Chapter XXX.
But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent [377] of our Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant One! What that exultation of the angelic hosts! What the glory of the rising saints! What the kingdom of the just thereafter! What the city New Jerusalem! [378] Yes, and there are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its everlasting issues; that day unlooked for by the nations, the theme of their derision, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which rouses me to exultation?--as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord. "This," I shall say, "this is that carpenter's or hireling's son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed! This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He whom you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptuously spat upon, to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink! This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!" What quæstor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. But what are the things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have not so much as dimly dawned upon the human heart? Whatever they are, they are nobler, I believe, than circus, and both theatres, [379] and every race-course.
[377] [Kaye, p. 20. He doubtless looked for a speedy appearance of the Lord: and note the apparent expectation of a New Jerusalem, on earth, before the Consummation and Judgment.]
[378] [This New Jerusalem gives Bp. Kaye (p. 55) "decisive proof" of Montanism, especially as compared with the Third Book against Marcion. I cannot see it, here.]
[379] Viz., the theatre and amphitheatre. [This concluding chapter, which Gibbon delights to censure, because its fervid rhetoric so fearfully depicts the punishments of Christ's enemies, "appears to Dr. Neander to contain a beautiful specimen of lively faith and Christian confidence." See Kaye, p. xxix.]
tertullian corona anf03 tertullian-corona The Chaplet, or De Corona /ccel/schaff/anf03.iv.vi.html
The Chaplet, or De Corona
IV.
The Chaplet, or De Corona. [380]
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Chapter I.
Very lately it happened thus: while the bounty of our most excellent emperors [381] was dispensed in the camp, the soldiers, laurel-crowned, were approaching. One of them, more a soldier of God, more stedfast than the rest of his brethren, who had imagined that they could serve two masters, his head alone uncovered, the useless crown in his hand--already even by that peculiarity known to every one as a Christian--was nobly conspicuous. Accordingly, all began to mark him out, jeering him at a distance, gnashing on him near at hand. The murmur is wafted to the tribune, when the person had just left the ranks. The tribune at once puts the question to him, Why are you so different in your attire? He declared that he had no liberty to wear the crown with the rest. Being urgently asked for his reasons, he answered, I am a Christian. O soldier! boasting thyself in God. Then the case was considered and voted on; the matter was remitted to a higher tribunal; the offender was conducted to the prefects. At once he put away the heavy cloak, his disburdening commenced; he loosed from his foot the military shoe, beginning to stand upon holy ground; [382] he gave up the sword, which was not necessary either for the protection of our Lord; from his hand likewise dropped the laurel crown; and now, purple-clad with the hope of his own blood, shod with the preparation of the gospel, girt with the sharper word of God, completely equipped in the apostles' armour, and crowned more worthily with the white crown of martyrdom, he awaits in prison the largess of Christ. Thereafter adverse judgments began to be passed upon his conduct--whether on the part of Christians I do not know, for those of the heathen are not different--as if he were headstrong and rash, and too eager to die, because, in being taken to task about a mere matter of dress, he brought trouble on the bearers of the Name, [383] --he, forsooth, alone brave among so many soldier-brethren, he alone a Christian. It is plain that as they have rejected the prophecies of the Holy Spirit, [384] they are also purposing the refusal of martyrdom. So they murmur that a peace so good and long is endangered for them. Nor do I doubt that some are already turning their back on the Scriptures, are making ready their luggage, are equipped for flight from city to city; for that is all of the gospel they care to remember. I know, too, their pastors are lions in peace, deer in the fight. As to the questions asked for extorting confessions from us, we shall teach elsewhere. Now, as they put forth also the objection--But where are we forbidden to be crowned?--I shall take this point up, as more suitable to be treated of here, being the essence, in fact, of the present contention. So that, on the one hand, the inquirers who are ignorant, but anxious, may be instructed; and on the other, those may be refuted who try to vindicate the sin, especially the laurel-crowned Christians themselves, to whom it is merely a question of debate, as if it might be regarded as either no trespass at all, or at least a doubtful one, because it may be made the subject of investigation. That it is neither sinless nor doubtful, I shall now, however, show.
[380] [Kaye, apparently accepting the judgment of Dr. Neander, assigns this treatise to a.d. 204. The bounty here spoken of, then, must be that dispensed in honour of the victories over the Parthians, under Severus.]
[381] "Emperors." The Emperor Severus associated his two sons with him in the possession of the imperial power; Caracalla in the year 198, Geta in 208.--Tr.
[382] [A touch of our author's genius, inspired by the Phrygian enthusiasm for martyrdom. The ground on which a martyr treads begins to be holy, even before the sacrifice, and in loosing his shoe the victim consecrates the spot and at the same time pays it homage.]
[383] [The name of Christ: and the Antiochian name of Christians.]
[384] [Gibbon will have it that the De Corona was written while Tertullian was orthodox, but this reference to the Montanist notion of "New Prophecy" seems to justify the decision of critics against Gibbon, who, as Kaye suggests (p. 53) was anxious to make Christianity itself responsible for military insubordination and for offences against Imperial Law.]