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Excerpt:
ROMANS, the things which have recently(1) happened in
your city under Urbicus,(2) and the things which are likewise being
everywhere unreasonably done by the governors, have compelled me to
frame this composition for your sakes, who are men of like passions, and
brethren, though ye know it not, and though ye be unwilling to
acknowledge it on account of your glorying in what you esteem
dignities.(3) For everywhere, whoever is corrected by father, or neighbor,
or child, or friend, or brother, or husband, or wife, for a fault, for
being hard to move, for loving pleasure and being hard to urge to what
is right (except those who have been persuaded that the unjust and
intemperate shall be punished in eternal fire, but that the virtuous and
those who lived like Christ shall dwell with God in a state that is free
from suffering,--we mean, those who have become Christians), and the
evil demons, who hate us, and who keep such men as these subject to
themselves, and serving them in the capacity of judges, incite them, as
rulers actuated by evil spirits, to put us to death. But that the cause
of all that has taken place under Urbicus may become quite plain to you,
I will relate what has been done...
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