Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] "But what is mine to do," he says, "I do: I flee, so that I may not perish by denying; it is his part, if he wills it, to bring even the man who flees back into the open." Answer me this first: are you certain you would deny, if you did not flee, or uncertain? If certain, then you have already denied — for by presuming you would deny, you have already pledged the very thing you presumed, and you now flee in vain to avoid denying, since if you are going to deny, you have already denied. [2] But if you are uncertain, why, given that the fear of the unknown weighs the same on both outcomes, do you not just as readily presume you could confess and be saved all the more by not fleeing, as you presume you will deny so as to flee? Now then, either both possibilities lie in us or the whole matter lies in God. If in us, whether to confess or to deny, why do we not presume the better of the two — that we shall confess? — unless, that is, you simply do not want to confess, so you avoid the suffering; and not wanting to confess is denial. [3] But if the whole thing lies in God, why do we not leave the whole of it to his judgment, acknowledging the power and the might by which he can bring us into the open whether we flee or not — indeed can overshadow and protect us even while we go about in the middle of the crowd? [4] What sense does it make to pay God the honor of assuming he can drag you into the open even while you flee, and yet, when it comes to standing firm, to dishonor him by despairing of the power of his protection? How much more, on this side — the side of constancy and trust in God — does it become you to say: "I do what is mine to do: I do not leave; God, if he wills, will himself protect me"! This is far more truly ours: to stand under God's judgment rather than to flee under our own. [5] Rutilius, that most holy martyr, after fleeing the persecution from place to place so many times, and even buying off the danger, as he thought, with money, was seized quite by surprise after all the security he had secured for himself, was handed over to the governor, was torn apart by torture — as punishment, I believe, for his flight — and then, given to the flames, rendered up to God's mercy the very suffering he had tried to escape. What else did the Lord mean to show us by this example, but that we should not flee, since flight profits nothing if God does not will it?
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