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TERTULLIAN'S ADDRESS TO MARTYRS
PART II
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II. Similarly other hindrances of the soul may have accompanied you to the prison doors, just as far as your relatives did. From that point you were separated from the world itself: how much more from the spirit of the age and its affairs! Nor will this dismay you, that you have been separated from the world. For if we regard the world itself as a prison, we shall deem you rather to have gone forth from prison than to have gone into prison. The world has the greater darkness which blindeth the hearts of men. The world puts on the heavier chains which bind the very souls of men. The world breathes the worse impurities, even the lusts of men. The world in the end contains the more criminals, namely, the whole race of men. It awaiteth accordingly the judgment, not of the proconsul, but of God. And from this prison, blessed ones, consider yourselves to have been translated, it may be, into a watch-house. It has its darkness, but ye yourselves are light (Matt. v. 14; Eph. v. 8); it has its chains, but ye have been freed by God (cp. Gal. v. 1). Its breath is evil, but ye are an odour of sweet savour (Eph. v. 3; 2 Cor. ii. 15). A judge is awaited, but ye are destined to judge (cp. I Cor. vi. 2) the very judges. It may be |p54 gloomy for him who sighs for the enjoyments of the worldly life. The Christian even outside the prison has renounced the worldly life,3 and when in prison a prison also. It matters not to you who are beyond the world where you may be in it. And if ye have lost some of the joys of life, it is only business to lose somewhat in order to gain more. I say nothing now of the reward to which God calls martyrs. Let us for a moment compare the life of the world and of the prison, to see whether in the prison the spirit does not gain more than the flesh loses. Nay, indeed, through the care of the Church and the love of the brethren, the flesh does not lose anything that is requisite, while, in addition, the spirit gains what is always serviceable to faith. Thou dost not look upon strange gods, thou dost not come upon their images, thou dost not, by the mere fact of intercourse, participate in the solemn days of the heathen. Thou art not tormented with filthy fumes of sacrifices, thou art not pained by the shouts at the public shows, nor by the brutality and madness and indecency of the festival-keepers. Open vice doth not parade itself before thee; thou art free from causes of stumbling, temptations, evil recollections, and, now, even from persecutions. The prison is to the Christian what the desert was to the prophets. The Lord Himself very frequently used to go into retirement to pray the more freely, and to withdraw from the world. It was in a solitary place that He showed His own glory to His |p55 disciples. Let us do away with the name of prison; let us call it a retreat. Even if the body is shut in and the flesh held fašt, all things are open to the spirit. In spirit roam forth, in spirit walk abroad, setting before thyself not shady walks or long porches but that way which leads to God.4 As often as thou walkest along it in spirit so often wilt thou not be in prison. The ankle feels naught of the stocks when the mind is in heaven. The mind carries with it the whole man, and whither it wills it carries him. Now where thy heart will be, there will be thy treasure also (Matt. vi 21). Let therefore our heart be where we would have our treasure.
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