Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
What if, besides the shame they reckon more important, they also dread the bodily inconveniences—that it is proper to dwell unwashed, grimy, cut off from every merriment, amid the roughness of sackcloth and the horror of ashes, one's face made haggard by fasting? [2] Surely, then, is it fitting for us to make our supplication for our sins wearing scarlet and Tyrian purple? 'Bring me a needlepin to arrange my hair, and powder to whiten my teeth, and some little two-pronged iron or bronze tool to trim back my nails! Should any counterfeit sheen, any forced blush, press itself upon my lips or cheeks?' [3] Beyond that—go seek out more cheerful baths, garden retreats or seaside getaways, add to the expense, hunt down some outsized fattened fowl, drain to the dregs the finest vintage of aged wine: should anyone ask why you're lavishing all this on your soul, say, 'I have sinned against the Lord and I am in danger of perishing forever: so now I am in suspense, and I mortify myself and torment myself, that I may reconcile to myself the God I injured by sinning'! [4] But look at those who canvass for office, seeking to obtain a magistracy: they feel neither shame nor reluctance at the discomforts of soul and body—not discomforts only, but every kind of insult too—in striving for the object of their ambitions. [5] What shabbiness of dress they do not affect, what atriums they do not haunt with nighttime and half-digested morning greetings, cringing lower at every encounter with some person of greater standing, frequenting no banquets, joining no revels, but exiled from the happiness of freedom and gaiety—and all this for one year's fleeting, flitting joy! [6] Shall we, then, hesitate to endure, in the face of a danger that is eternal, what the mere seeking of the axe and the rods sustains, and shrink from offering to an offended Lord the chastening of our food and dress, when the nations impose these very things on themselves though no one has wronged them at all? [7] These are the very people Scripture takes note of: 'Woe to those who tie up their offenses as though with a lengthy cord!'