Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But if God had set martyrdoms before us under the name of a contest, so that through them we might grapple with our adversary — so that the man who once let himself be gladly knocked down by him might now knock him down for good — here too generosity, more than harshness, governs God's design. Having wrenched man out of the devil's jaws, God wanted him, through faith and through courage, to become the very one who tramples his jailer — not merely to have escaped his enemy, but to have conquered him. [2] The one who had called man to salvation loved to invite him to glory as well, so that we who rejoice at being freed might exult also at being crowned. Consider those contests — the contentious festivals and superstitious games of the Greeks, of their religions and their pleasures — with what enthusiasm the world, and now Africa too, has been allowed to celebrate them. Even now individual cities keep pestering Carthage with their congratulations, since she was granted the Pythian games after the long old age of the stadium. [3] So from time immemorial it has been thought most fitting to stage a trial of one's pursuits, to weigh the excellence of bodily and vocal arts, with the prize as judge, the spectacle as arbiter, sentence rendered by pleasure. In these contests the fighting is bare-fisted, yet the wounds are real: fists pound, heels crash, the caestus tears flesh, whips lash it to shreds. [4] Yet no one will disgrace the president of the games by charging him with men's violence. Suits for injury stop at the edge of the stadium. But consider how much business is done in those bruises and that blood and those welts: crowns, that is, and glory and a dowry, public privileges, civic stipends, portraits, statues, and — as much eternity as the world can offer — fame from renown, resurrection from memory. [5] The boxer himself does not complain that he's in pain, for he wants this; the crown presses down on his wounds, the palm-branch hides his blood; victory swells him more than injury. Will you count as harmed the man you see rejoicing? And even the loser will not reproach the games' president for his fall. [6] Will it be beneath God to bring his own arts and disciplines out into public view, onto this stage that is the world, as a spectacle for men and angels and every power there is? To test flesh and soul for constancy and endurance? To give this one the palm, that one honor, another citizenship, another a stipend? Even to reject some, and dismiss the disgraced with ignominy? You are, no doubt, prescribing to God at what times, in what manner, in what places he may judge his own household — as though it were not fitting even for a judge to pre-judge. [7] What now, if it were not under the name of a contest that he set forth faith for martyrdoms, but for the sake of one's own advancement? Should not that faith have had some peak of hope to draw toward, on which to fix its zeal and hang its longing, some height it might strain to climb — since even earthly offices burn with ambition for higher rank? Or how could there be many mansions with the Father, if not corresponding to the variety of merits? How could star differ from star in glory, except by the difference of their rays? [8] Further, if it suited faith's exaltation and clarity to have some kind of advancement, that gain ought to be something that cost dearly: labor, torture, torment, death. But look at the balance struck, when flesh and soul are paid out — than which nothing in man is dearer, the one the hand of God, the other his breath — that these very things are paid out for the advancement of those whose advancement it is, that the very things spent become profit, the same price doubling as reward. [9] Moreover, God had foreseen other weaknesses of the human condition, the enemy's ambushes, the deceptions of circumstance, the world's snares — that faith would be endangered even after baptism, that many, once saved, would perish again, having let their wedding garment grow shabby, having failed to store oil for their lamps, needing to be sought out through mountains and ravines and carried home on shoulders. So he set in place a second comfort, a last defense: the combat of martyrdom, and the baptism of blood to follow it. [10] Of this happiness David speaks, when he pronounces fortunate those whose wrongdoings have been released and whose offenses lie hidden from view, and calls that man fortunate against whom the Lord will reckon no fault. For to martyrs properly speaking nothing more can be reckoned, since in that baptism life itself is laid down. [11] So love covers a multitude of sins — the love, that is, by which a man loves God with all his strength, the strength he spends fighting in martyrdom, with all his soul, which he lays down for God — and hammers out of that a martyr-man. Will you call these remedies, these counsels, these judgments, even these spectacles of God, savagery? Does God crave the blood of man? And yet I would dare to say — if man craves the kingdom of God, if man craves certain salvation, if man craves a second birth. No exchange is grudging where the reckoning of either grace or injury is shared by both sides.