9:227
Ideo nos haec pati deus patitur. Nam et proxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos atrociorem omni poena et omni morte reputari. Nec quicquam tamen proficit exquisitior quaeque crudelitas vestra; illecebra est magis sectae. Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum. Multi apud vos ad tolerantiam doloris et mortis hortantur, ut Cicero in Tusculanis, ut Seneca in Fortuitis, ut Diogenes, ut Pyrrhon, ut Callinicus; nec tamen tantos inveniunt verba discipulos, quantos Christiani factis docendo. Illa ipsa obstinatio, quam exprobratis, magistra est.
因此,神容許我們受這些苦。因為不久前,你們把一位基督徒婦女判給拉皮條者、而非判給獅子,便已承認在我們中間,貞潔上的污點被視為比任何刑罰、任何死亡更為可怕。然而你們日益巧構的殘忍毫無效果;反倒成了對這信仰的吸引。我們每被你們刈割一次,人數便增多一次:基督徒的血是種子。你們中間有許多人勸勉人忍受痛苦與死亡,如西塞羅在《圖斯庫盧姆論辯》中,如塞內加在《論偶然遭遇》中,如第歐根尼、如皮浪、如卡利尼庫斯;然而他們的言辭所得的門徒,遠不及基督徒以行動教導所得的多。你們所指責我們的那種頑固,正是我們的女教師。
Therefore God permits us to suffer these things. For lately too, in condemning a Christian woman rather to the pander than to the lion, you confessed that among us a stain upon chastity is reckoned more dreadful than any penalty and any death. Yet nothing that your ever more ingenious cruelty devises avails anything; it is rather an enticement to the sect. We become more numerous as often as we are mown down by you: the blood of Christians is seed. Many among you exhort men to the endurance of pain and death, as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca in his Fortuitous Chances, as Diogenes, as Pyrrho, as Callinicus; and yet their words do not find so many disciples as the Christians find by teaching through their deeds. That very obstinacy which you reproach us with is our schoolmistress.
9:228
Quis enim non contemplatione eius concutitur ad requirendum, quid intus in re sit? Quis non, ubi requisivit, accedit, ubi accessit, pati exoptat, ut totam dei gratiam redimat, ut omnem veniam ab eo compensatione sanguinis sui expediat? Omnia enim huic operi delicta donantur. Inde est, quod ibidem sententiis vestris gratias agimus. Ut est aemulatio divinae rei et humanae, cum damnamur a vobis, a deo absolvimur.
因為誰不因思想此事而受激動,去探究這事的內裡究竟為何?誰一旦探究,不就前來;一旦前來,不就渴望受苦,好贖得神全部的恩典,好以自己血的代價換取祂完全的赦免?因為為了這工,一切過犯都得赦免。正因如此,我們在同一處為你們的判決獻上感謝。神的事與人的事之間有這樣的較量:當我們被你們定罪時,我們卻被神開釋。
For who is not stirred by the contemplation of it to inquire what really lies within the matter? Who, once he has inquired, does not draw near; and once he has drawn near, does not long to suffer, that he may purchase the whole grace of God, that he may procure from Him full pardon by the price of his own blood? For to this work all offences are forgiven. Hence it is that in the very same place we give thanks for your sentences. Such is the rivalry between the things of God and of men, that when we are condemned by you, we are absolved by God.