Chapter 16
PATIENCE
at all. Without its companion and assistant it would feel very uncomfortable anywhere and at any time. It could not endure, all by itself, the blows which its enemy inflicts, if stripped of the means which helps it to endure.
Chapter 16 (1) This is the theory, this the practice, this the operation of the patience which is divine and true, namely, Christian; a patience not like the patience practised by the peoples of the earth, which is false and disgraceful. (2) For, that the Devil might rival the Lord in this respect, also, and be really on an equal footing with Him as it were (except that good and evil are extremes of equal magnitude) the Devil also taught his own a special brand of patience. (3) It is a patience, I say, which renders subject to the power of their wives husbands who are purchased by a dowry or who negotiate with panderers; a patience in virtue of which [a wife] bears, with feigned affection, all the irritation resulting from a forced associatiqn so that, as a childless widow, she may lay hands upon her husband's estate; a patience which sentences gormandizers to sacrifice their freedom and become disgraceful slaves to their gluttony. (4) Such are the goals of patienice as the heathens know it and by such despicable efforts they appropriate the name of so noble a virtue; they live in patient endurance of their rivals, the wealthy, and their hosts; it is only God alone whom they cannot endure. But let their patience and the patience of their chief take care: there is fire beneath the earth awaiting this kind of patience.
(5) Let us, then, love the patience that is of God, the
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patience of Christ; let us return to Him that which He expended for us; let us who believe in the resurrection of the flesh and of the spirit offer Him both the patience of the spirit and the patience of the flesh.
THE CHAPLET
Translated by
EDWIN A. QUAIN, S.J., Ph.D.
Fordham University
INTRODUCTION
HE treatise on The Chaplet is an occasional writing, IS PromP^e<^ by an incident which is briefly described ligjyii in the introductory chapter. On the death of Emperor Septimius Severus on February 4, 211, his two sons and co-rulers Caracalla and Geta followed the time-honored custom of bestowing on each soldier of the army a gift of money (the so-called donativum). When the gift was dis tributed in the camp, the soldiers wore, according to the regulations, a crown of laurel on their heads, except one of them who refused to wear the wreath on the ground that, being a Christian, he was not allowed to conform to a heathen rite. Thereuponhe was arrested and thrown into prison, to await death. The incident attracted notice. Many
Christians disapproved of the soldier's action, calling it an imprudent and unnecessary provocation which, after a period of peace, could easily lead to another persecution of the Christian religion.
By this time Tertullian had wandered farther and farther away from the Church whose cause he had so vigorously upheld against pagans and heretics alike in the first years after his conversion to Christianity. His violent and excessive
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character had led him to adopt Montanism. In the teachings of Montanus and his associates he saw not only the realization of his yearnings for a revival of the charismatic gifts which had blossomed in the life of the early Church, but he found there also a moral code which was reassuring to the rigor of his puritanism. Thus it is not surprising that the great polemist, always ready for combating faint-heartedness and censuring human failings, praised and extolled the soldier's action as the heroic deed of a true soldier of' God.
His arguments may be summed up as follows. It is an unwritten Christian tradition not to wear crowns (Ch. 2).
In all instances, however, in which holy Scripture is mute, every Christian is in duty bound to follow the unwritten tradition of Christianity (Ch. 3-4). The rational basis of this tradition is supported by the laws of nature. Flowers are meant to be enjoyed by the senses of sight and smell. They are not to be placed on the head which can neither appreciate their beautiful color nor inhale their sweet odor (Ch.5). Such clear indications given by nature, however, are equivalent to express divine laws, as we may see from the example of St. Paul, who frequently appeals to the law of nature (Ch. 6).
The custom of wearing crowns is of pagan origin and in timately connected with idolatry. For, it was Satan and his minions who introduced and attached this custom to the worship of idols (Ch. 7). The objection that there exist many things in daily life which are used by pagans and Christians alike can easily be rejected. For apart from the fact that they meet the necessities of life, they are free from the taint of idolatry (Ch. 8). Neither in the Old nor in the New Testament is mention ever made of the practice of wearing crowns (Ch. 9). The arguments adduced so far are applicable to the use of crowns in general (Ch. 10). As to
THE CHAPLET
the military crown in particular, a Christian must not be a soldier, because he knows only one oath of allegiance, his baptismal vow (Ch. 11). However this may be, there exists no instance in military service in which the wearing of a crown has not had some connection with idolatry (Ch. 12).
The same holds true of all other instances either in public or private life, in which all sorts of crowns are worn (Ch. 13).
The foregoing arguments should be sufficient to convince every Christian that it is unfitting for him to wear a crown of idolatry, especially since his divine Master was crowned with thorns to save him from eternal damnation (Ch. 14).
The Christian should, instead, look forward to receiving the crown of life which has been laid up in heaven for every faithful servant of God (Ch. 15).
The very subject discussed in the treatise had already been touched upon by Tertullian in his Apology (42.6). To be sure, the satirical description he gives there of the custom of wearing crowns shows that, even in the early years of his
Christian life, everything that seemed to savor of paganism was hateful to this stern moralist and found no favor with him. But now his severity has increased and taken on a fierce bitterness. He condemns the use of any sort of crowns at any time and on any occasion. Moreover, it is no longer the pagans alone who are the target for his scathing invectives, but rather the Catholic Christians whom he accuses of condoning heathen practices and betraying the ideal of primitive Christianity's austere virtue. Again, in his Apology
(42.3) Tertullian had mentioned the fact that Christians were serving in the army. He had not yet dared to object to the practice of the Church which did not prohibit a Christian from choosing the soldier's profession, or from continuing in that career after receiving baptism. In The
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Chaplet (Ch. 11), however, and another work of the same time, entitled Concerning Idolatry (Ch. 19), he bluntly asserts that military service is incompatible with the profession of Christianity.
These comparisons are instructive: they show how, through contact with Montanism, Tertullian's severe and rigid asceticism has been carried to the extreme. It is not only the lax and tepid members of the Church he censures, but the Catholic Church as a whole that now comes under his attack, including the bishops, whom he accuses of cowardice in the face of danger (see Ch. 1.5). The warning of moderateminded brethren expressing fear that the rash action of the Christian soldier might provoke another persecution is dis posed of by the spiteful remark: 'Maybe they were not all
Christians, but they certainly talked very much like pagans'
(1.4). More malicious still is the additional remark: 'Yes, I should not be surprised if such people were not figuring out how they could abolish martyrdom in the same way as they rejected the prophecies of the Holy Spirit.' The prophecies of the Holy Spirit mentioned here are, of course, the oracular utterances of Montanus and his two companions, the proph etesses Maximilla and Prisca (or Priscilla), who claimed that, through them, the 'Paraclete' was manifesting himself to the world.
Chapter 3 contains a number of noteworthy liturgical and devotional practices which were observed by the Christians in Tertullian's day. He lists them to show that the principle of tradition, to which he appeals, applies not only to doctrines but to religious practices as well, and that whatever is in common use in the Church contains its justification in itself, even without scriptural evidence. Custom (consuetudo) had always been considered by the Roman jurists as one of the
THE CHAPLET
sources of law. Tertullian, himself a lawyer, now applies this principle to certain instances in which Scripture is either mute or ambiguous, and a certain tradition seems to favor his own opinion. To be sure, the sophistical arguments he then pro duces against the use of flowers for making crowns are rather strange. They can be explained only on the ground that to Tertullian the wearing of a crown is something specifically pagan and idolatrous. Accordingly, he considers the use of this heathen symbol by a Christian as equivalent to apostasy.
The treatise is generally assigned to the year 211. The text followed in the present translation is that of Aem. Kroymann in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 2 (Tumholti 1954)
1037-1065.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Texts:
Aem. Kroymann, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 2 (Tumholti 1954) 1037-1065; also, CSEL 70 (1942) 125-152.
J. Marra, De corona, De cultu feminarum (Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum; Turin 1951).
Secondary Sources:
R. H. Bainton, 'The Early Church and War,' Harvard Theological Review 13 (1946) 190-212.
K. Baus, Der Kranz in Antike und Christentum: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung
Tertullians (Bonn 1940).
P. Franchi De'Cavalieri, 'Sopra alcuni passi del De corona di Tertulliano,' Note agiographiche Fasc. 8 (Studi e Testi 65;
Citta del Vaticano 1935) 357-386.
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J. Kochling, De coronarum apud antiquos vi atque usu, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 14.2 (Giessen 1914).
G. De Plinval, 'Tertullien et le scandale de la Couronne,' Melanges Joseph De Ghellinck (Gembloux 1951) 183-188.
E. A. Ryan, 'The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Chris tians,' Theological Studies 13 (1952) 1-32.
E. Vacandard, 'La question du service militaire chez les chretiens des premiers siecles,' Etudes de critique et d'histoire religieuse, deuxieme serie (Paris 1910) 127-175.