Tertullian: de Testimonio Animae

Magna curiositate et maiore longe memoria opus est ad studendum, si qui velit ex litteris receptissimis quibusque philosophorum vel poetarum vel quorumlibet doctrinae ac sapientiae saecularis magistrorum testimonia excerpere Christianae veritatis, ut aemuli persecutoresque eius de suo proprio instrumento et erroris in se et iniquitatis in nos rei revincantur. Nonnulli quidem, quibus de pristina litteratura et curiositatis labor et memoriae tenor perseveravit, ad eum modum opuscula penes nos condiderunt commemorantes et contestificantes in singula rationem et originem et traditionem et sententiarum argumenta, per quae recognosci possit nihil nos aut novum aut portentosum suscepisse, de quo non etiam communes et publicae litterae ad suffragium nobis patrocinentur, si quid aut erroris eiecimus aut aequitatis admisimus. Sed suis quidem magistris alias probatissimis [atque lectissimis] fidem inclinavit humana de incredulitate duritia, sicubi in argumenta Christianae defensionis impingunt.

Great curiosity and by far greater memory are needed for studying, if anyone should wish to excerpt testimonies for Christian verity from the most received letters and from whichever of the philosophers or poets or any masters of secular doctrine and wisdom, so that its emulators and persecutors may be proved guilty, from their own proper instrument, of error in themselves and of iniquity against us. Certain persons indeed, for whom from their former literature both the labor of curiosity and the tenor of memory has persevered, have composed with us little works in that way, commemorating and testifying, point by point, the rationale and the origin and the tradition and the arguments of opinions, through which it can be recognized that we have undertaken nothing either new or portentous, concerning which the common and public letters do not also advocate to our suffrage on our behalf, if we have either cast out any error or admitted any equity. But human hardness, arising from incredulity, has bent away faith from their own teachers—otherwise most approved [and most select]—whenever they collide with the arguments of Christian defense.

Tunc vani poetae, cum deos humanis passionibus et fabulis designant, tunc philosophi duri, cum veritatis fores pulsant. Hactenus sapiens et prudens habebitur, qui prope Christianum pronuntiaverit, cum, si quid prudentiae aut sapientiae affectaverit seu caerimonias despuens seu saeculum revincens, pro Christiano denotetur. Iam igitur nihil nobis erit cum litteris et doctrina perversae felicitatis, cum in falso eis creditur quam in vero.

Then the vain poets, when they designate the gods with human passions and fables, then the hard philosophers, when they knock at the doors of truth. Thus far he will be held wise and prudent who has pronounced something nearly Christian, since, if he has affected anything of prudence or wisdom, whether spitting out ceremonies or refuting the age, he is denoted as a Christian. Therefore now we shall have nothing to do with the letters and the doctrine of perverse felicity, since to them credence is given in the false rather than in the true.

Viderint si qui de unico et solo deo pronuntiaverunt. Immo nihil omnino relatum sit, quod agnoscat Christianus, ne exprobrare possit. Nam et quod relatum est, neque omnes sciunt neque qui sciunt, constare confidunt.

Let them see to it, if any have pronounced about the unique and sole God. Nay rather, let nothing at all be related which a Christian recognizes, lest he be able to exprobrate. For even what has been related, neither do all know, nor do those who know confide that it stands firm.

Tanto abest, ut nostris litteris annuant homines, ad quas nemo venit nisi iam Christianus. Novum testimonium advoco immo omni litteratura notius, omni doctrina agitatius, omni editione vulgatius, toto homine maius, id est totum quod est hominis. Consiste in medio, anima, seu divina et aeterna res es secundum plures philosophos, eo magis non mentieris: seu minime divina quoniam quidem mortalis ut Epicuro soli videtur, eo magis mentiri non debebis, seu de coelo exciperis, seu de terra conciperis, seu numeris seu atomis concinnaris, seu cum corpore incipis, seu post corpus induceris, undeunde et quoquo modo hominem facis animal rationale, sensus et scientiae capacissimum.

So far is it from men nodding assent to our letters, to which no one comes unless already a Christian. I summon a new testimony—nay, one more well-known than all literature, more much-discussed than all doctrine, more popularized than every edition, greater than the whole man, that is, the whole of what belongs to man. Take your stand in the midst, O soul: whether you are a divine and eternal thing according to many philosophers, so much the more you will not lie; or least divine, since indeed mortal, as it seems to Epicurus alone, so much the more you ought not to lie; whether you are taken down from heaven, or conceived from earth; whether you are composed by numbers or by atoms; whether you begin with the body, or are introduced after the body—whencesoever and in whatsoever manner you make man a rational animal, most capable of sense and of knowledge.

Sed non eam te advoco, quae scholis formata, bybliothecis exercitata, academiis et porticibus atticis pasta sapientiam ructas. Te simplicem et rudem et impolitam et idioticam compello qualem te habent qui te solam habent, illam ipsam de compito, de trivio, de textrino totam. Imperitia tua mihi opus est, quoniam aliquantulae peritiae tuae nemo credit.

But I do not summon you in that guise, you who, shaped by schools, exercised in libraries, fed by academies and Attic porticoes, belch forth wisdom. I address you simple, raw, unpolished, and idiotic, such as those who have you alone have you, that very one from the crossroads, from the street-corner, from the weaving-shop, whole. I have need of your inexperience, since no one puts trust in your slight expertise.

Ea expostulo quae tecum homini infers, quae ex temetipsa aut ex quocumque auctore tuo sentire didicisti. Non es, quod sciam, Christiana. Fieri enim, non nasci solet Christiana.

I demand those things which you bring with you to the human being, which you have learned to think from your very self or from whatever author of yours. You are not, so far as I know, a Christian. For a Christian is wont to be made, not born.

Tamen nunc a te testimonium flagitant Christiani, ab extranea adversus tuos, ut vel tibi erubescant, quod nos ob ea oderint et inrideant, quae te nunc consciam detinent.

Nevertheless now the Christians demand testimony from you, an outsider, against your own, so that they may even blush before you, because they hate and deride us on account of those things which now hold you as a conscious witness.

Non placemus deum praedicantes hoc nomine unico unicum, a quo omnia et sub quo universa. Dic testimonium, si ita scis. Nam te quoque palam et tota libertate qua non licet nobis, domi ac foris audimus ita pronuntiare, Quod deus dederit, et, Si deus voluerit.

Do we not please God by proclaiming, under this unique name, the Unique One, from whom are all things and under whom the universe stands? Bear witness, if so you know. For we too hear you, openly and with the full liberty which is not permitted to us, at home and outside, pronounce thus, "What God shall have given," and, "If God shall have willed."

Ea voce et aliquem esse significas et omnem illi confiteris potestatem, ad cuius spectas voluntatem, simul et ceteros negas deos esse, dum suis vocabulis nuncupas, Saturnum, Iovem, Martem, Minervam.

By that utterance you both signify that someone exists and confess all power to him, to whose will you look; at the same time you deny that the others are gods, while you call them by their own appellations, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva.

Nam solum deum confirmas quem tantum deum nominias, ut, et cum illos interdum deos appellas, de alieno et quasi pro mutuo usa videaris. De natura quoque dei quem praedicamus, nec te latet. Deus bonus, Deus benefacit, tua vox est.

For you affirm the sole god, whom you name only “god,” so that even when you sometimes call those others “gods,” you seem to have used a term from another’s domain and, as it were, on loan. As to the nature also of the god whom we proclaim, this too is not hidden from you. “God is good, God does good,” is your own phrase.

Plane, adicis, Sed homo malus, scilicet contraria propositione oblique et figuraliter exprobrans ideo malum hominem, quia a deo bono abscesserit. Etiam quod penes deum bonitatis et benignitatis omnis benedictio inter nos summum sit disciplinae et conversationis sacramentum, Benedicat te deus tam facile pronuntias quam Christiano necesse est, at cum in maledictum convertis dictionem dei, perinde dicto omnem super nos potestatem eius consistere secundum nos confiteris. Sunt qui etsi deum non negent, dispectorem plane et arbitrum et iudicem non putent -- in quo utique nos maxime reiciunt, qui ad istam disciplinam metu praedicati iudicii transvolamus -- sic deum honorantes, dum curis observationis et molestiis animadversionis absolvunt, cui ne iram quidem adscribunt.

Plainly, you add, “But a bad man,” namely by a contrary proposition, obliquely and figuratively upbraiding him as a bad man for this reason, that he has departed from the good God. Also, since with the God of goodness and benignity every benediction among us is the highest sacrament of discipline and conversation, “May God bless you” you pronounce as easily as is needful for a Christian; but when you turn the diction of God into a malediction, by the very word you confess that all his power over us stands—according to us. There are those who, even if they do not deny God, plainly do not think him an overseer and an arbiter and a judge—wherein indeed they especially reject us, we who fly to that discipline by fear of the judgment that has been proclaimed—thus honoring God, while they absolve him from the cares of observation and the annoyances of animadversion, to whom they do not ascribe even wrath.

Nam si deus, inquiunt, irascitur, corruptibilis et passionalis est: porro quod patitur quodque corrumpitur, etiam interitum potest capere, quem deus non capit. At idem alibi animam divinam et a deo conlatam confitentes cadunt in testimonium ipsius animae retorquendum adversus opinionem superiorem. Si enim anima aut divina aut a deo data est, sine dubio datorem suum novit, et si novit, utique et timet et tantum postremo adauctorem.

For if God, they say, grows wrathful, he is corruptible and passible: moreover, what suffers and what is corrupted can also admit destruction, which God does not admit. But the same men elsewhere, confessing that the soul is divine and conferred by God, fall into a testimony of the soul itself to be retorted against their former opinion. For if the soul is either divine or given by God, without doubt it knows its giver; and if it knows him, surely it also fears him, and, in the end, all the more its augmenter.

An non timet quem magis propitium velit quam iratum? Unde igitur naturalis timor animae in deum, si deus non novit irasci? Quomodo timebitur, qui nescit offendi?

Or does he not fear him whom he would rather have propitious than irate? Whence, then, the natural fear of the soul toward God, if God does not know how to be angry? How will he be feared, who does not know how to be offended?

Quid timetur nisi ira? Unde ira nisi ex animadversione? Unde animadversio nisi de iudicio?

What is feared except wrath? Whence wrath if not from animadversion? Whence animadversion if not from judgment?

Unde iudicium nisi de potestate? Cuius potestas summa, nisi dei solius? Hinc ergo tibi, anima, de conscientia suppetit domi ac foris nullo irridente vel prohibente praedicare, Deus videt omnia, et Deo commendo, et Deus reddet, et Deus inter nos iudicabit.

Whence judgment, if not from power? Whose power is supreme, if not God’s alone? Hence therefore for you, soul, from conscience it is supplied, at home and abroad, with no one mocking or forbidding, to proclaim, God sees all things, and to God I commend it, and God will render, and God will judge between us.

Unde tibi hoc non Christianae? Atque adeo et plerumque et vitta Cereris redimita, et pallio Saturni coccinata, et deae Isidis linteata, in ipsis denique templis deum iudicem imploras. Sub Aesculapio stas, Iunonem in aere exornas, [Minervam calcias furvis galeam formis], et neminem de praesentibus deis contestaris.

Whence to you this thing not Christian? And indeed even for the most part both wreathed with the fillet of Ceres, and enscarleted in the pallium of Saturn, and linen-clad of the goddess Isis, at last in the temples themselves you implore God as judge. Under Aesculapius you stand, you adorn Juno in bronze, [you shoe Minerva with dark shoes, you fashion the helmet with molds], and you call none of the present gods to witness.

In tuo foro aliunde iudicem appellas, in tuis templis alium deum pateris. O testimonium veritatis, quae apud ipsa daemonia testem efficit Christianorum!

In your forum you appeal to a judge from elsewhere; in your temples you permit another god. O testimony of truth, which among the very daemons makes a witness for the Christians!

Enimvero cum daemonia affirmamus esse, sane quasi non et probemus qui ea soli de corporibus exigimus, aliqui Chrysippi adsentator inludit. Et esse et abominationem sustinere execrationes tuae respondent. Daemonium vocas hominem aut immunditia aut malitia aut insolentia aut quacumque macula quam nos daemoniis deputamus ad necessitatem odii inportunum.

Indeed, when we affirm that daemons exist—surely as though we do not also prove it, we who alone drive them out from bodies—some flatterer of Chrysippus makes sport. At your execrations they respond both that they exist and that they endure abomination. You call a man a daemon on account of filthiness or malice or insolence or whatever stain, which very stains we assign to the daemons, as being, by a necessity of hatred, odious.

Satanan denique in omni vexatione et aspernatione et detestatione pronuntias, quem nos dicimus malitiae angelum, totius erroris artificem, totius saeculi interpolatorem, per quem homo a primordio circumventus, ut praeceptum dei excederet, et propterea in mortem datus exinde totum genus de suo semine infectum suae etiam damnationis traducem fecit. Sentis igitur perditorem tuum, et licet soli illum noverint Christiani vel quaecumque apud dominum secta, et tu tamen eum nosti, dum odisti.

Finally you pronounce Satan in every vexation and spurning and detestation, whom we call the angel of malice, the artificer of all error, the corrupter of the whole age, through whom man, from the beginning circumvented so as to overstep the command of God, and therefore given over to death, thereafter made the whole race, infected from his seed, a propagation of his own condemnation as well. You therefore sense your destroyer; and although Christians alone, or whatever sect is with the Lord, know him, yet you too know him, in that you hate him.

Iam nunc quod ad necessariorem sententiam tuam spectet, quantum et ad ipsum statum tuum tendit, adfirmamus te manere post vitae dispunctionem et expectare diem iudicii proque meritis aut cruciatui destinari aut refrigerio, utroque sempiterno; quibus sustinendis necessario tibi substantiam pristinam eiusdemque hominis materiam et memoriam reversuram, quod et nihil mali ac boni sentire possis sine carnis passionalis facultate et nulla ratio sit iudicii sine ipsius exhibitione qui meruit iudicii passionem. Ea opinio Christiana etsi honestior multo Pythagorica, quae te non in bestias transfert, etsi plenior Platonica, quae tibi etiam dotem corporis reddit, etsi Epicurea gravior, quae te ab interitu defendit, tamen propter suum nomen soli vanitati et stupori et, ut dicitur, praesumptioni deputatur. Sed non erubescimus, si tecum erit nostra praesumptio.

Now, as regards your more necessary opinion, inasmuch as it also tends to your very status, we affirm that you remain after the disjunction of life and await the day of judgment, and according to deserts are destined either for torment or for refreshment, both everlasting; for the sustaining of which your pristine substance, and the matter and memory of the same man, must of necessity return to you, since you can feel nothing of evil or good without the faculty of carnal passion, and there is no rationale of judgment without the presentation of the very one who merited the passion of judgment. This Christian opinion, although far more honorable than the Pythagorean, which does not transfer you into beasts, although fuller than the Platonic, which also restores to you the endowment of the body, although weightier than the Epicurean, which defends you from annihilation, yet on account of its own name is assigned solely to vanity and stupor and, as it is said, presumption. But we are not ashamed, if our presumption will be with you.

Primo enim, cum alicuius defuncti recordaris, misellum vocas eum, non utique quod de bono vitae ereptum sed ut poenae et iudicio iam adscriptum. Ceterum alias securos vocas defunctos. Profiteris et vitae incommodum et mortis beneficium.

First, indeed, when you recall someone deceased, you call him a poor wretch, not of course because he has been snatched from the good of life, but as already enrolled to punishment and judgment. Moreover, at other times you call the deceased secure. You profess both the inconvenience of life and the benefice of death.

Vocas porro securos, si quando extra portam cum obsoniis et matteis tibi potius parentans ad busta recedis aut a bustis dilutior redis. At ego sobriam tuam sententiam exigo. Misellos vocas mortuos, cum de tuo loqueris, cum ab eis longe es. Nam in convivio eorum quasi praesentibus et conrecumbentibus sortem suam exprobrare non possis.

You call them “secure,” whenever outside the gate, with viands and dainties, parentating rather for yourself, you withdraw to the tombs, or from the tombs you return more diluted. But I demand your sober judgment. You call the dead “poor wretches” when you speak of your own, when you are far from them. For at their banquet, as though they were present and co-reclining, you could not exprobrate their lot.

Debes adulari propter quos lautius vivis. Misellum ergo vocas qui nihil sentit? Quid, quod ut sentienti maledicis?

You ought to flatter those thanks to whom you live more luxuriously. Do you therefore call “poor little wretch” one who feels nothing? What of the fact that you revile him as if he were sentient?

Cuius memoriam cum alicuius offensae morsu facis, terram gravem inprecaris et cineri penes inferos tormentum. Aeque ex bona parte cui gratiam debes, ossibus et cineribus eius refrigerium comprecaris et ut bene requiescat apud inferos cupis. Si nihil passionis est tibi post mortem, si nulla sensus perseverantia, si denique nihil est tui, cum istud corpus reliquisti, cur mentiris in te, quasi aliquid ultra pati possis?

When you fashion the memory of someone with the bite of some offense, you imprecate heavy earth and torment upon his cinder among the underworld. Likewise, on the favorable side, for one to whom you owe grace, you pray refreshment for his bones and ashes, and you desire that he may rest well among the dead. If there is nothing of passion for you after death, if there is no perseverance of sense, if, finally, there is nothing of you when you have left that body, why do you lie about yourself, as if you could suffer anything beyond?

Immo cur in totum times mortem? Nihil est tibi timendum post mortem, qua nec experiundum post mortem. Nam et si dici potest ideo mortem timeri non ultra quid minantem, sed ut commodum vitae amputantem, atquin cum et incommoda longe plura vitae pariter excedant, lucratione gravioris partis metum diluit, ne iam timenda est amissio bonorum quae altero bono, id est incommodorum pace, pensatur.

Rather, why do you fear death altogether? There is nothing for you to fear after death, in which there is nothing to be undergone after death. For even if it can be said that death is therefore feared, not as menacing anything further, but as amputating the commodity of life, yet since the incommodities—far more numerous—of life likewise depart, the lucration of the weightier part dissolves fear, so that the loss of goods is now not to be feared, which is counterbalanced by another good, that is, by the peace from incommodities.

Non est timendum quod nos liberat ab omni timendo. Si times vita decedere quia optimam nosti, certe mortem timere non debes quam malam nescis. At cum times, scis malam.

What frees us from all fearing is not to be feared. If you fear to depart from life because you know it as the best, surely you ought not to fear death, which you do not know to be evil. Yet when you fear, you know it as evil.

Non scires autem malam, quia nec timeres, si non scires aliquid esse post mortem quod eam malam faciat, ut timeas. Omittamus nunc naturalem formam timendi mortem. Nemo timeat quod evadere non potest.

But you would not know it to be bad, because you would not fear it either, if you did not know that there is something after death which makes it bad, so that you may fear. Let us now omit the natural form of fearing death. Let no one fear what he cannot evade.

Ex altera parte congredior laetioris spei post mortem. Nam omnibus fere ingenita est famae post mortem cupido. Longum est retexere Curtios et Regulos et Graecos viros quorum innumerabilia elogia sunt contemptae mortis propter postumam famam.

From the other side I advance to the brighter hope after death. For in almost all there is an inborn desire of fame after death. It would be long to recount the Curtii and the Reguli and the Greek men, whose innumerable eulogies are of death held in contempt for the sake of posthumous fame.

Quis non hodie memoriae post mortem frequentandae ita studet, ut vel litteraturae operibus vel simplici laude morum vel ipsorum sepulcrorum ambitione nomen suum servet? Unde animae [hodie] affectare aliquid quod velit post portem et tantopere praeparare quae sit usura post obitum? Nihil utique de postero curaret, si nihil de postero sciret.

Who is there today who does not so strive for a memory to be oft-frequented after death, as to preserve his name either by works of literature, or by the simple praise of morals, or by the ambition of the tombs themselves? Whence is it that souls [today] aim at something which they would desire beyond the gate, and so greatly prepare for what the use will be after decease? Surely he would care nothing about the hereafter, if he knew nothing about the hereafter.

Sed forsitan de sensu post excessum tui certior sis quam de resurrectione quandoque cuius nos praesumptores denotamur. Atquin hoc quoque ab anima praedicatur. Nam si de aliquo iam pridem defuncto tanquam de vivo quis requirat, prae manu occurrit dicere, Abiit iam et reverti debet.

But perhaps you are more certain about sense after your departure than about the resurrection someday, of which we are denoted as presumers. And yet this too is proclaimed by the soul. For if someone should inquire about someone long since deceased as if alive, it readily comes to hand to say, “He has departed now and ought to return.”

Haec testimonia animae quanto vera tanto simplicia, quanto simplicia tanto vulgaria, quanto vulgaria tanto communia, quanto communia tanto naturalia, quanto naturalia tanto divina. Non puto cuiquam frivola et ridicula videri posse, si recogitet naturae maiestatem, ex qua censetur auctoritas animae. Quantum dederis magistrae, tantum adiudicabis discipulae.

These testimonies of the soul: the truer, the simpler, the simpler, the more vulgar, the more vulgar, the more common, the more common, the more natural, the more natural, the more divine. I do not think they can seem frivolous and ridiculous to anyone, if he reconsider the majesty of nature, from which the authority of the soul is adjudged. As much as you grant to the teacher, so much will you adjudge to the disciple.

Magistra natura, anima discipula est. 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.

Nature is the teacher, the soul is the disciple. Whatever either the former has taught or the latter has thoroughly learned has been handed down by God, namely by the master of the teacher herself. What the soul can presume concerning the principal institutor, it is for you to assess from the one which is in you.

Senti illam quae ut sentias efficit. Recogita in praesagiis vatem, in ominibus augurem, in eventibus prospicem. Mirum, si a deo data novit homini divinare?

Sense that which brings it about that you sense. Reconsider, in presages the vates, in omens the augur, in events the fore-seer. Is it a wonder, if, given by God, it knows how to divine for man?

Tam mirum, si eum, a quo data est, novit? Etiam circumventa ab adversario meminit sui auctoris et bonitatis et decreti eius et exitus sui et adversarii ipsius. Sic mirum, si a deo data eadem canit quae deus suis dedit nosse?

So much a wonder, if it knows him by whom it was given? Even when hemmed in by the adversary, it remembers its author, and his goodness, and his decree, and its own outcome and that of the adversary himself. Thus, is it a wonder, if, given by God, it sings the same things which God has granted his own to know?

Sed qui eiusmodi eruptiones animae non putavit doctrinam esse naturae et congenitae et ingenitae conscientiae tacita commissa, dicet potius diventilatis in vulgus opinionibus publicatarum litterarum usum iam et quasi vitium corroboratum taliter sermocinandi. Certe prior animas quam littera, et prior sermo quam liber, et prior sensu quam stilus et prior homo ipse quam philosophus et poeta. Numquid ergo credendum est ante litteraturam et divulgationem eius mutos ab huiusmodi pronuntiationibus homines vixisse?

But he who has not considered outbursts of the soul of this sort to be a doctrina of nature and of a congenite and ingenerate conscience, entrusted in silence, will say rather that, after opinions have been winnowed out into the crowd, the use of publicized literature—now confirmed and, as it were, strengthened into a vice—has produced such a way of discoursing. Surely souls are prior to writing, and speech prior to book, and sense prior to stylus, and man himself prior to the philosopher and the poet. Is it then to be believed that before literature and its divulgation men lived mute from pronouncements of this kind?

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 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 loquelae disseminare quae nulla umquam mens conceperat aut lingua protulerat aut auris exceperat?

Did no one speak of God and his goodness, did no one speak of death, did no one speak of the infernal regions? Discourse was a beggar, I suppose; nay rather, there could not even be any at all, with those very things then ceasing, without which even today it cannot be more blessed, more opulent, and more prudent, if those things which today are so easy, so assiduous, so proximate, in a certain way born upon the very lips, did not exist back then, before letters had germinated in the world, before Mercury, I suppose, had been born. And whence, I pray, did letters themselves come to know and to disseminate into the use of speech things which no mind had ever conceived, nor tongue proffered, nor ear received?

At enim cum divinae scripturae quae penes nos vel Iudaeos sunt, in quorum oleastro insiti sumus, multo saecularibus litteris vel modica tantum aetate aliqua antecedant, ut loco suo edocuimus ad fidem earum demonstrandam, et si haec eloquia de litteris usurpavit anima, utique de nostris credendum erit, non de vestris, quia potiora sunt ad instruendam animam priora quam posteriora, quae et ipsa a prioribus instrui sustinebant, cum, etsi de vestris instructam concedamus, ad originem tamen principalem traditio pertineat, nostrumque omnino sit quodcumque de nostris sumsisse et tradidisse contigit vobis. Quod cum ita sit, non multum refert, a deo formata sit animae conscientia an a litteris dei. Quid igitur vis, homo, de humanis sententiis litterarum tuarum exisse haec in usus communis callositatem?

But indeed, since the divine Scriptures which are in our possession or in that of the Jews—in whose wild-olive we have been grafted—by far precede the secular letters, even if only by some modest span of time, as in its place we have taught to demonstrate their credibility; and if the soul has appropriated these utterances from letters, surely it must be believed to have done so from ours, not from yours, because the earlier are more potent for instructing the soul than the later, which themselves too had to be instructed by the earlier; since, even if we grant it to have been instructed from yours, nevertheless the tradition pertains to the principal origin, and whatever it has happened to you to have taken and handed down from what is ours is altogether ours. Since this is so, it does not much matter whether the conscience of the soul has been formed by God or by the letters of God. What then do you will, man—that from human opinions of your letters these things have issued into the callus of common use?

Crede itaque tuis et de commentariis nostris tanto magis crede divinis, sed de animae ipsius arbitrio perinde crede naturae. Elige quam ex his fidem sororem observes veritatis. Si de tuis litteris dubitas, neque deus neque natura mentitur.

Therefore believe your own, and, as for our commentaries, believe the divine ones so much the more; but concerning the soul’s very arbitrium, believe nature likewise. Choose which of these you observe as the sister of truth. If you doubt your letters, neither God nor nature lies.

Ut et naturae et deo credas, crede animae, ita fiet ut et tibi credis. Illa certe est quam tanti facis, quantum illa te facit, cuius es totus, quae tibi omnia est, sine qua nec vivere potes nec mori, propter quam deos neglegis. Cum enim times fieri Christianus, eam conveni.

That you may believe both nature and God, believe the soul, and thus it will come to pass that you also believe yourself. She indeed is the one whom you value as much as she makes you, whose you are wholly, who is everything to you, without whom you can neither live nor die, on account of whom you neglect the gods. For when you are afraid to become a Christian, meet with her.

Cur cum alium colat, deum nominat? Cur cum maledicendo spiritus denotat, daemonia pronuntiat? Cur ad caelum contestatur et ad terram detestatur?

Why, while she worships another, does she name a god? Why, in cursing, when she denotes spirits, does she pronounce demons? Why does she call heaven to witness and detest the earth?

Cur alibi servit, alibi vindicem convenit? Quid de mortuis iudicat? Quae verba habet Christianorum quos nec auditos visosque vult?

Why does it serve in one place, and in another resort to an avenger? What does it judge about the dead? What words does it have about Christians, whom it wishes neither heard nor seen?

Cur aut nobis dedit ea verba aut accepit a nobis? Cur aut docuit aut didicit? Suspectam habe convenientiam praedicationis in tanta disconvenientia conversationis.

Why either did he give those words to us or receive them from us? Why either did he teach or learn? I hold suspect the congruence of the preaching in so great a discongruence of conversation.

Vanus es, si huic linguae soli aut Graecae quae propinquae inter se habentur, reputabis eiusmodi, ut neges naturae universitatem. Non Latinis nec Argivis solis anima de caelo cadit. Omnium gentium unus homo, varium nomen est, una anima, varia vox, unus spiritus, varius sonus, propria cuique genti loquela, sed loquelae materia communis.

You are vain, if you will reckon things of such a sort to belong to this tongue alone or to Greek—which are held to be akin to each other—so as to deny the universality of nature. The soul does not fall from heaven to Latins nor to Argives alone. Of all nations there is one human being; the name is various. One soul; the voice is various. One spirit; the sound is various. To each nation its own speech, but the material of speech is common.

Deus ubique et bonitas dei ubique, daemonium ubique et maledictio daemonii ubique, iudicii divini invocatio ubique et conscientia mortis ubique et testimonium ubique. Omnis anima suo iure proclamat quae nobis nec mutire conceditur. Merito igitur omnis anima et rea et testis est, in tantum et rea erroris in quantum et testis veritatis, et stabit ante aulas dei die iudicii nihil habens dicere.

God everywhere and the goodness of God everywhere, the demon everywhere and the malediction of the demon everywhere, the invocation of divine judgment everywhere and the consciousness of death everywhere and testimony everywhere. Every soul by its own right proclaims what to us it is not even permitted to mutter. Deservedly therefore every soul is both defendant and witness, so far guilty of error as it is witness of truth, and it will stand before the courts of God on the day of judgment having nothing to say.

Deum praedicabas et non requirebas, daemonia abominabaris et illa adorabas, iudicium dei appellabas nec esse credebas, inferna supplicia praesumebas et non praecavebas, Christianum nomen sapiebas et persequebaris.

You were proclaiming God and not seeking him, you were abominating the daemons and worshiping them, you were appealing to the judgment of God and did not believe it to exist, you were presuming infernal punishments and were not taking precautions, you were savoring the Christian name and persecuting it.