On Patience 4
Summary: Just as servants follow their master's character and even animals obey us, we ought to obey God, and obedience itself springs from patience.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 47:5–6
Igitur si probos quosque seruos et bonae mentis pro ingenio dominico conuersari uidemus, - siquidem artificium promerendi obsequium est, obsequii uero disciplina morigera subiectio est — quanto magis nos secundum dominum moratos inueniri oportet, seruos scilicet dei uiui, cuius iudicium in suos non in compede aut pilleo uertitur, sed in aeternitate aut poenae aut salutis? cui seueritati declinandae uel liberalitati inuitandae tanta obsequii diligentia opus est, quanta sunt ipsa, quae aut seueritas comminatur aut liberalitas pollicetur. et tamen nos non de hominibus modo seruitute subnexis uel quolibet alio iure debitoribus obsequii, uerum etiam de pecudibus, etiam de bestiis oboedientiam exprimimus, intellegentes usibus nostris eas a domino prouisas traditasque. meliora ergo nobis erunt in obsequii disciplina quae nobis deus subdit? agnoscunt denique quae oboediunt: nos cui soli subditi sumus, domino scilicet, auscultare dubitamus? at quam iniustum est, quam etiam ingratum, quod per alterius indulgentiam de aliis consequaris, idem illi, per quem consequeris, de temetipso non rependere! nec pluribus de obsequii exhibitione debiti a nobis domino deo. satis enim agnitio dei, quid sibi incumbat, intellegit. ne tamen ut extraneum de obsequio uideamur interfecisse, ipsum quoque obsequium de patientia trahitur. numquis non patiens obsequitur aut patiens obluctatur? quam ergo dominus deus, omnium bonorum et demonstrator et acceptator, in semetipso circumtulit, quis de bono eius late retractet? cui item dubium sit omne bonum, quia ad deum pertineat, pertinentibus ad deum tota mente sectandum? per quae in expedito et quasi in praescriptionis compendio [et commendatio et exhortatio] de patientia constitutum est.
English · Claude translation
So if we see all upright servants of good disposition conduct themselves according to their master's temper (for the art of deserving well is obedience, and the discipline of obedience is compliant subjection), how much more ought we to be found formed in character according to our Lord, since we are servants of the living God, whose judgment on his own turns not on a fetter or a freedman's cap but on an eternity either of punishment or of salvation? To avoid this severity or to invite this generosity there is need of a diligence in obedience as great as the things which severity threatens or generosity promises. And yet we exact obedience not only from men bound in slavery, or debtors of obedience by any other right, but even from cattle, even from beasts, understanding that they have been provided and handed over for our use by the Lord. Shall the things God subjects to us, then, be better than we in the discipline of obedience? Those that obey acknowledge it; do we hesitate to listen to him to whom alone we are subject, that is, the Lord? But how unjust it is, how ungrateful too, not to repay from yourself to him, through whose indulgence you obtain it from others, the same thing that you obtain! No more need be said about showing the obedience we owe to the Lord God; for the knowledge of God understands well enough what is incumbent on it. Yet, lest we seem to have put in something foreign in speaking of obedience, obedience itself too is drawn from patience. Does anyone obey who is not patient, or struggle against it who is patient? Who, then, would discuss at length the good of that patience which the Lord God, both the demonstrator and the accepter of all good things, carried about in himself? To whom, again, could it be doubtful that every good, because it belongs to God, is to be pursued with the whole mind by those who belong to God? By these considerations, as in a ready and compendious prescription, the case for patience has been established.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- “Freedman's cap” (pilleus) was the sign of manumission. The editor deletes “et commendatio et exhortatio” (“both its commendation and its exhortation”), left untranslated. The digital text's stray “fl.” before “quae oboediunt” is removed; the clause probably means that even the creatures that obey us acknowledge obedience.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (stray letters in the digital text; stray punctuation in the digital text): fl. quae → quae; ne. tamen → ne tamen.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Pat. 4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-patientia/4/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Pat. 4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-patientia/4/).
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