The shameless audacity of the Christians
Caecilius is attacking Christianity, arguing that the universal consensus about the immortal gods makes it outrageous for anyone to try to dissolve that ancient religion.
So then, although the reason or origin of the immortal gods may be uncertain among all nations, a firm agreement about them nevertheless remains. I cannot endure anyone swelling with such audacity and with such irreligious cunning, whatever it may be, who strives to dissolve or weaken this religion so ancient, so useful, so salutary.
Granted, he may be Theodorus of Cyrene, or the earlier Diagoras of Melos, to whom antiquity gave the surname atheos. Both of them, by asserting that there are no gods, utterly removed all the fear and veneration by which humanity is governed. Yet they will never prevail in this discipline of impiety under the name and authority of a pretended philosophy.
When the Athenians, acting with deliberation rather than profanity, expelled Protagoras of Abdera from their territory for disputing about divinity and burned his writings in the assembly, should we not groan that men, you will bear with me as I exercise the impulse of my undertaken action more freely, men, I say, of a deplorable, illicit, and desperate faction run riot against the gods?
They gather the more ignorant from the lowest dregs and credulous women, slipping through the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of a profane conspiracy. This mob is bound together by nocturnal gatherings, solemn fasts, and inhuman foods, not by any sacred rite, but by an expiation. A hidden and light-shunning nation, mute in public, garrulous in corners: they despise temples as tombs, despise the gods, ridicule sacred rites. Wretched themselves, they pity the priests, if it is lawful to say so, and despise the priests, honors and purple robes, though they themselves are half-naked.
What remarkable folly and incredible audacity! They scorn present torments while they fear uncertain and future ones, and while they fear dying after death, they do not fear dying in the meantime: so a deceptive hope soothes their fear with a returning solace.
Latin
Itaque cum omnium gentium de dis inmortalibus, quamuis incerta sit uel ratio uel origo, maneat tamen firma consensio, neminem fero tanta audacia tamque inreligiosa nescio qua prudentia tumescentem, qui hanc religionem tam uetustam, tam utilem, tam salubrem dissoluere aut infirmare nitatur.
sit licet ille Theodorus Cyrenaeus, uel qui prior Diagoras Melius, cui atheon cognomen adposuit antiquitas, qui uterque nullos deos adseuerando timorem omnem, quo humanitas regitur, uenerationemque penitus sustulerunt: numquam tamen in hac inpietatis disciplina simulatae philosophiae nomine atque auctoritate pollebunt.
cum Abderiten Protagoram Athenienses uiri consulte potius quam profane de diuinitate disputantem et expulerint suis finibus et in contione eius scripta deusserint, quid homines (sustinebitis enim me impetum susceptae actionis liberius exerentem) homines, inquam, deploratae, inlicitae ac desperatae factionis grassari in deos non ingemescendum est?
qui de ultima faece collectis imperitioribus et mulieribus credulis sexus sui facilitate labentibus plebem profanae coniurationis instituunt, quae nocturnis congregationibus et ieiuniis sollemnibus et inhumanis cibis non sacro quodam, sed piaculo foederatur, latebrosa et lucifuga natio, in publicum muta, in angulis garrula: templa ut busta despiciunt, deos despuunt, rident sacra, miserentur miseri ipsi, si fas est,
sacerdotum, honores etpurpuras despiciunt, ipsi seminudi, pro mira stultitia et incredibilis audacia! spernunt tormenta praesentia, dum incerta metuunt et futura, et dum mori post mortem timent, interim mori non timent: ita illis pauorem fallax spes solacio rediuiuo blanditur.