Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] If we run back through the other kinds of sin bred by greed — chiefly covetousness, the root of all evils, in whose snare some have been entangled and made shipwreck of the faith, since the same apostle twice calls covetousness a form of idolatry, and lying, in turn, is covetousness's servant — I say nothing of perjury, since a Christian may not even swear — is trading, then, a fitting business for a servant of God? For if covetousness were removed, what reason would there be left for acquiring anything? And once the reason for acquiring is gone, there is no more need to trade. [2] Suppose now some profit-making could be free and clear of covetousness and lying — I still think it runs aground on the charge of idolatry, in that it touches the very soul and spirit of the idols, which is what fattens every demon. Granted, that is not the
idolatry in its principal sense. But let us see: if the very same wares — I mean frankincense and the other exotic imports for sacrifice to idols — are also used by ordinary people for medicinal compounds, and by us as well for the comforts of burial, well and good. But surely when processions, priesthoods, and sacrifices to idols are kept supplied out of your risks, your losses, your worries, your travels, your dealings — what else are you shown to be but an agent of the idols? Let no one object that on this reasoning every trade could be put on trial. [3] The graver the offense, the more the danger it carries demands a widened vigilance, so that we withdraw not only from such acts themselves but from the means by which they are done. It makes no difference that another does it, if it is done through me. [4] I ought not to be indispensable to another in doing what is not lawful for me. From the very fact that I am forbidden to do a thing, I ought to understand that I must also see to it that it not be done through me. Indeed I observe this same precedent set in another matter, no less serious a charge. For though fornication itself is forbidden to me, in that regard I contribute to others neither service nor complicity. [5] Just as I have kept my own flesh away from brothels, I recognize that I cannot practice pimping or that
sort of trade for another's profit either. So too the prohibition against murder teaches me that a trainer of gladiators is likewise barred from the church: not doing the thing himself does not excuse him if he supplies to another the means of doing it. And here is an even closer precedent. [6] If a contractor for the public sacrificial victims should come to the faith, will you let him stay on in that business? Or if a believer already has taken it up, do you think he should be kept in the church? I think not — unless someone will likewise wink at the incense-dealer. Apparently the charge of blood belongs to some, the charge of fragrant smoke to others! If, before idols existed in the world, this same idolatry — still shapeless then — was carried on by these very wares, and if even in our own day the business of idolatry is mostly carried out, idol or no idol, by the burning of incense, is the incense-dealer's service and devotion to the demons any the less? [7] It is easier, in fact, to have idolatry without an idol than without the incense-dealer's wares. Let us put the question to the conscience of his own faith. With what face does a Christian incense-dealer, if he walks past the temples,
with what face does he spit and blow contempt on the smoking altars — the very altars he himself has stocked? With what confidence will he exorcise creatures he himself boards and feeds? If he does succeed in driving out the demon, let him not flatter himself over his faith — for the enemy is not thereby put to flight. [8] The demon has every reason to grant an easy hearing to the man who feeds it daily. There is, then, no craft, no profession, no trade that furnishes materials for making or shaping idols that can escape the charge of idolatry — unless we are prepared to define idolatry as something other than service rendered to the worship of idols.
XII.