Bodily patience: its works and rewards

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Tertullian has just discussed patience as a simple, uniform virtue of the soul, and now turns to how the same patience is practiced in the body.

So far I have spoken of patience as something simple and uniform, something that exists only in the soul. But we also labor in many ways to earn the Lord's favor with this same patience in the body, since the Lord himself displayed it in bodily strength as well. For the ruling mind easily shares the spirit's impulses with its dwelling place.

What then is the business of patience in the body? First of all, the affliction of the flesh: a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord through the offering of humiliation, when the flesh offers him squalor and a meager diet, content with plain food and pure water, when it joins fasts to these and grows accustomed to ashes and sackcloth.

This bodily patience commends our prayers and strengthens our petitions. It opens the ears of Christ and God, scatters severity, and draws out clemency. Thus that king of Babylon, when he had offended the Lord and was exiled from human form for seven years in squalor and filth, offered the patience of his own body as a sacrifice, and he both recovered his kingdom and, what is more desirable for a man, made satisfaction to God.

Now if we go on to set out the higher and more blessed degrees of bodily patience, this same patience also procures continence of the flesh for holiness. It keeps the widow, marks out the virgin, and lifts the voluntary eunuch to the kingdom of heaven. What comes from the virtue of the soul is completed in the flesh.

Finally, the patience of the flesh fights in persecutions. If flight presses hard, the flesh serves as a soldier through the hardships of flight. If prison comes first, the flesh is in chains, the flesh is on the wood, the flesh is on the ground; it is there in the poverty of light and in the want of the world.

But when a person is brought forward for the test of blessedness, for the opportunity of the second washing, for the very ascent to the divine throne, nothing is more present there than the patience of the body. If the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, where is the salvation of the spirit without the patience of the flesh itself?

But when the Lord says this about the flesh, declaring it weak, he shows what it needs to be strengthened: patience, of course, against every preparation for overturning or punishing faith, so that it may endure blows, fire, the cross, beasts, and the sword with the greatest steadfastness. The prophets and the apostles conquered these things by enduring them.

Latin

Usque huc de patientia tantum simplici et uniformi et tantum in animo constituta, cum eandem etiam in corpore demerendo domino multipliciter adlaboremus, utpote quae ab ipso domino in corporis quoque uirtute edita est, siquidem rector animus facile communicat spiritus inuecta cum habitaculo suo. quae igitur negotiatio patientiae in corpore? inprimis adflictatio carnis, hostia domino placatoria per humiliationis sacrificium, cum sordes cum angustia uictus domino libat, contenta simplici pabulo puroque aquae potu, cum ieiunia coniungit, cum cineri et sacco inolescit. haec patientia corporis precationes commendat, deprecationes adfirmat; haec aures Christi (et) dei aperit, seueritatem dispergit. clementiam elicit. sic ille rex Babylonius offenso domino cum squalore et paedore septenni ab humana forma exulasset, immolata patientia corporis sui et regnum recuperauit et. quod optabilius homini est, satis deo fecit. iam si altiores et feliciores gradus corporalis patientiae digeramus, eadem sanctitati quoque praecurat continentiam carnis: haec et uiduam tenet et uirginem adsignat et uoluntarium spadonem ad regna caeli leuat. quod de uirtute animi uenit in carne perficitur. carnis patientia in persecutionibus denique proeliatur. si fuga urgeat, incommoda fugae caro militat. si et carcer praeueniat, caro in uinculis, caro in ligno, caro in solo; illa et in paupertate lucis, illa et in penuria mundi. cum uero producitur ad experimentum felicitatis, ad occasionem secundae intinctionis, ad ipsum diuinae sedis ascensum, nulla plus illic quam patientia corporis. si spiritus promptus, sed caro infirma, ubi salus spiritus sine patientia et carnis ipsius? at cum hoc dominus de carne dicit, infirmam pronuntians, quid ei firmandae opus sit, ostendit, patientia scilicet aduersus omnem subuertendae fidei uel puniendae paraturam, ut uerbera, ut ignem, ut crucem bestias gladium constantissime toleret, quae prophetae, quae apostoli sustinendo uicerunt..

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.