(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

TERTULLIAN

THE SOUL'S TESTIMONY.(1)

[BY THE REV S. THELWALL.]

CHAP. I.

   IF, with the object of convicting the rivals and persecutors of
Christian truth, from their own authorities, of the crime of at once being
untrue to themselves and doing injustice to us, one is bent on gathering
testimonies in its favour from the writings of the philosophers, or the
poets, or other masters of this world's learning and wisdom, he has need of
a most inquisitive spirit, and a still greater memory to carry out the
research. Indeed, some of our people, who still continued their inquisitive
labours in ancient literature, and still occupied memory with it, have
published works we have in our hands of this very sort; works in which they
relate and attest the nature and origin of their traditions, and the
grounds on which opinions rest, and from which it may be seen at once that
we have embraced nothing new or monstrous--nothing for which we cannot
claim the support of ordinary and well-known writings, whether in ejecting
error from our creed, or admitting truth into it. But the unbelieving
hardness of the human heart leads them to slight even their own teachers,
otherwise approved and in high renown, whenever they touch upon arguments
which are used in defence of Christianity. Then the poets are fools, when
they describe the gods with human passions and stories; then the
philosophers are without reason, when they knock at the gates of truth. He
will thus far be reckoned a wise and sagacious man who has gone the length
of uttering sentiments that are almost Christian; while if, in a mere
affectation of judgment and wisdom, he sets himself to reject their
ceremonies, or to convicting the world of its sin, he is sure to be branded
as a Christian. We will have nothing, then, to do with the literature and
the teaching, perverted in its best results, which is believed in its
errors rather than its truth. We shall lay no stress on it, if some of
their authors have declared that there is one God, and one God only. Nay,
let it be granted that there is nothing in heathen writers which a
Christian approves, that it may be put out of his power to utter a single
word of reproach. For all are not familiar with their teachings; and those
who are, have no assurance in regard to their truth. Far less do men assent
to our writings, to which no one comes for guidance unless he is already a
Christian. I call in a new testimony, yea, one which is better known than
all literature, more discussed than all doctrine, more public than all
publications, greater than the whole man--I mean all which is man's. Stand
forth, O soul, whether thou art a divine and eternal substance, as most
philosophers believe if it be so, thou wilt be the less likely to lie,--or
whether thou art the very opposite of divine, because indeed a mortal
thing, as Epicurus alone thinks--in that case there will be the less
temptation for thee to speak falsely in this case: whether thou art
received from heaven, or sprung from earth; whether thou art formed of
numbers, or of atoms; whether thine existence begins with that of the body,
or thou art put into it at a  later stage; from whatever source, and in
whatever way, thou makest man a rational being, in the highest degree
capable of thought and knowledge,--stand forth and give thy witness. But I
call thee not as when, fashioned in schools, trained in libraries, fed in
Attic academies and porticoes, thou belchest wisdom. I address thee simple,
rude, uncultured and untaught, such as they have thee who have thee only;
that very thing of the road, the street, the work-shop, wholly. I want
thine inexperience, since in thy small experience no one feels any
confidence. I demand of thee the things thou bringest with thee into man,
which thou knowest either from thyself, or from thine author, whoever he
may be. Thou art not, as I well know, Christian; for a man becomes a
Christian, he is not born one. Yet Christians earnestly press thee for a
testimony; they press thee, though an alien, to bear witness against thy
friends, that they may be put to shame before thee, for hating and mocking
us on account of things which convict thee as an accessory.

CHAP. II.

   We give offence by proclaiming that there is one God, to whom the name
of God alone belongs, from whom all things come, and who is Lord of the
whole universe.(1) Bear thy testimony, if thou knowest this to be the
truth; for openly and with a perfect liberty, such as we do not possess, we
hear thee both in private and in public exclaim, "Which may God grant,"
and, "If God so will." By expressions such as these thou declarest that
there is one who is distinctively God, and thou con-fessest that all power
belongs to him to whose will, as Sovereign, thou dost look. At the same
time, too, thou deniest any others to be truly gods, in calling them by
their own names of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva; for thou affirmest Him
to be God alone to whom thou givest no other name than God; and though thou
sometimes callest these others gods, thou plainly usest the designation as
one which does not really belong to them, but is, so to speak, a borrowed
one. Nor is the nature of the God we declare unknown to thee: "God is good,
God does good," thou art wont to say; plainly suggesting further, "But man
is evil." In asserting an antithetic proposition, thou, in a sort of
indirect and figurative way, reproachest man with his wickedness in
departing from a God so good. So, again, as among us, as belonging to the
God of benignity and goodness, "Blessing" is a most sacred act in our
religion and our life, thou too sayest as readily as a Christian needs,
"God bless thee;" and when thou turnest the blessing of God into a curse,
in like manner thy very words confess with us that His power over us is
absolute and entire. There are some who, though they do not deny the
existence of God, hold withal that He is neither Searcher, nor Ruler, nor
Judge; treating with especial disdain those of us who go over to Christ out
of fear of a coming judgment, as they think, honouring God in freeing Him
from the cares of keeping watch, and the trouble of taking note,--not even
regarding Him as capable of anger. For if God, they say, gets angry, then
He is susceptible of corruption and passion; but that of which passion and
corruption can be affirmed may also perish, which God cannot do. But these
very persons elsewhere, confessing that the soul is divine, and bestowed on
us by God, stumble against a testimony of the soul itself, which affords an
answer to these views. For if either divine or God-given, it doubtless
knows its giver; and if it knows Him, it undoubtedly fears Him too, and
especially as having been by Him endowed so amply. Has it no fear of Him
whose favour it is so desirous to possess, and whose anger it is so anxious
to avoid? Whence, then, the soul's natural fear of God, if God cannot be
angry? How is there any dread of Him whom nothing offends? What is feared
but anger? Whence comes anger, but from observing what is done? What leads
to watchful oversight, but judgment in prospect? Whence is judgment, but
from power? To whom does supreme authority and power belong, but to God
alone? So thou art always ready, O soul, from thine own knowledge, nobody
casting scorn upon thee, and no one preventing, to exclaim, "God sees all,"
and "I commend thee to God," and "May God repay," and "God shall judge
between us." How happens this, since thou art not Christian? How is it
that, even with the garland of Ceres on the brow, wrapped in the purple
cloak of Saturn, wearing the white robe of the goddess Isis, thou invokest
God as judge? Standing under the statue of AEsculapius, adorning the brazen
image of Juno, arraying the helmet of Minerva with dusky figures, thou
never thinkest of appealing to any of these deities. In thine own forum
thou appealest to a God who is elsewhere; thou permittest honour to be
rendered in thy temples to a foreign god. Oh, striking testimony to truth,
which in the very midst of demons obtains a witness for us Christians!

CHAP. III.

   But when we say that there are demons--as though, in the simple fact
that we alone expel them from the men's bodies,(2) we did not also prove
their existence--some disciple of Chrysippus begins to curl the lip. Yet
thy curses sufficiently attest that there are such beings, and that they
are objects of thy strong dislike.(3) As what comes to thee as a fit
expression of thy strong hatred of him, thou callest the man a daemon who
annoys thee with his filthiness, or malice, or insolence, or any other vice
which we ascribe to evil spirits. In expressing vexation, contempt, or
abhorrence, thou hast Satan constantly upon thy lips;(1) the very same we
hold to be the angel of evil, the source of error, the corrupter of the
whole world, by whom in the beginning man was entrapped into breaking the
commandment of God. And (the man) being given over to death on account of
his sin, the entire human race, tainted in their descent from him, were
made a channel for transmitting his condemnation. Thou seest, then, thy
destroyer; and though he is fully known only to Christians, or to whatever
sect(2) confesses the Lord, yet, even thou hast some acquaintance with him
while yet thou abhorrest him!

CHAP. IV.

   Even now, as the matter refers to thy opinion on a point the more
closely belonging to thee, in so far as it bears on thy personal well-
being, we maintain that after life has passed away thou still remainest in
existence, and lookest forward to a day of judgment, and according to thy
deserts art assigned to misery or bliss, in either way of it for ever;
that, to be capable of this, thy former substance must needs return to
thee, the matter and the memory of the very same human being: for neither
good nor evil couldst thou feel if thou wert not endowed again with that
sensitive bodily organization, and there would be no grounds for judgment
without the presentation of the very person to whom the sufferings of
judgment were due. That Christian view, though much nobler than the
Pythagorean, as it does not tranfser thee into beasts; though more complete
than the Platonic, since it endows thee again with a body; though more
worthy of honour than the Epicurean, as it preserves thee from
annihilation,--yet, because of the name connected with it, it is held to be
nothing but vanity and folly, and, as it is called, a mere presumption. But
we are not ashamed of ourselves if our presumption is found to have thy
support. Well, in the first place, when thou speakest of one who is dead,
thou sayest of him, "Poor man"--poor, surely, not because he has been taken
from the good of life, but because he has been given over to punishment and
condemnation. But at another time thou speakest of the dead as free from
trouble; thou professest to think life a burden, and death a blessing. Thou
art wont, too, to speak of the dead as in repose,(3) when, returning to
their graves beyond the city gates(4) with food and dainties, thou art wont
to present offerings to thyself rather than to them; or when, coming from
the graves again, thou art staggering under the effects of wine. But I want
thy sober opinion. Thou callest the dead poor when thou speakest thine own
thoughts, when thou art at a distance from them. For at their feast, where
in a sense they are present and recline along with thee, it would never do
to cast reproach upon their lot. Thou canst not but adulate those for whose
sake thou art feasting it so sumptuously. Dost thou then speak of him as
poor who feels not? How happens it that thou cursest, as one capable of
suffering from thy curse, the man whose memory comes back on thee with the
sting in it of some old injury? It is thine imprecation that "the earth may
lie heavy on him," and that there may be trouble "to his ashes in the realm
of the dead." In like manner, in thy kindly feeling to him to whom thou art
indebted for favours, thou entreatest "repose to his bones and ashes," and
thy desire is that among the dead he may "have pleasant rest." If thou hast
no power of suffering after  death, if no feeling remains,--if, in a word,
severance from the body is the annihilation of thee, what makes thee lie
against thyself, as if thou couldst suffer in another state? Nay, why dost
thou fear death at all? There is nothing after death to be feared, if there
is nothing to be felt. For though it may be said that death is dreadful not
for anything it threatens afterwards, but because it deprives us of the
good of life; yet, on the other hand, as it puts an end to life's
discomforts, which are far more numerous, death's terrors are mitigated by
a gain that more than outweighs the loss. And there is no occasion to be
troubled about a loss of good things, which is amply made up for by so
great a blessing as relief from every trouble. There is nothing dreadful in
that which delivers from all that is to be dreaded. If thou shrinkest from
giving up life because thy experience of it has been sweet, at any rate
there is no need to be in any alarm about death if thou hast no knowledge
that it is evil. Thy dread of it is the proof that thou art aware of its
evil. Thou wouldst never think it evil--thou wouldst have no fear of it at
all--if thou weft not sure that after it there is something  to make it
evil, and so a thing of terror.(1) Let  us leave unnoted at this time that
natural way   of fearing death. It is a poor thing for any one to fear what
is inevitable. I take up the other side, and argue on the ground of a
joyful hope beyond our term of earthly life; for desire of posthumous fame
is with almost every class an inborn thing.(2) I have not time to speak of
the Curtii, and the Reguli, or the brave men of Greece, who afford us
innumerable cases of death despised for after renown. Who at this day is
without the desire that he may be often remembered when he is dead? Who
does not give all endeavour to preserve his name by works of literature, or
by the simple glory of his virtues, or by the splendour even of his tomb?
How is it the nature of the soul to have these posthumous ambitions and
with such amazing effort to prepare the things it can only use after
decease? It would care nothing about the future, if the future were quite
unknown to it. But perhaps thou thinkest thyself surer, after thy exit from
the body, of continuing still to feel, than of any future resurrection,
which is a doctrine laid at our door as one of our presumptuous
suppositions. But it is also the doctrine of the soul; for if any one
inquires about a person lately dead as though he were alive, it occurs at
once to say, "He has gone." He is expected to return, then.

CHAP. V.

   These testimonies of the soul are simple as true, commonplace as
simple, universal as commonplace, natural as universal, divine as natural.
I don't think they can appear frivolous or feeble to any one, if he reflect
on the majesty of nature, from which the soul derives its authority.(3) If
you acknowledge the authority of the mistress, you will own it also in the
disciple. Well, nature is the mistress here, and her disciple is the soul.
But everything the one has taught or the other learned, has come from God--
the Teacher of the teacher. And what the soul may know from the teachings
of its chief instructor, thou canst judge from that which is within thee.
Think of that which enables thee to think; reflect on that which in
forebodings is the prophet, the augur in omens, the foreseer of coming
events. Is it a wonderful thing, if, being the gift of God to man, it knows
how to divine? Is it anything very strange, if it knows the God by whom it
was bestowed? Even fallen as it is, the victim of the great adversary's
machinations, it does not forget its Creator, His goodness and law, and the
final end both of itself and of its foe. Is it singular then, if, divine in
its origin, its revelations agree with the knowledge God has given to His
own people? But he who does not regard those outbursts of the soul as the
teaching of a congenital nature and the secret deposit of an inborn
knowledge, will say that the habit and, so to say, the vice of speaking in
this way has been acquired and confirmed from the opinions of published
books widely spread among men. Unquestionably the soul existed before
letters, and speech before books, and ideas before the writing of them, and
man himself before the poet and philosopher.(4) Is it then to be believed,
that before literature and its publication no utterances of the sort we
have pointed out came from the lips of men? Did nobody speak of God and His
goodness, nobody of death, nobody of the dead? Speech went a-begging, I
suppose; nay,(the subjects being still awanting, without which it cannot
even exist at this day, when it is so much more copious, and rich, and
wise), it could not exist at all if the things which are now so easily
suggested, that cling to us so constantly, that are so very near to us,
that are somehow born on our very lips, had no existence in ancient times,
before letters had any existence in the world--before there was a Mercury,
I think, at all. And whence was it, I pray, that letters themselves came to
know, and to disseminate for the use of speech, what no mind had ever
conceived, or tongue put forth, or ear taken in? But, clearly, since the
Scriptures of God, whether belonging to Christians or to Jews, into whose
olive tree we have been grafted--are much more ancient than any secular
literature, (or, let us only say, are of a somewhat earlier date, as we
have shown in its proper place when proving their trustworthiness); if the
soul have taken these utterances from writings at all, we must believe it
has taken them from ours, and not from yours, its instruction coming more
naturally from the earlier than the later works. Which latter indeed waited
for their own instruction from the former, and though we grant that light
has come from you, still it has flowed from the first fountainhead
originally; and we claim as entirely ours, all you may have taken from us
and handed down. Since it is thus, it matters little whether the soul's
knowledge was put into it by God or by His book. Why, then, O man, wilt
thou maintain a view so groundless, as that those testimonies of the soul
have gone forth from the mere human speculations of your literature, and
got hardening of common use?

CHAP. VI.

   Believe, then, your own books, and as to our Scriptures so much the
more believe writings which are divine, but in the witness of the soul
itself give like confidence to Nature. Choose the one of these you observe
to be the most faithful friend of truth. If your own writings are
distrusted, neither God nor Nature lie. And if you would have faith in God
and Nature, have faith in the soul; thus you will believe yourself.
Certainly you value the soul as giving you your true greatness,--that to
which you belong; which is all things to you; without which you can neither
live nor die; on whose account you even put God away from you. Since, then,
you fear to become a Christian, call the soul before you, and put her to
the question. Why does she worship another? why name the name of God? Why
does she speak of demons, when she means to denote spirits to be held
accursed? Why does she make her protestations towards the heavens, and
pronounce her ordinary execrations earthwards? Why does she render service
in one place, in another invoke the Avenger? Why does she pass judgments on
the dead? What Christian phrases are those she has got, though Christians
she neither desires to see nor hear? Why has she either bestowed them On
us, or received them from us? Why has she either taught us them, or learned
them as our scholar? Regard with suspicion this accordance in words, while
there is such difference in practice. It is utter folly--denying a
universal nature--to ascribe this exclusively to our language and the
Greek, which are regarded among us as so near akin. The soul is not a boon
from heaven to Latins and Greeks alone. Man is the one name belonging to
every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and
various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of
speech are common to all. God is everywhere, and the goodness of God is
everywhere; demons are everywhere, and the cursing of them is everywhere;
the invocation of divine judgment is everywhere, death is everywhere, and
the sense of death is everywhere, and all the world over is found the
witness of the soul. There is not a soul of man that does not, from the
light that is in itself, proclaim the very things we are not permitted to
speak above our breath. Most justly, then, every soul is a culprit as well
as a witness: in the measure that it testifies for truth, the guilt of
error lies on it; and on the day of judgment it will stand before the
courts of God, without a word to say. Thou proclaimedst God, O soul, but
thou didst not seek to know Him: evil spirits were detested by thee, and
yet they were the objects of thy adoration; the punishments of hell were
foreseen by thee, but no care was taken to avoid them; thou hadst a savour
of Christianity, and withal wert the persecutor of Christians.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 3, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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