The New Gospel

Yes, there are still to come other spectacles — that last, that eternal Day of Judgment, that Day which the Gentiles never believed would come, that Day they laughed at, when this old world and all its generations shall be consumed in fire.  How vast the spectacle that day, and how wide!  What sight shall wake my wonder, what my laughter, my joy and exultation? as I see all those kings … groaning in the depths of darkness!  And the magistrates who persecuted the name of Jesus, liquefying in fiercer flames than they kindled in their rage against the Christians!  those sages, too, the philosophers blushing before their disciples as they blaze together, the disciples whom they taught that God was concerned with nothing … And, then, the poets trembling before the judgment-seat … of Christ, whom they never looked to see!  And then there will be the tragic actors to be heard, more vocal in their own tragedy; and the players to be seen, lither [agile] of limb by far in the fire.

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. 

While thus, then, we spread ourselves before God, let the hooks pierce us, the crosses suspend us, the fires play upon us, the swords gash our throats, the beasts leap on us.  The very posture of the Christian at prayer is readiness for any torture.  Go to it, my good magistrates, rack out the soul that prays to God for the Emperor. 

But what then have philosopher and Christian in common — the disciple of Greece and the disciple of heaven — the business of the one with reputation, of the other with salvation … the man who corrupts the truth, and the man who restores it and proclaims it — the thief of truth and its guardian? 

Do you not know that you are (each) an Eve?  The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too.  You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.  You destroyed so easily God’s image, man, On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.