Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Examine, then, first of all whether the judge's justice is sound; and once that reasoning stands firm, the severity too, and everything through which that severity runs its course, will be credited to reason and to justice. And, not to linger over too many cases, make out the rest of the charges as well, so that you may condemn his sentences — offer excuses for the wrongdoings, so that you may reject his judgments. Do not find fault with the judge; refute the evil judge instead, if you can. For even granting that he exacted the sins of the fathers from the children, it was the people's own stubbornness that had forced such remedies, so that, out of concern at least for their own descendants, they would be brought to keep the divine law. For who does not care more about his children's welfare than about his own? But then, if the blessing of the fathers was likewise destined for their offspring, with no merit of their own as yet involved, why should not the guilt of the fathers overflow onto the children too? As with favor, so with offense — favor and offense alike were to run through the whole line — reserving what was afterward to be decreed, that men would no longer say that the fathers ate the sour grape and the children's teeth were set on edge; that is, the father would not bear the son's wrongdoing, nor the son the father's, but each would be held guilty of his own wrongdoing, so that, once the people's stubbornness had been tamed by the stubbornness of the law, justice would thereafter judge not the family line but the individual persons. And yet, if you take the true gospel on its own terms, you will see exactly who ends up under the ruling that charges children with the wrongs of their fathers — namely, those who of their own accord were about to call this very ruling down upon their own heads: "His blood be upon our heads and upon our children's." This, then, is what the whole providence of God had already decreed, because it had already heard it said.
16.