To the Nations 1.18
Summary: Christians are called obstinate for despising death, yet pagans praise the same courage in their heroes and still hire themselves out daily to the sword, the beasts, and the fire.
Latin text · Oehler 1:343–345
Reliquum obstinationis in illo capitulo collocatis, quod neque gladios neque cruces neque bestias vestras, non ignem, non tormenta ob duritatem ac contemptum mortis animo recusemus. At enim haec omnia apud priores maioresque vestros non contemni modo, sed etiam magna laude pensari a virtute didicerunt. Gladius quot et quantos viros voluntarios! Piget prosequi. Crucis vero novitatem numerosae, abstrusae, Regulus vester libenter dedicavit; regina Aegypti bestiis suis usa est, ignes post Carthaginensem feminam Asdrubale marito in extremis patriae constantiorem docuerat invadere ipsa Dido. Sed et tormenta mulier Attica fatigavit tyranno negans, postremo, ne cederet corpus et sexus, linguam suam pastam expuit, totum eradicatae confessionis ministerium. Sed vestris ista ad gloriam, nostris ad duritiam deputatis. Destruite nunc gloriam maiorum, quo nos quoque destruatis. Contenti estote detrahere etiam laude parentum ad praesens, ne nobis locum detis de his. Forsitan et temporum qualitas robustioris antiquitatis exegerit ingenia duriora. At nunc tranquillitate pacis et ingenia mitiora et mentes hominum etiam in extraneos. Esto, inquitis, veteribus vos comparate; nobis necesse est in vobis odio prosequi quod a nobis non probatur, quia nec invenitur in nobis. Respondete igitur ad singulas species. Non eadem voce exempla deposco. Si contemptu scilicet mortis gladius de maioribus fabulas fecit, utique non vitae amore gladio vos ad lanistas auctoratis, metu mortis nomen militiae datis. Si feminae alicui de bestiis famosa mors est, medio quotidie pacis sponte libera ad bestias itis. Si crucem, configendi corporis machinam, nullus adhuc ex vobis Regulus pepigit, attamen iam ignis contemptus evasit, ex quo se quidam proxime vestiendum incendiali tunica ad certum usquequaque locum auctoravit. Si flagris mulier insultavit, hoc quoque proxume inter venatorios ordine transcurso remensus est, ut taceam de Laconica gloria.
English · Claude translation
The rest of our obstinacy you place under this heading: that out of hardness and contempt of death we do not refuse in our minds your swords, crosses, and beasts, nor fire nor tortures. But your forebears and ancestors learned from virtue not only to despise all these things but even to hold them in high praise. How many and how great men has the sword found willing! It is tiresome to go through them. The novelty of a cross, many-spiked and enclosed, your Regulus willingly dedicated; the queen of Egypt made use of her own beasts; and the fire which, after her, the Carthaginian woman entered in her country's last hour, more steadfast than her husband Hasdrubal, Dido herself had taught women to rush into. And an Athenian woman wore out the tortures, refusing the tyrant; at last, lest her body and her sex give way, she bit off her tongue and spat it out, the whole instrument of the confession she had torn out. But you count these things as glory in your own people, and as hardness in ours. Destroy now the glory of your ancestors, so that you may destroy us as well. Be content even to detract from the praise of your forefathers for the moment, so as not to give us room on these points. Perhaps the character of the times, in a sturdier antiquity, demanded harder spirits. But now, in the tranquillity of peace, spirits are milder, and men's minds too, even toward strangers. “Very well,” you say, “compare yourselves with the ancients; we must pursue with hatred in you what we do not approve, because it is not found in us.” Answer, then, point by point. I do not ask for examples in the same terms. If contempt of death, of course, made the sword the stuff of legends for your ancestors, surely it is not from love of life that you hire yourselves out to the trainers of gladiators for the sword, and it is from fear of death that you enlist in the army! If a woman has a famous death by beasts, you go of your own free will to the beasts every day in the midst of peace. If no Regulus among you has yet bargained for the cross, the engine for nailing the body, yet contempt of fire has now appeared, since recently a man hired himself out to be clothed in a burning tunic and to run a set distance. If a woman defied the scourges, this too was lately repeated by one who ran the gauntlet through the rank of the huntsmen, to say nothing of the Spartan glory.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The examples are Regulus (killed in a spiked box by the Carthaginians), Cleopatra (the asp), the wife of Hasdrubal (146 BC) and Dido (both by fire), and the Athenian courtesan Leaena, who bit out her tongue under torture rather than betray the tyrannicides. The “Spartan glory” is the flogging of Spartan youths at the altar of Artemis Orthia. The Latin of the Regulus clause (numerosae, abstrusae) is compressed and the rendering approximate.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (uncertain characters in the digital text; the sense requires ne): n(??) cederet → ne cederet.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Nat. 1.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-nationes/1/18/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Nat. 1.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-nationes/1/18/).
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