Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
These are the things that, in us alone, get called presumptions, while in the philosophers and poets they pass for the height of learning and the mark of a brilliant mind. They are wise men, we are fools; they deserve honor, we deserve mockery — worse, punishment on top of it. Suppose, for argument's sake, that what we hold to be true is false, and rightly counted mere presumption — it is nevertheless necessary; foolish, yet useful, seeing that those who believe it are thereby compelled to become better people, out of fear of eternal punishment and hope of eternal refreshment. So it does not pay to call false, or to count as foolish, what it pays to have presumed true. Nothing that does good may fairly be condemned on any pretext at all. So the very presumption at work in you is this: to condemn what is useful. And on that showing it cannot be foolish either. Certainly, even granting it false and foolish, it harms no one. Plenty of other beliefs are just as fanciful and legendary, and you impose no penalties for them; unaccused, unpunished, treated as harmless. In cases of that kind, if anything at all is warranted, it is a verdict of ridicule, not swords and fires and crosses and beasts.
At this outrageous cruelty, it is not only the blind mob that exults and gloats, but even some of you, who court the mob's favor through this very injustice, actually boast of it — as if it were not entirely up to us how much power you have over us. Certainly, if I choose, I am a Christian. Only then will you be able to condemn me — if I choose to be condemned. But since you can do nothing to me unless I choose to let you, whatever power you have belongs to my will, not to your authority. So the mob, too, rejoices in vain over our torment. For the joy is really ours, the very joy the mob claims for itself — since we would rather be condemned than fall away from God. It is our persecutors, who hate us, who ought to grieve instead of rejoicing, now that we have gotten exactly what we chose.