Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But some, setting aside the divine exhortations, prefer to apply to themselves that little Greek verse of worldly wisdom: "He who fled will fight again." So that perhaps he may flee again too? And when will he ever win, who, once he has fled, is already beaten? What a fine soldier he offers to Christ his commander—a man so fully armed by the apostle that, the moment he hears the trumpet of persecution, he deserts on the very day of battle! I too will answer with something from the world: "Is death, then, really so wretched a thing?" Let him die, one way or another, beaten or victorious; for even if he falls by denying, he has at least fought it out under torture. I would rather have a man to be pitied than one to be ashamed of; a soldier lost in battle is a finer sight than one saved by flight. Do you fear man, Christian—you, whom angels ought to fear, since you are to judge angels? Whom demons ought to fear, since you have received power even over demons? Whom the whole world ought to fear, since the world itself is judged in you? You have put on Christ—since you have been dipped into Christ—and you flee the devil? You have cheapened the Christ who is in you; you have made yourself, along with the devil, a runaway. But in fleeing your Lord you reproach all his other runaways for their folly: a certain hot-blooded prophet once fled the Lord too, crossing from Joppa to Tarshish, as though he could cross out of God's reach as well; but the Lord found him—not, I need hardly say, on sea or land, but inside the belly of a beast itself, where he could neither die for three days nor even so escape God. How much better off is the servant of God who, whether he fears the lord of iniquity and yet does not flee him but rather despises him, trusting, of course, in the protection of his own Lord, or whether he stands in awe of God—all the more does he plant himself under God's eyes and say: "He is the Lord; he is powerful; all things are his; wherever I am, I am in his hand; let him do as he wills. I will not leave. And if he wants me to perish, let him be the one to destroy me, so long as I keep myself in his service. I would rather do him the injury of perishing by his own will than the injury of escaping by mine."'
XI.