Chapter 3
TERTULLIAN
Chapter 3 (1) Granted now, O blessed, that even to Christians the prison is unpleasant—yet, we were called to the service in the army of the living God in the very moment when we gave response to the words of the sacramental oath.1 No soldier goes out to war encumbered with luxuries, nor does he march to the line of battle from the sleeping chamber, but from light and cramped tents where every kind of austerity, discomfort, and inconvenience is experienced. (2)
Even in time of peace soldiers are toughened to warfare by toils and hardships: by marching in arms, by practising swift maneuvers in the field, by digging a trench, by joining closely together to form a tortoise-shield.2 Everything is set in sweating toil, lest bodies and minds be frightened at having to pass from shade to sunshine, from sunshine to icy cold, from the tunic to the breastplate, from hushed silence to the warcry, from rest to the din of battle.3
1 In military language, the term sacramentum was used to denote the military oath of allegiance. It is in this sense that Tertullian employs the word here, referring to the baptismal vows of the Christian.
2 In military language, the term 'tortoise-shield' (testudo) denoted a shelter used in attacking ramparts or walls. The soldiers inter locked their shields over their heads, thus forming a protective cover like the shell of a tortoise.
3 A reminiscence of this passage is found in St. Jerome's letter to Heliodorus (Ep. 14.2.1-2) . Jerome reproaches Heliodorus for having gone back from the perfect way of the ascetic life: 'What are you, dainty soldier, doing in your father's house? Where are your ramparts and trenches? When have you spent a winter in the camp? ... Do you intend to march straight from the sleeping chamber to the line of battle, from the shade into the heat of the sun? A body used to a tunic cannot endure a heavy breastplate, a head that has worn a cap refuses a helmet, a hand made tender by disuse is galled by the hard handle of a sword.'
TO THE MARTYRS
(3) In like manner, O blessed, consider whatever is hard in your present situation as an exercise of your powers of mind and body. You are about to enter a noble contest4 in which the living God acts the part of superintendent and the Holy Spirit is your trainer, a contest whose crown is eternity, whose prize is angelic nature, citizenship in heaven and glory for ever and ever. (4) And so your Master, Jesus
Christ, who has anointed you with His Spirit5 and has brought you to this training ground, has resolved, before the day of the contest, to take you from a softer way of life to a harsher treatment that your strength may be in creased. For athletes, too, are set apart for more rigid training that they may apply themselves to the building up of their physical strength. They are kept from lavish living, from more tempting dishes, from more pleasurable drinks. They are urged on, they are subjected to torturing toils, they are worn out: the more strenuously they have exerted themselves, the greater is their hope of victory. (5)
And they do this, says the Apostle, to win a perishable crown. We who are about to win an eternal one6 recognize in the prison our training ground, that we may be led forth to the actual contest before the seat of the presiding judge well practised in all hardships, because strength is built up by austerity, but destroyed by softness.
4 Cf. 1 Tim. 6.12.
5 Cf. 1 John 2.20. This anointing of the Christian with the Holy Spirit Tertullian compares to the use of oil to anoint the bodies of athletes in the palaestra.
6 Cf. 1 Cor. 9.25.