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The writings of Quintus Sept. Flor. Tertullianus
The writings of Quintus Sept Flor Tertullianus Author:Tertullian Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. AD SCAPULAM. |E are not in any great perturbation or alarm about the persecutions we suffer from the ignorance of men; for we have attached ourselve... more »s to this sect, fully accepting the terms of its core- nant, so that, as men whose very lives are not their own, we engage in these conflicts, our desire being to obtain God's promised rewards, and our dread lest the woes with which He threatens an unchristian life should overtake us. So we shrink not from the grapple with your utmost rage, coming even forth of our own accord to the contest; and condemnation gives us more pleasure than acquittal. We have sent therefore this tract to you in no alarm about ourselves, but in much concern for you and for all our enemies, to say nothing of our friends. For our religion commands us to love even our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us, aiming at a perfection all its own, and seeking in its disciples something of a higher type than the commonplace goodness of the world. For all love those who love them; it is peculiar to Christians alone to love those that hate them. Therefore, mourning over your ignorance, and compassionating human error, and looking on to that future of which every day shows threatening signs, necessity is laid on us to come forth in this way also, that we may set before you the truths you will not listen to openly and publicly. 2. We are worshippers of one God, of whose existence and character nature teaches all men; at whose lightnings and thunders you tremble, whose benefits minister to your happiness. You think that others, too, are gods, the same we know to be devils. However, it is a fundamental human right, aprivilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps anothe...« less