To the Nations 1.6
Summary: Appealing to the laws does not help, because even laws require an inquiry into the deed, and a law that will not be examined is suspect and unjust.
Latin text · Oehler 1:314–315
His propositionibus responsionibusque nostris, quas veritas de suo suggerit, quotiens comprimitur et coartatur conscientia vestra, tacita ignorantiae suae testis, confugitis aestuantes ad arulam quandam, id est legum auctoritatem, quod utique non plecterent sectam istam, nisi de meritis apud conditores legum constitisset. Quid ergo prohibuit apud exsecutores quoque legum proinde constare, cum de ceteris criminibus quae similiter legibus arcentur ac puniuntur, nisi prius requiratur, poena cessat? Verbi gratia homicidam, adulterum lege: discutitur tamen de ordine admissi, et tamen cognitum est omnibus genus facti. Christianum puniunt leges. Si quod est factum Christiani, erui debet. Nulla lex prohibet inquirere, atquin pro legibus facit inquisitio. Quomodo enim legem observabis cavendo quod lege prohibetur, adempta diligentia cavendi per defectionem agnoscendi quid observes? Nulla sibi lex debet conscientiam iustitiae suae, sed eis a quibus captat obsequium. Ceterum suspecta lex est, si probare se non vult. Merito igitur tamdiu iustae in Christianos et reverendae et observandae censentur, quamdiu ignoratur quod persequuntur, merito post agnitionem iniquissimae repertae cum suis machaeris et patibulis et leonibus despuuntur. Legis iniustae honor nullus est. Ut opinor autem, dubitatur de iniquitate legum quarundam, cum quotidie novis consultis constitutisque duritias nequitiasque earum temperetis.
English · Claude translation
Whenever your conscience, the silent witness of its own ignorance, is pressed and hemmed in by these propositions and answers of ours, which truth supplies from its own store, you run in a sweat to a kind of little altar of refuge, that is, the authority of the laws: that they would surely not punish this sect unless its deserts had been established before the makers of the laws. What then prevented them from being established likewise before the executors of the laws, since for the other crimes, which the laws likewise forbid and punish, the penalty is withheld unless there has first been an inquiry? For example, the law deals with a murderer, an adulterer; yet the course of the deed is examined, even though the kind of act is known to all. The laws punish the Christian. If there is any deed of the Christian, it must be brought to light. No law forbids inquiry; on the contrary, inquiry works on the laws' behalf. For how will you keep the law by guarding against what the law forbids, if the care for guarding against it is taken away through your failure to find out what you are to keep? No law owes the consciousness of its justice to itself, but to those from whom it seeks obedience. Besides, a law is suspect if it will not have itself proved. Rightly, then, are the laws against the Christians thought just, venerable, and to be observed, for as long as what they persecute is unknown; rightly, once it is known, are they found most unjust and spat upon, with their swords and gibbets and lions. An unjust law has no honor. But, as I think, the justice of certain laws is itself in doubt among you, since every day you temper their harshness and wickedness by new decrees and ordinances?
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Notes
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (misread letter in the digital text): areentur → arcentur.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Nat. 1.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-nationes/1/6/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Nat. 1.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-nationes/1/6/).
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