Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 11
We argue that the same pattern governs the rest of martyrdom. "Whoever values even his own life above me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37) -- that is, whoever chooses to live by denying me rather than die by confessing me. "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 10:39). The denier thinks he has saved his life by gaining the present world, but he actually loses it in Gehenna. The confessor loses his life now by execution, yet will recover it in eternal life. Even the magistrates, when they urge apostasy, parrot the same logic: "Save your life; don't throw it away." How else would Christ speak than through the treatment his followers receive? When he forbids rehearsing a defense before the court, he is coaching his servants and promising the Holy Spirit will supply the answer (Matt. 10:19-20). When he asks that a brother in prison be visited, he is commanding care for the confessor (Matt. 25:36). When he declares God will avenge his elect, he is comforting their sufferings (Luke 18:7-8). Even in the parable of the seed scorched after the thorns wither, he maps the heat of persecution (Matt. 13:5-6, 20-21).
If these words are not taken exactly as they are spoken, they merely sound different from what they mean -- words and sense split apart like allegories, parables, riddles. Let the scorpion-arguers conceive whatever wind of argument they like, let them strike with whatever sting: the issue has narrowed to a single line -- will the facts themselves be forced to conform to Scripture? Because if Scripture ends up signifying something other than what actually occurs, then what is written will not happen. But what is written will happen only if nothing else happens instead. Look: we are hated by all for the Name, just as it is written (Matt. 10:22); betrayed by our own kin, just as it is written (Matt. 10:21); dragged before authorities, interrogated, tortured, confessing, and slaughtered, just as it is written (Matt. 24:9). The Lord decreed it so. If he had decreed otherwise, why do events not unfold otherwise -- that is, as he decreed? But they do not unfold otherwise; therefore, as they happen, so he decreed, and so they happen. It was never permitted for them to happen differently than he decreed, nor would he have decreed differently than he willed them to happen.
Thus Scripture signifies nothing other than what we recognize in the facts. Or if the predicted events have not yet occurred, how are these unpredicted events occurring? The events happening now are not the predicted ones if the predicted ones are different. But now, because the facts match the words, people believe the words meant something else; what would happen if the facts turned out differently? This is faith's perversity: refusing to believe what is proven, presuming what is not. To that perversity I add this: if the events happening exactly as written are not the predicted events, then the events that should not happen as written are also endangered by this precedent. For if words and facts are divorced, the predicted events will not be recognized when they arrive, since they were predicted differently than they occur. And how will anyone believe events that were not predicted, simply because they were not predicted in the way they happen? That is how heretics operate: they disbelieve what was predicted and proven, and believe what was never predicted at all.
Latin
Eadem igitur forma, caetera quoque ad martyrii pertinere defendimus. Qui pluris, inquit, fecerit etiam animam suam quam me, non est me dignus; id est, qui maluerit vivere me negando, quam mori confitendo. Qui animam suam invenerit, perdet illam; qui vero perdiderit mei caussa, inveniet illam. Proinde enim invenit eam, qui negarit lucrifaciendo vitam; sed perdet in gehennam, qui se putat negando lucrifacere eam. Perdet autem eam ad praesens, qui confessus occiditur; sed inventurus eam in vitam aeternam. Ipsi denique praesides, cum hortantur negationi, serva animam tuam, dicunt, et noli animam tuam perdere. Quo modo loqueretur Christus, nisi quo modo tractaretur christianus? Sed cum prohibet meditari responsionem ad tribunal, famulos suos instruit, Spiritum Sanctum responsurum repromittit; et cum in carcere fratrem vult visitari, confessoris imperat curam; et cum Deum vindictam facturum electorum suorum affirmat, passiones consolatur illorum: etiam in parabola seminis post cespitem arefacti, persecutionum figurat ardorem. Haec si non ita accipiuntur quemadmodum pronuntiantur, sine dubio praeterquam sonant sapiunt; et aliud in vocibus erit, aliud in sensibus; ut allegoriae, ut parabolae, ut aenigmata. Quemcumque igitur conceperint ventum argumentationis scorpii isti, quocumque se acumine impegerint, una jam linea est: ad ipsas res provocabuntur, an secundum Scripturas transigantur. Siquidem tunc aliud significabitur in Scripturis, si non idipsum reperiatur in rebus. Quod enim scriptum est, hoc evenire oportebit. Porro, tunc eveniet quod est scriptum, si non aliud eveniet. Ecce autem et odio habemur ab omnibus hominibus, nominis caussa, quomodo et scriptum est; et tradimur etiam a proximis, quomodo et scriptum est; et perducimur ad potestates, et interrogamur, et torquemur, et confitemur, et trucidamur, quomodo et scriptum est. Sic Dominus edixit. Si aliter edixit haec, cur non aliter eveniunt, quam edixit, id est, quemadmodum edixit? Atquin non aliter eveniunt quam edixit: ergo sicut eveniunt, ita edixit, ita eveniunt. Nam nec licuisset aliter evenire, quam edixit; nec ipse aliter edixisset, quam evenire voluisset. Ita, non aliud significabunt Scripturae, quam in rebus recognoscimus. Aut si nondum aguntur illa quae praedicantur, quomodo haec aguntur quae praedicata non sunt? Non sunt enim haec praedicata quae aguntur, si alia sunt quae praedicantur, et non haec quae aguntur. At nunc, quia ipsa sunt in rebus, quae in vocibus, aliter dicta creduntur; quid fieret si aliter facta invenirentur? Sed haec est perversitas fidei, probata non credere, non probata praesumere. Cui perversitati illud quoque opponam, ut si haec quae sic aguntur quemadmodum scripta sunt, non erunt ipsa quae praedicantur, illa quae non debeant sic agi quemadmodum scripta sunt, ne et ipsa horum exemplo periclitentur, excludi siquidem aliud in vocibus, aliud in rebus est; et relinquitur nec praedicata videri cum evenerint, si aliter praedicantur quam evenire habent. Et quomodo credentur quae non erunt praedicata, quia non ita erunt praedicata quomodo eveniunt? Ita haeretici quae praedicantur non ut probata sunt credendo, ea quae nec praedicata sunt, credunt.