Chapter 10
TERTULLIAN
For the account of their rejoicing and the condemnation of their revelry would surely have mentioned the honor or the dishonor of wearing crowns. Hence, Isaias, who said: 'Since they drink wine with timbrels, psalteries and pipes,'5 surely would have added 'with crowns' if that custom had ever been known in sacred history.
Chapter 10 (1) Hence, when you declare that ornaments of the heathen gods are also found in the service of the true God, so that you may win approval for the wearing of crowns as a part of common usage, you are implicitly basing your argument on this premise: Whatever is not found in sacred history must not be applied to common usage. Now, is there anything more unworthy of God than that which is befitting an idol? And what is so worthy of an idol as that which is fit ting for a corpse? (2) For, a crown is placed upon the dead1 and they hereby become idols in dress and in the worship paid them in their consecration, which practice, to us, is but another sort of idolatry. So, therefore, those who lack sensa tion ought to use that thing of which they have no perception in the same way in which they would abuse it if they did enjoy power of sensation. For there is no difference between use and abuse when the real use of a thing ceases because natural perception has failed. (3) But we are forbidden by the 5 Cf. Isa. 5.12.
1 Crowning of the dead with garlands was a very old custom. Cicero (De legibus 2.24.60) quotes a law of the Twelve Tables for this practice. The Christian writers are unanimous in condemning the custom (see, for instance, Minucius Felix, Octavius 38.3).
THE CHAPLET
Apostle2 to abuse anything, who teaches us, rather, to refrain from use. Unless of course, we say that those who have no sensation cannot abuse a thing—how can a man be said to abuse anything, when he has not the power of using it?—so that the whole action comes to nothing. It is a dead thing as regards the idols, but living in so far as it pertains to the demons,0 to whom this superstition belongs. As David says:
'The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold. They have eyes and see not; noses, and smell not; hands and feel not.'4 5
(4) These are the senses by which we enjoy flowers. Now, if he declares that those who make idols shall become like unto them,3 then those who make use of anything according to the fashion of idol adornings are themselves like unto them.
'To the clean all things are clean';6 yes, and to the unclean all things are defiled. Nothing, however, is more defiled than idols.
In all other respects, the substances are pure as being creatures of God and, to that extent, they are fit for common use. Yet it is the application of this use that makes all the difference. (5) For I kill a cock for my benefit, the same as Socrates did for Aesculapius, and, if I find the odor of a place unpleasant, I burn some Arabian incense, but without the same ceremony, the same dress, and the same pomp with which it is done to idols. The Apostle says: 'But if someone says, "This has been sacrificed to idols," touch it not.'7 Now, if a creature of God is defiled by a mere word, how much more will it be defiled when you have danced around it with 2 Cf. 1 Cor. 7.31.
3 Cf. 1 Cor. 10.19,20.
4 Ps. 113.12-15.
5 Cf. Ps. 113.16.
6 Tit. 1.15; cf. Rom. 14.20.
7 1 Cor. 10.28.
TERTULLIAN
the dress, ceremony, and pomp connected with sacrifices to idols. And so the crown is made to be an offering to idols. (6) With this ceremony, dress, and pomp it is offered to idols by their devotees. So closely connected is its use with idols that a thing which is not found in sacred history cannot be admitted to common use.
This is the reason why the Apostle tells us: 'Flee from the worship of idols.'8 He means idolatry whole and entire. (7)
Look closely at a thicket and see how many thorns lie hidden beneath the leaves! Give nothing and take nothing from an idol! If it be against the faith to recline at table in the temple of an idol,9 what would you call it if one wore the garb of an idol? 'What concord is there between Christ and Belial?'10
Flee far away from it, then. He commands us to be com pletely separated from idolatry and have no close dealings with it,* 11 because even the earthly serpent sucks men into its jaws at a distance with its breath. (8) St. John goes even further. He says: 'Dear children, guard yourselves from the idols.'12 Notice that he does not say 'from idolatry' as from a service, but 'from the idols,' that is, from their very image.
For it is unfitting that you, an image of the living God,13 should become the image of an idol and a dead man. And to this extent do we claim for idols the sole ownership of this attire, both because of the origin to which it has been traced and because of its superstitious use. Besides this, the crown is not found in sacred history, and, therefore, is rather
8 1 Cor. 10.14.
9 Cf. 1 Cor. 8.10.
10 2 Cor. 6.15.
11 2 Cor. 6.17; cf. Jer. 51.45; Ezech. 20.34,41; Isa. 52.11.
12 1 John 5.21.
13 Cf. Gen. 1.27.