Chapter 4
TERTULLIAN
our faith is exposed to the licking flames, yet by the will of God. I do not see how anyone can have doubt of this, unless it take possession of those whose faith is worthless and cold and who with trembling assemble together in the church.
I have heard you say: 'Just because we rush madly in crowds to the church, we arouse the curiosity of the pagans, and we fear lest we stir their opposition.' Do you not realize that God is the Lord of all? If He wills it, you will suffer persecution; if He does not, the pagans will not utter a word against you.
And that you can believe, if, indeed, you truly believe in that God without whose will not even a worthless sparrow falls to the ground.5 And surely, we are worth more than a flock of sparrows.6
Chapter 4 (1) I suppose we may take it as settled, then, that God is the author of persecution. Now we can go on to your query, and, as a result of this preliminary discussion, conclude that we must not flee in time of persecution. For, if persecution comes from God, we cannot run from it, precisely because
God is its cause. And this for two reasons: we may not, and, we cannot. We may not, because what comes from God is good; in fact, anything that God 'sees' is good. Is that not the reason why we are told in Genesis: 'And God saw that it was good'?1 Not, of course, that He did not know it was good until He saw it; what it really means is that whatever
5 Matt. 10.29.
6 Matt. 10.31.
1 Gen. 1.10.
FLIGHT IN TIME OF PERSECUTION
God sees is, for that reason, good. There are, to be sure, many things that happen by God's will, which, incidentally, bring harm to someone. But, the precise reason why a thing is good is that it proceeds from God, because it is divine, because it is rational. For, everything divine is rational, and what is rational and not at the same time good? What good thing is not [to that extent] divine? But, if to man's perception this seems to be the case, surely it is not man's power of per ception that predetermines the nature of things, but the other way around. For each and every nature is a definite reality and, because of that fact, it gives to man's perceptive power the norm for perceiving it as it exists. Now, if something that comes from God is good indeed in its natural state (for there is nothing from God that is not good, because it is divine and rational) but seems to be evil to human percep tion, then, surely, the thing is really good and man's senses must be in error. Chastity, truth, and justice are in them selves good things, even though many people find them some what distasteful.
(2) Are we to say, then, that the real nature must cede to the sense of perception? Thus, also, persecution is a good thing in itself, since it is a divine and rational decree; to be sure, those who have to undergo it hardly feel it to be pleasant. I am sure you see that, as proceeding from God, even the 'evil' involved in persecution has a reasonable ground, when, by persecution, someone is removed from the path of salvation, just as it is clear that you have a reason able ground for the 'good,' also, when, by persecution, some one makes progress on the way of salvation—unless, of course, you are willing to admit that a man is damned or saved before the Lord in altogether irrational fashion. Hence,