1. I find interest and pleasure in frequent talk with you and in your provocative conversation, so, since you recently attacked me without unpleasantness and without disturbing our friendly relations, I make haste to give you back as good as you gave: otherwise you might have thought my silence implied a change of mind. But I beg you, if you consider my reply shows the stiffness of old age, to attend to it with a kindly ear. There is no sure evidence for the Greek fable that Mount Olympus is the dwelling-place of the gods, but we see and feel sure that the market-place of our own town is occupied by a crowd of beneficent deities. And indeed, who is so foolish, so mentally astray, as to deny the very certain truth that there is one supreme god, without beginning, without natural offspring, like a great and splendid father? His powers that permeate the universe he has made we call upon by many names, since to all of us his right name is of course unknown. For god is a name common to all cults, and so it is that while with differing prayers we pursue, as it were, his members piecemeal, we seem, in truth, to worship him entire.
1. Avens crebro tuis affatibus laetificari et instinctu tui sermonis, quod me paulo ante iucundissime salva caritate pulsasti, paria redhibere non destiti, ne silentium meum paenitudinem appellasses. Sed quaeso, ut. si haec quasi seniles artus esse duxeris, benignarum aurium indulgentia prosequaris. Olympum montem deorum esse habitaculum sub incerta fide Graecia fabulatur. At vero nostrae urbis forum salutarium numinum frequentia possessum nos cernimus et probamus. Et quidem unum esse deum summum sine initio, sine prole naturae ceu patrem magnum atque magnificum quis tam demens, tam mente captus neget esse certissimum? Huius nos virtutes per mundanum opus diffusas multis vocabulis invocamus, quoniam nomen eius cuncti proprium videlicet ignoramus. Nam deus omnibus religionibus commune nomen est. Ita fit, ut, dum eius quasi quaedam membra carptim variis supplicationibus prosequimur, totum colere profecto videamur.
2. But I cannot disguise my impatience with such a misconception as yours. For who could bear to see Miggo esteemed above Jove, wielder of thunderbolts, Saname above Juno, Minerva, Venus, and Vesta, and your head-martyr. Namphamo a (save the mark!), above all the immortal gods? Among these Lucitas is honoured with a cult hardly inferior: and others endless in number, names hateful to gods and men, who, villains that they were, and heaping crime on crime, met an end befitting their character and deeds, vaunting of their death as glorious though inwardly well aware of their unspeakable offences. Fools flock to their tombs, I'm ashamed to say, forsaking the temples and abandoning the worship of their ancestors, so that the prediction of the scornful bard is clearly fulfilled: And in God's temples Rome shall swear by shades. b This time seems to me to be almost another battle of Actium. in which the monsters of Egypt are daring to brandish against the Roman gods weapons doomed to speedy destruction.
2. Sed inpatientem me esse tanti erroris dissimulare non possum. Quis enim ferat Iovi fulmina vibranti praeferri Migginem, Iunoni. Minervae, Veneri Vestaeque Sanamem et cunctis, pro nefas! diis immortalibus archimartyrem Namphamonem? Inter quos Lucitas etiam haud minore cultu suspicitur atque alii interminato numero, diis hominibusque odiosa nomina, qui conscientia nefandorum facinorum specie gloriosae mortis scelera sua sceleribus cumulantes dignum moribus factisque suis exitum maculati reppererunt. Horum busta, si memoratu dignum est, relictis templis, neglectis maiorum suorum manibus stulti frequentant, ita ut praesagium vatis illius indigne ferentis emineat: inque deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras. Sed mihi hac tempestate propemodum videtur bellum Actiacum rursus exortum, quo Aegyptia monstra in Romanorum deos audeant tela vibrare minime duratura.
3. But I beg you. my learned friend, to reject, as unworthy of you, that vigorous eloquence which has brought you to universal fame, to abstain from those Stoic arguments that are your usual weapons, and to renounce for a while the logic which devotes all the strength of its sinews to robbing every man of certainty. Prove by the facts themselves who is that god whom you Christians claim as your peculiar property and whose presence you feign to see in secret places. a We indeed with reverent prayers worship our gods in daylight, openly before the eyes and ears of all mortals, and we earn their favour by acceptable sacrifices, taking pains to let our actions be seen and approved by everyone.
3. Sed illud quaeso, vir sapientissime, uti remoto facundiae robore atque exploso, qua cunctis clarus es, omissis etiam, quibus pugnare solebas, Chrysippeis argumentis postposita paululum dialectica, quae nervorum suorum luctamine nihil certi cuiquam re linquere nititur, ipsa re adprobes, qui sit iste deus, quem vobis Christiani quasi proprium vindicatis et in locis abditis praesentem vos videre componitis. Nos etenim deos nostros luce palam ante oculos atque aures omnium mortalium piis precibus adoramus et per suaves hostias propitios nobis efficimus et a cunctis haec cerni et probari contendimus.
4. But I am a feeble old man, so I withdraw from any further contest and gladly give my adherence to that sentiment of the eloquent Mantuan: Let each man be drawn by his own pleasure. b After this, my distinguished friend, seceder that you are from my own faith, I fully expect that some thieves will steal this letter and that it will be burned or otherwise destroyed. In that event, it will only be the papyrus that will be lost, not what I have said, for I shall for ever keep a copy of it accessible to all the devout. May the gods keep you! Through them all we mortals whom earth bears worship and adore in a thousand ways and with harmonious variance one who is the common father both of the gods and of all mortal men.
4. Sed ulterius huic certamini me senex invalidus subtraho et in sententiam Mantuani rhetoris libenter pergo: trahat sua quemque voluptas. Post haec non dubito, vir eximie, qui a mea secta deviasti, hanc epistulam aliquorum furto detractam flammis vel quolibet pacto perituram. Quod si acciderit, erit damnum chartulae, non nostri sermonis, cuius exemplar penes omnes religiosos perpetuo retinebo. Dii te servent, per quos et eorum atque cunctorum mortalium communem patrem universi mortales, quos terra sustinet, mille modis concordi discordia veneramur et colimus.