Tertullian — On Repentance 11
What if, beyond the shame they count the greater thing, they also dread the body's hardships — that one must lodge unwashed and dirty, outside gladness, in the roughness of sackcloth and the horror of ash and a mouth emptied by fasting? Are we then to plead for our faults in scarlet and Tyrian purple? 'Hand me a pin to part the hair, powder to polish the teeth, and some two-pronged iron or bronze to dress the nails! If any painted sheen, if any forced blush, press it on lips or cheeks!' Besides, seek out the gayer baths and garden or seaside retreats, add to the expense, hunt out a huge fattening of fowls, clear the age of every wine: if anyone asks why you lavish so on the soul, say: 'I have sinned against the Lord and am in danger of perishing forever; so now I hang and waste and torment myself to reconcile to myself the God I wounded by sinning!'
But those who canvass the circuit to seize a magistracy are neither ashamed nor weary to strive with inconveniences of soul and body — and not only inconveniences but every insult — for the sake of their vows: what base clothes they put on, what halls they occupy with raw night greetings, shrinking at every meeting of any greater person, famous at no feasts, gathered at no revels, exiles from the happiness of freedom and joy — and all for one year's fleeting gladness!
Shall we hesitate to bear, in the danger of eternity, what the petition for axes and rods endures? Shall we cease to offer chastisement of diet and dress to an offended Lord — which the nations inflict on themselves when no one at all has been hurt? These are they of whom Scripture recalls: Woe to them who bind their faults as with a long rope!
Latin
XI. [1] Quid si praeter pudorem, quem potiorem putant, etiam incommoda corporis reformident, quod inlotos, quod sordulentos, quod extra laetitiam oportet deversari in asperitudine sacci et horrore cineris et oris de ieiunio vanitate? [2] Num ergo in coccino et Tyrio pro delictis supplicare nos condecet? 'Cedo acum crinibus distinguendis et pulverem dentibus elimandis et bisulcum aliquid ferri vel aeris unguibus repastinandis! Si quid ficti nitoris, si quid coacti ruboris [in] labia aut genas urgeat?' [3] Praeterea exquirito balneas laetiores hortulani maritimive secessus, adicito ad sumptum, conquirito altilium enormem saginam, defaecato senectutem quamque vini: quis interrogarit, cur animae largiaris: 'Deliqui', dicito, 'in dominum et periclitor in aeternum perire: itaque nunc pendeo et ma.ceror et excrucior, ut deum reconciliem mihi, quem delinquendo laesi'!
[4] Sed enim illos qui ambitus obeunt capessendi magistratus neque pudet neque piget iucommodis animae et corporis, nec incommodis tantum verum etiam contumeliis omnibus eniti in causa votorum suorum [5] - quas non ignobilitates vestium adfectant, quae non atria nocturnis et crudis salutationibus occupant, ad omnem occursum maioris cuiusque personae decrescentes, uullis conviviis celebres, nullis commessationibus congreges, sed exules a libertatis et laetitiae felicitate, itaque totum propter unius anni volaticum gaudium! -: [6] nos, quod securium virgarumve petitio sustinet, in periculo aeternitatis tolerare dubitamus et castigationem victus atque cultus offenso domino praestare cessabimus quae gentes nemine omnino laeso sibi inrogant? [7] Hi sunt, de quibus scriptura commemorat: Vae illis, qui delicta sua velut procero fune nectunt!