Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But now that we have parceled out command to the soul and compliance to the flesh, we must take care that our opponents do not overturn even this by another line of argument, wanting to place the flesh in the soul's service in such a way that they are not forced to acknowledge it as a partner, but only as a servant. [2] For they will say that servants and partners have the right to choose whether to serve and to join, and a power over their own will in either direction — being, after all, themselves men too; and it is for that reason that they share the merit with the principals to whose work they lent their effort of their own accord. [3] The flesh, on the other hand — knowing nothing, feeling nothing of itself, having no will and no won't of its own — appears rather in the character of a vessel to the soul, an instrument rather than a service; [4] and so it is the soul alone that presides over the judgment as to how it used the vessel of the flesh, while the vessel itself is not liable to sentence — since no one condemns the cup because someone mixed poison in it, and no one hands the sword over to the beasts because someone committed robbery with it. [5] So then the flesh stands innocent on that count, since its evil labors will not be charged to it, and nothing prevents it from being saved on the score of innocence. For though it be credited neither with good works nor with bad, it still better suits the divine kindness to set the innocent free — since kindness owes it to benefactors, but it is the mark of the very best to bestow even what is not owed. [6] And yet — a cup, I will not even say one that has held poison, from which some death has belched up, but one merely tainted by the breath of a whore, or a priest of Cybele, or a gladiator, or an executioner — I ask you, do you condemn it any less than you condemn their very kisses? Even over our own filth we are apt to smash a cup that comes to us clouded, or mixed carelessly, so as to vent our anger the more at the slave-boy. [7] And the sword drunk on highway robbery — who would not banish it from the whole house, let alone the bedroom, let alone the service of his own neck, presuming, of course, that he would dream of nothing else than the resentment of the souls it had harassed and disturbed, that unwelcome bedfellow of their blood? [8] But then again, a cup well aware of its own good conscience, and commended by the care of a careful steward, will also be decked with garlands from the drinker it served, or honored with a scattering of flowers; and a sword nobly bloodied in war, itself the better slayer, will pay itself its due praise by dedication. [9] 'Is there room, then, to fix a sentence even on vessels and instruments too, so that they too may share in the merits of their owners and authors?' [10] I will satisfy even this argument, though the diversity of the cases leaves the analogy short. For every vessel or instrument comes into use from elsewhere, its material entirely foreign to man's own substance; the flesh, however, sown and formed and congenital with the soul from the very outset of the womb, is mingled with it in every operation as well. [11] For even granting that the apostle names it a 'vessel,' bidding it be handled with honor, that very thing is called by the very same author 'the outer man' — that clay, that is, which was first inscribed with the title of man, not of a cup, a sword, or any vessel whatever. [12] For a thing is called a vessel from its capacity, by which it holds and contains the soul; but man is so called from the community of nature, by which the flesh offers itself to the soul in its operations not as an instrument but as a service. And so a service will be held liable to judgment, even though it has no wisdom of its own, because it is a portion of the one that has wisdom, not mere furniture. [13] Knowing this, the apostle too, though he holds that the flesh does nothing by itself that is not charged to the soul, nonetheless judges the flesh a sinner — lest, on the ground that it seems only driven by the soul, it be thought acquitted by that verdict. [14] So too, when he assigns certain works of praise to the flesh — 'Glorify God, carry him in your body' — though certain that these efforts too are driven by the soul, he still charges them to the flesh as well, because to the flesh too he promises a reward. [15] Otherwise neither the rebuke would have applied to a fault not its own, nor the exhortation to a glory not its own; both rebuke and exhortation toward the flesh would be empty, if the reward sought in the resurrection were empty too.