part of their religion : they commonly call themselves brothers and sisters, to make simple fornication become incest, by this sacred name. Certainly, if there were not such crimes among them, there would not be so loud a cry against them. The ceremony which they observe when they admit any one to their mysteries, is not less horrible because it is public. They place before the new comer an infant covered with paste, in order to conceal the murder which they will have him commit. At their bidding he gives it several stabs with a knife: the blood runs on all sides; they eagerly suck it up, and the common crime is the common pledge of silence and secrecy. I pass over many things designedly, and indeed here are already too many : and truly the darkness which they seek for their mysteries, is sufficient proof of all we say, or, at least, of the greater part of it. For why conceal all that they adore ? We are not afraid to publish what is proper: crimes only demand secrecy and silence.” In his reply, Octavius, instead of disclosing what is believed or practised in the Christian assemblies, simply repels the infamous calumnies. “I would now,” he says, “ address myself to those who say, or who believe, that the murder of an infant is the ceremony of introduction to our mysteries. Do you, then, think it possible, that a poor infant-a little body so tender, is destined to die beneath our violence; and that we shed the blood of a being newly born-as yet of improper form, and scarcely a human being ? Let those believe it who would be cruel enough to perpetrate it. You, indeed, expose your children to savage beasts and birds: as soon as they are born, you strangle and suffocate them. As to us, we are not allowed to see murders, nor to hear them: and blood so fills us with horror, that we do not even eat that of animals.” St. Justin and Athenagoras[1] are equally silent, and barely deny the charges.
- ↑ He addressed an Apology for the Christians to M. Aurelius and Commodus; and wrote a treatise on the Resurrection. Both are in the Bibl. Patrum.
