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| Chapter II.
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Chapter II.
But not yet about the good to be got from
martyrdom must we learn, without our having first heard about
the duty of suffering it; nor must we learn the usefulness of
it, before we have heard about the necessity for it. The
(question of the) divine warrant goes first—whether God has
willed and also commanded ought of the kind, so that they who assert
that it is not good are not plied with arguments for thinking it
profitable save when they have been subdued.8228
| 8228 By those in favour of
its having been divinely enjoined. | It
is proper that heretics be driven8229
| 8229 By argument, of
course.—Tr. | to duty, not
enticed. Obstinacy must be conquered, not coaxed. And, certainly, that
will be pronounced beforehand quite good enough, which will be shown to
have been instituted and also enjoined by God. Let the Gospels
wait a little, while I set forth their root the Law, while I ascertain
the will of God from those writings from which I recall to mind Himself
also: “I am,” says He, “God, thy God, who have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods
besides me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a likeness of those things
which are in heaven, and which are in the earth beneath, and which are
in the sea under the earth. Thou shalt not worship them, nor serve
them. For I am the Lord thy God.”8230
Likewise in the same book of Exodus: “Ye yourselves have
seen that I have talked with you from heaven. Ye shall not make unto
you gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of
gold.”8231
To the following
effect also, in Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel; The Lord thy God is
one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all
thy might, and with all thy soul.”8232
And again: “Neither do thou forget the Lord thy God, who
brought thee forth from the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him only,
and cleave to Him, and swear by His name. Ye shall not go after strange
gods, and the gods of the nations which are round about you, because
the Lord thy God is also a jealous God among you, and lest His anger
should be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of
the earth.”8233
But setting before
them blessings and curses, He also says: “Blessings shall be
yours, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, whatsoever I
command you this day, and do not wander from the way which I have
commanded you, to go and serve other gods whom ye know
not.”8234
And as to rooting
them out in every way: “Ye shall utterly destroy all the places
wherein the nations, which ye shall possess by inheritance, served
their gods, upon mountains and hills, and under shady trees. Ye shall
overthrow all their altars, ye shall overturn and break in pieces their
pillars, and cut down their groves, and burn with fire the graven
images of the gods themselves, and destroy the names of them out of
that place.”8235
He further urges,
when they (the Israelites) had entered the land of promise, and driven
out its nations: “Take heed to thy self, that thou do not follow
them after they be driven out from before thee, that thou do not
inquire after their gods, saying, As the nations serve their gods, so
let me do likewise.”8236
But also says He:
“If there arise among you a prophet himself, or a dreamer of
dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and it come to pass, and he
say, Let us go and serve other gods, whom ye know not, do not hearken
to the words of that prophet or dreamer, for the Lord your God proveth
you, to know whether ye fear God with all your heart and with all your
soul. After the Lord your God ye shall go, and fear Him, and keep His
commandments, and obey His voice, and serve Him, and cleave unto Him.
But that prophet or dreamer shall die; for he has spoken to turn thee
away from the Lord thy God.”8237
But also in
another section,8238
| 8238 Of course our
division of the Scripture by chapter and verse did not exist in the
days of Tertullian.—Tr. | “If, however,
thy brother, the son of thy father or of thy mother, or thy son, or thy
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend who is as thine own
soul, solicit thee, saying secretly, Let us go and serve other gods,
which thou knowest not, nor did thy fathers, of the gods of the nations
which are round about thee, very nigh unto thee or far off from thee,
do not consent to go with him, and do not hearken to him. Thine eye
shall not spare him, neither shalt thou pity, neither shalt thou
preserve him; thou shalt certainly inform upon him. Thine hand
shall be first upon him to kill him, and afterwards the hand of thy
people; and ye shall stone him, and he shall die, seeing he has sought
to turn thee away from the Lord thy God.”8239
He
adds likewise concerning cities, that if it appeared that one of these
had, through the advice of unrighteous men, passed over to other gods,
all its inhabitants should be slain, and everything belonging to it
become accursed, and all the spoil of it be gathered together into all
its places of egress, and be, even with all the people, burned with
fire in all its streets in the sight of the Lord God; and, says He,
“it shall not be for dwelling in for ever: it shall not be built
again any more, and there shall cleave to thy hands nought of its
accursed plunder, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His
anger.”8240
He has, from His
abhorrence of idols, framed a series of curses too: “Cursed be
the man who maketh a graven or a molten image, an abomination, the work
of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret
place.”8241
But in Leviticus He
says: “Go not ye after idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods:
I am the Lord your God.”8242
And in other
passages: “The children of Israel are my household servants;
these are they whom I led forth from the land of Egypt:8243
| 8243 The words in the
Septuagint are: ὃτι ἐμοὶ οἱ
υἱοὶτ
᾽Ισραὴλ
οἰκέται
εἰσίν,
παῖδές μου
οὗτοί εἰσιν
οὕς ἐξήγαγον
ἐκ γῆς
Αἰγύπτου. | I am the Lord your God. Ye shall not make
you idols fashioned by the hand, neither rear you up a graven
image. Nor shall ye set up a remarkable stone in your land (to
worship it): I am the Lord your God.”8244
These words indeed were first spoken by the Lord by the lips of Moses,
being applicable certainly to whomsoever the Lord God of Israel may
lead forth in like manner from the Egypt of a most superstitious world,
and from the abode of human slavery. But from the mouth of every
prophet in succession, sound forth also utterances of the same God,
augmenting the same law of His by a renewal of the same commands, and
in the first place announcing no other duty in so special a manner as
the being on guard against all making and worshipping of idols; as
when by the mouth of
David He says: “The gods of the nations are silver and gold: they
have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and hear not; they have a nose,
and smell not; a mouth, and they speak not; hands, and they handle not;
feet and they walk not. Like to them shall be they who make them, and
trust in them.”8245
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