The prison as retreat from the world
Tertullian is addressing the imprisoned Christians, arguing that their prison is not a loss but a spiritual retreat, since the world itself is a worse prison.
The other hindrances of the mind have accompanied you as far as the prison threshold, just as your relatives have. From that point you have been separated from the world itself—how much more from its affairs and concerns? Do not let this disturb you, that you have been separated from the world. If we reflect that the world itself is more truly a prison, we will understand that you have gone out of a prison rather than entered into one. The world has greater darkness, which blinds the hearts of men. The world wears heavier chains, which bind the very souls of men. The world breathes out worse filth—the lusts of men. Finally, the world holds more prisoners: the entire human race. And it awaits judgment not from a proconsul, but from God. Consider yourselves, blessed ones, to have been transferred from prison to a guardhouse, if anything. It has darkness, but you yourselves are light. It has chains, but you are free before God. It breathes out gloom, but you are a sweet fragrance. A judge is awaited, but you will be judges of the judges themselves. Let the one who longs for the fruit of the world grieve. A Christian has renounced the world even outside prison; in prison he has renounced even the prison itself. It makes no difference where you are in the world, since you are outside the world. And if you have lost some of life's pleasures, it is a business transaction to lose something so that you may gain greater things. I say nothing yet of the prize to which God invites martyrs. Let us compare for the moment the life of the world and the life of prison: if the spirit does not gain more in prison than the flesh loses. Indeed, the flesh does not lose what is rightfully its own, through the care of the church and the love of the brothers; and beyond that, the spirit obtains what is always useful for faith. You do not see foreign gods, you do not run into their images, you do not share in the festival days of the nations by mixing with them, you are not struck by foul smells, you are not cut by the shouts of the spectacles—by the cruelty or frenzy or shamelessness of those celebrating—your eyes do not fall upon places of public lust. You are free from scandals, from temptations, from evil memories, and now even from persecution. The prison gives the Christian what the desert gave the prophets. The Lord himself often acted in retreat, so that he might pray more freely and withdraw from the world; indeed, he showed his glory to his disciples in solitude. Let us take away the name of prison and call it a retreat. Even if the body is shut in, even if the flesh is held, all things are open to the spirit. Wander in spirit, walk about in spirit—and do not set before yourself shaded colonnades or long porticoes, but that road which leads to God. As often as you walk along it in spirit, so often you will not be in prison. The leg feels nothing in the shackle when the mind is in heaven. The mind carries the whole person about and transfers him wherever it wishes. Where your heart will be, there your treasure will be also (Matthew 6:21). Therefore let our heart be there, where we wish to have our treasure.
Latin
Cetera aeque animi impedimenta usque ad limen carceris deduxerint vos, quousque et parentes vestri. Exinde segregati estis ab ipso mundo, quanto magis a saeculo rebusque eius? Nec hoc vos consternet, quod segregati estis a mundo. Si enim recogitemus ipsum magis mundum carcerem esse, exisse vos e carcere quam in carcerem introisse intellegemus. Maiores tenebras habet mundus, quae hominum praecordia excaecant. Graviores catenas induit mundus, quae ipsas animas hominum constringunt. Peiores immunditias expirat mundus, libidines hominum. Plures postremo mundus reos continet, scilicet universum hominum genus. Iudicia denique non proconsulis, sed dei sustinet. Quo vos, benedicti, de carcere in custodiarium, si forte, translatos existimetis. Habet tenebras, sed lumen estis ipsi. Habet vincula, sed vos soluti deo estis. Triste illic expirat, sed vos odor estis suavitatis. Iudex expectatur, sed vos estis de iudicibus ipsis iudicaturi. Contristetur illi qui fructum saeculi suspirat. Christianus etiam extra carcerem saeculo renuntiavit, in carcere autem etiam carceri. Nihil interest, ubi sitis in saeculo, qui extra saeculum estis. Et si aliqua amisistis vitae gaudia, negotiatio est aliquid amittere, ut maiora lucreris. Nihil adhuc dico de praemio, ad quod deus martyres invitat. Ipsam interim conversationem saeculi et carceris comparemus, si non plus in carcere spiritus acquirit, quam caro amittit. Immo et quae iusta sunt caro non amittit per curam ecclesiae et agapen fratrum, et insuper quae semper utilia fidei, spiritus adipiscitur. Non vides alienos deos, non imaginibus eorum incurris, non sollemnes nationum dies ipsa commixtione participas, non nidoribus spurcis verberaris, non clamoribus spectaculorum, atrocitate vel furore vel impudicitia celebrantium caederis, non in loca libidinum publicarum oculi tui impingunt, vacas a scandalis, a temptationibus, a recordationibus malis, iam et a persecutione. Hoc praestat carcer Christiano, quod eremus prophetis. Ipse dominus in secessu frequentius agebat, ut liberius oraret, ut saeculo cederet: gloriam denique suam discipulis in solitudine demonstravit. Auferamus carceris nomen, secessum vocemus. Etsi corpus includitur, etsi caro detinetur, omnia spiritui patent. Vagare spiritu, spatiare spiritu et non stadia opaca aut porticus longas proponens tibi, sed illam viam, quae ad deum ducit. Quotiens eam spiritu deambulaveris, totiens in carcere non eris. Nihil crus sentit in nervo, cum animus in caelo est. Totum hominem animus circumfert et, quo velit, transfert. Ubi autem erit cor tuum, illic erit et thesaurus tuus. Ibi ergo sit cor nostrum, ubi volumus habere thesaurum.