The Soul's Testimony - Tertullian
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translated by the Rev S. Thelwall.
Text edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson and
first published by T&T Clark in Edinburgh in 1867. Additional
introductionary material and notes provided for the American
edition by A. Cleveland Coxe, 1886.
Chapter I
If, with the object of convicting the rivals and persecutors of Christian
truth, from their own authorities, of the crime of at once being untrue to
themselves and doing injustice to us, one is bent on gathering testimonies
in its favour from the writings of the philosophers, or the poets, or other
masters of this world's learning and wisdom, he has need of a most
inquisitive spirit, and a still greater memory to carry out the research.
Indeed, some of our people, who still continued their inquisitive labours in
ancient literature, and still occupied memory with it, have published works
we have in our hands of this very sort; works in which they relate and
attest the nature and origin of their traditions, and the grounds on which
opinions rest, and from which it may be seen at once that we have embraced
nothing new or monstrous'nothing for which we cannot claim the support of
ordinary and well-known writings, whether in ejecting error from our creed,
or admitting truth into it. But the unbelieving hardness of the human heart
leads them to slight even their own teachers, otherwise approved and in high
renown, whenever they touch upon arguments which are used in defence of
Christianity. Then the poets are fools, when they describe the gods with
human passions and stories; then the philosophers are without reason, when
they knock at the gates of truth. He will thus far be reckoned a wise and
sagacious man who has gone the length of uttering sentiments that are almost
Christian; while if, in a mere affectation of judgment and wisdom, he sets
himself to reject their ceremonies, or to convicting the world of its sin,
he is sure to be branded as a Christian. We will have nothing, then, to do
with the literature and the teaching, perverted in its best results, which
is believed in its errors rather than its truth. We shall lay no stress on
it, if some of their authors have declared that there is one God, and one
God only. Nay, let it be granted that there is nothing in heathen writers
which a Christian approves, that it may be put out of his power to utter a
single word of reproach. For all are not familiar with their teachings; and
those who are, have no assurance in regard to their truth. Far less do men
assent to our writings, to which no one comes for guidance unless he is
already a Christian. I call in a new testimony, yea, one which is better
known than all literature, more discussed than all doctrine, more public
than all publications, greater than the whole man'I mean all which is man's.
Stand forth, O soul, whether thou art a divine and eternal substance, as
most philosophers believe if it be so, thou wilt be the less likely to
lie,'or whether thou art the very opposite of divine, because indeed a
mortal thing, as Epicurus alone thinks'in that case there will be the less
temptation for thee to speak falsely in this case: whether thou art received
from heaven, or sprung from earth; whether thou art formed of numbers, or of
atoms; whether thine existence begins with that of the body, or thou art put
into it at a later stage; from whatever source, and in whatever way, thou
makest man a rational being, in the highest degree capable of thought and
knowledge,'stand forth and give thy witness. But I call thee not as when,
fashioned in schools, trained in libraries, fed in Attic academies and
porticoes, thou belchest wisdom. I address thee simple, rude, uncultured and
untaught, such as they have thee who have thee only; that very thing of the
road, the street, the work-shop, wholly. I want thine inexperience, since in
thy small experience no one feels any confidence. I demand of thee the
things thou bringest with thee into man, which thou knowest either from
thyself, or from thine author, whoever he may be. Thou art not, as I well
know, Christian; for a man becomes a Christian, he is not born one. Yet
Christians earnestly press thee for a testimony; they press thee, though an
alien, to bear witness against thy friends, that they may be put to shame
before thee, for hating and mocking us on account of things which convict
thee as an accessory.
Chapter II.
We give offence by proclaiming that there is one God, to whom the name of
God alone belongs, from whom all things come, and who is Lord of the whole
universe. [1463] Bear thy testimony, if thou knowest this to be the truth;
for openly and with a perfect liberty, such as we do not possess, we hear
thee both in private and in public exclaim, "Which may God grant," and, "If
God so will." By expressions such as these thou declarest that there is one
who is distinctively God, and thou con-fessest that all power belongs to him
to whose will, as Sovereign, thou dost look. At the same time, too, thou
deniest any others to be truly gods, in calling them by their own names of
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva; for thou affirmest Him to be God alone to
whom thou givest no other name than God; and though thou sometimes callest
these others gods, thou plainly usest the designation as one which does not
really belong to them, but is, so to speak, a borrowed one. Nor is the
nature of the God we declare unknown to thee: "God is good, God does
good," thou art wont to say; plainly suggesting further, "But man is
evil." In asserting an antithetic proposition, thou, in a sort of indirect
and figurative way, reproachest man with his wickedness in departing from a
God so good. So, again, as among us, as belonging to the God of benignity
and goodness, "Blessing" is a most sacred act in our religion and our life,
thou too sayest as readily as a Christian needs, "God bless thee; "and when
thou turnest the blessing of God into a curse, in like manner thy very words
confess with us that His power over us is absolute and entire. There are
some who, though they do not deny the existence of God, hold withal that He
is neither Searcher, nor Ruler, nor Judge; treating with especial disdain
those of us who go over to Christ out of fear of a coming judgment, as they
think, honouring God in freeing Him from the cares of keeping watch, and the
trouble of taking note,'not even regarding Him as capable of anger. For if
God, they say, gets angry, then He is susceptible of corruption and passion;
but that of which passion and corruption can be affirmed may also perish,
which God cannot do. But these very persons elsewhere, confessing that the
soul is divine, and bestowed on us by God, stumble against a testimony of
the soul itself, which affords an answer to these views. For if either
divine or God-given, it doubtless knows its giver; and if it knows Him, it
undoubtedly fears Him too, and especially as having been by Him endowed so
amply. Has it no fear of Him whose favour it is so desirous to possess, and
whose anger it is so anxious to avoid? Whence, then, the soul's natural fear
of God, if God cannot be angry? How is there any dread of Him whom nothing
offends? What is feared but anger? Whence comes anger, but from observing
what is done? What leads to watchful oversight, but judgment in prospect?
Whence is judgment, but from power? To whom does supreme authority and power
belong, but to God alone? So thou art always ready, O soul, from thine own
knowledge, nobody casting scorn upon thee, and no one preventing, to
exclaim, "God sees all," and "I commend thee to God," and "May God repay,"
and "God shall judge between us." How happens this, since thou art not
Christian? How is it that, even with the garland of Ceres on the brow,
wrapped in the purple cloak of Saturn, wearing the white robe of the goddess
Isis, thou invokest God as judge? Standing under the statue of ¦sculapius,
adorning the brazen image of Juno, arraying the helmet of Minerva with dusky
figures, thou never thinkest of appealing to any of these deities. In thine
own forum thou appealest to a God who is elsewhere; thou permittest honour
to be rendered in thy temples to a foreign god. Oh, striking testimony to
truth, which in the very midst of demons obtains a witness for us
Christians!
Chapter III.
But when we say that there are demons'as though, in the simple fact that we
alone expel them from the men's bodies, [1464] we did not also prove their
existence'some disciple of Chrysippus begins to curl the lip. Yet thy curses
sufficiently attest that there are such beings, and that they are objects of
thy strong dislike. [1465] As what comes to thee as a fit expression of thy
strong hatred of him, thou callest the man a dµmon who annoys thee with his
filthiness, or malice, or insolence, or any other vice which we ascribe to
evil spirits. In expressing vexation, contempt, or abhorrence, thou hast
Satan constantly upon thy lips; [1466] the very same we hold to be the angel
of evil, the source of error, the corrupter of the whole world, by whom in
the beginning man was entrapped into breaking the commandment of God. And
(the man) being given over to death on account of his sin, the entire human
race, tainted in their descent from him, were made a channel for
transmitting his condemnation. Thou seest, then, thy destroyer; and though
he is fully known only to Christians, or to whatever sect [1467] confesses
the Lord, yet, even thou hast some acquaintance with him while yet thou
abhorrest him!
Chapter IV.
Even now, as the matter refers to thy opinion on a point the more closely
belonging to thee, in so far as it bears on thy personal well-being, we
maintain that after life has passed away thou still remainest in existence,
and lookest forward to a day of judgment, and according to thy deserts art
assigned to misery or bliss, in either way of it for ever; that, to be
capable of this, thy former substance must needs return to thee, the matter
and the memory of the very same human being: for neither good nor evil
couldst thou feel if thou wert not endowed again with that sensitive bodily
organization, and there would be no grounds for judgment without the
presentation of the very person to whom the sufferings of judgment were due.
That Christian view, though much nobler than the Pythagorean, as it does not
transfer thee into beasts; though more complete than the Platonic, since it
endows thee again with a body; though more worthy of honour than the
Epicurean, as it preserves thee from annihilation,'yet, because of the name
connected with it, it is held to be nothing but vanity and folly, and, as it
is called, a mere presumption. But we are not ashamed of ourselves if our
presumption is found to have thy support. Well, in the first place, when
thou speakest of one who is dead, thou sayest of him, "Poor man"'poor,
surely, not because he has been taken from the good of life, but because he
has been given over to punishment and condemnation. But at another time thou
speakest of the dead as free from trouble; thou professest to think life a
burden, and death a blessing. Thou art wont, too, to speak of the dead as in
repose, [1468] when, returning to their graves beyond the city gates [1469]
with food and dainties, thou art wont to present offerings to thyself rather
than to them; or when, coming from the graves again, thou art staggering
under the effects of wine. But I want thy sober opinion. Thou callest the
dead poor when thou speakest thine own thoughts, when thou art at a distance
from them. For at their feast, where in a sense they are present and recline
along with thee, it would never do to cast reproach upon their lot. Thou
canst not but adulate those for whose sake thou art feasting it so
sumptuously. Dost thou then speak of him as poor who feels not? How happens
it that thou cursest, as one capable of suffering from thy curse, the man
whose memory comes back on thee with the sting in it of some old injury? It
is thine imprecation that "the earth may lie heavy on him," and that there
may be trouble "to his ashes in the realm of the dead." In like manner, in
thy kindly feeling to him to whom thou art indebted for favours, thou
entreatest "repose to his bones and ashes," and thy desire is that among the
dead he may "have pleasant rest." If thou hast no power of suffering after
death, if no feeling remains,'if, in a word, severance from the body is the
annihilation of thee, what makes thee lie against thyself, as if thou
couldst suffer in another state? Nay, why dost thou fear death at all? There
is nothing after death to be feared, if there is nothing to be felt. For
though it may be said that death is dreadful not for anything it threatens
afterwards, but because it deprives us of the good of life; yet, on the
other hand, as it puts an end to life's discomforts, which are far more
numerous, death's terrors are mitigated by a gain that more than outweighs
the loss. And there is no occasion to be troubled about a loss of good
things, which is amply made up for by so great a blessing as relief from
every trouble. There is nothing dreadful in that which delivers from all
that is to be dreaded. If thou shrinkest from giving up life because thy
experience of it has been sweet, at any rate there is no need to be in any
alarm about death if thou hast no knowledge that it is evil. Thy dread of it
is the proof that thou art aware of its evil. Thou wouldst never think it
evil'thou wouldst have no fear of it at all'if thou weft not sure that after
it there is something to make it evil, and so a thing of terror. [1470] Let
us leave unnoted at this time that natural way of fearing death. It is a
poor thing for any one to fear what is inevitable. I take up the other side,
and argue on the ground of a joyful hope beyond our term of earthly life;
for desire of posthumous fame is with almost every class an inborn thing.
[1471] I have not time to speak of the Curtii, and the Reguli, or the brave
men of Greece, who afford us innumerable cases of death despised for after
renown. Who at this day is without the desire that he may be often
remembered when he is dead? Who does not give all endeavour to preserve his
name by works of literature, or by the simple glory of his virtues, or by
the splendour even of his tomb? How is it the nature of the soul to have
these posthumous ambitions and with such amazing effort to prepare the
things it can only use after decease? It would care nothing about the
future, if the future were quite unknown to it. But perhaps thou thinkest
thyself surer, after thy exit from the body, of continuing still to feel,
than of any future resurrection, which is a doctrine laid at our door as one
of our presumptuous suppositions. But it is also the doctrine of the soul;
for if any one inquires about a person lately dead as though he were alive,
it occurs at once to say, "He has gone." He is expected to return, then.
Chapter V.
These testimonies of the soul are simple as true, commonplace as simple,
universal as commonplace, natural as universal, divine as natural. I don't
think they can appear frivolous or feeble to any one, if he reflect on the
majesty of nature, from which the soul derives its authority. [1472] If
you acknowledge the authority of the mistress, you will own it also in the
disciple. Well, nature is the mistress here, and her disciple is the soul.
But everything the one has taught or the other learned, has come from
God'the Teacher of the teacher. And what the soul may know from the
teachings of its chief instructor, thou canst judge from that which is
within thee. Think of that which enables thee to think; reflect on that
which in forebodings is the prophet, the augur in omens, the foreseer of
coming events. Is it a wonderful thing, if, being the gift of God to man, it
knows how to divine? Is it anything very strange, if it knows the God by
whom it was bestowed? Even fallen as it is, the victim of the great
adversary's machinations, it does not forget its Creator, His goodness and
law, and the final end both of itself and of its foe. Is it singular then,
if, divine in its origin, its revelations agree with the knowledge God has
given to His own people? But he who does not regard those outbursts of the
soul as the teaching of a congenital nature and the secret deposit of an
inborn knowledge, will say that the habit and, so to say, the vice of
speaking in this way has been acquired and confirmed from the opinions of
published books widely spread among men. Unquestionably the soul existed
before letters, and speech before books, and ideas before the writing of
them, and man himself before the poet and philosopher. [1473] Is it then
to be believed, that before literature and its publication no utterances of
the sort we have pointed out came from the lips of men? Did nobody speak of
God and His goodness, nobody of death, nobody of the dead? Speech went
a-begging, I suppose; nay, (the subjects being still awanting, without which
it cannot even exist at this day, when it is so much more copious, and rich,
and wise), it could not exist at all if the things which are now so easily
suggested, that cling to us so constantly, that are so very near to us, that
are somehow born on our very lips, had no existence in ancient times, before
letters had any existence in the world'before there was a Mercury, I think,
at all. And whence was it, I pray, that letters themselves came to know, and
to disseminate for the use of speech, what no mind had ever conceived, or
tongue put forth, or ear taken in? But, clearly, since the Scriptures of
God, whether belonging to Christians or to Jews, into whose olive tree we
have been grafted'are much more ancient than any secular literature, (or,
let us only say, are of a somewhat earlier date, as we have shown in its
proper place when proving their trustworthiness); if the soul have taken
these utterances from writings at all, we must believe it has taken them
from ours, and not from yours, its instruction coming more naturally from
the earlier than the later works. Which latter indeed waited for their own
instruction from the former, and though we grant that light has come from
you, still it has flowed from the first fountainhead originally; and we
claim as entirely ours, all you may have taken from us and handed down.
Since it is thus, it matters little whether the soul's knowledge was put
into it by God or by His book. Why, then, O man, wilt thou maintain a view
so groundless, as that those testimonies of the soul have gone forth from
the mere human speculations of your literature, and got hardening of common
use?
Chapter VI.
Believe, then, your own books, and as to our Scriptures so much the more
believe writings which are divine, but in the witness of the soul itself
give like confidence to Nature. Choose the one of these you observe to be
the most faithful friend of truth. If your own writings are distrusted,
neither God nor Nature lie. And if you would have faith in God and Nature,
have faith in the soul; thus you will believe yourself. Certainly you value
the soul as giving you your true greatness,'that to which you belong; which
is all things to you; without which you can neither live nor die; on whose
account you even put God away from you. Since, then, you fear to become a
Christian, call the soul before you, and put her to the question. Why does
she worship another? why name the name of God? Why does she speak of demons,
when she means to denote spirits to be held accursed? Why does she make her
protestations towards the heavens, and pronounce her ordinary execrations
earthwards? Why does she render service in one place, in another invoke the
Avenger? Why does she pass judgments on the dead? What Christian phrases are
those she has got, though Christians she neither desires to see nor hear?
Why has she either bestowed them On us, or received them from us? Why has
she either taught us them, or learned them as our scholar? Regard with
suspicion this accordance in words, while there is such difference in
practice. It is utter folly'denying a universal nature'to ascribe this
exclusively to our language and the Greek, which are regarded among us as so
near akin. The soul is not a boon from heaven to Latins and Greeks alone.
Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul
and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own
speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all. God is everywhere, and
the goodness of God is everywhere; demons are everywhere, and the cursing of
them is everywhere; the invocation of divine judgment is everywhere, death
is everywhere, and the sense of death is everywhere, and all the world over
is found the witness of the soul. There is not a soul of man that does not,
from the light that is in itself, proclaim the very things we are not
permitted to speak above our breath. Most justly, then, every soul is a
culprit as well as a witness: in the measure that it testifies for truth,
the guilt of error lies on it; and on the day of judgment it will stand
before the courts of God, without a word to say. Thou proclaimedst God, O
soul, but thou didst not seek to know Him: evil spirits were detested by
thee, and yet they were the objects of thy adoration; the punishments of
hell were foreseen by thee, but no care was taken to avoid them; thou hadst
a savour of Christianity, and withal wert the persecutor of Christians.
Elucidations.
I
Recognition of the Supreme God, cap, ii., p. 176.
The passage referred to in the note, begins thus in Jowett's rendering: "The
Ruler of the Universe has ordered all things with a view to the preservation
and perfection of the whole etc." So, in the same book: "Surely God must not
be supposed to have a nature which he himself hates." Again: "Let us not,
then, deem God inferior to human workmen, who in proportion to their skill
finish and perfect their works or that God, the wisest of beings, who is
willing and able to extend his care to all things, etc." Now, it is a
sublime plan which our author here takes up, (making only slight reference
to the innumerable citations which were behind his apostrophe to the soul if
any one should dispute it) to bid the soul stand forth and confess its
consciousness of God.
II
Dµmons, cap. vi. p. 176.
Those who would pursue the subject of Demonology, which Tertullian opens in
this admirable treatise, should follow it up in a writer whom Tertullian
greatly influenced, in many particulars, even when he presents a remarkable
contrast. The Ninth Book of the City of God is devoted to inquiries which
throw considerable light on some of the startling sayings of our author as
to the heathen systems, and their testimony to the Soul's Consciousness of
God and of the great enemy of God and the inferior spirit of Evil.
Footnotes
[1462] [The tract De Testimonio Animoe is cast into an apologetic form and
very properly comes into place here. It was written in Orthodoxy and forms a
valuable preface to the De Anima, of which we cannot say that it is quite
free from errors. As it refers to the Apology, we cannot place it before
that work, and perhaps we shall not greatly err if we consider it a sequel
to the Apology. If it proves to others the source of as much enjoyment as it
affords to me, it will be treasured by them as one of the most precious
testimonies to the Gospel, introducing Man to himself.]
[1463] [The student of Plato will recall such evidence, readily. See The
Laws, in Jowett's Translation, vol. iv. p. 416. Also Elucidation I.]
[1464] [The existence of demoniacal possessions in heathen countries is said
to be probable, even in our days. The Fathers unanimously assert the
effectual exorcisms of their days.]
[1465] [E.g. Horace, Epodes, Ode V.]
[1466] [Satanan, in omni vexationepronuntias. Does he mean that they used
this word? Rather, he means the demon is none other than Satan.]
[1467] [I have been obliged, somewhat, to simplify the translation here.]
[1468] [This whole passage is useful as a commentary on classic authors who
use these poetical expressions Coelo Musa beat (Hor. Ode viii. B. 4.) but
the real feeling comes out in such expressions as one finds in Horace's odes
to Sextius, (B. i. Ode 4.), or to Postumus, B. ii. Od. 14.]
[1469] [The tombs, by the roadside, of which the traveller still sees
specimens, used to be scenes of debauchery when the dead were honoured in
this way. Now, the funeral honours (See De Corona, cap. iii.) which
Christians substituted for these were Eucharistic alms and oblations:
thanking God for their holy lives and perpetuating relations with them in
the Communion of Saints.]
[1470] [Butler, Analogy, Part I. Chap. I.]
[1471] [Horace, Book III Ode 30.]
[1472] [This appeal to the universal conscience and consciousness of
mankind is unanswerable, and assures us that counter-theories will never
prevail. See Bossuet, De la Connoisance de Dieu et de Soi-même. Oeuvres,
Tom. v. pp. 86 et. Seqq. Ed. Paris., 1846.]
[1473] [Compare the heathen ideas in Plato: e.g. the story Socrates tells
in the Gorgians, (near the close) about death and Judgment.]
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