Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since, then, these examples occur all the more in persecutions — seeing that it is then above all that we are proved or disproved, and then above all that we are humbled or corrected — it must follow, on Catholic principle, that these things happen, whether permitted or commanded, by the very one from whom, in part, they come — namely, by him who says, "I am the one who makes peace and creates evils," that is, war; for war is the opposite of peace. And what is war to our peace, if not persecution? If the very outcomes of persecution bring either life or death, either the wound or the healing, you have the author of both alike: "I will strike and I will heal, I will make alive and I will put to death." "I will burn them," he says, "as gold is burned, and I will prove them," he says, "as silver is proved." For when we are scorched by the fire of persecution, it is then that we are proved as to the mettle of our faith. These will be the devil's "fiery darts," through which the burning and refining of faith is carried out — yet by God's will all the same. Who could doubt this — I do not know, unless it is a faith that is simply frivolous and lukewarm — the kind that catches out those who timidly gather in church. For you say — so it is claimed — "Because we gather in disorder, and gather all together, and crowd into the church in great numbers, we draw the attention of the pagans, and we are afraid the pagans may be provoked to riot." Do you not know that God is Lord of all, and that if God wills it, you will then suffer persecution, but if he does not will it, the pagans will keep quiet? You would surely believe this, if indeed you believe in that God without whose will not even a single sparrow falls worth a penny to the ground — and we, I take it, are worth rather more than a great many sparrows.
IV.