quod inuidetis, fratres uocamus, ut unius Dei parentis homines, ut consortes fidei, ut spei coheredes. uos enim nec inuicem adgnoscitis et in mutua odia saeuitis, nec fratres uos nisi sane ad parricidium recognoscitis.