change of attitude with regard to the audience, but also his consideration of the
Roman dominance system. Tertullian decidedly attacks Roman religion, not the Roman
system of dominance, for he shows that he values the empire and insists on the need
to abide by the rule of Roman authority.
With all types of arguments, Tertullian requests and demands from these authorit-
ies that Christians be granted the freedom to practice their religion, like any inhab-
itant of the empire, because virtually all the cults of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians,
and other peoples belonging to the empire are a part of Roman religion, even to
such a point that the Egyptians were allowed to consecrate animals and to try
anyone who killed a consecrated animal. The Jews’ religion had the privilege of the
status of a religio licita. This tolerance of the Roman religious system left out only
the Christians. With regard to religious freedom, he again picks up the topic of the
“adoption” of municipal and provincial divinities and introduces for the first time
this formula: unicuique etiam provinciae et civitati suus deus est (Apol. 24.8).
However, this passage, with its list of provincial gods and unknown Italic towns,
differs somewhat from that of Nat.2.8.3. In Ad nationesthis passage was intended
to show up the absurd consequences of the freedom to adopt gods that vary from
one city to another, where they end up being ignored by the citizens themselves,
while in Apologeticumit is used as an argument in favor of religious freedom to show
that all but Christians are allowed to practice their own religion (Apol.24.9).
On the basis of the considerations regarding a true and false divinity, he again
picks up the theme of the belief that the Romans govern the world because of
the gods they worship (Apol.25), making the arguments against the relationship
between Roman dominance and religiosity even more pointed. Using irony and
sarcasm, he relates ridiculous Roman gods such as Sterculus, Mutunus (suggesting
defloration of the bride), and Larentia to the expansion of Roman dominance.
Illustrating his arguments with literary episodes, he points to the absurdity of think-
ing that foreign gods would prefer the Romans, who are strangers. As in Ad nationes,
he argues against any causality between religion and the greatness of the empire,
remembering that kingdoms have not grown on the strength of their religion, nor
did those who lost their kingdoms and became part of the Roman empire lose their
religion.
After Tertullian has shown that the greatness of the empire is not based on mercy
(Apol.25–7), the same argument is used to prove the absurdity of the cult to the
gods for the emperor’s health, and he tackles the theme of imperial cult and of the
relationship of Christians with the emperor (Apol.28 –34). Tertullian responds to
the reproach of high treason by stating that the Christian form of cult shows loyalty
to the emperor. Subsequently he clarifies that Christians invoke the true god for the
health of the emperors and proposes a Christian Roman empire:
For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal, the true, the living God,
whose favor, beyond all others, they must themselves desire. They know from whom
they have obtained their power; they know, as they are men, from whom they have
received life itself; they are convinced that He is God alone, on whose power alone they
are entirely dependent, to whom they are second, after whom they occupy the highest
places, before and above all the gods. (Apol.30.1)Roman Religion in the Vision of Tertullian 467