The Testimony of the Soul 5
Summary: The soul's testimony is natural and therefore divine, older than literature; and if it was learned from books at all, it came from the Scriptures, which are older than pagan writings.
Latin text · CSEL 20:140–142
Haec testimonia animae quanto uera, tanto simplicia, quanto simplicia, tanto uulgaria, quanto uulgaria, tanto communia, quanto communia, tanto naturalia, quanto naturalia, tanto diuina. non puto cuiquam friuola et ridicula uideri posse, si recogitet naturae maiestatem, ex qua censetur auctoritas animae. quantum dederis magistrae, tantum adiudicabis discipulae. magistra natura, anima discipula. quicquid aut illa edocuit aut ista perdidicit, a deo traditum est, magistro scilicet ipsius magistrae. quid anima possit de principali institutore praesumere, in te est aestimare de ea quae in te est. senti illam quae ut sentias efficit. recogita in praesagiis uatem, in ominibus augurem, in euentibus prospicem. mirum, si a deo data homini nouit diuinare? tam mirum, si eum, a quo data est, nouit. etiam circumuenta ab aduersario meminit sui auctoris et bonitatis et decreti eius et exitus sui et aduersarii ipsius. sic mirum, si a deo data eadem canit quae deus suis dedit nosse? sed qui eiusmodi eruptiones animae non putauit doctrinam esse naturae et congenitae et ingenitae conscientiae ac tacita commissa, dicet potius diuentilatis in uulgus opinionibus publicatarum litterarum usum iam et quasi uitium corroboratum taliter sermocinandi. certe prior anima quam littera et prior sermo quam liber et prior sensus quam stilus et prior homo ipse quam philosophus et poeta. numquid ergo credendum est ante litteraturam et diuulgationem eius mutos ab huiusmodi pronuntiationibus homines uixisse? nemo deum et bonitatem eius, nemo mortem, nemo inferos loquebatur? mendicabat sermo, opinor, immo nec ullus esse poterat, cessantibus etiam tunc sine quibus etiam hodie beatior et locupletior et prudentior esse non potest, si ea, quae tam facilia, tam assidua, tam proxima hodie sunt, in ipsis quodammodo labiis parta retro, non fuerunt, antequam litterae in saeculo germinassent, antequam Mercurius, opinor, natus fuisset. et unde, oro, ipsis litteris contigit nosse et in usum loquellae disseminare quae nulla umquam mens conceperat aut lingua protulerat aut auris exceperat? at enim cum diuinae scripturae, quae penes nos uel Iudaeos sunt, in quorum oleastro insititi sumus, multo saecularibus litteris, quarum uel modica tantum aetate aliqua, antecedant, ut loco suo edocuimus ad fidem earum demonstrandam, et si haec eloquia de litteris usurpauit anima, utique de nostris credendum erit, non de uestris, quia potiora sunt ad instruendam animam priora quam postera, quae, et ipsa a prioribus instrui sustinebant, cum, etsi de uestris instructam concedamus, ad originem tamen principalem traditio pertineat, nostrumque omnino sit quodcumque de nostris sumsisse et tradidisse contigit uobis. quod cum ita sit, non multum refert, a deo formata sit animae conscientia an litteris dei. quid igitur uis, homo, de humanis sententiis litterarum tuarum exisse haec in usus communis callositatem?
English · Claude translation
These testimonies of the soul are as simple as they are true, as common as they are simple, as universal as they are common, as natural as they are universal, as divine as they are natural. I do not think they can seem trivial and ridiculous to anyone who reflects on the majesty of nature, from which the authority of the soul is reckoned. As much as you grant to the teacher, so much will you award to the pupil. Nature is the teacher, the soul the pupil. Whatever the one has taught or the other has learned has been handed down by God, the teacher, that is, of the teacher herself. What the soul can presume about its chief instructor, you can judge from the soul that is in you. Perceive her who makes you perceive. Consider her a prophet in presentiments, an augur in omens, a foreseer in events. Is it any wonder if, given by God to man, she knows how to divine? Just as little a wonder if she knows him by whom she was given. Even when deceived by the adversary, she remembers her author, his goodness and his decree, her own end, and the adversary himself. So is it any wonder if, given by God, she sings the same things that God has given his own to know? But whoever has not thought such outbursts of the soul to be the teaching of nature and things silently entrusted to an inborn and innate consciousness will say rather that the habit, and as it were the vice, of speaking this way has been strengthened by the opinions of published literature spread abroad among the common people. Surely the soul is earlier than the letter, speech earlier than the book, thought earlier than the pen, and man himself earlier than the philosopher and the poet. Must we believe, then, that before literature and its spreading abroad people lived mute of such utterances? Did no one speak of God and his goodness, no one of death, no one of the underworld? Speech was beggarly, I suppose; indeed there could have been none at all, if those things were lacking even then without which even today it cannot be richer, fuller, or wiser, if the things that are so easy, so constant, so near today, born as it were on the very lips, did not exist in the past, before letters sprouted in the world, before Mercury, I suppose, was born. And whence, I ask, did letters themselves come to know, and to spread for the use of speech, what no mind had ever conceived, no tongue uttered, no ear received? But indeed, since the divine Scriptures, which are in the keeping of us or of the Jews, into whose wild olive we have been grafted, precede worldly literature by a great age (or, of some of it, by at least a modest one), as we have shown in its place to demonstrate their trustworthiness; if the soul took these sayings from literature, we must surely believe she took them from ours, not yours, because for instructing the soul the earlier are more effective than the later, which themselves were waiting to be instructed by the earlier. And even if we grant that she was instructed from yours, the tradition still belongs to its first source, and whatever you have happened to take from ours and hand on is wholly ours. This being so, it matters little whether the consciousness of the soul was formed by God or by the writings of God. Why then, man, will you have it that these sayings came from the human opinions of your literature into the hardened habit of common use?
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- “Into whose wild olive we have been grafted” alludes to Rom 11:17–24 (Tertullian calls the Jews' tree the “wild olive”, reversing Paul's image, perhaps loosely). “As we have shown in its place” refers to Apol. 19. Mercury (Hermes) was credited with inventing letters.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (OCR slip (e for c); doubled syllable in the digital text; doubled syllables in the digital text): auctauctoritas → auctoritas; quicquiduid → quicquid; traditum,ditum est, mamagistro → traditum est, magistro; principalipali → principali; dodoctrinam → doctrinam; conscientiae ae tacita → conscientiae ac tacita; corroboratumatum → corroboratum; mutosos → mutos; cecessantibus bus → cessantibus; paparta → parta; fuisset.set. → fuisset.; undede, oro → unde, oro; loquellaeae → loquellae; disseminarenare → disseminare; protuleratlerat → protulerat; tantumtum → tantum; fidemem → fidem; animama → anima; principalemem → principalem; quodcumque que → quodcumque; sumsissesse → sumsisse.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Test. 5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-testimonio/5/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Test. 5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-testimonio/5/).
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