Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But those who think the confession is not made here — not within this circuit of earth, not in the course of this life, not in the presence of men who share this common nature — what colossal presumption is that against the whole order of things to be tested here on this earth, in this life, under human powers? No doubt: once souls have quit their bodies and been sighted, floor by floor through the heavens, on their way up for admission, and the secret sacraments of the heretics have been demanded of them, then the confession is to be made before the true powers and the true men — Valentinus's Perfected Ones, his Immovable Ones, his Undefiled Ones, no less! [2] 'Our own people,' they say, 'not even the Demiurge himself consistently approved as men — he rated them a drop from a bucket, dust off a threshing floor, spittle, locusts, and put them on a level with dumb animals.' Quite so, it is written. But that does not mean we are to understand some other race of men besides ourselves — men who, precisely because they undeniably exist, could be clothed in that comparison without losing either the properties or the singularity of their kind. [3] For if a life is depraved, so that being judged contemptible it gets compared to contemptible things, that does not instantly abolish the nature, so that some other thing gets registered under its name. No — the nature is kept intact even while the life is smeared, and Christ knows no other men than those of whom he says: 'Who do men say that I am?' and 'As you wish men to do to you, so do you to them.' [4] Notice whether he has kept the race intact — the very race from which he expects testimony to himself and to which he assigns the office of justice. As for those 'celestial men' — if I demand they be shown to me, Aratus will sooner sketch Perseus and Cepheus and Erigone and Ariadne among the stars for me. And who forbade the Lord to specify plainly that the confession of men was to be made right there, where he openly declared his own future confession would be made, so that it should stand thus: 'Whoever confesses me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in the heavens'? [5] He ought to have rescued me from this earthly error of confession — one he would not have wanted taken up — if he had prescribed a heavenly one instead, since I know of no other men besides the inhabitants of earth, no man having yet been seen in the heavens even now. And besides, what proof of anything would it be, if, having been lifted to the realms above after my departure, I were then approved there — where I could only be installed once already approved — and examined there for admission, where I could not even arrive unless already fit to be let in? [6] For the Christian, heaven lies open before the road does; because there is no road to heaven except for the one to whom heaven already lies open — and whoever has reached that point will simply walk in. What doorkeeping powers are you asserting to me — after the Roman superstition — some Barnus, and Forculus, and Limentinus? What powers do you rank at the hinges? [7] If you happen to recall that passage of David's — 'Throw wide your gates, you rulers, swing open, you doors that stand forever, that the King of glory may enter in' — and remember too the words of Amos, that he builds his stairway up into the sky and pours his flood down over the ground — then know that from that moment the ascent has been leveled by the footsteps of the Lord, and the entrance unbarred by the strength of Christ, and no delay or interrogation will meet Christians at the threshold, since they will not need to be identified there, but recognized; not questioned, but admitted. [8] For even if you still think heaven shut, remember the Lord left its keys here, with Peter and through him with the church — keys which each person, once questioned and having confessed here, carries with him. But the devil insists the confession happens there, precisely so as to persuade us to deny it here. Fine documents I'd be sending on ahead, wouldn't I — a fine set of keys to be carrying with me — the fear of those who kill only the body but can do nothing to the soul! I would be commending myself by deserting this commandment; I would stand honorably among the heavenly things, I who could not stand among the earthly; I would hold out against the greater powers, I who caved to the lesser; I would surely deserve admission — once already shut out! [9] There is still more to say: if confession must be made in the heavens, then denial must happen here. For where one is, so is the other; rival things converge in pairs. Persecution too, then, must be staged in the heavens, since persecution is what supplies the material for confession or denial. So why hesitate, most reckless heretic, to transplant the whole apparatus of Christian upheaval to the world above, and above all to install the very hatred of the Name there, where Christ presides at his Father's right hand? [10] There too you'll have to set up the synagogues of the Jews, those fountains of persecution, where the apostles suffered their floggings, and the crowds of the nations with their own circus, ready to chant, 'How much longer, this third race?' [11] But you'll also have to produce our brothers and fathers and sons and mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law and household members up there, the ones through whom betrayal gets arranged; likewise kings and governors and armed powers, before whom the case must be fought. There will surely be a prison in heaven too, sunless, or else insufferably bright, and chains perhaps made of belts, and the rack will be the very axis that tortures. [12] So then: should a Christian face stoning, hailstones will be on hand; if burned, thunderbolts are ready to serve; if slaughtered, the hand of armed Orion will do the work; if to be finished off by beasts, the Bear will be let loose from the north, the zodiac will supply bulls and lions. Whoever holds out to the end under these — he shall be saved! [13] So the end, too, happens in the heavens, and the suffering, and the killing, and the first confession? And where, in all this, is the flesh so necessary to it all? Where is the body — the one thing men are actually able to kill? These absurdities have been handed us by a logic so tight it borders on farce, and there is no barrier of this argument that will not be knocked flat, forcing them to drag the whole order of persecution — every cause, every form, every apparatus of it — up to that place where they've given confession its courtroom. [14] For confession is drawn out by persecution, and persecution finds its end in confession, and the two cannot help but travel together, since together they mark out its threshold and its close — its start-point and its finish. Now, the hatred of the Name happens here, and persecution breaks out here, and betrayal is produced here, and interrogation compels here, and the executioner rages here; but the whole of this sequence on earth is settled, once for all, by confession or denial. [15] So then: if the rest happens here, confession does not happen elsewhere; and if confession happens elsewhere, the rest does not happen here. But in fact the rest does not happen elsewhere — therefore confession does not happen in heaven either. Or if they insist on some other scheme for a heavenly interrogation and confession, then they will have to build an entirely different apparatus for it too, one quite unlike the arrangement marked out in the Scriptures. [16] And we can simply say: let them see to that — provided this earthly order of interrogation and confession, running its course out of the raw material of persecution and public conflict, remains wholly intact, on the terms of its own faith, so that it is to be believed exactly as it is written, and understood exactly as it is heard. We hold to the whole sequence here, since the Lord himself assigns no other region of the world for it. For what does he add right after fixing the terms of confession and denial? [17] 'Do not suppose that I have come to send peace on the earth; I have come to send not peace but a sword' — on the earth, mark you. 'For I have come to set a man at odds with his father, and a daughter at odds with her mother, and a woman at odds with the wife of her son, so that a man's own household will turn into his enemies.' For this is how it works out: brother will betray brother to death, and a father his son, and children will rise up against their parents and have them put to death. 'And he who endures to the end, he shall be saved.' So the entire sequence of the Lord's sword — sent not into heaven but onto the earth — fixes even confession there, on earth, where confession, by enduring to the end, is going to suffer death.