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because she feeleth no wonder at her condition. She knoweth that she liveth a stranger upon earth, that among aliens she easily findeth foes; but that she hath her birth, her home, her hope, her favour, and her worth in the heavens. One thing meanwhile she earnestly desireth, that she be not condemned unknown. If she be heard, what loss cometh thereby to the laws, supreme within their own dominion? Will not their power boast the more in this, that they will condemn Truth even when she hath been heard? But if they condemn her unheard, besides the ill-repute of injustice, they will merit also the suspicion of a certain consciousness, as being, namely, unwilling to hear that, which when heard, they could not condemn. This therefore we lay before you as the first argument for the injustice of your hatred towards the name of Christians. Which injustice the same plea, namely, ignorance, which seemeth to excuse it, aggravateth and convicteth. For what more unjust than that men should hate that of which they know nothing, even if the thing deserve their hatred? For then doth it deserve, when it be known whether it do deserve. But when knowledge of the desert be wanting, whence is the justice of the hatred maintained? which ought to be approved, not by the event, but by previous conviction! When then men hate for this reason, because they know not what manner of thing that, which they hate, is, why may it not be of such a sort as that they ought not to hate it? Thus from either point we prove either against them, that they are both ignorant, in that they hate, and hate unjustly, in that they are ignorant. It is an evidence of that ignorance, which, while it is made the excuse, is the condemnation of injustice, when all, who aforetime hated because they were ignorant what it was which they hated, as soon as they cease to be ignorant, cease also to hate. From being such, they become Christians, to wit from conviction, and begin to hate what they were, and to profess what they hated, and are as numerous as indeed we are publicly declared to be. Men cry out that the state is beset, that the Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They mourn, as for a loss, that every sex, age, condition, and now even rank is going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden: they allow not themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more closely. Here alone is the curiosity of man dull: they love to be ignorant, where others rejoice to know. How much more would Anacharsis have condemned these, the uninformed judging the informed, than the unmusical the musical! They had rather be ignorant, because they already hate. Thus they determine in the outset that that which they know not, is such as, if they knew, they could not hate; since if no due cause of hatred be found, surely it were best to cease to hate unjustly; but if it be clear that it is deserved, not only is their hatred nothing diminished, but stronger ground is gained for persevering in it, even with the sanction of justice itself. 'But,' saith one, 'it is not therefore at once determined to be good because it converteth many, for how many are remoulded to evil! how many are deserters to the worse cause!' Who denieth it? Nevertheless, that which is really evil not even those, whom it carrieth away, dare to defend as a good. Nature hath cast over every evil either fear or shame. Finally, evil-doers delight in hiding themselves; shun appearing; are bewildered when discovered; being accused deny; not even when tortured, readily or always confess; certainly mourn when condemned; sum up against themselves