Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now which patriarch, which prophet, which Levite or priest or ruler, or even later which apostle or evangelist or bishop, is ever found wearing a crown? Not even, I think, the temple of God itself, nor the ark of the covenant, nor the tent that housed the testimony, nor its altar, nor its lampstand — every one of which surely merited a wreath, at their original dedication no less than at the second, glad rededication, had that been agreeable to God. But suppose these objects stood as emblems of ourselves — since it is we who are God's true temples, altars, lamps, vessels — then this too was being shown ahead of time in figure: that God's own people were not meant to wear crowns. The image must yield to the reality it foreshadows. Should you press the objection that Christ himself wore a crown, hear this brief reply for now: "By all means, be crowned as he was; go ahead." Yet even that crown of insulting cruelty was never one the people themselves put on. It was a Roman soldiers' invention, drawn from worldly custom — a custom the people of God never adopted, either for the name of public rejoicing or for any native extravagance, returning more readily from the Babylonian captivity with tambourines and pipes and harps than with crowns, and rising after food and drink to dance without crowns. For neither the description of their rejoicing nor the denunciation of their excess would have passed over the glory or disgrace of the crown in silence. So too Isaiah: "For," he says, "they drink wine with tambourines and harps and pipes" — and he would have said "with crowns" too, had that ever been the custom, even in matters of God.