Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
For our part, for the safety of the emperors we call upon the eternal God, the true God, the living God — the very God the emperors themselves prefer to have favorable to them above all others. They know who gave them their empire; they know, being men, who gave them their very life-breath as well; they sense that he is the one and only God, in whose power alone they stand, from whom they rank second, after whom they rank first — before all and above all gods. And why not, since they rank above all men, who at any rate are alive and outrank the dead? They reflect on just how far the strength of their own empire reaches, and that is how they come to understand God: against whom they cannot prevail, and it is precisely through him that they know they do prevail over others. Let an emperor go conquer the sky, then, let him haul the sky captive in his triumph, let him post sentries over the sky, let him levy taxes on the sky! He cannot. That is exactly why he is great — because he is less than the sky; for he himself belongs to the one to whom the sky and every created thing belong. The emperor derives his origin from the same source as the man he was before he was emperor; his power comes from the same source as his very breath. Looking up toward that source, we Christians, with hands outstretched because they are innocent of harm, with head bare because we are not ashamed, in short without a prompter because we pray from the heart, are forever praying for all the emperors: for long life for them, for a secure empire, a safe household, strong armies, a faithful senate, an honest people, a quiet world — whatever a man could wish for, and whatever a Caesar could wish for. These things I cannot pray for from anyone else than the one from whom I know I will obtain them, since he alone is the one who grants them, and I am the one to whom the granting is owed — his servant, who alone worships him, who is put to death on account of his discipline, who offers him the rich and greater sacrifice that he himself commanded: a prayer proceeding from a chaste body, from an innocent soul, from a holy spirit — not a few grains of incense worth a penny, the tears of an Arabian tree, not two mere drops of wine, nor the lifeblood drained from some wretched, doomed steer, and after all that filth, a filthy conscience on top of it. It makes me wonder, when your victims are inspected beforehand by the most vice-ridden of priests, why it is the entrails of the animals rather than those of the very men doing the sacrificing that get examined!
And so let the claws dig into us as we stand there stretched out toward God, let the crosses hang us, let the fires lick us, let the swords cut our throats, let the beasts leap on us: the very posture of a praying Christian is a posture ready for any torment. Go on then, good governors, wring the soul out of a man begging God for the emperor! Here — right here — is where the real crime will lie, in the very place where truth and devotion to God are found!