Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Among the provisions for the flesh, blessed martyrs-designate, which our lady mother the Church supplies to you from her own breasts, and each of the brothers from his own resources, into the prison — take also something from us, something to nourish the spirit as well. For it does no good to fatten the flesh while starving the spirit. Indeed, if what is weak is tended, what is weaker still must not be neglected all the more.
[2] Not that I am so great a man that I should presume to address you; and yet even the most perfect gladiators are cheered on from a distance not only by their trainers and managers, but even by amateurs and bystanders of no account — so often has a word tossed out by the crowd itself proved of use.
[3] First of all, then, blessed ones, 'do not grieve the Holy Spirit,' who entered the prison along with you. For if he had not entered with you now, you would not be there today either. See to it, then, that he remains there with you, and so leads you on from there to the Lord.
[4] The prison, to be sure, is the devil's own house, where he keeps his household. But you have come into the prison precisely so as to trample him even in his own house. For you had already met him in the open and trampled him there.
[5] Let him not say, then: 'They are in my domain now — I will test them with petty hatreds, with defections, with quarrels among themselves.' Let him flee your sight, and cower shrunken and torpid in his deepest lair, like a snake charmed out or smoked out. Let him not have it so easy in his own kingdom that he can pit you against one another — let him find you fortified instead, armed with concord: for your peace is war to him.
[6] It is this peace that some within the church, lacking it themselves, have grown accustomed to beg from the martyrs in prison. And so you ought, for that very reason too, to hold and cherish and guard this peace among yourselves, so that, if occasion should arise, you may be able to grant it to others as well.