Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] I come now to his standard sayings, by which he tries to establish the distinctive character of his teaching — to what I might call the edict of Christ: "Blessed are the beggars" (for that is what the interpretation of the Greek word demands), "for theirs is the kingdom of God." Now the very fact that he begins with blessings belongs to the Creator, who dedicated the whole of his creation, as he brought it forth, with no other word than blessing. "For my heart," it says, "has belched forth a very good word." [2] This will be that very good word — a word of blessing, of course — the same word that is recognized as the initiator of the new testament too, on the model of the old. What wonder, then, if he began from the affections of the Creator by using language of this sort, since the Creator has always loved, comforted, championed, and avenged beggars and the poor and the lowly and widows and orphans? So that you might believe this seeming private kindness of Christ's is a rivulet from the springs of the Savior. [3] Truly I do not know where to direct myself amid such a crowd of such expressions, as though wandering through a wood, or a pasture, or an orchard. I must seek out the matter wherever it happens to fall. The psalm cries out: "Give judgment for the orphan and the beggar, and deal justly with the lowly and the poor; free the poor, and rescue the beggar from the hand of the sinner." [4] Likewise the seventy-first psalm: "He will judge the beggars of the people with justice and will save the children of the poor." And further on, of Christ: "All nations shall serve him." But David ruled over one nation only, the Jewish, lest anyone think this was said of David simply because he too took up the lowly and those laboring under hardship: "For he will free," it says, "the beggar from the tyrant; he will spare the beggar and the poor, and will save the souls of the poor, and will redeem their souls from usury and injustice, and their name shall be honored in his sight." [5] Again: "Let sinners be turned back into hell, all the nations that forget God, for the beggar shall not be forgotten forever, nor shall the endurance of the poor perish forever." Again: "Who is like our God, who dwells on high and looks down on the humble things in heaven and on earth, who raises the beggar from the earth and lifts the poor from the dung heap, to seat him with the princes of his people" — in his own kingdom, surely? [6] So too, long before, in the Book of Kingdoms, Hannah, mother of Samuel, rendering glory to God in the Spirit, said: "He who raises the poor from the earth and the beggar, to seat him among the mighty of the people, within his own realm, upon seats of splendor" — royal seats, to be sure. Through Isaiah, too, see how he inveighs against those who oppress the needy: "But you — why do you set my vineyard on fire, and why is the plunder of the beggar found in your houses? Why do you injure my people and put the faces of beggars to shame?" And again: "Woe to those who write wickedness, for as they write they write what is worthless, turning aside the cause of beggars and snatching away the judgments due to the poor of my people." [7] These same judgments he demands also for orphans and widows, that they too, the needy, might have their consolation: "Render judgment for the orphan, act rightly toward the widow; approach, and let us settle our dispute, says the Lord." To the one who has such great affection for every condition of the Creator's lowly ones, to him also belongs the kingdom that is promised by Christ — a kingdom to whose affection those to whom it is promised have long since already belonged. [8] Now if you suppose that the Creator's promises were earthly ones while Christ's were heavenly, well and good — for it appears that heaven belongs to no other god so far except the one to whom earth also belongs; and well and good that the Creator promised even the lesser things first, so that I might more readily believe him also about the greater, rather than believe one who has never yet, in lesser matters, built up any credit for his generosity. [9] "Blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled." I might have folded this heading into the previous one, since the hungry are none other than the poor and the beggars — except that the Creator had specifically aimed this promise, too, as a foreshadowing of his own gospel. For through Isaiah, speaking of those whom he would summon out of earth's farthest reaches — the nations, that is — he says: "Behold, they will come swiftly and lightly" — swiftly, in that they hasten under the limits of the appointed times; lightly, in that they come without the burdens of the old law. "They shall not hunger nor thirst." [10] Therefore they shall be filled — a promise, surely, made to none but the hungry and thirsty. And again: "Behold, those who serve me shall be filled, but you shall hunger; behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall thirst." We shall see later whether these contraries too are meant to serve as a preface to Christ. Meanwhile, the fact that he promises fullness to the hungry belongs to God the Creator. "Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh." [11] Run through the sentence of Isaiah: "Behold, those who serve me shall exult in gladness, but you shall be put to shame; behold, those who serve me shall take delight, but you shall cry out for the anguish of your heart." Recognize these same contraries again in Christ. Certainly delight and exultation in gladness are promised to those in the opposite condition — the sorrowful, the sad, the anxious. [12] So too the hundred twenty-fifth psalm: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in exultation." Further, laughter comes to those who exult and take delight, just as weeping comes to those who mourn and grieve. Thus the Creator, in foretelling the materials of laughter and weeping, spoke first of the weeping who would laugh. [13] Accordingly, he who began with the consolation of the poor and the lowly and the hungry and the weeping immediately set himself eager to present that very figure whom he had already shown forth through Isaiah: "Upon me rests the Spirit of the Lord, since he has anointed me to announce good tidings to the poor" — "Blessed are the beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" — "he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted" — "Blessed are those who hunger, for they shall be filled" — "to call the weak" — "Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh" — "to give to the mourners of Zion glory, and beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness, and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." [14] If Christ, the moment he was admitted, carried these things out, then either he himself is the one who foretold that he would come to do them, or — if the one who foretold them has not yet come — then, ridiculous as it is to say, but necessary, Marcion's Christ has perhaps simply taken his orders from him. "Blessed shall you be when men hate you and reproach you and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man." [15] By this declaration he is without doubt exhorting to endurance. What less does the Creator say through Isaiah? "Fear not the reproach of men, and be not dismayed at their scorn." What reproach, what scorn? That which was to come on account of the Son of Man. Which Son of Man is this? The one who belongs to the Creator. How shall we prove it? [16] From the hatred that was likewise foretold against him — as through Isaiah, addressed to the Jews, the authors of that hatred: "Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations"; and elsewhere: "Sanctify him who circumscribes his own soul, who is held in contempt by the nations, by servants and by rulers." For if the hatred foretold was against that Son of Man who belongs to the Creator, and if the gospel testifies that the name "Christian" — a name surely derived from Christ — was to be hated on account of the Son of Man, that is, on account of Christ, then it sets up as the object of that hatred the very Son of Man who belonged to the Creator, against whom the hatred was foretold. [17] And surely, supposing he had not yet appeared, the loathing directed at the name — a loathing still practiced in our day — could not have gone before the man who bears that name. For indeed the name is sanctified among us, and each of us circumscribes his own soul by staking it on that name, and it is held in contempt by the nations. And the one who was born is precisely that Son of Man because of whom our own title is likewise despised.
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