Patience governs discipline, repentance, love

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Tertullian is continuing his argument that patience is the foundation of every Christian duty, now turning to forgiveness, repentance, and love.

Now consider the discipline most pleasing to God. Who, if he is born of impatience, will forgive his brother even once, let alone seven times, or seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22)? When he brings his dispute with his adversary before the judge, will he settle the matter agreeably unless he has first destroyed his anger, his hardness, his bitterness—that is, cut off the very veins of impatience? How will you forgive and be forgiven if you cling to a wrong because patience is absent? No one whose spirit is torn against his brother will complete his offering at the altar unless he first turns back, reconciles with his brother, and returns to patience (Matthew 5:23-24). If the sun goes down on our anger, we are in danger (Ephesians 4:26). We are not permitted to remain a single day without patience.

And since patience governs every aspect of the discipline of salvation, is it any wonder that it also ministers to repentance? Accustomed to coming to the aid of the fallen, patience waits for repentance, longs for it, entreats it on behalf of those who will one day enter into salvation. How much good it brings to both parties when a marriage is dissolved—for that cause alone which permits either husband or wife to endure separation—it keeps the one from becoming an adulterer and reforms the other. So too it stands by those who are saved in the Lord's parables about repentance. The shepherd's patience seeks and finds the wandering sheep (Luke 15:4-6). Impatience would easily despise a single sheep, but patience undertakes the labor of the search, and carries the abandoned sinner back on his shoulders, a patient bearer. The father's patience also receives the prodigal son, clothes him, feeds him, and excuses him before the impatience of his angry brother (Luke 15:20-32). So the one who had perished is saved because he entered into repentance; repentance did not perish, because it found patience.

Now love, the highest sacrament of faith, the treasure of the Christian name, which the apostle commends with all the strength of the Holy Spirit—by what training is it taught if not the disciplines of patience? Love, he says, is patient: it takes this from patience. It is kind: patience does no evil. It does not envy: that is patience's own property. It is not arrogant: it has drawn its modesty from patience. It is not puffed up, not rude: those things have nothing to do with patience. It does not seek its own: it endures its own while benefiting another. It is not provoked: otherwise what would be left for impatience? Therefore, he says, love bears all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)—precisely because it is patient. Rightly, then, it will never fail. For the rest will be emptied, completed, exhausted: tongues, knowledge, prophecies. But faith, hope, and love remain (1 Corinthians 13:8-13): faith, which Christ's patience brought in; hope, which human patience waits for; love, which patience accompanies under God as its teacher.

Latin

Quod (ad) pecis gratissimae deo attinet disciplinam. quis omnino impatientiae natus uel semel ignoscet fratri suo, non dicam septies et septuagies septies? quia ad iudicem cum aduersario suo dirigens negotium conuenientia soluet, nisi prius iram delerit, duritiam amaritudinem, uenas scilicet impatientiae, amputarit? quomodo remittes et remittetur tibi, . si tenax iniuriae per absentiam patientiae fueris? nemo conuulsus animum in fratrem suum munus apud altare perficiet, nisi prius, reconciliando fratri l'euersus, ad patientiam fuerit. sol super iram nostram si occiderit, periclitamur. non licet nobis una die sine patientia manere. atenim cum omnem speciem salutaris disciplinae gubernet, quid mirum, quod etiam paenitentiae ministrat? solita lapsis subuenire, haec expectat, haec exoptat, haec exorat paenitentiam quandoque inituris salutem. quantum boni utrique confert, cum disiuncto matrimonio — ex ea tamen causa, qua licet seu uiro seu feminae a diuiduitatis perseuerantia sustineri — alterum adulterum non facit alterum emendat. sic et illis dominicarum similitudinum exemplis de paenitentia saluis adest: erroneam ouem patientia pastoris requirit et inuenit — nam impatientia unam facile contemneret, sed laborem inquisitionis patientia suscipit - et humeris insuper aduehit, baiulus patiens, peccatricem derelictam; illum quoque prodigum filium patientia patris et recipit et uestit et pascit et apud impatientiam irati fratris excusat. saluus est igitur qui perierat, quis paenitentiam iniit; paenitentia non periit, quia patientiam inuenit. iam dilectio, summum fidei sacramentum, Christiani nominis thesaurus, quam apostolus totis uiribus sancti spiritus commendat, cuius nisi patientiae disciplinis eruditur? dilectio, inquit, magnanimis est: id a patientia sumit. benefica est: malum patientia non facit. non aemulatur: id quidem patientiae proprium est. nec proteruum sapit: modestiam de patientia traxit. non inflatur, non proteruit: non enim ad patientiam pertinet. nec sua requirit: suffert ** sua, dum alteri prosit. nec incitatur: ceterum quid impatientiae reliquisset? ideo, inquit. dilectio omnia sustinet, omnia.tolerat, utique quia patiens. merito ergo numquam excidet. nam cetera euacuabuntur consummabuntur exhaurientur: linguae scientiae prophetiae, permanent autem fides spes dilectio: fides, quam Christi patientia induxit, spes, quam hominis patientia expectat, dilectio, quam deo magistro patientia comitatur.

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.