{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030071.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030071.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030071.htm","text":"Chapter XIII.\u2014Of the Observance of Days Connected with Idolatry.\nBut why speak of sacrifices and priesthoods? Of spectacles, moreover, and pleasures of that kind, we have already filled a volume of their own. 254 In this place must be handled the subject of holidays and other extraordinary solemnities, which we accord sometimes to our wantonness, sometimes to our timidity, in opposition to the common faith and Discipline. The first point, indeed, on which I shall join issue is this: whether a servant of God ought to share with the very p. 69 nations themselves in matters of his kind either in dress, or in food, or in any other kind of their gladness. \u201cTo rejoice with the rejoicing, and grieve with the grieving,\u201d 255 is said about brethren by the apostle when exhorting to unanimity. But, for these purposes, \u201cThere is nought of communion between light and darkness,\u201d 256 between life and death or else we rescind what is written, \u201cThe world shall rejoice, but ye shall grieve.\u201d 257 If we rejoice with the world, there is reason to fear that with the world we shall grieve too. But when the world rejoices, let us grieve; and when the world afterward grieves, we shall rejoice. Thus, too, Eleazar 258 in Hades, 259 (attaining refreshment in Abraham\u2019s bosom) and the rich man, (on the other hand, set in the torment of fire) compensate, by an answerable retribution, their alternate vicissitudes of evil and good. There are certain gift-days, which with some adjust the claim of honour, with others the debt of wages. \u201cNow, then,\u201d you say, \u201cI shall receive back what is mine, or pay back what is another\u2019s.\u201d If men have consecrated for themselves this custom from superstition, why do you, estranged as you are from all their vanity, participate in solemnities consecrated to idols; as if for you also there were some prescript about a day, short of the observance of a particular day, to prevent your paying or receiving what you owe a man, or what is owed you by a man? Give me the form after which you wish to be dealt with. For why should you skulk withal, when you contaminate your own conscience by your neighbour\u2019s ignorance? If you are not unknown to be a Christian, you are tempted, and you act as if you were not a Christian against your neighbour\u2019s conscience; if, however, you shall be disguised withal, 260 you are the slave of the temptation. At all events, whether in the latter or the former way, you are guilty of being \u201cashamed of God.\u201d 261 But \u201cwhosoever shall be ashamed of Me in the presence of men, of him will I too be ashamed,\u201d says He, \u201cin the presence of my Father who is in the heavens.\u201d 262\nThe treatise De Spectaculis [soon to follow, in this volume.]\n69:255 69:256\nSee 2 Cor. vi. 14. In the De Spect. xxvi. Tertullian has the same quotation (Oehler). And there, too, he adds, as here, \u201cbetween life and death.\u201d\n69:257\nJohn xvi. 20. It is observable that Tertullian here translates \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd by \u201cseculum.\u201d\n69:258\ni.e., Lazarus, Luke xvi. 19-31.\n69:259\n\u201cApud inferos,\u201d used clearly here by Tertullian of a place of happiness. Augustine says he never finds it so used in Scripture. See Ussher\u2019s \u201cAnswer to a Jesuit\u201d on the Article, \u201cHe descended into hell.\u201d [See Elucid. X. p. 59, supra.]\n69:260\ni.e., if you are unknown to be a Christian: \u201cdissimulaberis.\u201d This is Oehler\u2019s reading; but Latinius and Fr. Junis would read \u201cDissimulaveris,\u201d =\"if you dissemble the fact\u201d of being a Christian, which perhaps is better.\n69:261\nSo Mr. Dodgson renders very well.\n69:262\nMatt. 10:33, Mark 8:38, Luke 9:26, 2 Tim. 2:12.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Of the ...","type":"page"}