from the devil's throat by faith, trample upon him likewise by courage, that he might not merely have escaped from, but also completely vanquished, his enemy. He who had called to salvation has been pleased to summon to glory also, that they who were rejoicing in consequence of their deliverance may be in transports when they are crowned likewise. With what good-will the world celebrates those games, the combative festivals and superstitious contests of the Greeks, involving forms both of worship and of pleasure, has now become clear in Africa also. As yet cities, by sending their congratulations sever- ally, annoy Carthage, which was presented with the Pythian game after the racecourse had attained to an old age. Thus, by the world ^ it has been believed to be a most proper mode of testing proficiency in studies, to put in competition the forms of skill, to elicit the existing condition of bodies and of voices, the reward being the informer, the public exhibition the judge, and pleasure the decision. Where there are mere contests, there are some wounds: fists make reel, heels kick like butting rams, boxing-gloves mangle, whips leave gashes. Yet there will be no one reproaching the superintendent of the contest for exposing men to outrage. Suits for injuries lie outside the racecourse. But to the extent that those persons deal in dis- coloration, and gore, and swellings, he will design for them crowns, doubtless, and glory, and a present, political privileges, contribu- tions by the citizens, images, statues, and — of such sort as the world can give — an eter- nity of fame, a resurrection by being kept in remembrance. The pugilist himself does not complain of feeling pain, for he wishes it; the crown closes the wounds, the palm hides the blood: he is excited more by victory than by injury. Will you count this man hurt whom you see happy? But not even the vanquished himself will reproach the super- intendent of the contest for his misfortune. Shall it be unbecoming in God to bring forth kinds of skill and rules of His own into pub- lic view, into this open ground of the world, to be seen by men, and angels, and all powers? — to test flesh and spirit as to sted- fastness and endurance?- — to give to this one the palm, to this one distinction, to that one the privilege of citizenship, to that one pay? — to reject some also, and after punishing to remove them with disgrace? You dictate to God, forsooth, the times, or the ways, or the places in which to institute a trial con- cerning His own troop (of competitors) as if it were not proper for the Judge to pronounce •Literally, "aye." — Tk.
CHAP. VII.]
SCORPIACE.
the preliminary decision also. Well now, if He had put forth faith to suffer martyrdoms not for the contest's sake, but for its own benefit, ought it not to have had some store of hope, for the increase of which it might restrain desire of its own, and check its wish, in order that it might strive to mount up, see- ing they also who discharge earthly functions are eager for promotion? Or how will there be many mansions in our Father's house, if not to accord with a diversity of deserts? How will one star also differ from another star in glory, unless in virtue of disparity in their rays? ' But further, if, on that account, some increase of brightness also was appropriate to loftiness of faith, that gain ought to have been of some such sort as would cost great effort, poignant suffering, torture, death. But consider the requital, when flesh and life are paid away — than which in man there is nought more precious, the one from the hand of God, the other from His breath — that the very things are paid away in obtaining the benefit of which the benefit consists; that the very things are expended which may be ac- quired; that the same things are the price which are also the commodities. God had foreseen also other weaknesses incident to the condition of man, — the stratagems of the enemy, the deceptive aspects of the creatures, the snares of the world; that faith, even after baptism, would be endangered; that the most, after attaining unto salvation, would be lost again, through soiling the wedding-dress, through failing to provide oil for their torch- lets — would be such as would have to be sought for over mountains and woodlands, and carried back upon the shoulders. He therefore appointed as second supplies of comfort, and the last means of succour, the fight of martyrdom and the baptism — there- after free from danger — of blood. And con- cerning the happiness of the man who has partaken of these, David says: " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."^ For, strictly speaking, there cannot any longer be reckoned ought against the martyrs, by whom .in the baptism (of blood) life itself is laid down. Thus, " love covers the multitude of sins;" 3 and loving God, to wit, with all its strength (by which in the endurance of mar- tyrdom it maintains the fight), with all its life (which it lays down for God), it makes of man a martyr. Shall you call these cures, counsels, methods of judging, spectacles, ^Ps. xxxii. I; Rom. iv. 7, etc.
* Matt. xxii. 37.
(illustrations of) even the barbarity of God? I)oes God covet man's blood? And yet I might venture to affirm that He does, if man also covets the kingdom of heaven, if man covets a sure salvation, if man also covets a second new birth. The exchange is displeas- ing to no one, which can plead, in justifica- tion of itself, that either benefit or injury is shared by the parties making it.
CHAP. VII.
If the scorpion, swinging his tail in the air, still reproach us with having a murderer for our God, I shall shudder at the altogether foul breathof blasphemy which comes stinking from his heretical mouth; but I will embrace even such a God, with assurance derived from rea- son, by which reason even He Himself has, in the person of His own Wisdom, by the lips of Solomon, proclaimed Himself to be more than a murderer: Wisdom [Sophia), says He has slain her own children. ^ Sophia is Wis- dom. She has certainly slain them wisely if only into life, and reasonably if only into glory. Of murder by a parent, oh the clever form! Oh the dexterity of crime! Oh the proof of cruelty, which has slain for this rea- son, that he whom it may have slain may not die! And therefore what follows? Wisdom is praised in hymns, in the places of egress; for the death of martyrs also is praised in song. Wisdom behaves with firmness in the streets, for with good results does she murder her own sons.* Nay, on the top of the walls she speaks with assurance, when indeed, ac- cording to Esaias, this one calls out, " I am God's;" and this one shouts, " In the name of Jacob;" and another writes, " In the name of Israel."' O good mother! I myself also wish to be put among the number of her sons, that I may be slain by her; I wish to be slain, that I may become a son. But does she merely murder her sons, or also torture them? For I hear God also, in another passage, say, " I will burn them as gold is burned, and will try them as silver is tried." ^ Certainly by the means of torture which fires and punish- ments supply, by the testing martyrdoms of faith. The apostle also knows what kind of God he has ascribed to us, when he writes: " If God spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how did He not with Him also give us all things? " ^ You see how divine Wisdom has murdered even her own proper, 5 Prov. ix. 2: " She hath killed her beasts.'" The correspond- ing words in the Septuagint are c(T<^af « to. tauTijs flu/oiaTo. Augus- tine, in his De Civ. Dei, xvi. 20, e.xplains the victims (Cv,-taTa) to be Martyrntn iiictimas. — Tk.
6 Prov. i. 20, 21; see the Septuagint version.
"^Zech. xiii. 9.
SCORPIACE.
[chap. VIII, first-born and only Son, who is certainly about to live, nay, to bring back the others also into life. I can say with the Wisdom of God; It is Christ who gave Himself up for our offen- ces.' Already has Wisdom butchered herself also. The character of words depends not on the sound only, but on the meaning also, and they must be heard not merely by ears, but also by minds. He who does not understand, believes God to be cruel; although for him also who does not understand, an announcement has been made to restrain his harshness in understanding otherwise than aright. " For who,"?,3.ys the apostle,''' has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor, to teach Him? or who has pointed out to Him the way of understanding? " - But, indeed, the world has held it lawful for Diana of the Scythians, or Mercury of the Gauls, or Saturn of the Africans, to be appeased by human sacrifices; and in Latium to this day Jupiter has human blood given him to taste in the midst of the city; and no one makes it a mat- ter of discussion, or imagines that it does not occur for some reason, or that it occurs by the will of his God, without having value. If our God, too, to have a sacrifice of His own, had required martyrdoms for Himself, who would have reproached Him for the deadly religion, and the mournful ceremonies, and the altar- pyre, and the undertaker-priest, and not rather have counted happy the man whom God should have devoured?
CHAP. VIII.
We keep therefore the one position, and, in respect of this question only, summon to an encounter, whether martyrdoms have been commanded by God, that you may believe that they have been commanded by reason, if you know that they have been commanded by Him, because God will not command ought without reason. Since the death of His own saints is precious is His sight, as David sings, 3 it is not, I think, that one which falls to the lot of men generally, and is a debt due by all (rather is that one even disgraceful on account of the trespass, and the desert of con- demnation to 7vhlch it is to be traced), but that other which is met in this very work — in bear- ing witness for religion, and maintaining the fight of confession in behalf of righteousness and the sacrament. As saith Esaias, " See how the righteous man perisheth, and no one layeth it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considereth it: for from before the face of unrighteousness the righteous man perisheth, and he shall l«ve honour at his burial." " Here, too, you have both an announcement of martrydoms, and 0/ the recompense they bring. From the begii> ning, indeed, righteousness suffers violence.' Forthwith, as soon as God has begun to be worshipped, religion has got ill-will for her portion. He who had pleased God is slain, and that by his brother. Beginning with kin- dred blood, in order that it might the more easily go in quest of that of strangers, ungod- liness made the object of its pursuit, finally, that not only of righteous persons, but even of prophets also. David is persecuted; Elias put to flight; Jeremias stoned; Esaias cut asunder; Zacharias butchered between the altar and the temple, imparting to the hard stones lasting marks of his blood. ^ That person himself, at the close of the law and the prophets, and called not a prophet, but a messenger, is, suffering an ignominious death, beheaded to reward a dancing-girl. And cer- tainly they who were wont to be led by the Spirit of God used to be guided by Himself to martyrdoms; so that they had even already to endure what they had also proclaimed as requiring to be borne. Wherefore the brother- hood of the three also, when the dedication of the royal image was the occasion of the citizens being pressed to offer worship, knew well what faith, which alone in them had not been taken captive, required, — namely, that they must resist idolatry to the death.* " For they remembered also the words of Jeremias writing to those over whom that captivity was impending: "And now ye shall see borne upon (men's) shoulders the gods of the Baby- lonians, of gold and silver and wood, causing fear to the Gentiles. Beware, therefore, that ye also do not be altogether like the foreigners, and be seized with fear while ye behold crowds worshipping those gods before and behind, but say in your mind, Our duty is to worship Thee, O Lord."^ Therefore, hav- ing got confidence from God, they said, 'when with strength of mind they set at defiance the king's threats against the disobedient: " There is no necessity for our making answer to this command of yours. For our God whom we worship is able to deliver us from the furnace of fire and from your hands; and then it will be made plain to you that we shall neither serve your idol, nor worship your golden image which you have set up."" O martyr- dom even without suffering perfect! Enougb did they suffer! enough were they burned, 4 Isa. Ivii. I.
7 Baruch vi. 3.
CHAr, IX.J SCORPIACE.
whom on this account God shielded, that it might not seem that they had given a false representation of His power. For forthwith, certainly, would the lions, with their pent-up and wonted savageness, have devoured Daniel also, a worshipper of none but God, and therefore accused and demanded by the Chal- tleans, if it had been right that the worthy anticipation of Darius concerning God should iiave proved delusive. For the rest, every preacher of God, and every worshipper also, such as, having been summoned to the serv'^ice of idolatry, had refused compliance, ought to have suffered, agreeably to the tenor of that argument too, by which the truth ought to have been recommended both to those who were then living and to those following in succession, — (namely), that the suffering of its defenders themselves bespeak trust for it, because nobody would have been willing to be slain but one possessing the truth. Such commands as well as instances, remounting to earliest times, show that believers are under obligation to suffer martyrdom.
CHAP, TX.
It remains for us, lest ancient times may perhaps have had the sacrament ' (exclus- ively) their own, to review the modern Christian system, as though, being also from God, it might be different from ivhat pre- ceded, and besides, therefore, opposed there- to in its code of rules likewise, so that its Wisdom knows not to murder her own sons! Evidently, in the case of Christ both the di- vine nature and the will and the sect are dix^tx- entfrom any previously knoivn! He will have commanded either no martyrdoms at all, or those which must be understood in a sense different from the ordinary, being such a per- son as to urge no one to a risk of this kind, as to promise no reward to them who suffer for Him, because He does not wish them to suffer; and therefore does He say, when set- ting forth His chief commands, " Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."^ The following statement, indeed, applies first to all without restriction, then specially to the apostles themselves: " Blessed shall ye bewhen men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, since very great is your reward in heaven; for so used their fathers to do even to the prophets."
So that He likewise foretold their having to be themselves also slain, after the example ' TertuUian means martyrdom. 41 -Tr.
of the prophets. Though, even if He had appointed all this persecution in case He were obeyed for those only who were then apostles, assuredly through them along witli the entire sacrament, with the shoot of the name, with the layer of the Holy Spirit, the rule about enduring persecution also would have had respect to us too, as to disciples by inheritance, and, (as it were,) bushes from the apostolic seed. For even thus again does He address words of guidance to the apostles: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves;" and, " Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles," etc.^ Now when He adds, " But the brother will deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death," He has clearly announced with reference to the others, (that they would be subjected to) this form of unrighteous conduct, which we do not find exemplified in the case of the apostles. For none of them had experience of a father or a brother as a betrayer, which very many of us have. Then He returns to the apostles: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." How much more shall we, for whom there exists the necessity of being delivered up by parents too! Thus, by allotting this very betrayal, now to the apostles, now to all, He pours out the same destruction upon all the possessors of the name, on whom the name, along with the con- dition that it be an object of hatred, will rest. But he who will endure on to the end — this man will be saved. By enduring what but persecution, — betrayal, — death? For to en- dure to the end is nought else than to suffer the end. And therefore there immediate- ly follow, " The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his own lord;" because, seeing the Master and Lord Him- self was stedfast in suffering persecution, betrayal and death, much more will it be the duty of His servants and disciples to bear the same, that they may not seem as if superior to Him, or to have got an immunity from the assaults of unrighteousness, since this itself should be glory enough for them, to be con- formed to the sufferings of their Lord and Master; and, preparing them for the endur- ance of these, He reminds them that they must not fear such persons as kill the body only, but are not able to destroy the soul, but that they must dedicate fear to Him rather SCORPIACE.
[chap. X.
who has such power that He can kill both body and soul, and destroy them in hell. Who, pray, are these slayers of the body only, but the governors and kings aforesaid — men, I ween? Who is the ruler of the soul also, but God only? Who is this but the threatener of fires hereafter, He without whose will not i even one of two sparrows falls to the ground; that is, not even one of the two substances of man, fiesh or spirit, because the number of our hairs also has been recorded before Him? Fear ye not, therefore. When He adds, *' Ye are of more value than many sparrows," He makes promise that we shall not in vain — that is, not without profit — fall to the ground if we choose to be killed by men rather than by God. " Whosoever therefore will confess in me before men, in him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven;' and whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny also before my Father who is in heaven." Clear, as I think, are the terms used in announcing, and the way to explain, the confession as well as the denial, although the mode of putting them is different. He who confesses himself a Christian, beareth witness that he is Christ's; he who is Christ's must be in Christ. If he is in Christ, he certainly confesses in Christ, when he confesses himself a Christian. For he cannot be this without being in Christ. Besides, by confess- ing in Christ he confesses Christ too: since, by virtue of being a Christian, he is in Christ, while Christ Himself also is in him. For if you have made mention of day, you have also held out to view the element of light which gives us day, although you may not have made mention of light. Thus, albeit He has not expressly said, " He who will confess me," (yet) the conduct involved in daily confession is not different from what is meant in our Lord's declaration. For he who confesses himself to be what he is, that is, a Christian, confesses that likewise by which he is it, that is, Christ. Therefore he who has denied that he is a Christian, has denied in Christ, by de- nying that he is in Christ while he denies that lie is a Christian; and, on the other hand, by denying that Christ is in him, while He de- nies that he is in Christ, he will deny Christ too. Thus both he who will deny in Christ, will deny Christ, and he who will confess in Christ will confess Christ. It would have been enough, therefore, though our Lord had made an announcement about confessing merely. For, from His mode of presenting confession, it might be decided beforehand with reference » The words in the Greek, though correctly rendered in our authorized version, arc, when translated literally. what TertuUian rcjiresents tbem to be, — Tk.
to its opposite too — denial, that is — that de- nial is repaid by the Lord with denial, just as confession is with confession. And therefore, since in the mould in which the confession has been cast the state of (the case with refer- ence to) denial also may be perceived, it is evident that to another manner of denial be- longs what the Lord has announced concern- ing it, in terms different from those in which He speaks of confession, when He says, " Who will deny me," not " Who will deny in me." For He had foreseen that this form of violence also would, for the most part, im- mediately follow when any one had been forced to renounce the Christian name, — that he who had denied that he was a Christian would be compelled to deny Christ Himself too by blaspheming Him. As not long ago, alas, we shuddered at the struggle waged in this way by some with their entire faith, which had had favourable omens. Therefore it will be to no purpose to say, " Though I shall deny that I am a Christian, I shall not be denied by Christ, for I have not denied Him- self." For even so much will be inferred from that denial, by which, seeing he denies Christ in him by denying that he is a Chris- tian, he has denied Christ Himself also. But there is more, because He threatens likewise