The author's confession of his own unfitness to write on patience

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Tertullian opens the treatise by confessing to God that he is unworthy to write about patience, since he himself lacks it.

I confess to the Lord God that I have been rash enough—if not shameless—to compose a treatise on patience, when I am utterly unfit to practice it myself, a man of no good quality. For when someone undertakes to demonstrate and commend a thing, he ought first to be found practicing it himself, and he should direct the steadfastness of his admonition by the authority of his own conduct, so that his words do not blush when his deeds fail them. And I wish that blushing might bring a remedy—that the shame of not practicing what I set out to teach others might become the teacher of practicing it. Except that the greatness of certain good things, like certain evils, is unbearable, so that only the grace of divine inspiration enables us to grasp and perform them. For what is supremely good is supremely in God's possession, and no one dispenses it except the one who possesses it, as he deems each person worthy.

So it will be a kind of consolation to discuss what I am not allowed to enjoy, after the manner of the sick, who, when they lack health, cannot keep silent about its blessings. So I, most wretched, always feverish with the heats of impatience, must sigh and call out and plead for the health of patience which I do not possess. And when I remember, and in contemplating my own weakness I set in order the good health of faith and the soundness of the Lord's discipline, I realize that it does not come easily to anyone unless patience attends it. Patience is so set over the affairs of God that no one can fulfill any command or accomplish any work pleasing to the Lord as a stranger to patience.

Even those who live in blindness honor its goodness with the title of the highest virtue. The philosophers, at least—those who are considered to possess some wisdom of the soul—assign so much to it that, although they quarrel among themselves with the various passions of their schools and rivalries of opinion, they nevertheless remember patience alone in common, and to this one virtue they have entrusted the peace of their studies. In it they conspire, in it they make their pact, in it they strive with one mind in their pursuit of virtue; they display every show of wisdom from patience. It is a great testimony to patience when it advances even the empty disciplines of the world to praise and glory. Or is it rather an insult, when a divine thing is rolled about in worldly arts? But let them see to it—soon they will be ashamed of their wisdom, when it is destroyed and disgraced along with the world.

Latin

Confiteor ad dominum deum satis temere me, si non etiam impudenter, de patientia componere ausum, cui praestandae idoneus omnino non sim, ut homo nullius boni, quando oporteat demonstrationem et commendationem alicuius rei adortos ipsos prius in administratione eius rei deprehendi et constantiam commonendi propriae conuersationis auctoritate dirigere, ne dicta factis deficientibus erubescant. atque utinam erubescere istud remedium ferat, uti pudor non exhibendi quod aliis suggestum imus exhibendi fiat magisterium, nisi quod bonorum quorundam sicuti et malorum intolerabilis magnitudo est, ut ad capienda et praestanda ea sola gratia diuinae inspirationis operetur. nam quod maxime bonum, id maxime penes deum, nec alius id quam qui possidet dispensat, ut cuique dignatur. itaque uelut solacium erit disputare super eo, quod frui non datur, uice languentium, qui, cum uacent a sanita te, de bonisj eius tacere non norunt. itaj miserrimus ego, semper aeger caloribus impatientiae quam nLon obtineo patientiae sanitatem eLt suspirem et inuocem et perorem necesse est, cum rejcordor et in meae imbecillitatis contemplatione digerLo bonam, fidei ualitudinem et dominicae disciplinae sanitatem non facile cuiquam, nisi patientia adsideat, prouenire. ita praeposita dei rebus est, ut nullum praeceptum obire quis, nullum opus domino complacitum perpetrare extraneas a patientia possit. bonum eit.us etiamj qui caeca uiuunt summae uirtutis appellatione honorant. philosophi quidem, qui alicuLius sapientiae animalis deputantur, tantum illi subsignant, ut, cum inter sese uariis sectarum libidinibus et sententiarum aemulationibus discordent, solius taLmen pajtientiae in commune memores huic uni studiorum suorum commiserint pacem. in eam conspirant, in eam foede rantur, in illam adfectatione uirtutis unanimiter student; omnem sapientiae ostentationem de patientia praeferunt. grande testimonium eius est, cum etiam uanas saeculi disciplin as ad laudem et gloriam promouet. aut numquid potius iniuria, cum diuina res in saecularibus artibus uolutatur? sed uiderint illi, quos mox sapientiae suae cum saeculo destructae ac dedecoratae pudebit.

About this text

Tertullian, who admits he is short of patience himself, praises it as the virtue every Christian duty needs, after the pattern of God and Christ.

Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220) was a Christian writer from Carthage in North Africa, and one of the earliest Christian authors to write in Latin. He wrote this treatise for fellow Christians, though he names no particular person or church. He opens by confessing that he himself is weak in patience, and says he writes because no command of God or work pleasing to him can be performed without it.

The work presents patience as the central discipline of Christian life. Tertullian argues that patience is God's own nature, shown in his forbearance toward the wicked and supremely in Christ's passion. Its opposite, impatience, began with the devil and is the root of every sin, from the fall of Adam and Eve to the crimes of Cain and Israel. A reader will meet God and Christ as the supreme examples of patience, the devil as the origin of impatience, and figures such as Adam, Eve, Cain, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Job, Isaiah, Stephen, Elijah, and Malchus. The words of Christ, the apostle Paul, and God in scripture are quoted and argued from.

The treatise contrasts true Christian patience with the false patience taught by the devil to his own followers. Patience governs every Christian duty: bearing loss, enduring wrong, accepting death, renouncing revenge, forgiving others, and practicing bodily self-denial. The translation renders patientia as patience and impatientia as impatience throughout. Old Latin Bible names are given in their familiar English forms, so Esaias is Isaiah, Helias is Elijah, Moyses is Moses, Iob is Job, Stephanus is Stephen, and Eua is Eve. Malchus is the high priest's servant whose ear was cut off at Jesus' arrest and healed by him.

New English from the Latin base text; no published English used as wording.

Printed text used

Translated from CSEL 47 (1900) (Latin)
Also checked Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Quae Supersunt Omnia Tertullian Franz Oehler T. O. Weigel Leipzig 1853 (Latin · comparison witness (not aligned to the sections))

This work has passed this project's source check. This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.