Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] "If, then," you will say, "now and then, and in certain instances, why not also in the edict of the resurrection, which is to be understood spiritually?" Because, in fact, a great deal of reasoning stands against it. For first, what will become of so many other divine instruments, so openly attesting a bodily resurrection that they admit no suspicion of figurative meaning? [2] And it is surely only fair, as we also urged above, that uncertain things be judged in light of certain ones, and obscure things in light of what is manifest — lest, amid discord between the certain and the uncertain, the manifest and the obscure, faith be torn apart, truth be endangered, and divinity itself be branded inconsistent. [3] Furthermore, it is not plausible that this particular form of the sacred mystery, in which the whole of faith is invested, on which the whole discipline strains, should appear announced ambiguously and set forth obscurely — since the hope of resurrection, unless made manifest as to its danger and its reward, would persuade no one to a religion so exposed, above all others, to public hatred and hostile sentence. [4] No work is certain when its wage is uncertain; no fear is just when its danger is doubtful — and both the wage and the danger hang on the outcome of the resurrection. [5] But if, in fact, God's temporal and local and personal decrees and judgments against cities and nations and kings have been hurled forth by prophecy so openly, how is it conceivable that his eternal and universal dispositions, for the whole race of mankind, should have fled from the light that is properly theirs? The greater they are, the clearer they ought to be, so that, being greater, they might be believed. [6] And I think that neither envy nor deceit nor inconsistency nor seduction can be ascribed to God — the very things by which the promulgation of great matters is generally mocked.