Tertullian, On the Crown 15
Keep your reward intact for God; He will crown it if He wishes — indeed, He does wish it, and finally He issues the invitation: 'Whoever conquers, I will give him the crown of life' (Revelation 2:10). You, too, be faithful to death. You, too, fight the good fight, whose crown the Apostle confidently trusts has been laid up for him by merit. The angel of victory also receives a crown, riding forth on a white horse so that he may conquer. Another is adorned with the rainbow's circle, set in a heavenly meadow. The presbyters sit crowned, and with that same gold the Son of Man shines above the cloud. If such are the images in a vision, what must the realities be in their fulfillment? Look at them; smell them. Why do you condemn a head destined for a diadem to a mere wreath or a snake-like band? For Christ Jesus has also made us kings for God and His Father. What do you have to do with a dying flower? You possess a flower from the rod of Jesse, upon whom the whole grace of the divine Spirit has rested — an incorrupt, unwithering, eternal flower — which the good soldier, by choosing it, has advanced in heavenly rank and dignity. Be ashamed, His fellow soldiers: you are now being judged not by Him, but by some soldier of Mithras. When that initiate is inducted in a cave — the camps of true darkness — a crown is offered to him with a sword interposed, a mockery of martyrdom, then fitted to his head. He is warned to shove it away with his hand and, if need be, transfer it to his shoulder, declaring that Mithras is his crown. From then on he is never crowned again, and that very refusal serves as his sign for testing, wherever he may be challenged about the sacrament: instantly the Mithraic soldier is believed if he has thrown away the crown and said it resides in his god. Let us recognize the devil's cunning: he apes certain divine things precisely so he may confuse and condemn us over the faith of his own followers.
Latin
Serva Deo rem suam intaminatam. Ille eam, si volet, coronabit; imo et vult; denique invitat: Qui vicerit, inquit, dabo ei coronam vitae. Esto et tu fidelis ad mortem. Decerta et tu bonum agonem, cujus coronam et Apostolus repositam sibi merito confidit. Accipit et angelus victoriae coronam procedens in candido equo, ut vinceret. Et alius iridis ambitu ornatur, coelesti prato. Sedent et presbyteri coronati: eodemque auro et ipse Filius hominis supra nubem micat. Si tales imagines in visione, quales veritates in repraesentatione? illas aspice, illas odora. Quid caput strophiolo aut dracontario damnas, diademati destinatum? Nam et reges nos Deo et Patri suo fecit Christus Jesus. Quid tibi cum flore morituro? Habes florem ex virga Jesse, super quem tota divini spiritus gratia requievit, florem incorruptum, immarcescibilem, sempiternum: quem et bonus miles eligendo, in coelesti ordinatione, dignatione profecit. Erubescite, commilitones ejus, jam non ab ipso judicandi, sed ab aliquo Mithrae milite, qui cum initiatur in spelaeo, in castris vere tenebrarum, coronam interposito gladio sibi oblatam, quasi mimum martyrii, dehinc capiti suo accommodatam, monetur obvia manu a capite pellere, et in humerum, si forte, transferre, dicens Mithram esse coronam suam, atque exinde numquam coronatur, idque in signum habet ad probationem sui, sicubi tentatus fuerit de sacramento: statimque creditur Mithrae miles, si dejecerit coronam, si eam in Deo suo esse dixerit. Agnoscamus ingenia diaboli, idcirco quaedam de divinis affectantis, ut nos de suorum fide confundat et judicet.