To the Martyrs 5 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Even people with no higher motive than a craving for display endure the sword, beasts, fire, and whips, which should shame Christians who shrink from suffering for the truth.

Latin text · Oehler 1:13–14

Omitto nunc gloriae causam. Eadem omnia saevitiae et cruciatus certamina iam apud homines affectatio quoque et morbus quidam animi conculcavit. Quot otiosos affectatio armorum ad gladium locat? Certe ad feras ipsas affectatione descendunt, et de morsibus et de cicatricibus formosiores sibi videntur. Iam et ad ignes quidam se auctoraverunt, ut certum spatium in tunica ardente conficerent. Alii inter venatorum taureas scapulis patientissimis inambulaverunt. Haec, benedicti, non sine causa dominus in saeculum admisit, sed ad nos et nunc exhortandos et in illo die confundendos, si reformidaverimus pati pro veritate in salutem quae alii affectaverunt pro vanitate in perditionem.

English · Claude translation

I leave aside now the motive of glory. All these same contests of cruelty and torment have been trampled down among people by mere craving and a kind of sickness of the mind. How many idle men does the craving for arms hire out to the sword? They certainly go down to the very beasts out of craving, and think themselves handsomer for the bites and scars. Some have even bound themselves over to the fire, to cover a set distance in a burning tunic. Others have walked up and down among the hunters' bull-hide whips with most patient shoulders. These things, blessed ones, the Lord has not permitted in the world without reason, but both to encourage us now and to put us to shame on that day, if we have shrunk from suffering for the truth unto salvation what others have craved for vanity unto perdition.

About this passage

Source

Oehler 1:13–14 · Franz Oehler, ed., Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani quae supersunt omnia, vol. 1 (Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1853), 3–16 · Latin text: Franz Oehler (Oehler 1), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Oehler 1. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Latin text of Oehler 1; made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Martyrdom

Cite this passage

Tertullian, Mart. 5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-martyras/5/).

Plain text

Tertullian, Mart. 5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-martyras/5/).