Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] And how long shall we keep sawing back and forth along this line, when we hold an observance grown old, one that by preceding it has established the very state of the question? If no Scripture has settled it, custom, surely, has confirmed it -- and custom without doubt flowed from tradition. For how can anything be practiced by usage if it was not first handed down? "But even in claiming a tradition," you say, "written authority ought to be required." [2] Very well, let us ask whether a tradition, unless it is written, ought not to be accepted at all. We will certainly say it should not be accepted, unless examples from other observances prejudge the case in its favor -- observances which we defend without the support of any written text, on the sole title of tradition and thereafter on the patronage of custom. Take baptism, for a start: when we are about to go down into the water, and even somewhat earlier, in the church, under the bishop's hand, we solemnly declare that we renounce the devil, his pomp, and also his angels. [3] Then we are plunged into the water three times, giving a rather fuller answer than the Lord determined in the gospel. Once lifted up from the water, we first taste a blended draught of milk and honey; from that day forward we go without the customary bath for a full week. We partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist -- a rite the Lord established for mealtime and enjoined upon all alike -- even at gatherings held before dawn, and from no hand but that of those presiding. We make offerings for the dead, for birthdays, on their yearly anniversary. [4] On the Lord's Day we consider it wrong to fast, or to pray on bent knees. We rejoice in that same exemption from the day of Easter clear through to Pentecost. We are anxiously troubled if any bit of the cup or the bread, even our own, falls to the ground. At every step and every movement, at every coming in and going out, in putting on footwear, in taking a bath, in reclining for a meal, as we kindle the lamps, whether on couches or on seats -- whatever activity keeps us occupied -- we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross.