Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But when you sneer even at the smaller animals, which the greatest of craftsmen has deliberately magnified in cleverness or in strength — teaching thereby that greatness is proven in smallness, just as the apostle teaches that virtue is proven in weakness — go on, imitate, if you can, the bee's constructions, the ant's granaries, the spider's webs, the silkworm's threads; endure, if you can, those very creatures that infest your own bed and mat — the beetle's poisons, the fly's sting, the gnat's trumpet and its lance. What will the greater things be, when you are so helped or so hurt by such tiny ones, that not even in small matters should you despise the Creator? Finally, turn your gaze upon yourself: consider man, inside and out; you will find pleasing even this work of our God — a work your own lord, that 'better' God, so fell in love with that he labored to descend from the third heaven into these impoverished elements for its sake, and for whose sake he was even crucified in this little cell built by the Creator. And yet he, up to now, has not spurned the Creator's water, with which he washes his own people, nor the oil with which their bodies are anointed, nor the joint gift of honey and milk by which he nourishes them as newborns, nor the loaf through which he pictures forth his own flesh — needy, even in his own sacraments, of the Creator's charity. But you, a disciple set above your master, a slave set above your lord, know better than he does, destroying what he desires. I want to examine whether you at least act out of conviction, so that you don't yourself crave the very things you destroy. You set yourself against heaven, and yet you scheme for a home in heaven's freedom. You despise the earth — the womb, clearly, of your flesh, now your enemy — and yet you wring out all her marrow for your food. You reject the sea too, but only up to the point of its delicacies, which you count as holier fare. If I offer you a rose, you will not turn up your nose at the Creator.
Hypocrite — to prove yourself a true Marcionite by starving yourself to death, that is, a true repudiator of the Creator (for this is what ought to have been sought among you in place of martyrdom, if the world truly displeased you) — into whatever matter you dissolve yourself, you make use of the Creator's substance. What sheer stubborn hardness is yours! You disparage the very things in which you live and in which you die. Turn to chapter 15.