Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 15

Are the Apostles’ writings also changeable? And are we merely simple souls everywhere, nothing but doves, willingly wandering astray? I put it down to a desire to stay alive. Very well, then: let the meanings depart from their letters. What the Apostles suffered is plain doctrine; I grasp it simply by reading through Acts. I need nothing else. Prisons, chains, whips, stones, swords, attacks by Jews, riots of the nations, speeches before tribunes, audiences with kings, tribunals of proconsuls, the very name of Caesar — none of these requires an interpreter. That Peter was struck down, that Stephen was overwhelmed, that James was slaughtered, that Paul was torn apart — these things were written in their own blood. And if a heretic wants to test the faith of the Commentaries, the instruments of empire will speak, like the stones of Jerusalem. We read the Lives of the Caesars; Nero first bloodied the rising faith at Rome. Then Peter was girded by another when he was bound to the cross. Then Paul obtained the birthright of Roman citizenship when he was reborn there through the nobility of martyrdom. Wherever I read these things now, I learn to suffer; it does not matter which teachers of martyrdom I follow, whether the meanings or the outcomes of the Apostles — except that I also recognize the meanings in the outcomes. For they would not have suffered anything they had not first recognized as something that had to be suffered. When Agabus prophesied Paul’s chains even by a gesture, the disciples wept and prayed that he not go up to Jerusalem; they prayed in vain. For he, driven by what he had always taught, said: ‘Why do you weep and break my heart? I not only wish to suffer chains in Jerusalem, but also to die for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.’ And so they yielded, saying: ‘Let the will of the Lord be done’ — trusting, of course, that sufferings belong to God’s will. They had tried to restrain him not with the counsel of dissuasion, but with the bond of love, wanting to keep the Apostle because they desired him, not because they were dissuading him from martyrdom. But if Prodicus or Valentinus had been there then, suggesting that one should not confess on earth among men; much less that God thirsts for human blood, nor that Christ, as if he himself were going to obtain salvation from it, demands the substitute of passion — he would have heard at once from the servant of God what the devil heard from the Lord: ‘Depart, Satan, you are a scandal to me; it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’ (Matt. 4:10). And he ought to hear it now as well, since he poured out those poisons so much later; none of the weak will easily drink them unless they have already drunk — or even overdosed on — this potion of our faith.