Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Who now would know the marrow of the scriptures better than Christ's own school? Those the Lord adopted as his disciples he trained in everything, without exception, and appointed to us as teachers who would in turn teach everything, without exception. To whom would he sooner have revealed the shape of his voice than to the one to whom he unveiled the very likeness of his glory — Peter, John, James, and afterward Paul, whom he also made a partaker of paradise before his martyrdom? Or do these men, teachers of falsehood rather than of truth, write other than they think? [2] Peter indeed, to the Pontians: "For what glory is it, if when you sin and are buffeted for it you endure it patiently? But this is thankworthy, and to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps." [3] And again: "Beloved, do not be startled at the burning ordeal now under way in your midst to prove you, as though some alien thing were befalling you. But rejoice, to the degree that you share Christ's sufferings, so that at the unveiling of his glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the glory and Spirit of God rests upon you — provided none of you suffers as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer, or a meddler in others' affairs; but should it be as a Christian, let him feel no shame over it, but glorify God under that name." [4] John, meanwhile, urges that we surrender our very lives on behalf of our brothers, denying that fear has any place in love: "Perfect love casts fear outside, because fear carries punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love." [5] What fear should we understand this to mean, if not the fear that fathers denial? What love does he call perfect, if not the love that puts fear to flight and gives birth to confession? With what punishment does he threaten fear, if not the one the denier will pay, to be destroyed body and soul in Gehenna? And if we must lay down our lives for our brothers, how much more does he teach that we must die for the Lord — well enough instructed for that persuasion, too, out of his own Apocalypse? [6] For the Spirit had commanded the angel of the church of the Smyrnaeans: "Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried ten days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." [7] Likewise to the Pergamenes, concerning Antipas, that most faithful martyr, killed in the very dwelling-place of Satan. Likewise to the Philadelphians, that they would be delivered from the final trial, because they had not denied the Lord's name. [8] From there he promises to each of the victors, now the tree of life and pardon of the second death, now hidden manna with a white stone bearing an unknown name, now dominion over the nations wielded with an iron rod, together with the gleam of the morning star, now to be arrayed in white and never struck from the roll of the living, and to become a pillar within God's sanctuary, engraved with the title of God, of the Lord, and of Jerusalem-from-above, now to sit beside the Lord upon his throne — a seat once refused even to the sons of Zebedee. [9] Who, then, are these so-blessed victors, if not the martyrs properly so called? For theirs are the victories whose battles are theirs also, and theirs the battles whose blood is theirs also. And meanwhile, under the altar, the souls of the martyrs rest in peace, feeding their patience on confidence in vengeance, and claiming, clothed in white robes, the brightness that belongs to them, until others too fill up the fellowship of their glory. [10] For again a countless multitude, robed in white and marked with the palms of victory, is revealed — plainly triumphing over Antichrist — as one elder puts it: "Here are those who have emerged from that vast affliction, and who rinsed their garment and bleached it in the Lamb's blood." For the flesh is the soul's garment: baptism rinses away its stains, while martyrdom bleaches out its blemishes. Isaiah too pledges that from scarlet and crimson it shall turn snow-white, like wool. [11] Great Babylon too, when she is pictured intoxicated on the blood of the saints, is without doubt made drunk from the very cups the martyrdoms fill — and it is equally shown what terror is going to pay for. For among all the condemned — indeed before all of them — come the fearful. "But to the fearful," it says, "and to the rest," a share follows in the lake of fire and brimstone. So fear — in that same letter — the fear that love casts outside, carries its own punishment.