Unde ista perversitas, ut etiam illud non recogitetis, sponte confesso magis credendum esse quam per vim neganti? vel ne compulsus negare non ex fide negarit et absolutus ibidem post tribunal de vestra rideat aemulatione iterum Christianus? Cum igitur in omnibus nos aliter disponitis quam ceteros nocentes, ad unum contendendo, ut de eo nomine excludamur (excludimur enim si faciamus quae faciunt non Christiani), intellegere potestis non scelus aliquod in causa esse, sed nomen, quod quaedam ratio aemulae operationis insequitur, hoc primum agens, ut homines nolint scire pro certo quod se nescire pro certo sciunt.
What is the meaning of this confusion? this failure to reflect that more credence is to be given to a voluntary confession than to a forced denial? to reflect that, when compelled to deny, he may not honestly deny; and, once acquitted, he may again after your tribunal laugh at your enmity, once more a Christian? So, when in every detail you treat us differently from all other criminals'as you do in concentrating on the one object of dissociating us from that name (for we are dissociated from it, if we do what men not Christians doa)'you can gather that the gravamen of the case is not any crime but a name. This name, a certain rational agency,b rival in its operation, assails, with the prime motive that men may be unwilling to know for certain, what they certainly know they do not know.
final_alignments\Tertullian_Apology.json