To Scapula

1We do not dread or fear greatly the things we suffer at the hands of the ignorant, since we came to this faith having accepted the terms of its covenant: we enter these contests sworn in, even with our souls, desiring to obtain what God has promised and fearing to suffer what He threatens against the opposite life. In fact, we contend with all your cruelty, even bursting forth of our own accord, and we rejoice more when condemned than when acquitted. So I have sent you this little book not because we are afraid for ourselves, but for you and for all our enemies—not to mention our friends. For our teaching commands us to love even our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, so that this may be our perfect and distinctive goodness, not a common one. Loving friends is something everyone does; loving enemies belongs to Christians alone. Therefore, since we grieve over your ignorance, and pity human error, and foresee what is coming, and see the signs of it brandished against us daily, we must burst forth in this way at least, to set before you what you do not wish to hear openly.

2We worship one God, whom you all know by nature, at whose lightning and thunder you tremble, and at whose blessings you rejoice. You think the others are gods as well, but we know them to be demons. Still, it is a matter of human law and natural right that each person may worship what he thinks best, and one person's religion neither harms nor helps another. Nor is it the business of religion to force religion, which should be accepted willingly, not under compulsion, since even sacrifices are required from a willing heart. So even if you force us to sacrifice, you will accomplish nothing for your gods. They will not desire sacrifices from the unwilling, unless they are quarrelsome; but a god is not quarrelsome. Indeed, the one who is true gives all his gifts equally to the profane and to his own, and for that reason he has established an eternal judgment for the grateful and the ungrateful.

Yet we, whom you consider sacrilegious, have never been caught in theft, much less in sacrilege. But all those who plunder temples and swear by the gods and worship them—they are not Christians, and yet they are caught as sacrilegious. It would take too long to recount the other ways in which all the gods are mocked and despised by their own worshipers. So too we are defamed regarding the imperial dignity of the emperor, yet no Christian has ever been found among the followers of Albinus, Niger, or Cassius. Rather, the very people who had sworn by the emperors' guardian spirits the day before, who had made and vowed sacrifices for their safety, who had often condemned Christians—those same people were found to be their enemies. A Christian is no one's enemy, much less the emperor's. Knowing that the emperor has been appointed by his God, a Christian must love him, revere him, honor him, and desire his safety along with that of the whole Roman Empire, as long as the world shall stand—for it will stand just that long.

We therefore worship the emperor in the way that is lawful for us and beneficial for him: as a man second to God, who has received whatever he has from God, and who is less than God alone. He himself will want this. For he is greater than all while he is less than the one true God alone. In this way he is also greater than the gods themselves, since they too are in his power. And so we also sacrifice for the emperor's safety, but to our God and his, and in the way God has commanded, with pure prayer. For God, the creator of the universe, does not need the odor or blood of anyone. Those are food for demons. And we not only reject demons, but we overcome them, expose them daily, and drive them out of people, as many know well.

Thus we pray all the more for the emperor's safety, requesting it from him who is able to provide it. And that we act according to the teaching of divine endurance should be clear enough to you, since we live in silence and modesty—such a great multitude of people, almost the larger part of every city—known perhaps as individuals rather than as a group, and recognizable only by the correction of our former vices. Far be it from us to resent suffering what we desire, or to plot any vengeance for ourselves, since we await vengeance from God.

3Yet, as I said above, we cannot help grieving that no city will allow our blood to be shed with impunity. So it was under the governor Hilarianus, when the crowds cried out about our burial grounds: "Let there be no burial grounds!" Their own burial grounds were not there, for they did not bring in their harvests. As for the rains of last year, what they reminded the human race of is plain enough: that a flood came long ago because of human unbelief and iniquity. And the fires that recently hung over the walls of Carthage through the night—those who saw them know what they threatened, and those who hardened themselves know what the ancient thunderclaps sounded. All these are signs of the coming wrath of God, which we must announce, proclaim, and pray may be local for the time being, in whatever way we can. For those who interpret these examples otherwise will feel the universal and final wrath in its own time. Even that sun in the assembly at Utica, when its light was almost extinguished, was such a portent that it could not have suffered this from an ordinary eclipse, positioned as it was in its exaltation and home. You have your astrologers.

I can likewise set before you the ends of certain governors, who at the close of their lives remembered that they had done wrong in harassing Christians. Vigellius Saturninus, who first used the sword against us here, lost his eyesight. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, indignant that his wife had gone over to this faith, treated Christians cruelly; and when he was left alone in his palace, ravaged by plague with worms boiling out of him, he said, "Let no one know, so that Christians do not rejoice or hope." Later, when he recognized his error—that he had made some fall from their purpose through torture—he died almost a Christian. Caecilius Capella cried out at that departure of his, "Christians, rejoice!" But those who think they have escaped unpunished will come to the day of divine judgment.

We also hope that for you this has been only a warning: that when you condemned Mavilus of Hadrumetum to the wild beasts, this harassment followed at once, and now in the same cause comes a summons for blood. But remember for the future.

4We do not frighten you, since we ourselves are not afraid, but I would wish that we could save everyone by warning them not to fight against God. You can both perform the duty of your jurisdiction and remember humanity, since you too are under the sword. For what more is commanded of you than to condemn the guilty who have confessed, and to recall those who deny to torture? You see, then, how you yourselves act against your own mandates when you force those who have confessed to deny. By this very fact you admit that we are innocent, since you do not wish to condemn us immediately upon confession. But if you strive to crush us, then you are attacking innocence itself.

How many governors, both more resolute and more cruel, have turned away from cases of this kind? Cincius Severus, for example, at Thysdrus himself provided the remedy of how Christians should answer so that they could be released. Vespronius Candidus released a Christian under the pretext that he was a troublemaker, to satisfy his fellow citizens. Asper lightly harassed a man and then immediately let him go, and did not force him to sacrifice, having declared beforehand among the advocates and assessors that he was grieved to have fallen into this case. Pudens too, when a Christian was sent to him, understood from the indictment that the man had been shaken down, and released him, tearing up the indictment itself, and refused to hear the man without an accuser, citing the mandate.

All these things can be suggested to you both from your official duty and by those same advocates, who themselves have received benefits from Christians, even though they shout whatever they wish. For a certain secretary was freed when he was being thrown down by a demon, and so was a relative of certain people and a young boy. And how many respectable men—for we do not speak of common folk—have been cured either of demons or of illnesses? Even Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of Christians. For he sought out Proculus the Christian, nicknamed Torpacion, the procurator of Euhodia, who had once cured him with oil, and kept him in his palace until his death. Antoninus knew him very well too, having been raised on Christian milk. But Severus, knowing that the most distinguished women and most distinguished men belonged to this faith, not only did not harm them, but honored them with his testimony and resisted the people raging against us.

Marcus Aurelius also, in the German expedition, obtained rain in that drought through the prayers of Christian soldiers to God. When have droughts not been driven away by our kneelings and fastings? Then the people too cried out, "God of gods, who alone is powerful," bearing witness to our God in the name of Jupiter. Besides these things, we do not deny a deposit, we commit adultery with no one's wife, we treat orphans dutifully, we refresh the needy, we return evil to no one for evil. Let those who falsely claim our faith see to it—we ourselves reject them. Who, in the end, complains about us under any other name? What other business does a Christian suffer except that of his own faith, which no one has proven to be incestuous or cruel in all this time?

For such innocence, for such honesty, for justice, for modesty, for faith, for truth, for the living God, we are burned—something that neither the sacrilegious nor true public enemies nor so many guilty of violating imperial dignity are accustomed to suffer. For even now this name is harassed by the governor of Legio and the governor of Mauretania, but only to the sword, just as from the beginning it was commanded that such people be punished. But greater contests bring greater rewards.

5Your cruelty is our glory. But be careful: when we endure such things, it may look as though we are bursting forward for this one purpose only—to prove that we do not fear these things, but summon them of our own accord. When Arrius Antoninus was persecuting relentlessly in Asia, all the Christians of that city presented themselves before his tribunal of their own accord. Then, after ordering a few to be led away, he said to the rest, "O cowards, if you want to die, you have cliffs and ropes." If it should please you to have the same happen here, what will you do with so many thousands of people—so many men and women, of every sex, every age, every rank—offering themselves to you? How many fires, how many swords will be needed? What will Carthage itself suffer, to be decimated by you, when each person recognizes there his relatives, his household companions, when he sees there perhaps men of your own order, and married women, and all the leading persons, and the relatives or friends of your friends? Spare yourself, then, if not us. Spare Carthage, if not yourself. Spare the province, which once your intention became known has been made liable to extortions by soldiers and by each person's private enemies. We have no master except God alone. He is before you and cannot be hidden, but you can do nothing to him. As for those you think are your masters, they are human beings, and they too will die one day. Nor will this faith fail, which you should know is built up all the more when it seems to be cut down. For everyone who sees such great endurance, as if struck by some scruple, is inflamed to inquire what is at stake, and when he has learned the truth, he himself immediately follows.