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 Apology of 
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 The Convent of St, Catherine, Mount Sinai
 
 THE NEWLY RECOVERED 
 
 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES 
 
 ITS DOCTRINE AND ETHICS 
 
 WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE TRANSLATION BY 
 PROF. J. RENDEL HARRIS 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN B. HARRIS 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 MDCCCXCI
 
 Butler & Tanner, 
 
 The Selwood Printing Wokks 
 
 Frome, and London.
 
 ;l 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In this small volume only a portion of the 
 Apology of Aristides is published, the entire 
 document, or, at all events, what is substantially 
 the entire document, being already before the 
 world in a volume recently published by the 
 Cambridge University Press, in which may be 
 found the Greek and Syriac texts of the 
 Apology, together with a complete translation 
 of the Syriac version. The object of the 
 excision of certain of the less interesting parts 
 of the Defence is the avoidance of the long 
 and detailed description of Greek and Roman 
 
 iii 
 
 421462
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 mythologies which is the central part of the 
 original discourse, so that the attention of the 
 reader may be focussed upon its simple Chris- 
 tian teaching and beautiful Christian ethics. 
 
 To the classical scholar it is, doubtless, of the 
 utmost interest to know how a Christian teacher 
 would deal with the Pagan religions in address- 
 ing a Pagan emperor, to which of the legends 
 of the gods he would give special attention, 
 which of the innumerable crimes attributed to 
 them he would select as illustrations of their 
 unfitness to be regarded as of a higher race than 
 mankind, and so on ; and certainly the undue 
 length, detailed descriptions and emphasis of 
 denunciation of this portion of the Apology of 
 Aristides, indicate that these frightful histories 
 still held sway over men's minds to an extent 
 which it is difficult for us to realize. 
 
 But there is much that is painful as well as
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 tedious in the reading of this tirade against the 
 gods of Olympus ; and the lessons contained 
 in the opening passages of the Address are in 
 danger of slipping out of the mind, as we press 
 on through the slough of pagan imaginations 
 that follows, until we happily reach the firm 
 standing-ground again, at the close of the 
 Apology, where the writer presents us with a 
 beautiful and exhilarating account of the social 
 intercourse and daily life of the early Church. 
 A large part of the central section of the 
 Apology has therefore been omitted. The 
 description, however, of the so-called Barbarians, 
 (by which are probably meant the Gothic, 
 Scythian and other northern nations), as well 
 as the sketch of the faith of the Egyptians 
 and of the Jews, has been left intact, except 
 where certain coarse passages have been 
 omitted, these sections being, relatively to
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 those which deal with Greek beHefs, brief and 
 full of interest. 
 
 The object of the present publication is to 
 present the thought and life of the Church of 
 the Second Century not, as in the Apology, 
 against the dark back-ground of surrounding 
 superstition and wickedness, but in contrast 
 with the lukewarmness of so much of pro- 
 fessing Christianity in our own day ; so that 
 Christian men and women may be stimulated 
 and encouraged, even if they are not put to 
 shame, by this bright light shining to us across 
 so many intervening centuries.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Preface iii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the Early Christian Apologies . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Recovery of the Apology of Aris- 
 tides in the convent of s. catherine 
 ON Mount Sinai 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 On THE Doctrine of the Apology ... 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 On the Ethics of the Apology ... 45 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 Selected Passages from the Apology . . 78
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES. 
 
 A LARGE part of the early Christian literature, 
 especially of the literature of the second cen- 
 tury, is classified under the title of Apologies 
 for the Faith, that is, of speeches on behalf of 
 the Christians made by those who, either in 
 person or in writing, appeared as their advo- 
 cates. They are not, of course. Apologies in the 
 modern sense of the word ; the term is used in 
 its Greek sense, as when Plato's version of the 
 speech of Socrates before his judges is called 
 the Apology of Socrates ; or as (to take the 
 case of one of the great men of later time) 
 
 I
 
 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 John Henry Newman entitled his reply to 
 Kingsley an Apologia pro Vita Sua. The early 
 Christians were often put upon their trial before 
 the world, either individually or collectively, 
 but their advocates never took the position 
 that they had to make the best of a bad case, 
 or to make the strongest out of a weak case, 
 which is the idea that in modern times 
 associates itself with the word apology. And, 
 in fact, these brave and vigorous-minded men 
 were so far from any feeling of this kind, that 
 although, in the order of legal proceedings, 
 they occupy the position of defendants, they 
 uniformly carry the war into the opposite camp, 
 and act as though the promise that the saints 
 should judge the world were already in fulfil- 
 ment ; if it had been suggested to them that 
 the refutation of calumny and the correction 
 and exposure of misunderstanding in which
 
 ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES. 3 
 
 they were engaged was a matter for bated 
 breath and whispering humbleness, they would 
 probably have said something not very unlike 
 the remark of King George the Third when 
 Bishop Watson presented him with his 
 " Apology for the Bible." " I did not know," 
 said the king innocently, " that the Bible needed 
 any apology ! " 
 
 A favourite witticism of the advocate for the 
 faith was to play upon the word Christian by 
 connecting it with the Greek word CJirestos, 
 which means good. They are called Christians 
 because, by the grace of God, they are so much 
 better than other people ! Sometimes they 
 employ biting satire upon the follies and 
 worships of the Pagan world ; and sometimes 
 they use lofty and impassioned entreaty ; not 
 infrequently, too, as though they had entirely 
 forgotten the legal and political aspects of the
 
 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 situation, they proceed to instruct their judges 
 and their hearers in the elements of Christian 
 faith and morals, as though they were a class 
 of catechumens in process of preparation for 
 admission to the ranks of the new religion. 
 
 It is easy to see that this peculiar prevalence 
 of Christian defences in the literature of the 
 second century is not due merely to the exist- 
 ence of persecutions, although the threat of 
 legal interference or the fact of popular hatred 
 may often have been the immediate motive for 
 the publication or recitation of the Apology. 
 As literary products, however, they are due to 
 the influx of Greek life into the Church, and the 
 detachment of the Church from the Synagogue. 
 I do not know of any Jewish Apology that can 
 properly be so called, nor is there anything 
 like a Judaeo-Christian Apology. 
 
 But, on the other hand, when the Greek world
 
 ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES, 5 
 
 began to absorb the Christian idea, it was 
 natural that defences should be written ; the 
 models for such composition were abundant 
 and were a part of the study of every educated 
 man. It was easy to recast old matter or to 
 imitate famous speakers of bygone times, to 
 say nothing of the charm which the Greek 
 mind naturally found in the many-sidedness 
 of the defence of the new people, and in 
 holding up the newly-dropped crystal of the 
 Faith, like a gem with many facets, into the 
 light of popular and philosophical scrutiny. 
 
 Now of the writer of the particular Apology 
 of which the discovery is narrated in these 
 pages, very little is known. Aristides was, we 
 are told by the church historian Eusebius, in 
 his " Ecclesiastical History," and also in his 
 " Chronicon," an Athenian Philosopher. The 
 emperor addressed was either the Emperor
 
 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Hadrian, who ruled from A.D. 117 to A.D. 138, 
 or Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, who is 
 also, by adoption, called Hadrian, The dis- 
 cussion as to which of these emperors was 
 addressed is of a critical nature, and does not 
 come within the scope of this little work. It 
 w^as written not earlier than the year 124 A.D., 
 and not later perhaps than 140 A.D., and 
 whether addressed to Hadrian or to Antoninus 
 Pius, the society defended and described is 
 substantially the same, and we may be practi- 
 cally certain that the address of Aristides is 
 the earliest Christian Apology extant. The 
 Christian Church only knows of one other that 
 can rival it in antiquity, that made by the 
 Athenian teacher Quadratus ; but this writing 
 has, unfortunately, not yet been recovered. 
 We cannot believe this Apology of Aristides 
 to be other than a truthful picture of the faith,
 
 ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES. 7 
 
 charity, and communion of the period it re- 
 presents. The bold confessor standing before 
 the emperor has no words of mere panegyric 
 with which to deceive him ; but, as he ex- 
 pressly affirms, had been himself convinced 
 of the practical purity and beauty of the new 
 religion, and had felt himself constrained to 
 delineate it in truthful language.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE ON 
 MOUNT SINAI. 
 
 The Convent of St. Catherine/ in one of the 
 libraries of which the Apology of Aristides 
 was found, and which has been familiar to us 
 by name through the previous discovery within 
 its walls of the famous Sinaitic Codex of the 
 Bible, now removed to St. Petersburg, is, whether 
 we consider its character or its history, one 
 of the most remarkable of monastic foundations. 
 
 ' Use has been made of the descriptions of the 
 Convent by Robinson and Stanley.
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE, Q 
 
 It is a large and irregular pile of buildings, 
 within high and massive walls, containing 
 galleries of cells, chapels, libraries, and guest- 
 chambers of very varied size and condition. 
 Some are immensely old, and show traces of 
 the centuries that they have seen go by, while 
 others are of quite recent date ; and there are 
 even such attempts at modern fittings and 
 accommodation as may deter the European 
 traveller from any fear that, in visiting the 
 convent, he will have to make an unreasonable 
 sacrifice of the comforts of life. 
 
 The central point of the pile of buildings is 
 the Church of the Transfiguration, behind the 
 altar of which is the Chapel of the Burning 
 Bush, on entering which every visitor removes 
 his shoes, before approaching the spot where 
 tradition asserts that God talked with Moses. 
 In this chapel are also to be seen some remains
 
 lO APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 of early Byzantine mosaics in the walls, and 
 the silver shrine set with emeralds which con- 
 tains the bones of St. Catherine. 
 
 The exterior church is very gorgeous, and 
 full of objects of interest to those who under- 
 stand anything of the ritual of the Greek 
 Church : the walls are covered with pictures 
 of the saints, and from the roof depend costly 
 lamps and ostrich eggs mounted in silver. An 
 almost constant succession of services is main- 
 tained in this church both day and night ; 
 so that, to the visitor in the convent, it seems 
 as if the bell were always ringing for worship. 
 But, by the by, it is not a bell at all that 
 summons the monks day and night from their 
 cells, but a resonant board, which is mounted 
 in a kind of belfry, whose clang makes music 
 in the echoing rocks of the silent valley where 
 the convent lies. This call to prayer is known
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. II 
 
 by the Arabic name of the Naqus, which 
 means " that which is beaten " ; it is a compre- 
 hensive word, and probably it would cover 
 such various meanings as "a bell," or "a 
 drum," as well as the beaten board above the 
 convent church. 
 
 Strangely enough, there is within the convent 
 walls, and almost contiguous to the church, a 
 mosque, which is, at once, a concession to the 
 sentiment of the Arabs of the desert and a 
 memorial of the tradition that Mount Sinai 
 was once visited by Mohammed, who is said 
 to have given a letter of protection to the con- 
 vent. It is certain that the Arabs regard the 
 spot as peculiarly sacred. They are not, how- 
 ever, with the exception of an occasional trusted 
 serv^ant, allowed to enter within the walls of the 
 convent ; nor is any service of prayer carried on 
 in the mosque at present, though it is quite
 
 12 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 possible that such was the case in earlier times, 
 when the monks were more at the mercy of the 
 Bedaween. 
 
 The convent is at present inhabited by 
 about thirty-five monks, mostly from the Greek 
 islands ; a large proportion of whom only remain 
 in the convent for a term of years, though some 
 live here always. There is an affiliated convent 
 at Cairo, and there are dependencies and pro- 
 perties of the convent in Greece, in Cyprus, 
 and, I believe, as far north as Roumania. The 
 monks belong to the order of St. Basil, and 
 they are very strict in their rules : many of 
 them abstain entirely from eating of flesh, and 
 for the most part they live on pease, beans, 
 and lentils, with Arab bread and such fruits 
 and vegetables as are produced in the convent 
 garden. It is said that those monks who re- 
 main in the convent continue to a good old
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. 1 3 
 
 age and retain their faculties to the end of the 
 term of Hfe. When a brother dies, he is buried ; 
 but after the lapse of a certain time he is dis- 
 interred, and his bones are laid in an under- 
 ground crypt along with those who have gone 
 before him. 
 
 This crypt is a weird place to visit. At 
 the door is the skeleton of a former porter of 
 the convent, which the monks have arrayed in 
 a semi-ecclesiastical robe ; so that the holy 
 Stephen, — for that is his name, and he is said 
 to have lived in the fifth century, — looks as if 
 he were still engaged after death in duties simi- 
 lar to those which occupied him in life. Here 
 are also to be seen the skeletons of two Indian 
 princes, who once inhabited a couple of cells on 
 the mountain near by. The cells were situated 
 one above the other, and a chain had been 
 passed through the floor of the upper cell, so
 
 14 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 that the two brothers might be connected 
 together, and, if either of them fell asleep 
 the other might awake him, though they 
 never could meet face to face. Such is the 
 story which the monks relate ; and the skele- 
 tons in the crypt are still connected after death 
 by the chain which bound them together in 
 life. 
 
 The monastery of St. Catherine is said to 
 have been built by Justinian in the thirtieth year 
 of his reign,^ his fame as a builder of churches 
 having penetrated to the hermits of Sinai, so 
 that they petitioned him to build them a house 
 where they might be safe from the incursions 
 of the Arabs. Accordingly he built it in the 
 form of a fortification as well as a monastery ; 
 and it is probably due to its massive walls that 
 it alone remains of all the hermitages, churches 
 
 ^ The present buildings are jorobably of later date.
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. 1 5 
 
 and convents which once covered the mountain 
 slopes, and abounded in the valleys of Mount 
 Sinai and in the neighbourhood of the ecclesi- 
 astical town of Paran. The whole range must 
 have been in early times something like what 
 Mount Athos is to-day. For it is said that in 
 those days there were six thousand monks in 
 the neighbourhood of Jebel Musa, and Paran 
 must at one time have really deserved the name 
 of a city : but this prosperous state of things 
 was brought to nought by Arab incursions sub- 
 sequent on the Mohammedan conquests. 
 
 Justinian built the convent, so as to enclose 
 the traditional sites of the burning bush and 
 of the well of Jethro, and it is said to have 
 been dedicated at first to the Virgin, but 
 from a very early period it has been sacred to 
 St. Catherine, of whom tradition reports that 
 she at one time lived in a hermitage on one
 
 1 6 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 of the Sinai mountains, and being afterwards 
 martyred at Alexandria, angels bore her body 
 to her beloved retreat in the desert, where it 
 was found by the monks ; and lo ! her bones are 
 in the convent even unto this day ! Probably 
 the truth of the matter is, that Catherine really 
 was martyred in Alexandria, and her relics 
 transferred by actual human hands to the con- 
 vent ; or, as her martyrdom dates earlier than 
 Justinian by more than a century, to some 
 earlier convent on the same spot. There they 
 are now said to be preserved.^ 
 
 She is, of course, a special object of adora- 
 tion to the monks and the pilgrims. Pictures 
 of her, in the Byzantine style, are commonly 
 used as Icons in Greek churches and houses ; 
 
 ^ Mrs. Jameson has, quite without reason, assumed 
 a confusion between the story of St. Catherine and that 
 of the pagan philosopher Hypatia.
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. I7 
 
 sometimes they arc merely printed, roughly 
 and on poor paper, instead of being presented 
 in the conventional gold and gorgeousness of 
 the early Byzantine art, which the modern 
 dealer in holy goods so assiduously tries to 
 reproduce. It is not uncommon for visitors to 
 the convent to be presented with small silver 
 rings, in memory of their visit, and of the 
 mystical marriage of St. Catherine to her 
 Heavenly Bridegroom. 
 
 This famous monastery was the goal of my 
 husband in a pilgrimage which he made in 
 1889, accompanied by his friend and fellow- 
 scholar, Mr. F. J. Bliss, of Beyrout, and an 
 American gentleman of the name of Lock- 
 wood. Mr. Bliss was perfectly conversant with 
 Eastern life and travel and with all the prac- 
 tical details of the management of a caravan 
 of Arabs, the mysteries of desert-cooking and 
 
 2
 
 1 8 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 tent-sleeping, all of which accomplishments 
 made him an invaluable travelling companion 
 on the journey from Suez to Sinai, apart from 
 the interest which, as a scholar, he took in 
 the expedition, to the success of which, by his 
 familiarity with the Arabic language, and ability 
 to converse freely with the monks and the 
 Arabs, he so largely contributed. 
 
 The company, when fairly in line of march, 
 made a caravan of thirteen camels, an impres- 
 sive sight in the solitudes which they traversed, 
 where, during eight days, for the most part the 
 foot rests only on a waste of yellow sand, if 
 we except the beautiful palm-groves of the 
 Wady Feiran, which has been called the Para- 
 dise of the Sinaitic Peninsula, where the ruins 
 of the ancient city of Paran are still to be 
 seen, flanking the line of Arab gardens and 
 palm-trees.
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. IQ 
 
 On the eighth day they reached the great 
 plain of Er-rahah, which lies like an amphi- 
 theatre at the base of the Mountain of the 
 Law ; and after realizing and admiring its 
 perfect adaptation to the scenes described in 
 the book of Exodus, they rode across it un- 
 til on the side of the mountain the convent 
 came in view, the green of its garden with 
 the contrasted hues of the almond and the 
 cypress furnishing an exquisite sense of delight 
 to eyes that, with the exception of the Wady 
 Feiran, had for many days seen no green thing. 
 
 A letter from the patriarchate of Jerusalem 
 had preceded the travellers ; and when they 
 reached the convent the gates were open, and 
 a warm welcome awaited them. Pilgrims and 
 visitors are always kindly received by these 
 good brethren on Mount Sinai, though it must 
 be admitted that scholars are looked on with
 
 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 somewhat jealous eyes since the day when 
 Tischendorf borrowed from them the greatest 
 of their treasures and safely transferred it to 
 the care of the Emperor of all the Russias. 
 In the present case the travellers were content 
 with the ink-horns that they carried, and the 
 photographic apparatus which was amongst 
 their baggage. They knew pretty well that 
 the time for the alienation of manuscripts from 
 the convents in which they lie is over. 
 
 Most persons who exercise their imagination 
 as to the library and books of the convent on 
 Mount Sinai have but a faint idea of what is 
 involved in these terms. Perhaps they remem- 
 ber that it has been reported that there is a 
 waste-paper basket in the convent into which 
 the greatest treasures have a habit of being 
 thrown, and they have also a vague idea that 
 there are a few books or parchments roughly
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. 21 
 
 preserved and little understood. How surprised 
 they would be on visiting the convent to be 
 ushered by the scholarly librarian, who knows 
 the date of a Greek MS. better than most wes- 
 tern scholars, into a library patterned after those 
 of Europe, with glass cases and a catalogue, 
 and on the central table a facsimile of the 
 great MS. which they once possessed. When 
 the visitor has looked around over the treasures 
 in this room, he will find, if he is conversant 
 with the literature of the Greek church, that 
 this library is after all only a show-room ; the 
 MSS. being all of a late date, and few of them 
 earlier than the twelfth century. He will then, 
 if he is wise, do what my husband did, and 
 ask to be shown something a little older. 
 Mount Sinai has many libraries, just as it has 
 many chapels : and in particular there is one 
 room which is filled with large chests in which
 
 ArOLOGY OF AKISTIDES. 
 
 are stored away the more precious of the 
 ancient Greek MSS. of the convent, waiting 
 for the time when the monks shall be financially 
 able to give them such a building and such 
 housing as their age and dignity deserve. 
 Amongst these precious treasures my husband 
 began immediately to transcribe, collate and 
 photograph, as fast as he obtained from the 
 learned librarian, Galaktion, the various 
 treasures which were in his keeping. After 
 he had spent some days in this work, the 
 librarian one morning gave him an invitation 
 to accompany him to another part of the con- 
 vent, with a significant intimation that there 
 were other things to be seen ; so they traversed 
 the narrow passages and stairs of the convent 
 until they reached a door closed by a large 
 padlock — it was rusty, as if no one had recently 
 passed that way ; and when it was removed, the
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. 23 
 
 door opened into a narrow room, of some length, 
 the walls of which were lined with Oriental 
 books in the Syriac, Arabic and Iberian 
 languages. Into the examination of these 
 books he immediately plunged, and it was not 
 very long before he had detected in a volume 
 of tracts on ethical subjects, a translation of 
 the long-lost Apology of Aristides. It is 
 needless to say that a great part of the 
 remaining time of his sojourn in the convent 
 was spent in the transcription, photographing, 
 and preliminary study of this precious second- 
 century record. 
 
 In about three weeks from their first en- 
 trance, after having received uniformly the 
 greatest courtesy from the monks, the party 
 started for the return journey to Suez, being 
 accompanied for a day's march on the home- 
 ward route b}' Photius, the exiled patriarch of
 
 24 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Jerusalem, who was at that time a prisoner of 
 honour in the convent. 
 
 Such is in brief the story of the discovery of 
 the Apology of Aristides, as far as it concerns 
 the expedition made by my husband and Mr. 
 BHss to the great storehouse of Christian 
 antiquities at Mount Sinai (a storehouse which 
 probably contains many other treasures of the 
 same nature, yet to be recovered). 
 
 But there is a further tale to be told, which is 
 deeply interesting and closely connected. My 
 husband's friend and co-labourer, Mr. Armitage 
 Robinson, being familiar with the translation 
 of the Apology while the work was going 
 through the press, found in a library at Vienna 
 the Latin translation of a certain early Christian 
 Greek romance called " The Life of Barlaam 
 and Josaphat." While reading this, he tells us, 
 " I stumbled across words which recalled the
 
 THE CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE. 25 
 
 thought of Aristides. Turning back to the 
 beginning of a long speech, I found the words : 
 ' Ego, rex, providentia Dei veni in mundum ; 
 et considerans caelum et terram, mare et solem, 
 et lunam, et cetera, admiratus sum ornatum 
 eorum.'" He immediately sought the Greek 
 original of the Latin text, and the discovery 
 at once followed that the writer of this romance 
 had embedded a large portion of the original 
 of Aristides' Apology within its pages, and so 
 Christendom had for long really possessed what 
 it supposed to be lost ; but so completely 
 absorbed had it been, quoted not only without 
 reference to its true author, but without the 
 smallest approach to quotation marks, that its 
 disguised condition could never have been 
 guessed at but for the Sinaitic MS., which 
 released it from its prison and claimed it as a 
 brother, nay, an elder brother, for the Apology
 
 26 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDLS. 
 
 was undoubtedly written first in Greek. For 
 a full account of the romance in which it was 
 found, and also for scholarly elucidations of the 
 text, I must refer the reader to the Appendix 
 of the Cambridge edition of the Apology.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 
 
 The doctrinal portions of the Apology are 
 
 very brief and not distinctly formulated, the 
 
 reason doubtless being that the writer did not 
 
 make it his object to give an exhaustive 
 
 description of the Christian faith, but rather to 
 
 antagonise and refute the current opinions of 
 
 the philosophical world. Thus his opening 
 
 words, which abruptly begin the defence, are 
 
 a reply to the tenets of the Greek philosopher 
 
 Anaxagoras, of whom it is related that upon 
 
 one occasion, being asked why he had come 
 
 into being, he replied that it was with a view 
 27
 
 28 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 to the contemplation of the sun, moon, and 
 stars. Aristides puts himself beside Anaxa- 
 goras, contemplates with him their order and 
 beauty, and goes on to assert that their Builder 
 and Maker is the God of the Christians. We 
 see there that his presentation of Christianity 
 is a philosophical one, and this explains why 
 it is so different from other expositions of both 
 ancient and modern times. Aristides gives us, 
 however, reason to believe (as has been pointed 
 out in the University Edition of the text), from 
 the sequence of certain well-known Christian 
 sentences, that he was acquainted with a 
 Christian creed, in form something like the 
 following, the certain portions of which are in 
 italics : — ■ 
 
 We believe in one God, Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth ;
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 29 
 
 And in Jesus Christ His Son, 
 
 * ^ H= ^ 
 Who was born of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 * -Sf * * 
 
 He ivas pierced by the Jeivs ; 
 He died and Zc>as buried ; 
 The third day He rose again ; 
 He ascended into Heaven : 
 
 * -Jt * * 
 
 He is about to come to judge. 
 >s * * * 
 
 After all, perhaps, we ought not to regard a 
 document as doctrinally meagre which furnishes 
 us with so many important sentences ; nor is 
 the testimony which they furnish to the early 
 Christian belief in our Lord a hesitating one. 
 His Person was evidently the central point of 
 faith ; and the words which describe that
 
 30 AFOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Person are clear and explicit ; the trumpet 
 gives no uncertain sound, though its notes may 
 be few : they ring upon our ears to-day as 
 clearly as when first uttered ; they carry us 
 back to the time when the noble apologist, 
 perhaps at the risk of his own life, addressed 
 them to the pagan emperor. For this fearless 
 fidelity to his Lord, and to the common faith 
 in its most vital point, the Church of the nine- 
 teenth century owes him a debt of the deepest 
 gratitude. 
 
 " It is said that God came down from heaven, 
 and from a Hebrew virgin took and clad 
 Himself with flesh : and in a daughter of man 
 there dwelt the Son of God." 
 
 This simple statement is thoroughly in 
 harmony with the formula evolved in the heat 
 of battle two centuries later, upon which the 
 Church still leans, and from which it has
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 3 I 
 
 learned neither to confound the Persons nor to 
 divide the substance of the Triune God. 
 
 Even if we grant the omission of the word 
 " God " from the first clause, on the ground 
 that it is not found in the Greek text of the 
 Apology, as it is absorbed and worked over in 
 the romance of Barlaam and Josaphat, the 
 meaning of the passage is unchanged : for the 
 orthodox faith is not Sabellian,^ confounding 
 the persons of the Father and the Son ; nor 
 do we wish to prove the incarnation of the 
 Father. " TJie Son of God',' as in the last clause 
 (neither an angel nor one of the ancient pro- 
 phets restored to earth as the Jews afterwards 
 imagined), " came doivn from heaven " : here 
 
 ' SabelHus, who died about a.d. 260, taught that Father, 
 Son, and Spirit were only various manifestations of the 
 Logos or Word. Consequently after the ascension of 
 Jesus He had no further personality.
 
 32 ATOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 the pre-existence of Jesus as heavenly, and His 
 incarnation through a Hebrew maiden in whom 
 He, the Son of God, dwelt, is asserted ; and 
 what more could be wished than these clear 
 words ? Pages of amplification or explanation 
 would hardly add to their force. 
 
 It is a matter for great comfort to us in a 
 time when so many earnest and conscientious 
 seekers after truth say that the doctrine of the 
 Divinity of Christ (as expressed to the ordinary 
 comprehension of mankind in the Gospel story 
 of His birth from the Virgin Mary) cannot be 
 maintained or believed, to find that in the 
 early Church this doctrine was the keystone 
 of the faith, and that the latest discoveries of 
 patristic science add cumulative evidence to 
 this fact. We think it will not be foreign to 
 our subject if we give some further instances in 
 proof of this statement.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 33 
 
 On the walls of many of the ancient build- 
 ings which modern excavations have brought 
 to light in Rome are scratchings or graffiti, 
 made in many instances by careless hands, 
 and recording most unintentionally the current 
 idle thought of the day. 
 
 In the year 1857, one of these graffiti was 
 discovered in the excavated ruins of the 
 " Domus Gelotiana," a building annexed to the 
 imperial palace of the Csesars by Caligula, 
 which, after his death, became a residence for 
 the court pages. It is scratched over with 
 boyish ebullitions of delight at escape from the 
 mperial elementary school which preceded their 
 entrance into the palace ; and this particular 
 scratching to which we allude represents a 
 caricature of our Lord upon the Cross. He is 
 personified as a rude figure with a donkey's 
 head, and the arms outstretched ; below is the 
 
 3
 
 34 ArOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 figure of a worshipper with upHfted' hands, and 
 the legend 
 
 " Alexamenos worships [his] God." 
 
 This, says M. Lanciani, professor of Archaeo- 
 logy in the University of Rome, was designed 
 only a few years after the preaching of the 
 Gospel in Rome by the apostles ; probably 
 about A.D. 70. It is the earliest non-apostoli- 
 cal testimony to the divinity and sufferings ot 
 Christ. How little the young Roman scoffer, 
 as he scratched his caricature to annoy a fellow- 
 page in Caesar's household, imagined that his 
 work would in after ages bear such invaluable 
 testimony to the faith he scorned ! 
 
 Again, we may refer to the early tract called 
 " The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," which 
 was discovered by Archbishop Bryennios, in 
 1873, i" ^ collection of writings at Constanti- 
 nople, and given by him to the world in 1883.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 35 
 
 This tract is supposed to belong to the closing 
 years of the first century. It is very Jewish in 
 character, differing greatly in this and in other 
 particulars from Aristides, but it agrees with 
 it in the central doctrine. Thus, in treating 
 of the subject of baptism, the tract twice uses 
 the formula general in Christendom, saying : 
 
 " When ye have first recited all these 
 things, baptize into the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, in living water." 
 
 The linking of the name of the Son between 
 Father and Holy Spirit, sufficiently indicates 
 that some understanding of the Three in One 
 was an article of the early faith ; for who would 
 dare to intrude a merely human name, however 
 beloved, into the very Shekinah glory, or to 
 separate the Eternal Father from the Holy
 
 36 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Spirit by the interposition of a creaturely pre- 
 sence, however exalted ? 
 
 There is another ilkistration of this belief in 
 the same document in the use of the expression, 
 
 " Hosanna to the God of David." 
 
 It is startling certainly, and Bryennios was 
 so perplexed by it that he changed it into the 
 more likely expression, 
 
 " Hosanna to the Son of David." 
 But the former stands in the original text, and 
 the passage in which it occurs is purely Mes- 
 sianic, so that no doubt remains as to what it 
 was intended to imply. 
 
 If again we carry dovv-n our examination of 
 the evidence of recently recovered books and 
 monuments into the tfme which immediately 
 follows the Apology of Aristides, we have in the 
 recovered " Diatessaron " or Harmony of the
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 3/ 
 
 Four Gospels, made by Tatian, another most 
 important early Christian light on this great 
 subject ; the work to which we allude having 
 been recently published in an Arabic version 
 by a learned scholar attached to the Vatican 
 Library. 
 
 Tatian was a pupil of Justin Martyr, and 
 his work dates from near the middle of the 
 second century. His teacher, whose well-known 
 Apologies are almost contemporary with Aris- 
 tides, declares expressly the orthodox faith in 
 many passages. A single illustration may be 
 given where, referring to the Old Testament 
 Scriptures, he says : "In these books of the 
 prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as 
 coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man's 
 estate, and healing every disease, and every 
 sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated 
 and unrecognised, and crucified, and dying and 
 
 421462
 
 38 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 rising again, and ascending into heaven, and 
 being, and being called, the Son of God." 
 
 Taught by Justin in Rome, Tatian, who was 
 a native of Mesopotamia, returned to his native 
 land, and inspired with the desire to help his 
 countrymen in the knowledge of the true faith, 
 he made a " Harmony of the Gospels " for the 
 use of the Syrian Church. It is not, however, 
 a Harmony in the modern sense, but a com- 
 plete Gospel story, into which our four gospels 
 are very skilfully interwoven, without any very 
 great regard to the sequences of the accounts 
 of the separate evangelists. 
 
 This Harmony is not as yet translated into 
 English, and therefore is not accessible to the 
 general public, but it is a satisfaction to know 
 that it is in the hands of scholars ; and that it 
 adds one more proof to those already estab- 
 lished of the fact that the gospel of John was
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 39 
 
 current and canonical early in the second cen- 
 tury ; for Tatian used this gospel almost in its 
 entirety ; and he opens his " Diatessaron " with 
 verses from its first chapter, followed by St. 
 Luke's account of the nativity, which is given 
 in full. 
 
 These, then, are some of the latest witness- 
 bearers to the faith of the early Church which 
 have been brought to the front by modern 
 research ; and they are in full accord with the 
 hitherto known writings of the apostolic fathers: 
 (i) the scratching on the wall of Caesar's palace 
 about A.D. 70 ; (2) the Didache or teaching of 
 the apostles a few years later ; (3) the Apology 
 of Aristides, of which we are treating ; and (4) 
 the long-lost " Diatessaron " of Tatian. They 
 are all of them intensely interesting, as being 
 new, living, and powerful testimonies out of the 
 silence of the ages, and they all proclaim, as
 
 40 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 with one voice, the pre-existence and incarna- 
 tion of the Word of God. 
 
 Closely Hnked with the doctrine of the in- 
 carnation, the Apology of Aristides presents 
 us with that of the resurrection and ascension 
 of our Lord. This is what we should natu- 
 rally expect ; for the great facts of the 
 Gospel are almost always believed or rejected 
 together. 
 
 Of other doctrines, there is not much to say 
 Aristides is distinctly non-Jewish in his words 
 concerning the Deity. He denies to God anger 
 and wrath, and also declares that " He asks no 
 sacrifice and no libation, nor any of the things 
 that are visible." Whether this is meant to be 
 understood in reference to Jewish as well as 
 Pagan sacrifices we do not know ; but if not 
 in opposition to the Mosaic ritual, we may at 
 least be certain that he regarded all such forms
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 4I 
 
 of worship as belonging to the past, and as 
 devoid of all authority over the believers in the 
 new revelation. 
 
 The doctrine of the forgiveness of sins is 
 stated inferentially in the latter portion of the 
 Apology, where it is said of the unbelieving 
 world around, " And when it chances that one 
 of them turns, he is ashamed before the Chris- 
 tians of the deeds that are done by him ; and 
 he confesses to God, saying, ' In ignorance I did 
 these 'things ' ; and He cleanses his heart, and 
 his sins are forgiven him, because he did them 
 in ignorance in former time, when he was blas- 
 pheming and reviling the true knowledge of 
 the Christians." 
 
 The reference to future rewards and punish- 
 ments is both concise and explicit. Of the 
 former he says : '' And they labour to become 
 righteous as those that expect to see their
 
 42 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Messiah, and receive from Him the promises 
 made to them with great glory. But their 
 sayings and their ordinances, O King, and the 
 glory of their service, and the expectation of 
 their recompense of reward according to the 
 doing of each one of them, which they expect 
 in another world, thou art able to know from 
 their writings." 
 
 Of the punishment of the wicked and the 
 general judgment, we have the following state- 
 ments : " And if again they see that one of 
 their number has died in his iniquity or in his 
 sins, over this one they weep bitterly and sigh, 
 as over one who is about to go to punishment " : 
 and again, " Let all those then approach to 
 the gateway of light, who do not know God, 
 and let them receive incorruptible words, those 
 which are so always and from eternity ; let 
 them therefore anticipate the dread judgment
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGY. 43 
 
 which is to come by Jesus the Messiah upon 
 the whole race of men." 
 
 Nothing is said by Aristides explicitly with 
 regard to the books of the New Testament ; 
 but it is evident from passages already quoted 
 that certain Scriptures were in common use 
 among them. One such reference is found in 
 the opening sentence of the description of the 
 Christians : " Now the Christians, O King, by 
 going about and seeking, have found the truth ; 
 and as we have comprehended from their 
 writings, they are nearer to the truth and to 
 exact knowledge than the rest of the people." 
 Again : " And truly this is a new people, and 
 there is something divine mingled with it. 
 Take noiv tJieir writings and read in them ; 
 and lo ! ye will find that not of myself have 
 I brought these things forward, nor as their 
 advocate have I said them, but as I have read
 
 44 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 in their writings, these things I firmly believe 
 and those things which are to come." 
 
 This concludes our reference to the doctrinal 
 portion of the Apology. Very much is omitted 
 that we should have rejoiced to have heard 
 explained ; especially we regret that there is 
 no allusion to the work of the Holy Spirit in 
 the dispensation of the Gospel ; and no account 
 of the spiritual gifts of the members of the 
 early Church. But perhaps these did not come 
 within the immediate scope of the Apology, 
 and in any case, we are deeply thankful for his 
 clear testimony to the central points of the 
 Faith.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 There can be no greater pleasure to the truly 
 Christian soul than to contemplate a picture 
 of daily life such as Aristides has presented to 
 us. It is one to be studied carefully, and not 
 to be passed by with a cursory glance ; and 
 as we take clause by clause and meditate upon 
 it, we find its beauty grow upon us until we 
 are amazed at the fulness and sweetness of 
 what at first sight seemed of small moment. 
 How weary we are of being told, and of telling 
 one another, that the doctrines of the Gospel
 
 46 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 of Christ, and the ethics of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, have been and are untranslatable 
 into human life except in a very small degree, 
 or in the very rarest cases by apostles, saints, 
 and martyrs ! How ashamed of the reproach 
 of the heathen world which the practice of 
 nominal Christianity too often brings upon the 
 name of our Lord ! How we long to be 
 assured that no great gulf need exist between 
 the purity of His teaching and the daily illus- 
 tration of human life. Yet who, writing of 
 Christianity in our day, would venture on such 
 a description as the one before us, a descrip- 
 tion the simple dogmatism of which startles 
 and charms us, proving that to the apprehen- 
 sion of Aristides no such gulf existed. 
 
 And first we would notice how assuredly 
 and fearlessly Aristides uses the words, " They 
 do," and " They do not." " They do good to
 
 ETHICS. 47 
 
 those who are their neighbours." " They do 
 good to their enemies." " They do not bear 
 false witness." " They do not deny a deposit." 
 " They do not (marvel of marvels) covet what 
 is not theirs ! " " Whatever they do not wish 
 that others should do to them, they do not 
 practise towards any one." Again, " Falsehood 
 is not found among them ! " It is a strain 
 upon our faith, even in a life so far removed 
 from our own time and so near that of the 
 Gospel history that the charm of distance from 
 the one, and the halo of nearness to the other, 
 hangs over it, to credit all these statements, 
 and especially the last ; but of what avail is 
 the witness, put by the good providence of 
 God into the witness-stand before us, unless 
 we resolve to accept his statement as true ; 
 surely otherwise the loss will be ours ! No 
 falsehood then (within at any rate the inner-
 
 48 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 most circle), no covetousness, no false witness, 
 and good done alike to friends and foes ! Is 
 not this a wonderful picture for us to contem- 
 plate ? 
 
 But besides these positive statements there 
 are touches of great delicacy in the delineation 
 of certain points. In connection with the 
 forgiveness of injuries there is a very noticeable 
 one. " Those who grieve them they comfort 
 and make them their friends." The Greek 
 word here used has two meanings — to comfort 
 and to exhort. Either might be used, though 
 the latter would be more commonplace and 
 obviously appropriate ; but the Syrian translator 
 has chosen the former meaning, for the word 
 he employs has only this sense. This seems to 
 imply that there has been repentance on the 
 part of the one who has sinned. For it is hard 
 to see how one continuing in obduracy could
 
 ETHICS. 49 
 
 be comforted ; but assuming that this has taken 
 place, how beautifully does this fulfil the 
 thought of the Sermon on the Mount ; and 
 how perfect the forgiveness — to comfort not 
 only those that mourn, but those that have 
 made you mourn ! To comfort, not simply 
 to turn from the transgression and seek to 
 forget it, but to comfort the transgressor lest 
 he should be swallowed up of over much 
 sorrow ! 
 
 This refinement of feeling comes out again 
 strongly in the following sentences: "But the 
 good deeds which they do, they do not proclaim 
 in the ears of the multitude, and they take care 
 that no one shall perceive them, and hide their 
 gift as he who has found a treasure and hides 
 it ! " There is a delicacy in these touches and 
 in others which show how deeply those 
 Aristides describes had drunk into the spirit 
 
 4
 
 50 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 of their Master. They are flowers of grace 
 the fragrance of which has come to us un- 
 diminished by time. 
 
 But leaving generalities such as these, let 
 
 us see how they acted in the second century 
 with reference to the social conditions peculiar 
 
 to their times, as well as those which always 
 
 form a part of human life. And first with 
 
 respect to slavery. 
 
 I. Slavery. 
 
 In the ordinary Roman and Greek house- 
 hold the life of the slave was an intolerable 
 one. M. de Pressense says : ^ " The worst 
 consequence of ancient slavery was not the 
 amount of suffering which it entailed, great 
 though that often was, but the degradation 
 of the whole nature, and so to speak the 
 
 ' " Life and Practice in the Early Church," p. 422.
 
 ETHICS. 51 
 
 destruction of the moral personality. The 
 wrong done to the soul and conscience of the 
 slave is nothing short of murder, even when 
 materially his position is most favourable. 
 . . . He is in no way recognised as a man. 
 He is but a thing, a chattel that may be 
 passed from hand to hand. ... In the 
 eye of the civil law he has no rights. . . , 
 When he stole, he was treated like the dog 
 who robbed his master's yard." He was not 
 permitted any rights as husband or father. 
 " His only law, morality, conscience, was the 
 will of his master " ; and " death was a lesser 
 evil than the ignominy which was the common 
 lot of the female slaves." "The servile head 
 has no rights " ^ was the pagan sentiment. 
 And so utterly downtrodden as they were, is 
 
 ' Cf. Poste : " Elements of Roman Law," p. 64.
 
 52 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 it strange that slavery was an element of the 
 utmost danger in pagan society ? — that the 
 slave took his revenge by vice and intrigue, 
 and that so hatred of the intensest kind severed 
 the ruling and tyrannical from the slave classes 
 — of course with occasional exceptions ? 
 
 Now contrast with this state of things the 
 close fellowship and sympathy set forth in 
 the picture before us. " As for their servants 
 or handmaids . , . they persuade them to 
 become Christians for the love they have to- 
 wards them, and when they have become so 
 tJiey call them zvitJiout distinction brethrenl 
 Thus they cut the Gordian knot of servitude 
 without effort, and by the sword of the Spirit, 
 remembering doubtless the words, " One is 
 your Master, even Christ, and all ye are 
 brethren." On this point Aristides, in illus- 
 trating the spirit of Christian love, goes be-
 
 ETHICS. 53 
 
 yond the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 
 which says, " Thou shalt not command thy 
 bondservant or thine handmaid in thy bitter- 
 ness, who trust in the same God as thyself, 
 lest haply they should cease to fear the God 
 who is over both of you ; for He cometh, 
 not to call men with respect of persons, but 
 He cometh to those whom the Spirit hath 
 prepared. But ye servants shall be subject 
 unto your masters, as to a type of God, in 
 shame and fear." ^ 
 
 ' Outward human relationship they did not 
 seem to regard very much, so engrossed were 
 they in the new spiritual tie which bound 
 them to each other. " They do not call 
 brothers those who are after the flesh, but 
 those who are in the spirit and in God. The 
 
 ' Lightfoot's "Apostolic Fathers," p. 231.
 
 54 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 words of our Lord, " Who is my mother, and 
 who are my brethren ? " with the answer 
 " Whoso doeth the will of my Father in heaven, 
 the same is my mother, sister, brother," and 
 that more sombre prophecy — " Brother shall de- 
 liver brother to death " — were fresh in memory, 
 and experience had verified them ; for in the 
 persecutions through which the Church had 
 already passed when Aristides wrote, division of 
 sentiment in households had meant the utmost 
 danger to those holding the true faith, so that 
 a believing slave might be a brother in word 
 and deed, and a father or brother after the flesh 
 might be the most dangerous of enemies. In 
 the history of the martyrdom of Perpetua and 
 Felicitas (in the year 203 A.D.) both these 
 altered relationships were illustrated, for while 
 Perpetua was a patrician lady, her sister in the 
 faith and in martyrdom was a slave ; and on
 
 ETHICS. 55 
 
 the other hand, to her own father's tears and 
 prayers that she should have pity on his white 
 hairs and save her life by renouncing her faith, 
 she turned a deaf ear, grieving, as she says, 
 for his wretched old age, but utterly ignoring 
 that paternal authority which, in the pagan 
 Roman family, was paramount. 
 
 This was a phase of life, peculiarly belong- 
 ing to the stormy periods of the propagation 
 of the Gospel and consequent persecutions — 
 and w^hen families were scarcely ever likely 
 to be quite united. Happily for humanity, it 
 was not intended to be the rule, and Christi- 
 anity, instead of disintegrating, only beautifies 
 and intensifies natural family ties. But the 
 law still holds good, that these ties are blessed 
 only as they are " in the Lord," and thus 
 the spiritual relationship is now, as then, the 
 strongest and best.
 
 56 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 II. The Care of the Poor. 
 
 Wherever a vital Christianity exists, one of 
 its first duties is ever felt to be, the care of 
 its own poor. And this comes out very 
 clearly in the Apology. Orphanages, alms- 
 houses, hospitals, and all the many organized 
 charities of our own day were then unknown, 
 but the small beginning from which sprang such 
 great systems for relieving the needy and suffer- 
 ing as we see around us, and which are the 
 honour of the Church to-da}', is clearly to be 
 recognised. The charity of the Church dealt 
 especially with widows and orphans, according 
 to Scriptural example and direction ; " From 
 the widows they do not turn away their coun- 
 tenance ; and they rescue the orphan from him 
 who does him violence, and he who has gives 
 to him who has not without grudging " ; and 
 " when one of their poor passes away from
 
 ETHICS. 57 
 
 the world and any of them sees him, then he 
 provides for his burial according to his ability ; 
 and if they hear that any of their number is 
 imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their 
 Messiah, all of them provide for his needs." 
 In these expressions we see evidence of much 
 individual kindness, and some signs of collec- 
 tive effort ; though perhaps the latter is hardly 
 of so decided a character as we read of in 
 Paul's writings where regular gifts and united 
 Church care of the poor are clearly indicated 
 and enjoined. 
 
 But if the almsgiving of these brethren was 
 personal rather than organized, it was beauti- 
 fully self-sacrificing and communistic. " And 
 if there is among them one that is poor and 
 needy, and they have not an abundance of 
 necessaries, they fast two or three days that 
 they may supply the needy with their neces-
 
 58 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 sary food." Doubtless this means more than 
 the mere subtraction of superfluities ; it may 
 not be an absolute, but it is evidently a very 
 real fast that is here meant. It is possible 
 that they were conversant with the rules given 
 in the " Shepherd of Hermas," and especially 
 with a remarkable passage in one of his Par- 
 ables, which runs as follows : " This fasting," 
 saith the angel, " if the commandments of the 
 Lord are kept, is very good. This then is the 
 way that thou shalt keep this fast which thou 
 art about to observe. First of all, keep thyself 
 from every evil word and every evil desire, and 
 purify thy heart from all the vanities of this 
 world. If thou keep these things, this fast shall 
 be perfect for thee. And thus shalt thou do. 
 Having fulfilled what is written, on that day 
 on which thou fastest thou shalt taste nothing 
 but bread and water ; and from thy meats,
 
 ETHICS. 59 
 
 which thou wouldest have eaten, thou shalt 
 reckon up the amount of that day's expendi- 
 ture which thou wouldst have incurred, and 
 shalt give it to a widow or an orphan, or to 
 one in want, and so shalt thou humble thy 
 soul, that he that hath received from thy 
 humiliation may satisfy his own soul and may 
 pray for thee to the Lord. If then thou shalt 
 so accomplish this fast as I have commanded 
 thee, thy sacrifice shall be acceptable in the 
 sight of God, and this fasting shall be recorded, 
 and the service so performed is beautiful and 
 joyous and acceptable to the Lord." ^ 
 
 Therefore one meal a day of bread and 
 water is likely to be what is here alluded to, 
 and truly, however wise it may be to avoid 
 ascetic practices generally for fear of their 
 
 ^ Lightfoot's "Apostolic Fathers," p. 445.
 
 60 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 abuse, surely nothing but what is praiseworthy 
 can be found in such a self-abnegation inspired 
 by the care for others ; which yet, since it was 
 only for two or three days at a time, was not 
 in the least likely to injure the health of those 
 fasting, or impair their usefulness in other 
 ways. " It is not necessary," says M. de 
 Pressense, " to have an abundance of this 
 world's goods in order to show this practical 
 charity. Often the humble Christian whose 
 own wants are barely supplied can forego his 
 bread for the sake of those who are poorer 
 still." 
 
 But besides care for the sick, the imprisoned, 
 and the poor widows and orphans, a new 
 character was bestowed by Christianity upon 
 the duties of hospitality enjoined by the 
 Apostle Paul. " When they see the stranger, 
 they bring him to their dwellings and rejoice
 
 ETHICS. 6l 
 
 over him as over a true brother." The pagan 
 idea embraced no such duty. The hospitaHty 
 of the Christians (we again quote M. Pres- 
 sense's work) is far larger than that of the 
 ancients. " The latter was chiefly confined to 
 the family circle ; the stranger could claim no 
 welcome there merely as a fellow-man. Para- 
 sites indeed played a conspicuous part at 
 feasts, and paid for their entertainment by 
 flatteries and jests, and honoured and honour- 
 able guests were of course from time to time 
 received ; but Christian hospitality was at once 
 far larger and far simpler. From what- 
 ever barbarous country he might have come, 
 his welcome was like that of the angel in 
 the tent of Abraham. He at once found his 
 place at the table and at the domestic altar. 
 . . . When the Agape was made distinct 
 from the public worship, it was celebrated in
 
 62 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 private houses, and every day the poor found 
 a place at the family table of their richer 
 neighbours." 
 
 The spirit of praise amid their uncertain 
 earthly surroundings and often exceeding 
 poverty, is also a beautiful and attractive feature 
 of early Christian life. " Every morning and 
 at all hours, on account of the goodness of God 
 towards them, they praise and laud Him ; and 
 over their food and over their drink they render 
 Him thanks." If we may accept this as mean- 
 ing that they lived in a thankful spirit, and 
 used some form of grace before meals, we may 
 hope that it is still the custom of the Chris- 
 tian Church generally ; but if it means that they 
 vocally praised and lauded at all hours, then, 
 once more, how far are we from this joyous and 
 fearless habit of life ? Pressense says on the 
 authority of Clement of Alexandria (though
 
 ETHICS. 6^ 
 
 not in an exact quotation), ^ " There is no lack 
 of joy at the table of the Christians, for the 
 family has its lawful feasts, but the joy is calm 
 and pure. . . . All voices join in the praise 
 of God from the father to the little child. 
 They sing to the harp as in the time of David- 
 A cheerful mirth prevails." 
 
 III. TJie position of ivoinan. 
 
 There are only two sentences in the Apology 
 which throw light on the altered condition of 
 woman in the Christian society, and these two 
 refer only to the purity of their private lives, 
 telling us nothing of their place in the Church 
 during its hours of worship, or of their work 
 outside the limits of their own homes in visit- 
 ing the sick and afflicted. We know, however, 
 from other sources, and especially from the 
 
 ^ " Life and Practice," p. 407.
 
 64 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 writings of Tertullian, that they performed a 
 large amount of Christian work of a semi- 
 public character ; but as this is not referred 
 to by Aristides, it is not within our present 
 scope. " Their wives, O King," he says, " are 
 pure as virgins, and their daughters modest." 
 Purity was not a common characteristic of the 
 feminine portion of society around them ; but 
 vice everywhere was triumphant, and so per- 
 meated daily life that it was contamination 
 for the Christian maiden even to step outside 
 her own threshold. Neither matron nor maiden 
 could escape the knowledge of evil in that 
 corrupt world, but amid its darkness their 
 purity shone forth with dazzling brightness. 
 Not at the brilliant feast or theatre or circus, 
 where Greek and Roman ladies loved to dis- 
 play themselves and to seek amusement, were 
 these women to be seen, but threading the
 
 ETHICS. 65 
 
 poorest and narrowest streets on the way to 
 prison, the place of worship, or some needy 
 home, carrying food and cheer, dressed in the 
 most unassuming costume, and probably 
 closely veiled. We assume this latter point ; 
 for Clement of Alexandria gives the following 
 directions for a Christian woman's public attire : 
 " Let her be entirely covered, unless she 
 happens to be at home. For that style of 
 dress is grave and protects her from being 
 gazed at. And she will never fall, who sets 
 before her eyes modesty — and Jier shaivl. For 
 this is the wish of the Word, since it is be- 
 coming for her to pray veiled." 
 
 Clement lived so near to the time of our 
 Apologist, that we may safely infer from the 
 rules which he gives for female conduct, the 
 practice of the generation that preceded him. 
 
 The picture of married life in the early 
 
 5
 
 66 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Church, which is suggested by the rapid sketch 
 of Aristides, is one that is indicative of do- 
 mestic harmony and love and peace. Such a 
 picture is drawn over again by another almost 
 contemporary hand in the pages of Tertullian, 
 who in his address to his wife gives us some 
 beautiful sentences, which we may, if we please, 
 regard as a commentary upon Aristides as a 
 text. 
 
 "What kind of yoke," says Tertullian, "is that 
 of two believers partakers of one hope, one 
 desire, one discipline, one and the same service ? 
 Both are brethren, both fellow-servants, no dif- 
 ference of spirit or of flesh ; nay, they are truly 
 two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one 
 is the spirit also. Together they pray, together 
 prostrate themselves, together perform their 
 fasts ; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, 
 mutually sustaining. Equally are they found
 
 ETHICS. 67 
 
 in the Church of God ; equally at the banquet 
 of God ; equally in straits and persecutions ; 
 in refreshments. Neither hides ought from 
 the other ; neither shuns the other. The sick 
 is visited, the indigent relieved with freedom. 
 . . . Between the two echo psalms and 
 hymns, and they mutually challenge each other 
 which shall better chant to their Lord. Such 
 things, when Christ sees, He joys. To these 
 He sends His own peace. Where two are 
 there withal is He Himself. Where He is, 
 there the evil one is not." 
 
 IV. Oil the practice of prayer. 
 
 In chapter xvi. we find one sentence on the 
 subject of prayer, and that is all in the whole 
 Apology, but it is in keeping with the char- 
 acter of the rest of the tract ; and how compre- 
 hensive it is !
 
 68 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 " As men who know God they ask from Him 
 petitions which are proper for Him to give and 
 for them to receive, and thus they accompHsh 
 the course of their Hves." 
 
 The Apostle John says, " If we ask any- 
 thing according to His will, He heareth us," 
 etc. 
 
 Aristides implies that Christians in his day 
 knew so well what not to pray for — that what 
 they did ask was in accordance with the Divine 
 will, and therefore they were not confused and 
 puzzled as so many in our own day, at the 
 large amount of unanswered prayer. Careless 
 and formal, or else selfish praying, unanswered 
 of course, naturally saps the spring of faith in 
 the human soul, and then it is easy to say, 
 " I cried, but there was none to answer," — an 
 experience at the bottom of a great deal of 
 professed agnosticism. The early Christians
 
 ETHICS. 69 
 
 thought more about the true conditions for 
 successful praying and consequently were more 
 habitually successful. Tertullian ^ gives some 
 very practical thoughts on the subject, as well 
 as some most eloquent passages. He says that 
 no one will pray successfully if he is in a state 
 of anger. " That we may not be as far from 
 the ears of God as we are from His precepts, 
 the memory of His precepts paves for our 
 prayers a way unto heaven, of which precepts 
 the chief is that we go not up unto God's altar 
 before we compose whatever of discord or 
 offence we have contracted with our brethren. 
 For what sort of deed is it to approach the 
 peace of God without peace ? — the remission 
 of debts while you retain them ? How will 
 he appease His father, who is angry with his 
 
 ' Tertullian, •' On Prayer,'' ch. xi.
 
 JO APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 brother, when from the beginning all anger is 
 forbidden us ? " 
 
 " For what has God, who exacts it, ever denied 
 to prayer coming from spirit and truth ? How 
 mighty specimens of its efficacy do we read 
 and hear, and beheve ! Old-world prayers, 
 indeed, used to free men from fires, and from 
 beasts, and from famine, and yet it had not 
 then received its form from Christ. But how 
 far more operative is Christian prayer ! . . . 
 It washes away faults, repels temptations, 
 extinguishes persecutions, consoles the faint- 
 spirited, cheers the high-spirited, escorts travel- 
 lers, appeases waves, makes robbers stand aghast, 
 nourishes the poor, governs the rich, upraises 
 the fallen, arrests the falling, confirms the stand- 
 ing. Prayer is the wall of faith ; her arms are 
 missiles against the foe who keeps watch over 
 us on all sides. And so never walk we un-
 
 ETHICS. 71 
 
 armed. Under the arms of prayer guard we 
 the standard of our General ; await we in 
 prayer the angel's trump." ^ 
 
 V. Funeral Custovis. 
 
 These happy Christians, praising and lauding 
 God over their hard fare if poor, or around 
 the hospitable board if rich, or in prison for 
 their Messiah's name, or fasting for love of one 
 another, while all the time rejoicing in the 
 blessing of continually answered prayer, were 
 not daunted at the approach of death, nor did 
 they give way to undue grief when one of 
 their number entered the portals of light. " If 
 any righteous person of their number passes 
 away from the world, they rejoice and give 
 thanks to God, and they follow his body as 
 
 ' Ibid., ch. xxix.
 
 72 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 if he were moving from one place to another." 
 The inconsistency of the customary mourning 
 habits of the Christian world to-day, with its 
 professed belief, must often strike the thought- 
 ful mind. We believe that our beloved have 
 entered into joy " unspeakable and full of glory," 
 and we make this blessedness of theirs the 
 signal for garments of woe ! More logical in 
 action were these simple folk, and less selfish ; 
 more able to turn from the brief earthly loss, 
 and to rejoice in the happiness of the loved one 
 who had moved from one place in his Father's 
 house to another purer and brighter ! They 
 laid aside by a Divine instinct the whole para- 
 phernalia of mourning which they saw around 
 them — " the sackcloth and ashes and rent 
 garments of the Jew^s, and the black apparel 
 of the Romans ; and the mourners hired to
 
 £thics. 7 3 
 
 wail, both of eastern and western nations." ^ 
 Hired mourners were indeed forbidden. In- 
 stead of the cypress, as indicative of i^rief 
 palm and olive branches were carried in the 
 funeral company and adorned the funeral 
 chamber, and leaves of laurel and ivy, as sig- 
 nifying victory, were placed in the coffin with 
 strewn flowers. 
 
 The burning of the bodies of the dead was 
 forbidden as sacrilegious ; not that it mattered 
 to the dead what was done with the out-worn 
 garment of the flesh ; but because, holding the 
 doctrine of the resurrection body as strongly as 
 they did, they wished to avoid the appearance of 
 that which seemed to contradict it. The prepar- 
 ation of the body for interment was undertaken 
 by the relations and friends of the deceased, for 
 
 ^ Backhouse & Tylor's "Early Ch. Hist.," p. iSo.
 
 74 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 only hands of love might touch the form that 
 had so lately been the shrine of a beloved 
 spirit. All signs of violent grief were strongly 
 discouraged, and everything done to stimulate 
 the bereaved ones to dwell on the joy of the 
 enfranchised soul. " To myself also," said 
 Cyprian, only a little later than the bright 
 period we are considering, " how often has 
 it been revealed that our brethren who are 
 freed from the world by the Lord's summons 
 are not to be lamented, since we know 
 that they are not lost, but sent before ; that 
 departing from us, they precede us as travel- 
 lers, as navigators are accustomed to do ; 
 that they should be desired, but not bewailed ; 
 that the black garments should not be taken 
 upon us here, when they have already taken 
 upon them white raiment there ; that occasion 
 should not be given to the Gentiles for them
 
 ETHICS. 75 
 
 deservedly and rightly to reprehend us that 
 we mourn for those who, we sa}^ are alive with 
 God, as if they were extinct and lost. . . . 
 There is no advantage in setting forth virtue 
 by our words, and destroying the truth by our 
 deeds." ^ 
 
 And a little further on in the same discourse, 
 referring to the writings of the Apostle Paul, 
 Cyprian adds, "He^ says that those have sorrow 
 in the departure of their friends, who have no 
 hope. But we who live in hope, and believe 
 in God, and trust that Christ suffered for us 
 and rose again, abiding in Christ and through 
 Him and in Him rising again, why either are 
 we ourselves unwilling to depart hence from 
 this life, or do we bewail and grieve for our 
 
 ' Cyprian, " On The Mortality," ch. xx. 
 ^ Ibid.^ ch. xxi.
 
 y^ APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 friends when they depart, as if they were lost, — 
 when Christ Himself, our Lord and God, en- 
 courages us, and says, " I am the resurrection 
 and the life ; he that believeth in Me, though 
 he die yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in me shall not die eternally"? 
 
 It was therefore the rule that instead of 
 black clothes men wore the dress at burial 
 services which they wore at feasts ; and where- 
 as the Romans chose night as the fitting oc- 
 casion for consigning to the dust or the flames 
 the remains of those who had left the pre- 
 cincts of the cheerful day for the shades below. 
 Christians boldly — -in the interims of persecu- 
 tion — buried in the day time, as again for- 
 shadowing the unchanging day into which 
 their departed had entered, and carried forth 
 their dead as in a triumph, singing hymns 
 of thanksgiving and praise, such as, " Precious
 
 ETHICS. -J-J 
 
 in the sight of tlic Lord is the death of His 
 saints," or, "Turn again, O my soul, for the 
 Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee " ; or 
 again, " The souls of the righteous are in the 
 hand of God, and there shall no torment 
 touch them." ^ 
 
 ^ For this and preceding information, see " Diet, of 
 Christ. Antiq.," on the Burial of the Dead.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES, TRANSLATED 
 FROM THE SYRIAC. 
 
 Again, the apology which Aristides the 
 philosopher made before Hadrian the king 
 concerning the worship of God. 
 
 [To the Emperor] Caesar Titus Hadrianus 
 Antoninus Augustus Pius, from Marcianus 
 Aristides, a philosopher of Athens. 
 
 I. I, O King, by the grace of God came 
 into this world ; and having contemplated the 
 heavens and the earth and the seas, and be- 
 held the sun and the rest of the orderly 
 
 creation, I was amazed at the arrangement of 
 
 78
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 79 
 
 the world ; and I comprehended that the world 
 and all that is therein are moved by the 
 impulse of another, and I understood that He 
 that moveth them is God, who is hidden in 
 them and concealed from them : and this is 
 well known, that that which moveth is more 
 powerful than that which is moved. And that 
 I should investigate concerning this Mover of 
 all, as to how He exists — for this is evident 
 to me, for He is incomprehensible in His 
 nature — and that I should dispute concerning 
 the stedfastness of His government, so as to 
 comprehend it fully, is not profitable for me ; 
 for no one is able perfectly to comprehend it. 
 But I say concerning the Mover of the world, 
 that He is God of all, who made all for the 
 sake of man ; and it is evident to me that 
 this is expedient, that one should fear God, 
 and not erieve man.
 
 8o APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 Now I say that God is not begotten, not 
 made ; a constant nature, without beginning 
 and without end ; immortal, complete, and in- 
 comprehensible : and in saying that He is 
 complete, I mean this : that there is no de- 
 ficiency in Him, and He stands in need of 
 nought, but everything stands in need of Him ; 
 and in saying that He is without beginning, 
 I mean this : that everything which has a 
 beginning has also an end ; and that which 
 has an end is dissoluble. He has no name ; 
 for everything that has a name is associated 
 with the created ; He has no likeness, nor 
 composition of members ; for he who pos- 
 sesses this is associated with things fashioned. 
 He is not male, nor is He female : the 
 heavens do not contain Him ; but the heavens 
 and all things visible and invisible are con- 
 tained in Him. Adversary He has none ;
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 8 1 
 
 for there is none that is more powerful than 
 He ; anger and wrath He possesses not, for 
 there is nothing that can stand against Him. 
 Error and forgetfulness are not in His nature, 
 for He is altogether wisdom and understand- 
 ing, and in Him consists all that consists. He 
 asks no sacrifice and no libation, nor any 
 of the things that are visible ; He asks not 
 anything from any one ; but all ask from 
 Him. 
 
 H. Since then it has been spoken to you 
 by us concerning God, as far as our mind 
 was capable of discoursing concerning Him, 
 let us now come to the race of men, in order 
 that we may know which of them hold any 
 part of that truth which we have spoken con- 
 cerning Him, and which of them are in orror 
 therefrom. 
 
 This is plain to you, O king, that there are 
 
 6
 
 82 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 four races of men in this world ; Barbarians 
 and Greeks, Jews and Christians. 
 
 Now the Barbarians reckon the head of the 
 race of their rehgion from Kronos and from 
 Rhea and the rest of their gods : but the 
 Greeks from Helenus, who is said to be from 
 Zeus ; and from Helenus was born Aeolus and 
 Xythus, and the rest of the family from Ina- 
 chus and Phoroneus ; and last of all from 
 Danaus the Egyptian, and from Kadmus and 
 from Dionysus. 
 
 Moreover the Jews reckon the head of their 
 race from Abraham, who begat Isaac, from 
 whom was born Jacob, who begat twelve sons, 
 who removed from Syria and settled in Egypt, 
 and there were called the race of the Hebrews 
 by their lawgiver : but at last they were named 
 Jews. 
 
 The Christians, then, reckon the beginning
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 83 
 
 of their religion from Jesus Christ, who is 
 named the Son of God most High ; and it is 
 said that God came down from heaven, and 
 from a Hebrew virgin took and clad Himself 
 with flesh, and in a daughter of man there 
 dwelt the Son of God. This is taught from 
 that Gospel which a little while ago was 
 spoken among them as being preached ; where- 
 in if ye also will read, ye will comprehend the 
 power that is upon it. This Jesus, then, was 
 born of the tribe of the Hebrews ; and He had 
 twelve disciples, in order that a certain dispen- 
 sation of His might be fulfilled. He was 
 pierced by the Jews ; and He died and was 
 buried ; and they say that after three days 
 He rose and ascended to heaven ; and then 
 these twelve disciples went forth into the 
 known parts of the world, and taught concern- 
 ing His greatness with all humility and so-
 
 84 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 briety ; and on this account those also who 
 to-day believe in this preaching are called 
 Christians, who are well known. There are 
 then four races of mankind, as I said before, 
 Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians. 
 
 To God then ministers wind, and to angels 
 fire ; but to demons water, and to men earth. 
 
 III. Let us then begin with the Barbarians, 
 and by degrees we will proceed to the rest 
 of the peoples, in order that we may under- 
 stand which of them hold the truth concerning 
 God, and which of them error. 
 
 The Barbarians then, inasmuch as they did 
 not comprehend God, erred with the elements ; 
 and they began to serve created things instead 
 of the Creator of them,^ and on this account 
 they made likenesses and they enclosed them 
 
 ' Rom. i. 25.
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 85 
 
 in temples ; and lo ! they worship them and 
 guard them with great precaution, that their 
 gods may not be stolen by robbers ; and the 
 Barbarians have not understood that whatso 
 ever watches must be greater than- that which 
 is watched ; and that whatsoever creates must 
 be greater than that whatever is created : if so 
 be then that their gods are too weak for their 
 own salvation, how will they furnish salvation 
 to mankind ? The Barbarians then have erred 
 with a great error in worshipping dead images 
 which profit them not. And it comes to me 
 to wonder also, O king, at their philosophers, 
 how they too have erred and have named 
 gods those likenesses which have been made 
 in honour of the elements ; and the wise men 
 have not understood that these very elements 
 are corruptible and dissoluble ; for if a little 
 part of the element be dissolved or corrupted,
 
 86 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 all of it is dissolved and corrupted. If then 
 these elements are dissolved and corrupted, 
 and compelled to be subject to another harder 
 than themselves, and are not in their nature 
 gods, how can they call gods those likenesses 
 which are made in their honour ? Great then 
 is the error which their philosophers have 
 brought upon their followers. 
 
 IV. Let us turn then, O king, to the 
 elements themselves, in order that we may 
 show concerning them that they are not gods, 
 but a creation, corruptible and changeable, 
 which is in the likeness of man.^ But God 
 is incorruptible, and unchangeable, and in- 
 visible, while seeing, turning and changing 
 all things. 
 
 Those therefore who think concerning earth 
 
 ' Rom. i. 23.
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC, 87 
 
 that it is God have already erred, since it is 
 digged and planted and delved ; and since it 
 receives the defilement of the excrement of 
 men and of beasts and of cattle : and since 
 sometimes it becomes what is useless ; for if 
 it be burned, it becomes dead, for from baked 
 clay there springs nothing : and again, if 
 water be collected on it, it becomes corrupted 
 along with its fruits : and lo ! it is trodden on 
 by men and beasts, and it receives the im- 
 purity of the blood of the slain ; and it is 
 digged and filled with the dead and becomes 
 a repository for bodies : none of which things 
 can that holy and venerable and blessed and 
 incorruptible nature receive. And from this 
 we have perceived that the earth is not God, 
 but a creature of God. 
 
 V. And in like manner again have those 
 erred who have thought concerning water that
 
 8S APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 it is God. For water was created for the 
 use of man, and in many ways it is made 
 subject to him. For it is changed, and re- 
 ceives defilement, and is corrupted, and loses 
 its own nature when cooked with many things, 
 and receives colours which are not its own ; 
 being moreover hardened by the cold, and 
 mixed and mingled with the excrement of 
 men and beasts and with the blood of the 
 slain : and it is compelled by workmen, by 
 means of the compulsion of channels, to flow 
 and be conducted against its own will, and 
 to come into gardens and other places, so 
 as to * * * * * wash 
 
 away all defilement, and supply man's need of 
 itself. Wherefore it is impossible that water 
 should be God, but it is a work of God and 
 a part of the world. 
 
 So too those have erred not a little who
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 89 
 
 thought concerning fire that it is God : for it 
 too was created for the need of men : and in 
 many ways it is made subject to them, in the 
 service of food and in the preparation of 
 ornaments and the other things of which 
 your majesty is aware : whilst in many ways 
 it is extinguished and destroyed. 
 
 And again, those who have thought con- 
 cerning the blast of winds that it is God, 
 these also have erred : and this is evident to 
 us, that these winds are subject to another, 
 since sometimes their blast is increased and 
 sometimes it is diminished and ceases, accord- 
 ing to the commandment of Him who sub- 
 jects them. Since for the sake of man they 
 were created by God, in order that they might 
 fulfil the needs of trees and fruits and seeds, 
 and that they might transport ships upon the 
 sea ; those ships which bring to men their
 
 90 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 necessary things, from a place where they are 
 found to a place where they are not found ; 
 and furnish the different parts of the world. 
 Since then this wind is sometimes increased 
 and sometimes diminished, there is one place 
 in which it does good and another where it 
 does harm, according to the nod of Him who 
 rules it : and even men are able by means 
 of well-known instruments to catch and coerce 
 it that it may fulfil for them the necessities 
 which they demand of it : and over itself 
 it has no power at all ; wherefore it is not 
 possible that winds should be called gods, 
 but a work of God. 
 
 VI. So too those have erred who have 
 thought concerning the sun that he is God. 
 For lo ! we see him, that by the necessity of 
 another he is moved and turned and runs his 
 course ; and he proceeds from degree to de-
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 9 1 
 
 grce, rising and setting every day, in order 
 that he may warm the shoots of plants and 
 shrubs, and may bring forth in the air which 
 is mingled with him every herb which is 
 on the earth. And in calculation the sun has 
 a part with the rest of the stars in his course, 
 and although he is one in his nature, he is 
 mixed with many parts, according to the 
 advantage of the needs of men : and that not 
 according to his own will, but according to 
 the will of Him that ruleth him. Wherefore 
 it is not possible that the sun should be God, 
 but a work of God ; and in like manner also 
 the moon and stars. 
 
 VII. But those who have thought con- 
 cerning men of old, that some of them are 
 gods, these have greatly erred : as thou, even 
 thou, O king, art aware, that man consists of 
 the four elements and of soul and spirit, and
 
 92 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 therefore is he even called World, and apart 
 from any one of these parts he does not exist. 
 He has beginning and end, and he is born 
 and also suffers corruption. But God, as I 
 have said, has none of this in His nature, 
 but He is unmade and incorruptible. On 
 this account, then, it is impossible that we 
 should represent him as God who is man by 
 nature, one to whom sometimes, when he 
 looketh for joy, grief happens ; and for laugh- 
 ter, and weeping befalls him ; one that is 
 passionate and jealous, envious and regretful, 
 along with the rest of the other defects : and 
 in many ways more corrupted than the ele- 
 ments or even than the beasts. 
 
 And thence, O king, it is right for us to 
 understand the error of the Barbarians, that, 
 whereas they have not investigated concern- 
 ing the true God, they have fallen away from
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 93 
 
 the truth and have gone after the desire of 
 their own mind, in serving elements subject 
 to dissolution, and dead images : and on 
 account of their error they do not perceive 
 who is the true God. 
 
 VIII. Let us return now to the Greeks, 
 in order that we may know what opinion 
 they have concerning the true God. 
 
 The Greeks, then, because they are wiser than 
 the Barbarians, have erred even more than the 
 Barbarians, in that they have introduced many 
 gods that are made ; and some of them they 
 have represented as male and some of them as 
 female ; and in such a way that some of their 
 gods were found to be adulterers and murderers 
 and jealous and envious, and angry and pas- 
 sionate, and murderers of fathers, and thieves 
 and plunderers. And they say that some of 
 them were lame and maimed ; and some of
 
 94 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 them wizards, and some of them utterly mad ; 
 and some of them played on harps ; and 
 some of them wandered on mountains ; and 
 some of them died outright ; and some were 
 struck by lightning, and some were made 
 subject to men, and some went off in flight, 
 and some were stolen by men ; and lo ! some 
 of them were wept and bewailed by men ; 
 and some they say, went down to Hades. 
 
 :}; H^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 And of some of their goddesses they say that 
 they contended about beauty, and came for 
 judgment before men. The Greeks, then, O 
 king, have brought forward what is wicked, 
 ridiculous, and foolish concerning their gods 
 and themselves ; in that they called such like 
 persons gods, who are no gods : and hence men 
 have taken occasion to commit adultery and 
 fornication, and to plunder and do everything
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 95 
 
 that is wicked and hateful and abominable. 
 For if those who are called their gods have 
 done all those things that are written above, 
 how much more shall men do them who believe 
 in those who have done these things ! and 
 from the wickedness of this error, lo ! there 
 have happened to men frequent wars and 
 mighty famines, and bitter captivity and de- 
 privation of all things : and lo ! they endure 
 them, and all these things befall them from 
 this cause alone : and when they endure them, 
 they do not perceive in their conscience that 
 because of their error these things happen to 
 them. 
 
 * -Jr ;): :.; ^; 
 
 XII. Now the Egyptians, because they are 
 more evil and ignorant than all peoples upon 
 the earth, have erred more than all men. For 
 the worship of the Barbarians and the Greeks
 
 g6 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 did not suffice them, but they introduced also 
 the nature of beasts, and said concerning it 
 that they were gods : and also of the creeping 
 things which are found on the dry land and 
 in the waters, and of the plants and herbs 
 they have said that some of them are gods, 
 and they have become corrupt in all madness 
 and impurity more than all peoples that are 
 upon the earth. For of old time they wor- 
 shipped I sis ; and they say that she forsooth is 
 a goddess, who had forsooth a husband Osiris, 
 lier brother ; but when, forsooth, Osiris was 
 killed by his brother Typhon, Isis fled with her 
 son Horus to Byblos in Syria, and was there for 
 a certain time until that her son was grown : 
 and he contended with his uncle Typhon and 
 killed him, and thereupon Isis returned and 
 went about with her son Horus, and was 
 seeking for the body of Osiris her lord, and
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 97 
 
 bitterly bewailing his death. If, therefore, Isis 
 be a goddess, and was not able to help Osiris, 
 her brother and lord, how is it possible that she 
 should help others? whereas it is impossible 
 that the divine nature should be afraid and 
 flee, or weep and wail. Otherwise it is a great 
 misfortune. 
 
 But of Osiris they say that he is a god, a 
 beneficent one ; and he was killed by Typhon, 
 and could not help himself; and it is evident 
 that this cannot be said of Deity. 
 
 And again they say of Typhon, his brother 
 that he is a god, a fratricide, and slain by his 
 brother's son and wife, since he was unable to 
 help himself And how can one who does 
 not help himself be a god ? 
 
 Now because the Egyptians are more igno- 
 rant than the rest of the peoples, these and 
 the like gods did not suffice them, but they 
 
 7
 
 98 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 also put the name of gods on the beasts which 
 are merely soulless. For some men among 
 them worship the sheep, and others the calf; 
 and some of them the pig, and others the 
 shad-fish ; and some of them the crocodile, and 
 the hawk, and the cormorant, and the kite, 
 and the vulture, and the eagle, and the crow ; 
 some of them worship the cat, and others the 
 fish Shibbuta ; some of them the dog, and 
 some of them the serpent, and some the asp, 
 and others the lion, and others garlic, and 
 onions, and thorns, and others the leopard, 
 and the like. 
 
 And the poor wretches do not perceive with 
 regard to all these things that they are nought ; 
 while every day they look upon their gods, 
 who are eaten and destroyed by men, yea 
 even by their own fellows ; and some of them 
 being burned, and some of them dying and
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 99 
 
 putrifying and becoming refuse ; and they do 
 not understand that they are destroyed in 
 many ways. 
 
 And accordingly the Egyptians have not 
 understood that the Hke of these are not gods, 
 since their salvation is not within their own 
 power ; and if they are too weak for their own 
 salvation, then, as regards the salvation of their 
 worshippers, pray whence will they have the 
 power to help them ? 
 
 XIII. The Egyptians then have erred with 
 a great error, above all peoples that are upon 
 the face of the earth. But it is a matter of 
 wonder, O king, concerning the Greeks, where- 
 as they excel all the rest of the peoples in 
 their manners and in their reason, how thus 
 they have gone astray after dead idols and 
 senseless images : while they see their gods 
 sawn and polished by their makers, and cur-
 
 lOO ArOLOGV OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 tailed and cut and burnt and shaped and 
 transformed into every shape by them. And 
 when they are grown old and fail by the 
 length of time, and arc melted and broken 
 in pieces, how is it that they do not under- 
 stand concerning them that they are not gods ? 
 i\nd those who have not ability for their own 
 preservation, how will they be able to take 
 care ot men ? But even the poets and philo- 
 sophers among them being in error, have in- 
 troduced concerning them that they are gods, 
 things like these which are made for the 
 honour of God Almighty ; and being in error, 
 they seek to make them like to God, as to 
 whom no man has ever seen to whom He is 
 like, nor is he able to see Him ; ^ and to- 
 gether with these things they introduce con- 
 
 ^ I Tim. vi. 16.
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. lOI 
 
 cerning Deity as if it were that deficiency 
 were found with it, in that they say that He 
 accepts sacrifice and asks for burnt-offering 
 and Hbation and murders of men and temples. 
 But God is not needy, and none of these 
 things is sought for by Him : and it is clear 
 that men are in error in those things that 
 they imagine. But their poets and philosophers 
 introduce and say, that the nature of all their 
 gods is one ; but they have not understood 
 of God our Lord, that while He is one. He 
 is yet in all. They, then, are in error ; for 
 if, while the body of man is many in its parts, 
 no member is afraid of its fellow, but whilst 
 it is a composite body, all is on an equality 
 with all : so also God who is one in His 
 nature has a single essence proper to Him, 
 and He is equal in His nature and His 
 essence, nor is He afraid of Himself. If,
 
 102 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 therefore, the nature of the gods is one, it is 
 not proper that a god should persecute a god, 
 nor kill, nor do him that which is evil. 
 
 If then gods were persecuted and transfixed 
 by gods, and some of them were carried off 
 and some were struck by lightning, it is clear 
 that the nature of their gods is not one, and 
 hence it is clear, O king, that that is an 
 error which they speculate about the nature 
 of their gods, and that they reduce them to 
 one nature. If then it is proper that we should 
 admire a god w4io is visible and does not see, 
 how much more is this worthy of admiration, 
 that a man should believe in a nature which 
 is invisible and all-seeing ! and if again it is 
 right that a man should investigate the works 
 of an artificer, how much more is it right that 
 he should praise the Maker of the artificer !
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. IO3 
 
 For as for the histories of their gods, some 
 of them are myths, some of them physical, 
 and some hymns and songs : the hymns and 
 songs, then, are empty words and sound ; and 
 as to the physical, if they were done as they 
 say, then they are not gods, since they have 
 done these things and suffered and endured 
 these things : and these myths are flimsy 
 words, altogether devoid of force. 
 
 XIV. Let us come now, O king, also to the 
 history of the Jews, and let us see what sort 
 of opinion they have concerning God. The 
 Jews then say that God is one, Creator of all 
 and almighty : and that it is not proper for 
 us that anything else should be worshipped, 
 but this God only : and in this they appear 
 to be much nearer to the truth than all the 
 peoples, in that they worship God more ex- 
 ceedingly and not His works ; and they imitate
 
 I04 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 God b}^ reason of the love which they have 
 for man ; for they have compassion on the 
 poor and ransom the captive and bury thq 
 dead, and do things of a similar nature to 
 these : things which arc acceptable to God 
 and are well-pleasing also to men, things 
 which they have received from their fathers 
 of old. Nevertheless they too have gone 
 astray from accurate knowledge, and they 
 suppose in their minds that they are serving 
 God, but in the methods of their actions their 
 service is to angels and not to God, in that 
 they observe sabbaths and new moons and the 
 passover and the great fast, and the fast, and 
 circumcision, and cleanness of meats : which 
 things not even thus have they perfectly ob- 
 served. 
 
 XV. Now the Christians, O king, by going 
 about and seeking, have found the truth, and
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. I05 
 
 as wc have comprehended from their writings, 
 they are nearer to the truth and to exact 
 knowledge than the rest of the peoples. For 
 they know and beheve in God, the Maker of 
 heaven and earth, in whom are all things and 
 from whom are all things : He who has no 
 other god as His fellow : from whom they 
 have received those commandments which they 
 have engraved on their minds, which they keep 
 in the hope and expectation of the world to 
 come ; so that on this account they do not 
 commit adultery nor fornication, they do not 
 bear false witness, they do not deny a deposit 
 nor covet what is not theirs : they honour 
 father and mother ; they do good to those 
 who are their neighbours, and when they are 
 judges they judge uprightly ; and they do not 
 worship idols in the form of man ; and what- 
 ever they do not' wish that others should do
 
 I06 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 to them, they do not practise towards any 
 one/ and they do not eat of the meats of 
 idol sacrifices, for they are undefiled : and 
 those who grieve them they comfort, and make 
 them their friends ; and they do good to their 
 enemies : and their wives, O king, are pure 
 as virgins, and their daughters modest : and 
 their men abstain from all unlawful wedlock 
 and from all impurity, in the hope of the 
 recompense that is to come in another world : 
 but as for their servants or handmaids, or their 
 children, if any of them have any, they per- 
 suade them to become Christians for the love 
 that they have towards them ; and when they 
 have become so, they call them without dis- 
 tinction brethren : they do not worship strange 
 gods : and they walk in all humility and kind- 
 
 ' Cf. "Teaching of the Twelve nApostles," cc. 1-4.
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. 10/ 
 
 ness, and falsehood is not found among them, 
 and they love one another : and from the 
 widows they do not turn away their coun- 
 tenance : and they rescue the orphan from him 
 who does him violence : and he who has gives 
 to him who has not, without grudging ; and 
 when they see the stranger they bring him 
 to their dwellings, and rejoice over him as 
 over a true brother ; for they do not call 
 brothers those who are after the flesh, but 
 those who are in the spirit and in God : but 
 when one of their poor passes away from the 
 world, and any of them sees him, then he 
 provides for his burial according to his ability; 
 and if they hear that any of their number is 
 imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their 
 Messiah, all of them provide for his needs, 
 and if it is possible that he may be delivered, 
 they deliver him.
 
 I08 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 And if there is among them a man that is 
 poor or needy, and they have not an abun- 
 dance of necessaries, they fast two or three 
 days that they may supply the needy with 
 their necessary food. And they observe scru- 
 pulously the commandments of their Messiah : 
 they live honestly and soberly, as the Lord 
 their God commanded them : every morning 
 and at all hours on account of the goodnesses 
 of God toward them they praise and laud 
 Him ; and over their food and over their drink 
 they render Him thanks. And if any right- 
 eous person of their number passes away from 
 the world they rejoice and give thanks to God, 
 and they follow his body, as if he were moving 
 from one place to another : and when a child 
 is born to any one of them, they praise God ; 
 and if again it chance to die in its infancy, 
 they praise God mightily, as for one who has
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. IO9 
 
 passed through the world without sins. And 
 if again they see that one of their number 
 has died in his iniquity or in his sins, over 
 this one they weep bitterly and sigh, as over 
 one who is about to go to punishment : such 
 is the ordinance of the Christians, O king, and 
 such their conduct. 
 
 XVI. As men who know God, they ask from 
 Him petitions which are proper for Him to 
 give and for them to receive : and thus they 
 accomplish the course of their lives. And 
 because they acknowledge the goodnesses of 
 God towards them, lo ! on account of them 
 there flows forth the beauty that is in the world. 
 And truly they are of the number of those that 
 have found the truth by going about and seek- 
 ing it, and as far as we have comprehended, we 
 have understood that they only are near to the 
 knowledge of the truth.
 
 no APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 But the good deeds which they do, they do 
 not proclaim in the ears of the multitude, and 
 they take care that no one shall perceive them, 
 and hide their gift, as he who has found a 
 treasure and hides it.^ And they labour to 
 become righteous as those that expect to see 
 their Messiah and receive from Him the pro- 
 mises made to them with great glory. 
 
 But their sayings and their ordinances, O 
 king, and the glory of their service, and the 
 expectation of their recompense of reward, 
 according to the doing of each one of them, 
 which they expect in another world, thou art 
 able to know from their writings. It sufficeth 
 for us that we have briefly made known to your 
 majesty concerning the conversation and the 
 truth of the Christians. For truly great and 
 
 * Matt. xiii. 44.
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYR] AC. I I I 
 
 wonderful is their teaching to him that is will- 
 ing to examine and understand it. And truly 
 this people is a new people, and there is some- 
 thing divine mingled with it. Take now their 
 writings and read in them, and lo ! ye will find 
 that not of myself have I brought these things 
 forward nor as their advocate have I said them, 
 but as I have read in their writings, these things 
 I firmly believe, and those things also that are 
 to come. And therefore I was constrained to 
 set forth the truth to them that take pleasure 
 therein and seek after the world to come. 
 
 And I have no doubt that the world stands 
 by reason of the intercession of Christians. But 
 the rest of the peoples are deceived and de- 
 ceivers, rolling themselves before the elements 
 of the world, according as the sight of their 
 understanding is unwilling to pass by them ; 
 and they grope as if in the dark, because they
 
 I 1 2 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 arc unwilling to know the truth, and like 
 drunken men they stagger and thrust one 
 another and fall down. 
 
 XVII. Thus far, O king, it is I that have 
 spoken. For as to what remains, as was said 
 above, there are found in their other writings 
 words which are difficult to speak, or that one 
 should repeat them ; things which are not only 
 said, but actually done. 
 
 The Greeks, then, O king, because they 
 practise foul things, * -x- * ^^jj-,^ ^-j^g 
 ridicule of their foulness upon the Christians ; 
 but the Christians are honest and pious, and 
 the truth is set before their eyes, and they 
 are long-suffering ; and therefore while they 
 know their error and are buffeted by them, 
 they endure and suffer them : and more ex- 
 ceedingly do they pity them as men who are 
 destitute of knowledge : and in their behalf
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC. I I 
 
 they offer up prayers that they may turn 
 from their error. And when it chances that 
 one of them turns, he is ashamed before the 
 Christians of the deeds that are done by him : 
 and he confesses to God, saying, In ignorance 
 I did these things : and he cleanses his heart, 
 and his sins are forgiven him, because he did 
 them in ignorance in former time, when he 
 was blaspheming and reviling the true know- 
 ledge of the Christians. And truly blessed is 
 the race of the Christians, more than all men 
 that are upon the face of the earth. 
 
 Let the tongues of those now be silenced who 
 talk vanity, and who oppress the Christians, 
 and let them now speak the truth. For it is 
 better that they should worship the true God 
 rather than that they should worship a sound 
 without intelligence ; and truly divine is that 
 which is spoken by the mouth of the Christians,
 
 I 14 APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. 
 
 and their teaching is the gateway of h"ght. Let 
 all those then approach thereunto who do not 
 know God, and let them receive incorruptible 
 words, those which arc so always and from 
 eternity : let them, therefore, anticipate the 
 dread judgment which is to come by Jesus the 
 Messiah upon the whole race of men. 
 
 The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher is 
 ended. 
 
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