Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] If, then, it is established that this sin was forbidden from the very beginning, by so many and such great precepts, and was never committed with impunity, as so many and such great records attest, and that no crime is reckoned before God so arrogant as a transgression of this kind, then we ought of our own accord to understand that the intent of God's warnings and of their enforcement had already, even then, taken up the cause of martyrdoms — martyrdoms not merely to be accepted without doubt, but actually to be endured — since it was precisely by forbidding idolatry that he had opened the way for them. Otherwise martyrdoms would never come about at all. And clearly he had laid the groundwork for his own authority beforehand, willing that these things should happen, for which he had made room. [2] For now we are being goaded on the question of God's will, and the scorpion doubles its sting, both denying this will and accusing it — so as either to insinuate some other god, to whom this will does not belong, or, failing that, to tear down our God, to whom such a will does belong, or else, if he cannot manage to deny God himself, to deny that he has a will at all. [3] But we, who fight over the question of God elsewhere, and over the rest of the body of heretical doctrine in general, now in this one engagement draw our battle lines with precision, defending the will — belonging to no other god than the God of Israel — that made room for martyrdoms, both by the precepts that always forbade idolatry and by the judgments that always punished it. For if, in keeping a precept, I suffer violence, this will in a certain sense be the precept's own precept for keeping it: that I should suffer, through that very suffering, the means by which I will be able to keep the precept — namely whatever violence threatens me that I must guard against by avoiding idolatry. [4] And certainly whoever imposes a precept extorts obedience by it. He could not, then, have been unwilling for the very things to happen through which that obedience would be established. It is prescribed to me that I name no other god, that I fashion no god — no less by tongue than by hand — nor worship or reverence anyone in any way except that one alone who so commands, whom I am also bidden to fear, lest I be abandoned by him, and to love with all my substance, so that I might die for him. [5] Bound by this pledge of service, I find myself confronted by the adversary. I am his equal — unless I surrender my arms to him. In defending this I fight it out in the battle line; I am wounded, cut down, killed. Who willed this outcome for his soldier, if not the one who signed him up under just such an oath?