Chapter 13
TERTULLIAN
Chapter 13 (1) For the sake of charity I will give to everyone who asks, but not under duress. Christ said: 'To the one who asks,'1 but the man who uses intimidation does not ask. The man who threatens harm if you do not pay is not 'asking for money, he is extorting it. It is not alms he looks for who comes not to be pitied, but to be feared.. I will give out of pity, but not out of fear, and when the man who receives honors God and renders me a blessing. But I will not give when the receiver thinks that he is doing me a favor and, looking at his loot, says 'blood money.' Should I be angry at an enemy? But enmity has other titles: Christ did not speak of a betrayer or persecutor or extortionist. Oh, how much more shall I heap coals of fire upon his head2 when I refuse to buy myself off! Christ said also: 'To the man who would take your tunic, grant your cloak also.'3 But that refers to the one who wants to steal my property, not my faith. I will grant my cloak to the one who asks, if he does not threaten with betrayal; if he threatens, I will take back my tunic, too.
(2) Even now, all the precepts of the Lord have reasons and rules of their own; He did not make them infinite in extent or applicable to all cases. To be sure, He tells us to give to the one who asks. But, He gave us no infallible sign of the one who 'asks.' Otherwise, if you take His command generally, you would be giving not only wine to a man with a fever, but also poison or a sword to one who wanted to die.
'Make friends for yourselves with the mammon [of iniquity].'4
1 Cf. Luke 6.30.
2 Cf. Rom. 12.20.
3 Matt. 5.40.
4 Luke 16.9.
FLIGHT IN TIME OF PERSECUTION
You can find out what that means by reading the preceding parable. It was told to the Jewish people, who, after having managed badly the business of the Lord that had been en trusted to them, ought to have provided for themselves out of the men of mammon—which we were then—friends rather than enemies, and to have delivered us from the dues of sins by which we were separated from God. If they bestowed this boon upon us, according to the design of the Lord, when grace began to depart from them, they might turn to our faith and be received into the eternal tabernacles. Now, you can adopt any interpretation you like of that parable and saying, as long as you do not believe that those who would extort money from us will become friends of ours through mammon and then receive us into the eternal tabernacles!
(3) When a man is afraid he will try any kind of a subterfuge. As if God would permit us to flee and, at the same time, bid us to buy our freedom from persecution!
Finally, it is of no importance if one or other man is freed that way. Whole churches put themselves under bond en masse. I do not know if it is a case more for sorrow than shame, when you have Ghristians added to the tax lists of privileged soldiers and spies, along with hucksters, money changers, bath-thieves, gamblers, and panderers! Did the Apostles establish the episcopacy in this fashion with such foresight, so that they might enjoy their rule in safety on the pretence of providing similar freedom to their flocks? I am sure that must be the kind of peace that Christ demanded when He returned to His Father5—to be bought from the soldiers by gifts like those you have at the Saturnalia!6
5 Cf. John 14.27,28.
6 The presentation of gifts was one of the characteristic features of the popular festival of the Saturnalia in December.