Relevant
books
available at Amazon
Studies
 
Eric Francis Osborn
Tertullian, First Theologian of the West --------------
 
Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study
Timothy David Barnes --------------
 
Early Christian Thinkers: The Lives and Legacies of Twelve Key Figures
Paul Foster
(A helpful chapter) --------------
 
The Early Christian World
P.F. Esler, with a helpful chapter by David Wright
--------------
 
Tertullian and the Church
David Rankin -------------- Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (Oxford theological monographs)
Robert D. Sider --------------  
David E. Wilhite -------------- Translations Tertullian (The Early Church Fathers)
Geoffrey D. Dunn -------------- Disciplinary, Moral And Ascetical Works
R. Arbesmann, E.J. Daly, and E. A. Quain, eds. -------------- Tertullian: Apologetical Works, & Minucius Felix: Octavius
Emily J. Daly, trans. -------------- 28. Tertullian: Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and On Purity (Ancient Christian Writers)
W.P. Le Saint, trans. -------------- 13. Tertullian: Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage: To His Wife, An Exhortation to Chastity, Monogamy (Ancient Christian Writers)
W.P. Le Saint, trans. -------------- Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian (Selections from the Fathers of the Church)
Robert D. Sider, ed. -------------- Tertullian, Cyprian, And Origen On The Lord's Prayer (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press Popular Patristics Series)
Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ed. -------------- 24. Tertullian: The Treatise against Hermogenes (Ancient Christian Writers)
J.H. Waszink, trans. |
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CHAPTER XLVIII. |
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The philosophical speculation on the
transmigration of souls is admitted, but our doctrine of the resurrection of
the body scouted, and the mystery of our present existence forbids a hasty
rejection of our belief respecting the future, though Nature illustrates it.
On this subject revelation must suffice. |
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Come now, if any philosopher should affirm, as Laberius says was the opinion of Pythagoras, that a man is made out of a
mule, or a snake out of a woman, and by the force of eloquence should twist
all arguments to establish such a theory, would he not gain assent and bring
about a belief in the opinion, even to the point of abstinence from animal
food? And any one who held this view would be persuaded to abstain on the
ground that he might in eating beef be feasting on one of his ancestors. But
if a Christian holds out the assurance that a man will be re-formed out of a
man, and Caius himself from Caius, will he not be assailed by the people
rather indeed with stones, than with gauntlets? As if any argument that
holds good for the re-entrance of human souls into bodies did not also
demand their recall into the same bodies; since restitution consists in being
what one was before. For if they are not the same as they were before,
namely, human, and clothed with the same body, then they are not in that
case the same as they were. Further, how shall they be said to have
returned, when they will not in that case be themselves? Either, having
become something else, they will not be themselves; or, remaining identical,
they will not be derived from any other source. If we wished to disport
ourselves on this point there would be opportunity for many jests and much
waste of time, as to what kind of beast any one might seem to be turned
into. But keeping rather to the lines of our own pleading, we lay down, and
it is surely more worthy of belief, that a man will be restored from a man,
any given person from any given person, but still a man; so that the same
kind of soul may be reinstated in the same mode of existence, even if not
into the same outward form. Yet, as the very reason for the restoration
is to be found in the appointed judgement, it is certainly necessary
likewise that the same person, who once existed, should be presented, that
he may receive from God the judgement whether of good or of evil desert. And
hence the bodies also must be present, because the soul alone cannot suffer
at all without a material substance, that is, the flesh; and because souls
generally have incurred whatever it is their due to suffer from God’s
judgement not without the flesh, within which all their actions were
performed. ‘But how,’ you say, ‘can matter be again presented after its
dissolution?’ Consider thyself, O man: and thou will find that this fact is
credible. Reflect what thou wast, before thy life began : surely nothing;
for thou wouldst remember it hadst thou been anything. Since therefore thou
wast nothing before thy life began, and likewise wilt become nothing after
thy existence ceases; why canst thou not again be brought into existence
from nothing by the will of the same Originator Who willed thy first
existence out of nothing? Nothing new will happen to thee! Thou, who wast
not, wast made; when again thou shalt not be, thou shalt again be made. Shew
first, if thou canst, the method by which thou wast made, and then seek to
know how thou wilt be re-made. And yet surely thou shalt more easily be made
that which thou hast once been, since without difficulty thou hast been made
what thou wast never before. There will be a doubt, perchance, about the
power of God, Who formed the great body of this world from that which was
not, no less than from a deathlike vacuity and emptiness, and animated it
with a spirit that gives breath to all souls, and stamped it throughout with
types of man’s resurrection as a witness to us. The light which dies daily
shines again; and the darkness comes and goes in a like variation : the
stars which die out live again : the seasons constantly succeed each other:
fruits perish and again return: the very seeds, unless they decay and
dissolve, do not spring up in greater fruitfulness : all things are
preserved by perishing, all things are restored from death. Shalt thou, a
man—a name so noble, didst thou but understand thyself, learning even from
the Pythian inscription,—who art the lord of all things that are
continually dying and rising again,—shalt thou so die as to utterly perish?
Into whatever substance thou shalt have been resolved, whatever material
means shall have destroyed thee, absorbed thee, effaced thee, or reduced
thee to nothing, it shall restore thee again. To Him belongs that very
‘nothing,’ Whose is also ‘the whole.’ ‘Then we must be constantly dying and
rising again,’ thou sayest. If the Lord of all had so appointed, thou
wouldst experience, however unwillingly, that law of thy being. But as it
is, He has appointed it to be no otherwise than as He has declared. That
same Reason Which constructed the universe out of diversity, so that the
whole consists of antithetical substances brought under unity,—of vacuity
and solidity, animate and inanimate, comprehensible and incomprehensible,
light and darkness, even life and death,—has also so disposed the whole
course of existence according to an appointed and divided plan; according to
which the first part of it, in which we are living, reckoned from the
Creation, flows on to its end in the age of Time; and the following part,
which we look for, extends into infinite Eternity. When therefore the end
and mid-boundary which yawns between shall have come, so that even the
fashion of this world, itself equally a thing of Time, may be transformed,
which is spread like a curtain before the system of Eternity; then shall be
restored the whole human race for the adjusting of the account of its
deserts, whether of good or of evil, incurred during that temporal period of
its life, and thereafter for the payment of its debt throughout the
measureless perpetuity of Eternity. There is therefore neither death
absolute nor recurring resurrections; but we shall be the same as we are
now, and thereafter no other : the worshippers of God ever with God, clothed
upon with the proper substance of Eternity; but the wicked, and those not
perfect towards God, in the punishment of fire equally lasting, and
possessing in its very nature, which is divine, the supply of
incorruptibility. The philosophers know the difference between hidden and
ordinary fire. Thus that in common use is far different from that which
ministers God’s judgement, whether it strikes as lightnings from heaven, or
belches forth from the earth through mountain-tops; for it consumes not what
it burns, but renews even whilst it destroys. So the mountains remain though
always burning; and he who is struck from heaven is preserved, since he is
not now reduced to ashes by any fire. And this will be a proof of eternal
fire, an example of a judgement continually feeding its own punishment.
Mountains burn and endure : what of the guilty and of the enemies of God?
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CHAPTER XLIX. |
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Why do you censure us for holding tenets which are
at least harmless, if not positively beneficial? |
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These are tenets which in our case alone are called
presumptions, but in the case of philosophers and poets sublime flights of
knowledge and important conjectures. They are the wise, we the foolish :
they are deserving of honour, we of ridicule; nay, and of more, even of
punishment. Let it be granted now that our theories are false, and properly
termed presumptions, yet they are necessary; if foolish, they are yet
useful; since those who believe them are compelled to become better men,
through fear of eternal punishment and in hope of eternal consolation. It is
therefore inexpedient that those things should be called false, or regarded
as foolish, which it is expedient should be presumed to be true. On no
charge whatever ought that to be altogether condemned which is beneficial.
In yourselves, consequently, exists this presumption, which condemns what is
useful. Likewise neither can our beliefs be foolish; or at any rate, even if
false and foolish, they can in no way be harmful; for they resemble many
other tenets to which you mete out no punishments, and which, though vain
and fabulous, go unaccused and unpunished, because harmless. But judgement
ought to be pronounced against errors of this kind, if at all, by derision,
not by swords and fires and crosses and wild beasts; in which unjust cruelty
not only the blind populace exults and insults, but some of your own selves
also, who aim at popularity through injustice, make your boast; as if all
your power over us were not derived from our own will. Assuredly I am a
Christian, only if I wish to be one : you then will only condemn me, if I
wish to be condemned; but since whatever power over me you possess, you only
possess at my will, it follows that your power over me is derived from my
will, and not from your authority. Likewise the vulgar also vainly rejoice
at our sufferings; for in the same way, the joy, which they claim for
themselves, is ours, since we prefer to be condemned rather than to fall
away from God: on the other hand, they who hate us ought to grieve instead
of rejoicing at our attainment of the object of our choice. |
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CHAPTER L. |
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Our sufferings are our triumph. Our endurance in
your view redounds to our discredit; the fortitude of others to their
honour. You may gain popularity by your injustice, but our sufferings and
practical example continually attract new converts. |
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‘Why then,’ you say, ‘do you complain that we attack
you, if you are willing to suffer; when you ought to love those at whose
hands you suffer what you desire?’ We are, certainly, willing to suffer; but
it is in the same way as a soldier desires war. No one endures war
willingly, since alarm and risk are involved in it: the battle nevertheless
is carried on with every nerve; and he who complains of it, yet rejoices in
it when victorious, because he is acquiring glory and spoil. It is our
battle to be summoned to your tribunals, there to contend for the truth at
the risk of our lives. It is our victory, too, in that we obtain that for
which we contend. This victory gains for us both the glory of pleasing God,
and the spoil of eternal life. But we are overwhelmed; yet only when we have
won our cause; therefore we conquer, when we are slain; and in fact we
escape, even when we are overwhelmed. You can call us then, if you like, ‘faggot-men,’ and
‘half-axle-men,’ because we are bound to the stock of a
half-axle, and surrounded with faggots when we are burned. This is the robe
of our victory, this is our triumphal vestment, in such a chariot do we
celebrate our triumph. Naturally, therefore, we displease those whom we
vanquish; for on those grounds we are deemed desperate and reckless men. But
this very desperation and recklessness, with you, in the cause of glory or
fame, uplifts the banner of valour. Mucius cheerfully left his right hand
upon the altar: what a noble-spirited deed! Empedocles gave his whole person
to the Aetnean fires of Catina : what strength of mind! Some virgin
foundress of Carthage wedded the funeral pile for her second nuptials : what
a commendation of chastity! Regulus suffered tortures in his whole body,
lest his own single life should be spared in exchange for many enemies: what
a brave man, and a victor even in captivity! Anaxarchus, when brayed with a
pestle like barley, kept saying, ‘Pound, pound away at the bag of Anaxarchus,
for you pound not Anaxarchus himself:’ what a great-souled philosopher, to
even jest upon his own, and such a death! I pass over those who bargained
for fame with their own swords, or some other milder kind of death; for lo,
even rivalries of tortures are crowned by you. An Athenian harlot, when the
executioner was weary, at last spit out her own tongue, which she had bitten
off, in the face of the cruel tyrant, that she might also spit out her own
voice, and with it the possibility of confessing her accomplices, in case
she should succumb and wish to do so. Zeno Eleates, when consulted by
Dionysius as to the advantage gained from philosophy, replied ‘A contempt of
death;’ and when subjected by the tyrant to scourgings, continued to express
his opinion up to the point of death. Certainly, the scourgings of the
Spartans, embittered by the presence of relatives who encouraged them,
conferred a reputation on the family for endurance, in proportion to the
quantity of blood which they extracted. Here is a glory, licensed, because
of human origin; which is attributed neither to the presumption of
recklessness, nor to the persuasion of despair, in its contempt of death and
every kind of cruelty; which is as much allowed to be endured for country,
territory, empire, or friendship, as it is forbidden to be suffered for God!
And yet you cast statues, and write inscriptions, and engrave titles, for
all those men to last into eternity: and as far as you can, by means of
monuments, you yourselves afford them a kind of resurrection from the dead.
If he who hopes for this fact from God, suffers for God, he is deemed
insane. But pursue your course, excellent governors, and you will be more
popular with the multitude if you sacrifice the Christians to their wishes.
Crucify, torture, condemn, crush us. For the proof of our innocence is found
in your injustice. It is on this account that God suffers us to suffer this.
For quite recently, when you condemned a Christian woman to the beastly lust
of men instead of to an actual wild beast, you confessed that a stain
upon chastity is accounted more heinous with us than any torture or any
death. Yet no cruelty of yours, though each were to exceed the last in its
exquisite refinement, profits you in the least; but forms rather an
attraction to our sect. We spring up in greater numbers as often as we are
mown down by you : the blood of the Christians is a source of new life.
Many amongst yourselves have exhorted to the endurance of pain and death, as
for example Cicero in the ‘Tusculan Disputations,’ Seneca in his book ‘On
Chances,’ Diogenes, Pyrrho, and Callinicus. Yet they by their words secured
not so many disciples as the Christians have gained by their practical
example. That very obstinacy which you assail is the teacher. For who is not
aroused by the sight of it to enquire what the inward motive can be? who,
when he has enquired, does not adopt it? and who, when he has adopted it,
does not choose to suffer, in order that he may acquire the whole grace of
God, and also obtain all pardon from Him by the yielding up of his blood?
For all sins are pardoned by this act. Hence it is that, at the moment of
your sentencing us, we give thanks: and since there is an antagonism between
divine and human things, when we are condemned by you, we stand acquitted by
God. |
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