Tertullian, On Repentance 10
Yet I take it that most either flee this work as a publishing of themselves or put it off from day to day, more mindful of shame than of salvation — like those who, when trouble strikes the more modest parts of the body, shun the healer's notice and so perish with their blush. Intolerable, forsooth, to shame — to make satisfaction to an offended Lord, to be restored once salvation has been betrayed! You are a fine man of modesty: forehead open for sinning, drawn back for pleading!
I make no room for blush when I gain more by its loss, when blush itself somehow urges the man, saying, 'Do not look at me — for your sake it is better that I perish.' Its danger is heavy only when it stands among scoffers in mocking talk, where one is raised on another's fall. But among brothers and fellow-servants — where hope, fear, joy, grief, and suffering are common because the Spirit is common from one Lord and Father — what are these but yourself? The body cannot rejoice at one member's hurt: the whole must suffer with it and work together for the cure. In one or two the church is present, and the church is Christ: so when you stretch to the brothers' knees you handle Christ, you entreat Christ; and when they shed tears over you, Christ suffers, Christ entreats the Father. What the Son asks is always easily gained.
What great gain does modesty's hiding of the fault promise? If we have withdrawn something from human notice, shall we likewise hide it from the Lord? Are men's esteem and God's knowledge to be set side by side? Is it better to lie hidden under condemnation than to be openly absolved? 'It is wretched to come thus to exomologesis.' Wretched — if one loves, if one arrives; but where one must repent, the wretchedness leaves, because the act has become saving. It is wretched to be cut and burned with the cautery and tortured by some biting powder: yet what heals through unpleasantness excuses its offense by the gain of the cure, and commend present injury for the sake of the usefulness to come.
Latin
X. [1] Plerosque tamen hoc opus ut publicationem sui aut suffugere aut de die in diem differre praesumo pudoris magis memores quam salutis, velut illi, qui in partibus verecundioribus corporis contracta vexatione conscientiam medentium vitant et ita cum erubescentia sua pereunt. [2] Intolerandum scilicet pudori domino offenso satisfacere, saluti prodactae reformari! Ne tu verecundia bonus, ad delinquendum expandens frontem, ad deprecandum vero subducens! [3] Ego rubori locum non facio, cum plus de detrimento eius adquiro, cum ipse hominem quodammodo exhortatur 'ne me respexeris', dicens, 'pro te mibi melius est perire'. [4] Certe periculum eius tunc, si forte, onerosum est, cum penes insultatores in risiloquio consistit, ubi de alterius ruina alter attollitur, ubi prostrato superscenditur; ceterum inter fratres atque conservos, ubi communis spes metus gaudium dolor passio, quia communis spiritus de communi domino et patre, quid tu hos aliud quam te opinaris? [5] Quid consortes casuum tuorum ut plausores fugis? Non potest corpus de unius membri vexatione laetum agere: condoleat universum et ad remedium conlaboret necesse est.
[6] In uno et altero ecclesia est, ecclesia vero Christus: ergo, cum te ad fratrum genua protendis, Christum contrectas, Christum exoras; aeque illi cum super te lacrimas agunt, Christus patitur, Christus patrem deprecatur. Facile inpetratur semper quod filius postulat. [7] Grande plane emolumentum verecundiae occultatio delicti pollicetur! Videlicet si quid humanae notitiae subduxerimus, proinde et dominum celabimus ? [8] Adeone existimatio hominum et dei conscientia comparantur ? An melius est damnatum latere quam palam absolvi? [9] 'Miserum est sic ad exomologesin pervenire'. Malo enim - amans si pervenitur; sed ubi paenitendum est, deserit miserum, quia factum est salutare. [10] Miserum est secari et cauterio exuri et pulveris alicuius mordacitate cruciari: tamen quae per insuavitatem medentur, et emolumento curationis offensam sui excusant et praesentem iniuriam superventurae utilitatis gratia commendant.