Tertullian, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The Apology is a plea entered before a court, and I wrote it as one. I address the Roman magistrates and put the case of the Christians as an advocate puts the case of a client who has been condemned unheard. Its first move is a complaint about procedure, and everything else rests on it. When any other criminal is charged, he may speak for himself or hire a pleader, and it is against the law to condemn a man undefended and unheard.1
Christians alone are forbidden to say anything in their own defence. All that is wanted is what public hatred demands, the confession of the name, and not an examination of the charge.1 You are not content to sentence a confessed murderer on his word; you probe how often, where, with whom, and by what means he did the deed. Nothing like this is done with us, though the tales told about us, murdered children and hidden incests, ought to have the same sifting.2
From this I draw the conclusion on which the whole defence turns. If you treat us differently from every other criminal, bent on one object only, taking our name from us, then it is plain that no crime is in the case, but only a name which a certain system, ever at war with the truth, pursues with its enmity.3 Your own tablet-lists convict you.
Why do you read out that a man is a Christian, and not also that he is a murderer or an incestuous man? In our case alone you are ashamed to mention the names of the crimes. No name of a crime stands against us, only the crime of a name.4 The absurdity is carried into the torture chamber. Other culprits you rack to force a confession, but when Christians confess freely, you apply the torture to make them deny.
You, who sit to extort the truth, demand falsehood from us alone.5 And yet on our denial you at once believe us and acquit us of the past, as though a man ceased to be a murderer by losing a name.4 That is no justice. It is hatred of an unknown thing, which refuses inquiry lest the charges it prefers to take on trust be proved baseless.3 So the Apology is my brief against a trial that is no trial.
I do not ask the judge for mercy. I ask him to be a judge, to hear, to examine, to sift, and I am confident that where the evidence is weighed the charge falls.
Christians alone are forbidden to say anything in exculpation of themselves, in defence of the truth, to help the judge to a righteous decision; all that is cared about is having what the public hatred demands-the confession of the name, not examination of the chargeThe Apology
Nothing like this is done in our case, though the falsehoods disseminated about us ought to have the same sifting, that it might be found how many murdered children each of us had tasted; how many incests each of us had shrouded in darknessThe Apology
there is no crime of any kind in the case, but merely a name which a certain system, ever working against the truth, pursues with its enmityThe Apology
No name of a crime stands against us, but only the crime of a name.Ad Nationes
You, who preside for the purpose of extorting truth, demand falsehood from us alone that we may declare ourselves not to be what we are.Ad Nationes