Chapter 9
TERTULLIAN
that it remains for us to render an account for every vain and idle word.5 (6) It follows, then, that our Lord forbids us to do certain acts, but at the same time admonishes us to endure with meekness the same treatment at the hands of another.
(7) [We shall speak] now of the joy which comes from patience. For every injury, whether occasioned by the tongue or the hand, coming in contact with patience, will meet the same end as a weapon which is flung and dashed upon a hard, unyielding rock. An ineffectual and fruitless action will lose its force immediately and will sometimes vent its passion and strike with the force of a boomerang upon him who sent it forth. (8) This is true, of course, since one insults you with the intention of causing you pain, because the one who inflicts the injury reaps his reward in the pain of the one injured. Con sequently, if you cheat him of his reward by not showing any pain, he will himself inevitably feel pain because he has lost his reward. (9) Then you will go off, not only uninjured
(which of itself should suffice for you) but over and above that you will have the pleasure of seeing your enemy frus trated while you yourself are preserved from pain. Herein lies the advantage of patience and the joy which derives from it.
Chapter 9 (1) Not even that form of impatience which results from the loss of our dear ones is excused, although in this case a sort of rightful claim to grieve justifies it. Observance of the precept of the Apostle must be put first: 'Grieve not,' he says,
5 Matt. 12.36.
PATIENCE
'over one who has fallen asleep even as the gentiles who have no hope/1 (2) And rightly so. For, if we believe in the resur rection of Christ, we believe in our own, also, since it was for us that He died and rose again. Therefore, since there is sure ground for faith in the resurrection of the dead, there is no grief associated with death, and no inability to bear grief. (3)
Why should you grieve if you believe that [the loved one] has not perished utterly? Why should you show impatience that one has been taken away for the time being if you believe he will return? That which you think of as death is merely the beginning of a journey.2 He who has gone ahead is not to be mourned, though certainly he will be missed. But this lone someness must be alleviated by patience. Why should you be inconsolable over the departure of one whom you are soon to follow? (4) Moreover, impatience in such things is a sad indication of our own hope and gives the lie to our faith.
Likewise, we injure Christ when we fail to accept with resig nation [the death of] those whom He has called, as though they were to be pitied. (5) 'I desire,' says the Apostle, 'to be welcomed home now and to be with the Lord.'3 How much better a prayer he holds forth! As for the Christians' prayer, then, if we bear it with impatience and grief that others have attained their goal, we ourselves do not want to attain our goal!
1 1 Thess. 4.12.
2 In early Christian literature death is often referred to as a journey to the Lord (migratio ad Dominum); cf. A. C. Rush, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity (Washington, D. C. 1941) 54-71.
3 Phil. 1.23.