Tertullian, Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 15

Are the Apostles' letters also changeable? Are we everywhere simple souls, mere doves, gladly wandering in error? I believe it comes from a desire to live. So let it be, then: let the meanings depart from their letters. What we know the Apostles suffered is a manifest doctrine; I grasp it simply by reading through Acts; I seek nothing else. Prisons, chains, whips, stones, swords, Jewish attacks, mob gatherings, tribunals' speeches, royal audiences, proconsular courts, the very name of Caesar — none of these need an interpreter. That Peter was struck, that Stephen was crushed, that James was slain, that Paul was torn apart — these things were written in their own blood. And if a heretic wants to trust the Commentaries, the instruments of empire will speak, like the stones of Jerusalem. We read the Lives of the Caesars; Nero first bloodied the rising faith at Rome. Then Peter was girded by another when he was bound to the cross. Then Paul obtained the birth of the Roman city when he was reborn there through the nobility of martyrdom. Wherever I read these things now, I learn to suffer; it does not matter which teachers of martyrdom I follow, whether the meanings or the outcomes of the Apostles — except that I also recognize the meanings in the outcomes. For they would not have suffered anything that they had not first sensed was to be suffered. When Agabus also prophesied Paul's chains by a gesture, the disciples wept and prayed that he not commit himself to Jerusalem; they prayed in vain. For he, driven by what he had always taught, said: "Why do you weep and sadden my heart? But I not only wish to suffer chains in Jerusalem, but also to die for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ." And so they yielded, saying: "Let the will of the Lord be done"; certainly trusting that sufferings pertain to the will of God. For they had attempted to restrain him not with the counsel of dissuasion, but with the bond of love, so that they might retain the Apostle — desiring him, not dissuading him from martyrdom. But if Prodicus or Valentinus had been present then, suggesting that one should not confess on earth among men; much less that God thirsts for human blood, nor that Christ, as if He Himself were going to obtain salvation from it, demands the substitute of passion — immediately he would have heard from the servant of God what he had heard from the Lord the devil say: "Depart, Satan, you are a scandal to me; it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only" (Matthew 4:10). But also now he ought to hear, insofar as he much later poured out those poisons; none of the weak will easily drink them unless they have previously drunk — or even drunk excessively — this our potion of faith.