{"tertullian-scapulam/1":{"o":"Nos quidem neque expavescimus neque pertimescimus ea quae ab ignorantibus patimur, cum ad hanc sectam utique suscepta condicione eius pacti venerimus, ut etiam animas nostras auctorati in has pugnas accedamus, ea quae deus repromittit consequi optantes et ea quae diversae vitae comminatur pati timentes. Denique cum omni saevitia vestra concertamus etiam ultro erumpentes, magisque damnati quam absoluti gaudemus. Itaque hunc libellum non nobis timentes misimus, sed vobis et omnibus inimicis nostris, nedum amicis. Ita enim disciplina iubemur diligere inimicos quoque et orare pro iis qui nos persequuntur, ut haec sit perfecta et propria bonitas nostra, non communis. Amicos enim diligere omnium est, inimicos autem solorum Christianorum. Qui ergo dolemus de ignorantia vestra, et miseremur erroris humani, et futura prospicimus, et signa eorum cottidie intentari videmus, necesse est vel hoc modo erumpere ad proponenda vobis ea quae palam non vultis audire.","t":"We for our part are neither terrified nor frightened by what we suffer from those who do not know us, since we have come into this sect having accepted, of course, the terms of its contract, so that we enter these fights bound over to them even at the cost of our lives, desiring to obtain what God promises and fearing to suffer what he threatens to a different way of life. In short, we contend with all your savagery, even bursting forward of our own accord, and we rejoice more when condemned than when acquitted. We have therefore sent this little book not in fear for ourselves, but for you and all our enemies, to say nothing of our friends. For by our discipline we are commanded to love even our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, so that this may be our perfect and distinctive goodness, not the common kind. For to love friends is everyone's practice; to love enemies belongs to Christians alone. We, then, who grieve over your ignorance and pity human error, and foresee what is to come and see its signs threatened daily, must burst out, at least in this way, to set before you what you are unwilling to hear openly."},"tertullian-scapulam/2":{"o":"Nos unum deum colimus, quem omnes naturaliter nostis, ad cuius fulgura et tonitrua contremiscitis, ad cuius beneficia gaudetis. Ceteros et ipsi putatis deos esse quos nos daemonas scimus. Tamen humani iuris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit colere, nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed nec religionis est cogere religionem, quae sponte suscipi debeat, non vi, cum et hostiae ab animo libenti expostulentur. Ita etsi nos compuleritis ad sacrificandum, nihil praestabitis diis vestris. Ab invitis enim sacrificia non desiderabunt, nisi si contentiosi sunt; contentiosus autem deus non est. Denique qui est verus, omnia sua ex aequo et profanis et suis praestat, ideoque et iudicium constituit aeternum de gratis et ingratis. Tamen nos, quos sacrilegos existimatis, nec in furto umquam deprehendistis, nedum in sacrilegio. Omnes autem, qui templa dispoliant et per deos iurant et eosdem colunt, et Christiani non sunt et sacrilegi tamen deprehenduntur. Longum est, si retexamus, quibus aliis modis et derideantur et contemnantur omnes dii ab ipsis cultoribus suis. Sic et circa maiestatem imperatoris infamamur, tamen numquam Albiniani nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani, sed idem ipsi qui per genios eorum in pridie usque iuraverant, qui pro salute eorum hostias et fecerant et voverant, qui Christianos saepe damnaverant, hostes eorum sunt reperti. Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum imperatoris, quem sciens a deo suo constitui necesse est ut et ipsum diligat et revereatur et honoret et salvum velit cum toto Romano imperio, quousque saeculum stabit: tamdiu enim stabit. Colimus ergo et imperatorem sic quomodo et nobis licet et ipsi expedit, ut hominem a deo secundum et quicquid est a deo consecutum et solo deo minorem. Hoc et ipse volet. Sic enim omnibus maior est, dum solo vero deo minor est. Sic et ipsis diis maior est, dum et ipsi in potestate sunt eius. Itaque et sacrificamus pro salute imperatoris, sed deo nostro et ipsius, sed quomodo praecepit deus, pura prece. Non enim eget deus, conditor universitatis, odoris aut sanguinis alicuius. Haec enim daemoniorum pabula sunt. Daemones autem non tantum respuimus, verum et revincimus et cottidie traducimus et de hominibus expellimus, sicut plurimis notum est. Ita nos magis oramus pro salute imperatoris, ab eo eam postulantes qui praestare potest. Et utique ex disciplina patientiae divinae agere nos satis manifestum esse vobis potest, cum tanta hominum multitudo, pars paene maior civitatis cuiusque, in silentio et modestia agimus, singuli forte noti magis quam omnes, nec aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum. Absit enim, ut indigne feramus ea nos pati quae optamus, aut ultionem a nobis aliquam machinemur, quam a deo expectamus.","t":"We worship one God, whom you all know by nature, at whose lightning and thunder you tremble, at whose benefits you rejoice. The others, whom you yourselves think to be gods, we know to be demons. Yet it is a matter of human right and natural power for each person to worship what he thinks fit; one person's religion neither harms nor helps another. But it is no part of religion to compel religion, which ought to be taken up freely, not by force, since even sacrificial victims are required from a willing mind. So even if you compel us to sacrifice, you will render no service to your gods. For they will not want sacrifices from the unwilling, unless they are quarrelsome; but a god is not quarrelsome. Indeed, he who is the true God bestows all his gifts equally on the profane and on his own, and for that reason he has also appointed an eternal judgment on the grateful and the ungrateful. Yet you have never caught us, whom you consider sacrilegious, even in theft, much less in sacrilege. But all those who plunder temples both swear by the gods and worship them; they are not Christians, and yet they are caught committing sacrilege. It would take long to recount in what other ways all the gods are both mocked and despised by their very worshipers. So too we are defamed in the matter of the emperor's majesty; yet Christians could never be found to be followers of Albinus or Niger or Cassius; rather, the very people who had sworn by the emperors' guardian spirits up to the day before, who had both offered and vowed sacrifices for their safety, who had often condemned Christians, were found to be their enemies. A Christian is no one's enemy, much less the emperor's, whom, knowing that he is appointed by his God, he must love, revere, and honor, and wish him safe together with the whole Roman empire, as long as the world shall stand; for so long will it stand. We therefore honor the emperor too, in the way that is both lawful for us and good for him: as a man second to God, having received from God whatever he is, and less than God alone. This he himself will wish. For so he is greater than all, while he is less than the true God alone. So he is greater than the gods themselves, since they too are in his power. Accordingly, we also sacrifice for the emperor's safety, but to our God and his, and as God has commanded, with pure prayer. For God, the founder of the universe, has no need of any smell or blood. These are the food of demons. And demons we not only reject but also overcome, expose daily, and drive out of people, as is known to very many. So we pray all the more for the emperor's safety, asking it from him who is able to grant it. And it can be clear enough to you that we act from the discipline of divine patience, since, so great a multitude of people, almost the greater part of every city, we live in silence and modesty, known perhaps more as individuals than as a body, and recognizable by nothing else than by the amendment of our former vices. For far be it from us to take it ill that we suffer what we desire, or to plot any vengeance of our own, which we await from God."},"tertullian-scapulam/3":{"o":"Tamen, sicut supra diximus, doleamus necesse est, quod nulla civitas impune latura sit sanguinis nostri effusionem; sicut et sub Hilariano praeside, cum de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamassent: Areae non sint! areae ipsorum non fuerunt! Messes enim suas non egerunt. Ceterum et imbres anni praeteriti quid commemoraverint genus humanum apparuit, cataclysmum scilicet et retro fuisse propter incredulitates et iniquitates hominum, et ignes, qui super moenia Carthaginis proxime pependerunt per noctem, quid minati sint, sciunt qui viderunt, et pristina tonitrua quid sonaverint, sciunt qui obduruerunt. Omnia haec signa sunt imminentis irae dei, quam necesse est, quoquo modo possumus, ut et nuntiemus et praedicemus et deprecemur interim localem esse. Universalem enim et supremam suo tempore sentient qui exempla eius aliter interpretantur. Nam et sol ille in conventu Uticensi extincto paene lumine adeo portentum fuit, ut non potuerit ex ordinario deliquio hoc pati positus in suo hypsomate et domicilio. Habetis astrologos. Possumus aeque et exitus quorundam praesidum tibi proponere, qui in fine vitae suae recordati sunt deliquisse, quod vexassent Christianos. Vigellius Saturninus, qui primus hic gladium in nos egit, lumina amisit. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, cum, indigne ferens uxorem suam ad hanc sectam transisse, Christianos crudeliter tractasset, solusque in praetorio suo vastatus peste convivis vermibus ebullisset, Nemo sciat, aiebat, ne gaudeant Christiani aut sperent Christianae. Postea cognito errore suo, quod tormentis quosdam a proposito suo excidere fecisset, paene Christianus decessit. Caecilius Capella in illo exitu Byzantino, Christiani gaudete exclamavit. Sed qui videntur sibi impune tulisse, venient in diem divini iudicii. Tibi quoque optamus admonitionem solam fuisse, quod cum Adrumeticum Mavilum ad bestias damnasses, et statim haec vexatio subsecuta est et nunc ex eadem causa interpellatio sanguinis. Sed memento de cetero.","t":"Yet, as we said above, we must grieve that no city will bear the shedding of our blood unpunished. So it was under the governor Hilarianus, when they had shouted about the areas of our burial grounds, “No areas for them!”: their own threshing floors were no more, for they did not gather their harvests. Moreover, what last year's rains recalled to the human race was plain: namely, that there was once a deluge too, because of the unbelief and wickedness of men. And what the fires that recently hung over the walls of Carthage through the night threatened, those who saw them know; and what the earlier thunders sounded, those who were hardened know. All these are signs of the imminent wrath of God, which we must, in whatever way we can, both announce and proclaim, and pray that meanwhile it may remain local. For those who interpret its warnings otherwise will feel it universal and final in its own time. For that sun too at the assize of Utica, its light almost put out, was such a portent that it could not have suffered this from an ordinary eclipse, standing as it was in its exaltation and its own house. You have astrologers. We can likewise set before you the ends of certain governors, who at the close of their lives remembered that they had sinned in harassing Christians. Vigellius Saturninus, who first used the sword against us here, lost his sight. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, resenting that his wife had gone over to this sect, treated Christians cruelly; and when, alone in his residence, wasted by a plague, he had boiled over with living worms, he kept saying, “Let no one know, lest the Christians rejoice or Christian women hope.” Afterward, recognizing his error in having made some fall away from their resolve by torture, he died almost a Christian. Caecilius Capella, at that fall of Byzantium, cried out, “Christians, rejoice!” But those who think they have escaped unpunished will come to the day of divine judgment. For you too we wish it to have been a warning only that, when you had condemned Mavilus of Hadrumetum to the beasts, this trouble followed at once, and now for the same cause the call of blood. But be mindful of what is to come."},"tertullian-scapulam/4":{"o":"Non te terremus, qui nec timemus, sed velim, ut omnes salvos facere possimus monendo μὴ θεομαχεῖν. Potes et officio iurisdictionis tuae fungi et humanitatis meminisse, vel quia et vos sub gladio estis. Quid enim amplius tibi mandatur quam nocentes confessos damnare, negantes autem ad tormenta revocare? Videtis ergo, quomodo ipsi vos contra mandata faciatis, ut confessos negare cogatis. Adeo confitemini innocentes esse nos, quos damnare statim ex confessione non vultis. Si autem contenditis ad elidendos nos, iam ergo innocentiam expugnatis. Quanti autem praesides et constantiores et crudeliores dissimulaverunt ab huiusmodi causis? ut Cincius Severus, qui Thysdri ipse dedit remedium, quomodo responderent Christiani, ut dimitti possent: ut Vespronius Candidus, qui Christianum quasi tumultuosum civibus suis satisfacere dimisit: ut Asper, qui modice vexatum hominem et statim deiectum nec sacrificium compulit facere, ante professus inter advocatos et adsessores dolere se incidisse in hanc causam. Pudens etiam missum ad se Christianum in elogio concussione eius intellecta dimisit, scisso eodem elogio, sine accusatore negans se auditurum hominem secundum mandatum. Haec omnia tibi et de officio suggeri possunt et ab eisdem advocatis, qui et ipsi beneficia habent Christianorum, licet acclament quae volunt. Nam et cuiusdam notarius, cum a daemone praecipitaretur, liberatus est, et quorundam propinquus et puerulus, et quanti honesti viri (de vulgaribus enim non dicimus) aut a daemoniis aut valetudinibus remediati sunt? Ipse etiam Severus, pater Antonini, Christianorum memor fuit. Nam et Proculum Christianum, qui Torpacion cognominabatur, Euhodiae procuratorem, qui eum per oleum aliquando curaverat, requisivit et in palatio suo habuit usque ad mortem eius; quem et Antoninus optime noverat lacte Christiano educatus. Sed et clarissimas feminas et clarissimos viros Severus, sciens huius sectae esse, non modo non laesit, verum et testimonio exornavit et populo furenti in nos palam restitit. Marcus quoque Aurelius in Germanica expeditione Christianorum militum orationibus ad deum factis imbres in siti illa impetravit. Quando non geniculationibus et ieiunationibus nostris etiam siccitates sunt depulsae? Tunc et populus adclamans deo deorum, qui solus potens, in Iovis nomine deo nostro testimonium reddidit. Praeter haec depositum non abnegamus, matrimonium nullius adulteramus, pupillos pie tractamus, indigentibus refrigeramus, nulli malum pro malo reddimus. Viderint qui sectam mentiuntur, quos et ipsi recusamus. Quis denique de nobis alio nomine queritur? Quod aliud negotium patitur Christianus, nisi suae sectae, quam incestam, quam crudelem tanto tempore nemo probavit? Pro tanta innocentia, pro tanta probitate, pro iustitia, pro pudicitia, pro fide, pro veritate, pro deo vivo cremamur, quod nec sacrilegi nec hostes publici veri nec tot maiestatis rei pati solent. Nam et nunc a praeside Legionis et a praeside Mauritaniae vexatur hoc nomen, sed gladio tenus, sicut et a primordio mandatum est animadverti in huiusmodi. Sed maiora certamina, maiora praemia.","t":"We do not frighten you, we who do not fear; but I should like us to be able to save all by warning them “not to fight against God.” You can both perform the duties of your jurisdiction and remember humanity, if only because you too are under the sword. For what more are you commanded than to condemn the guilty who confess, and to recall to torture those who deny? You see, then, how you yourselves act against your instructions, forcing those who confess to deny. So you admit that we are innocent, since you are unwilling to condemn us at once on our confession. But if you strive to crush us, then you are fighting against innocence. And how many governors, both more resolute and more cruel, have turned a blind eye to cases of this kind! Like Cincius Severus, who at Thysdrus himself supplied the remedy, how Christians should answer so that they could be released; like Vespronius Candidus, who dismissed a Christian as a mere disturber, to satisfy his fellow citizens; like Asper, who, when a man had been tortured a little and at once gave way, did not compel him even to sacrifice, having declared beforehand among his advocates and assessors that he was sorry to have fallen in with this case. Pudens too dismissed a Christian sent to him, perceiving extortion in the charge sheet; he tore up that charge sheet, saying that according to his instructions he would not hear a man without an accuser. All these things can be suggested to you both from your office and by those same advocates, who themselves have received benefits from Christians, though they shout what they please. For the secretary of one of them, when he was being thrown down by a demon, was set free; so were a relative of some others and a little boy. And how many men of rank (for we do not speak of ordinary people) have been cured either of demons or of illnesses! Even Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of the Christians. For he sought out the Christian Proculus, surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodus, who had once cured him with oil, and kept him in his palace until his death; Antoninus, too, reared on Christian milk, knew him very well. And Severus, knowing that most distinguished women and most distinguished men belonged to this sect, not only did not harm them but honored them with his testimony, and openly resisted the people raging against us. Marcus Aurelius too, in the German campaign, obtained rains in that drought by the prayers offered to God by Christian soldiers. When have droughts not been driven away by our kneelings and fastings? Then the people too, shouting “To the God of gods, who alone is mighty,” bore witness to our God under the name of Jupiter. Besides this, we do not deny a deposit, we violate no one's marriage, we treat orphans dutifully, we give relief to the needy, we repay no one evil for evil. Let those see to it who falsely claim the sect, whom we ourselves disown. In short, who complains of us on any other ground? What other charge does a Christian suffer except that of his own sect, which no one in all this time has proved incestuous or cruel? For such innocence, such uprightness, for justice, for chastity, for faith, for truth, for the living God we are burned, which neither the sacrilegious nor real public enemies nor so many guilty of treason usually suffer. For even now this name is harassed by the governor of Legio and the governor of Mauretania, but only as far as the sword, as it was commanded from the beginning that such cases be punished. But the greater the contests, the greater the rewards."},"tertullian-scapulam/5":{"o":"Crudelitas vestra gloria est nostra. Vide tantum, ne hoc ipso, quod talia sustinemus, ad hoc solum videamur erumpere, ut hoc ipsum probemus, nos haec non timere, sed ultro vocare. Arrius Antoninus in Asia cum persequeretur instanter, omnes illius civitatis Christiani ante tribunalia eius se manu facta obtulerunt. Tum ille paucis duci iussis reliquis ait, Ὦ δειλοὶ, εἰ θέλετε ἀποθνήσκειν, κρημνοὺς ἢ βρόχους ἔχετε. Hoc si placuerit et hic fieri, quid facies de tantis milibus hominum, tot viris ac feminis, omnis sexus, omnis aetatis, omnis dignitatis, offerentibus se tibi? Quantis ignibus, quantis gladiis opus erit? Quid ipsa Carthago passura est, decimanda a te, cum propinquos, cum contubernales suos illic unusquisque cognoverit, cum viderit illic fortasse et tui ordinis viros et matronas et principales quasque personas et amicorum tuorum vel propinquos vel amicos? Parce ergo tibi, si non nobis. Parce Carthagini, si non tibi. Parce provinciae, quae visa intentione tua obnoxia facta est concussionibus et militum et inimicorum suorum cuiusque. Magistrum neminem habemus, nisi deum solum. Hic ante te est nec abscondi potest, sed cui nihil facere possis. Ceterum quos putas tibi magistros, homines sunt, et ipsi morituri quandoque. Nec tamen deficiet haec secta, quam tunc magis aedificari scias, cum caedi videtur. Quisque enim tantam tolerantiam spectans, ut aliquo scrupulo percussus, et inquirere accenditur, quid sit in causa, et ubi cognoverit veritatem, et ipse statim sequitur.","t":"Your cruelty is our glory. Only take care that, from the very fact that we endure such things, we do not seem to burst forward solely to prove this very point: that we do not fear these things but even invite them. When Arrius Antoninus was persecuting vigorously in Asia, all the Christians of that city presented themselves before his tribunal in a body. Then, having ordered a few to be led off, he said to the rest, “Wretches, if you want to die, you have cliffs or nooses.” If it should be decided to do this here too, what will you do with so many thousands of people, so many men and women, of every sex, every age, every rank, offering themselves to you? How many fires, how many swords will be needed? What will Carthage itself suffer, decimated by you, when each person recognizes there his relatives and companions, when he sees there perhaps men of your own order, and matrons, and all the leading persons, and relatives or friends of your friends? Spare yourself, then, if not us. Spare Carthage, if not yourself. Spare the province, which, once your intention was seen, has been exposed to the extortions both of the soldiers and of each person's private enemies. We have no master except God alone. He is before you and cannot be hidden, but you can do nothing to him. As for those you regard as your masters, they are men, and they themselves will die some day. Yet this sect will not fail; know that it is built up the more when it seems to be cut down. For everyone who watches such endurance, struck as it were by some misgiving, is fired to inquire what is at the bottom of it; and when he has learned the truth, he himself at once follows."}}