CHAPTER XXX.

We offer for Caesar's welfare prayers to the True God in Whose power alone it is.

FOR we invoke on behalf of the emperor's welfare the Eternal God, the True God, the Living God, [96] Whom the emperors themselves also would rather have propitious to them than all the others. They know as emperors Who gave them their empire, and as men Who gave them life; they feel that He Alone is God, in Whose power alone they are; to Whom they are second, after Whom they are first, before all and above all gods. Why not? since they are above all men, who surely are alive and take precedence of the dead. They consider how far the strength of their own empire prevails, and so they have a correct conception of God; they acknowledge that they prevail through Him against Whom they cannot prevail. As a last argument let the emperor vanquish Heaven, let him lead it captive in his triumph, let him send garrisons there, and lay taxes on it. He cannot. His greatness then is consequent on his being less than Heaven. For he himself belongs to Him, Whose is both Heaven and every created thing. Thence is he an emperor whence he is also a man before being emperor: thence comes his power whence also is his spirit.

Thither we Christians look up with hands outstretched because guiltless, with head bare because we are not ashamed, and without a prompter because our prayers are from the heart: we all pray always for all emperors, for their long life, untroubled reign, safe house, strong armies, faithful senate, loyal people, quiet world, and whatever his wishes would be both as man and as Caesar. These things I can ask from no other than Him from Whom I know that I shall obtain them, since He Himself is the One Who [97] Alone grants them, and I am one to whom it is due that I should obtain what I ask,—I, His servant, who honour Him Alone, who for His religion am put to death, who offer to Him that rich and noble sacrifice which He commanded, prayer proceeding from a pure body, from an innocent mind, and from a pious spirit. I offer not a few grains of incense of trifling value, the tears of an Arabian tree, nor two drops of wine, nor the blood of a bull rejected and longing for death, and, after all these foul things, an impure conscience also, so that I wonder, when the sacrifices are inspected in your presence by your most polluted priests, why the hearts of the sacrificers themselves are not examined instead of those of the victims. So then, as we are stretching forth our hands to God, let your claws dig into us, your crosses suspend us, your fires burn us, your swords decapitate us, your wild beasts spring upon us : the very posture of a praying Christian is ready prepared for every kind of punishment. Pursue your course, excellent governors, and crush out the soul praying to God on the emperor's behalf. The prayer will only be criminal in the case where it is addressed to the True God, and is coupled with devotion to Him. [98]