Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Having already joined battle with Hermogenes on the single question of the soul's origin — since he presumed that it too was formed rather from a supply of matter than from the breath of God — I now turn to the remaining questions, and it will be seen that I have most of my fighting still to do, with the philosophers. [2] Skirmishing over the state of the soul went on even in Socrates' prison cell — I am not sure whether this was the first such debate, or simply held at a convenient moment for the master, though the place makes no difference either way. For what could Socrates' soul have known with any clarity at that point, with the sacred ship already back from its voyage, the hemlock of his sentence already drained, death itself now present and certainly disturbing it into some motion in keeping with nature, or else driving it wild, should that motion not be in keeping with nature? For however calm and composed it was — a soul that neither the sudden tears of his soon-to-be-widowed wife nor the sight, right after, of his fatherless children by the law of natural affection had bent — even in this very steadiness, so as not to be shaken, its own constancy was rattled by resisting the shock of inconstancy. And what else could any man condemned by injustice know, besides the mere consolation of that injustice — let alone a philosopher, that creature bred for glory, for whom an injustice is not to be consoled but rather flaunted? [3] Indeed, after the verdict, when his wife met him and cried out in womanly fashion, "You have been condemned unjustly, Socrates!" — he had already answered, almost gloatingly: "Would you rather I'd been condemned justly?" No wonder, then, that in prison too, eager to break the birdlimed palms of Anytus and Meletus, he claims immortality for the soul face to face with death itself, out of the necessary assumption needed to frustrate the injustice done him. [4] So all of Socrates' wisdom at that moment came from a deliberate policy of composed calm, not from confidence in truth already found. For who has found truth without God? Who has known God without Christ? Who has fathomed Christ without the Holy Spirit? To whom has the Holy Spirit been granted without the sacrament of faith? In fact Socrates was quite readily moved by a different spirit altogether — they say a demon clung to him from boyhood, a thoroughly wretched tutor, even though among the poets and philosophers demons rank right after the gods, and alongside them. [5] For the proofs of Christian power had not yet come forward — the power that alone unmasks that most pernicious force, never good, but rather the artisan of every error and the enemy that draws men away from every truth. But if Socrates counted as wisest on the strength of the Pythian demon's own vote too — that demon simply doing business on behalf of its own kind — how much worthier and more solid is the claim of Christian wisdom, before whose very breath the whole force of demons gives way? [6] This wisdom, schooled by heaven, is freer in denying the gods of this age — it does not compromise itself by ordering a cock owed to Aesculapius; it brings in no new demons but drives out the old ones; it does not corrupt the young but shapes them in every good form of modesty; and so it endures an unjust verdict not from one city only but from the whole world, for the sake of the name of truth — hated in exact proportion to how fully it is possessed — so that it does not merely swallow death from a cup, wearing the appearance of good cheer, but drains it from the gallows and the burning stake through every device cruelty can invent. Meanwhile, in this far darker prison that is the world, among its own Cebeses and its own Phaedos, whenever anything about the soul needs examining, this wisdom will steer by God's own rules, certain that no one can point the way to the soul better than its Maker. Let it learn from God what it has from God — or from no one, if not from God. For who will reveal what God has kept covered? From where, then, is one to inquire? From the very place where not knowing is safest. It is better to not know, through God, because he has not revealed it, than to know, through man, because man has simply presumed to.