To Scapula
An open letter from Tertullian to Scapula, proconsul of Africa, who was putting Christians to death. It warns him of divine judgment and contains an early argument that religion cannot be compelled.
Read the text at newadvent.org ↗Latin text and other translations (The Tertullian Project) ↗
The letter is short, five chapters, and is addressed to a governor then in office in Africa. Tertullian tells him that Christians do not fear him and wish him no harm, lists governors who came to a bad end after persecuting them, and points to recent portents at Carthage and Utica (3).
Its second chapter is often quoted: it is “a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions”, and “it is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion”. The plea is made by a member of a persecuted minority to the official persecuting it. The date is fixed approximately by the darkening of the sun at Utica that the letter mentions, which is identified with a solar eclipse of the year 212.
Cited in
- about AD 197 to AD 220, estimated date
- 7 March AD 203, estimated date