Second Apology 2

A certain woman lived with a husband who was licentious, and she herself had formerly been licentious. But when she came to know the teachings of Christ, she became self-controlled, and tried to persuade her husband likewise to be self-controlled, repeating the teachings and telling him of the punishment in eternal fire that will come on those who do not live with self-control and according to right reason. But he, continuing in the same debauchery, made his wife an enemy by his actions. For the woman, thinking it ungodly from then on to share the bed of a husband who sought every means of pleasure contrary to the law of nature and contrary to what is right, wished to be separated from the marriage. And when she was pressed by her family, who advised her to stay a while longer, in hope that her husband would some day change, she forced herself and stayed. But when her husband went to Alexandria and was reported to be behaving still worse, so that she might not become a partner in his wrongs and impieties by remaining in the marriage and sharing his table and his bed, she gave him what you call a repudium and was separated. But her fine and noble husband, who ought to have rejoiced that she had given up the things she once readily did with the servants and hired men, delighting in drunkenness and every vice, and wished him too to give them up, since she had left him against his will, brought an accusation against her, saying that she was a Christian. And she presented a petition to you, the emperor, asking first to be allowed to settle her affairs, and then to answer the accusation after settling them; and you granted this. And her former husband, since he could no longer say anything against her for the present, turned against a certain Ptolemaeus, whom Urbicus summoned, and who had been her teacher in the Christian teachings, in the following way. A centurion who had thrown Ptolemaeus into prison was his friend, and he persuaded him to take hold of Ptolemaeus and ask him this alone: whether he was a Christian. And Ptolemaeus, being a lover of truth and not deceitful or false in mind, confessed that he was a Christian, and the centurion had him put in chains and punished him for a long time in the prison. At last, when the man was brought before Urbicus, he was likewise asked this alone: whether he was a Christian. And again, conscious of the good he owed to the teaching of Christ, he confessed the school of divine virtue. For whoever denies anything either denies it because he condemns the thing, or avoids confessing it because he knows himself unworthy of it and a stranger to it; neither of which is true of the true Christian. And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away, a certain Lucius, who was also a Christian, seeing the judgment given so unreasonably, said to Urbicus: “What is the reason that you have punished this man, who is not convicted of being an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a murderer, or a clothes-thief, or a robber, or of any crime at all, but who confesses that he bears the name of Christian? You do not judge, Urbicus, in a way befitting the emperor called Pius, or the philosopher, Caesar's son, or the sacred senate.” And he, without answering anything else, said to Lucius, “You too seem to me to be one of them.” And when Lucius said, “Certainly,” he ordered him too to be led away. And he professed his thanks, knowing that he was being set free from such wicked masters and was going to the Father and King of the heavens. And a third man came forward and was also sentenced to be punished.