Chapter 12
PATIENCE
(6) Whom has the Lord declared happy? Those who are patient, for He said:" 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Assuredly, no one but the humble man is poor in spirit. And who is humble but the man who is patient? No one can take a position of subjection without patience, the prime factor in subjection. (7) 'Blessed,'
He says, are those who weep and mourn.' Who can endure such things without patience? To such, then, is consolation and joy promised. (8) 'Blessed are the meek.' Certainly, in this word one cannot by any means include the impatient. Like wise, when He applies this same title of happiness to the peace-makers and calls them the children of God, I ask you:
Do the impatient share in this peace? Only a fool would think so! (9) And when He says: 'Rejoice and exult when men reproach you and persecute you because your reward is great in heaven,' certainly this promise of great joy is not made to the impatient, for no one will rejoice in adversity unless he has first come to despise it; no one will despise it unless he possesses patience.
Chapter 12 (1) As for what pertains to the practice of this peace so pleasing to God [I ask you]: What man, completely given over to impatience, will forgive his brother, I will not say seven times and seventy times seven times, but even once?1
(2) What man, taking his case with his adversary to a judge, will settle his trouble to the accommodation of the other
2 Matt. 5.3-12.
1 Cf. Matt. 18.22: Luke 17.4.
TERTULLIAN
party, unless he first puts an end to his wrath, his resentment, his harshness and bitterness, that is, his impatient disposition?
(3) How will you forgive and experience forgiveness2 if you cling to your injury through a total lack of patience? No one whose mind is violently disturbed against his brother will complete his offering at the altar unless first he has been, reconciled to his brother through patience.3 (4) If the suu goes down upon our anger, we are in danger.4 We may not live a single day without patience. Yet, since patience governs every aspect of a salutary way of life, what wonder that it also paves the way for repentance which, as a rule, comes to the assistance of those who have fallen? (5) What benefits it produces in both parties when, in spite of their forbearance from their marriage rights—provided it be only for that reason which makes it lawful for a man or woman to persist in their separation—it waits for, hopes for, wins by its prayers repentance for those who will eventually be saved. It purifies the one without causing the other to become an adulterer!
(6) So, too, in those examples in our Lord's parables5 there is a breath of patience: it is the patience of the shepherd that seeks and finds the straying sheep (for impatience would readily take no account of a single sheep, whereas patience undertakes the wearisome search) and he carries it on his shoulders, a patient bearer of a forsaken sinner. (7) In the case of the prodigal son, too, it is the patience of his father that welcomes him and clothes him and feeds him and finds an excuse for him in the face of the impatience of his angry brother. The one who had perished is rescued, therefore,
2 Cf. Luke 6.37.
3 Cf. Matt. 5.23,24.
4 Cf. Eph. 4.26.
5 Cf. Luke 15.4-6, 11-32.