Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] You, then, otherwise most diligent and most persistent investigators of crimes far smaller than these, when it comes to matters so horrendous, surpassing every kind of wickedness, abandon that diligence — neither accepting the confession, though judges should always labor to secure it, nor sorting out the inquiry, though condemners should always consult it. It is now plain that the whole charge against us is directed not at any crime, but at a name. [2] So true is this that, if the truth of the charges were established, the very names of the crimes would be attached to the condemned, so that sentence would be pronounced against us thus: "that murderer," or "that incestuous man," or whatever we are accused of — "let him be led out, crucified, thrown to the beasts." But your sentences mark nothing except a confessed Christian; no name of any crime appears — unless the crime is the name itself.
[3] This, indeed, is the real reason for the whole hatred against us: the name is the issue, because some hidden force, working through your ignorance, fights against it, so that you refuse to know for certain what you are certain you do not know for certain, and therefore you neither believe what is not proved, nor, so that it not be too easily proved, are you willing to inquire — so that a hated name may be punished under the mere presumption of crimes. [4] So much so, that once the hated name is dropped, we are then compelled to deny it, and then, once we deny it, we are set free, with complete impunity for our past — no longer bloody, no longer incestuous, simply because we have given up that name.
[5] But while this reasoning is being laid out in its proper place, tell me, you who pursue this name to destroy it: what crime lies in the name? What offense, what fault? [6] For you are debarred from bringing charges that neither the indictment specifies, nor the proof assigns, nor the sentence enumerates: whatever is brought before the governor, whatever is inquired of the accused, whatever is answered or denied, whatever is read out from the record of the trial — that I acknowledge as the charge. [7] So then, as to the merit of the name itself — if there is any guilt in names, any accusation belonging to words — I judge that no word or name can be at fault, except when it sounds barbarous, or bodes ill, or is indecent, or is otherwise unfit for the speaker to utter or unpleasant for the hearer to receive. [8] These are the "crimes" of words and names, just as barbarism, solecism, and clumsy figures of speech are faults of language and diction. But the name "Christian," so far as its meaning goes, is derived from "anointing." [9] Even when you mispronounce it "Chrestian" (for you are not even quite certain of the name itself), still it is formed from a word meaning sweetness or goodness. [10] You are therefore persecuting, in innocent men, even a name that is itself innocent — a name that gives no trouble to the tongue, that is not harsh to the ears, that harms no one, that is hostile to no one's peace, and that, besides being Greek like many others, is pleasant both in sound and in meaning. And surely names are not to be punished with the sword, the cross, or the beasts!
IV.