Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Keep God's property untainted for him. He will crown it himself, if he chooses. Indeed he does choose — he even invites it: 'To the one who conquers,' he says, 'I will give the crown of life.' Be faithful yourself, even unto death; fight the good fight yourself, the very fight whose crown the apostle confidently reckons already laid up for him. The angel of victory receives a crown too, riding out on a white horse to conquer; another is adorned with the sweep of a rainbow, heaven's own green. The elders sit crowned as well, and at the same moment the Son of Man himself gleams above the cloud. [2] If such are the images shown in the vision, what must the realities be that they represent? Look at those, worship those. Why do you condemn your head to a headband or a snake-shaped ornament, when a diadem awaits it instead? For it is Christ Jesus who has made us kings before God his Father. What have you to do with a flower that is going to die? You have a flower from the rod of Jesse, on whom the whole grace of the divine Spirit came to rest — a flower incorruptible, unfading, everlasting. [3] It is this flower the good soldier advances toward, by choosing it, in the enrollment of heaven. Blush for shame, fellow-soldiers of his, that judgment on you should come not from him but from some enlisted man of Mithras. When such a man is initiated in the cave — in the true camp of darkness — a crown is offered to him, a sword interposed, as though miming martyrdom; then it is fitted onto his head, and he is instructed to push it off with his hand, and, if he is able, move it across onto his shoulder instead, declaring that Mithras is his crown. [4] From that moment he is never crowned again, and keeps this as the proof-token of his rank, should his oath ever be put to the test: casting down the crown and naming it his god's is taken straightaway as evidence that he serves Mithras. Let us recognize the devil's cunning, laying claim to certain things that belong to God, precisely so that he can shame us and stand in judgment over us by the loyalty of his own followers.