Tertullian Teaches: Witness
So you ask why we complain of your persecution when you yourselves are willing to suffer, since you ought to love those through whom you suffer exactly what you want.
How to Live
Martyrdom as Witness
Confession under empire.
Where they stood
Each row is one claim. Each name is a writer, placed at the date of the passage. Select a name to read what they said.
3 of the 3 writers here teach: “Martyrdom is confession and warfare for God.” They answer a rival view: “Christians complain of persecution while wanting to suffer.”
teaches it partly rejects it later writer, summary only
Martyrdom is confession and warfare for God5 teach
Christians complain of persecution while wanting to suffer1 reject
What each writer said, earliest first
Tertullian Teaches: Witness
Among the physical rations supplied to you, blessed martyrs-designate — rations sent by our Lady Mother Church from her own breasts and by individual brothers from their own resources — let us also contribute something to nourish the spirit. Fattening the flesh while starving the spirit helps nothing.
Tertullian Teaches: Witness
Is prison now, blessed ones, even a bother to Christians? We were called to the military service of the living God at the very moment we answered the words of the sacrament.
Minucius Felix Teaches: Witness
What a magnificent spectacle a Christian offers God when he faces suffering head-on, steeling himself against threats, punishments, and tortures. He snatches away death's terror and the executioner's horror and tramples them underfoot.
Passion of Perpetua and Felicity Teaches: Witness
She will now narrate the whole order of her martyrdom, exactly as she left it written in her own hand and from her own understanding. "While we were still with the persecutors," she says, "my father kept trying to turn me away and cast me down out of his affection.
Other passages filed here (37)
- Tertullian, To the Martyrs 2c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To the Martyrs 4c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To the Martyrs 6c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 12c. 150–c. 215 AD
- Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 2c. 203 AD
- Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 4c. 203 AD
- Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 5c. 203 AD
- Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 6c. 203 AD
- Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichristc. 170–c. 235 AD
- Tertullian, On Flight in Persecutionc. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 10c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 11c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 12c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 13c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 14c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 15c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, On the Crown 1c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To Scapula 1c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To Scapula 3c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To Scapula 4c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, To Scapula 5c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 10c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 11c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 12c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 13c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 14c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 15c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 1c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 4c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 9c. 155–c. 220 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, An Address to Demetrianusc. 200–258 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, Exhortation to Martyrdomc. 200–258 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Advantage of Patiencec. 200–258 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lapsedc. 200–258 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Mortalityc. 200–258 AD
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Churchc. 200–258 AD
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History 15c. 260–c. 339 AD