Scorpiace was written by Tertullian and preserved in his Codex Agobardinus. It's very difficult for me to understand, so ChatGPT 4.0 helped me to interpret the text.
Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting
Chapter 1
Heretics and opponents of martyrdom are scorpions that know fear opens up the hearts of Christians to heresy when their knowledge of Scripture is weak. The poison causes doubt, a loss of faith, an aversion for Christianity, and ultimately a total rejection of the faith or conversion to heresy. Contrary to heretical teaching, God does not require martyrdom; He requires repentance. Confront heretical ideas immediately head-on, as they will wound your faith. Satan has brought us into intense martyrdom, and Tertullian has prepared the antidote against scorpions. Scorpiace's message should be sweet like honey and flow with milk and honey, unlike martyrdom's opponents who prefer this life to the next, turning sweetness into bitterness and light into darkness.
The earth brings forth great evil from the tiny scorpion and its whipping tail that injects concentrated poison during summer. Natural and magical cures exist as do protective draughts (drained by sexual intercourse) and faith. Even the heathen is benefited during episodes like Acts 28:3 when Paul shook off the viper into the fire and suffered no harm, as it allows him to witness the power of God.
During the season of persecution, faith is subjected to scorpions of its own. Gnostics, Valentinians, and all opponents of martyrdom know many Christians veer about with the wind and conform to its moods. They are never more susceptible to new beliefs when fear opens the entrance to their soul, especially when they witness violence that strengthens the resolve of Christian martyrs. Therefore, scorpions strike the feelings first, confusing the innocents who become deceived to the point they suppose the scorpion to be a brother or a "heathen of the better sort." Then they pierce, causing them to doubt and lose their faith without a reason. Then they now strike mortally, causing them to completely lose their faith or convert to heretical beliefs.
Those who lack knowledge of Scripture do not know when and how to express their faith, likely seeing martyrdom is madness when God is supposed to preserve us. After all, Christ died for us once for all that we might not be slain. If He demands the like from me in return, does he look for salvation from my death? No, God does not crave the deaths of His followers - he refused the blood of even bulls and he-goats, preferring repentance than the death of the sinner. (Ezekiel 33:11) God does not crave the death of the innocent either. Doubts around this subject spurred by heretical teaching are dangerous, causing doubt if not destruction and irritation if not death.
As for you, if your faith is on the alert, confront heretical ideas directly by smiting the scorpion on the spot with a curse, leaving it dying in its own stupefaction. But if it overwhelms the wound, it drives the poison inwards to the deepest part of your being, dulling your senses, withering your spirit, and causing loathing and sourness for the Christian name. Once the poison of heresy is ingested, the mind seeks to expel it; its weakness breathing out wounded faith either in heresy or heathenism.
And now, we are in the midst of intense martyrdom, the very dog-star of persecution--a state brought about by the dog-headed one himself, the devil. Some Christians face fire, others the sword, others beasts. Others have made trial, hungering in prison for martyrdom while being subjected to clubs and claws. Christians are like hares being pursued and trapped from a distance, while heretics continue spreading heresy.
Therefore, the state of the times has prompted Tertullian to prepare an antidote and cure by his pen in opposition to the scorpions which trouble Christianity. You will read and at the same time drink, but the draught will not be bitter. If the utterances of the Lord are sweeter than honey, the juices are from that source. If the promise of God flows with milk and honey (Exodus 3:17), the draught's ingredients have the smack of that. "But woe to them who turn sweet into bitter, and light into darkness." Isaiah 5:20 Likewise, those who oppose martyrdoms, representing salvation to be destruction, preferring this very wretched life to that most blessed one, transmute sweet into bitter and light into darkness.
Chapter 2
You cannot be convinced of the good of martyrdom without understanding God's will. God's voice has been the same all the way back to the root of the Gospels, in the book of the Law. Make no idols, worship no idols. Love and worship only the Lord our God.
You cannot learn the good of martyrdom without hearing about the duty of suffering it. You cannot learn the usefulness of it before hearing about the necessity of it. The divine warrant - whether God has willed and also commanded tribulations like martyrdom - must be demonstrated first, so that those who feel martyrdom is bad are not plied with arguments for the profit of martyrdom until they have accepted God's will. Heretics should be driven to duty and conquered, not gently persuaded or seduced. If a doctrine or practice is pronounced by God, it should be regarded as good.
Tertullian will ascertain the will of God from the Law, the root of the Gospels. He quotes the Law on idolatry.
"I am," says He, "God, your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall not make unto you a likeness of those things which are in heaven, and which are in the earth beneath, and which are in the sea under the earth. You shall not worship them, nor serve them. For I am the Lord your God." (Exodus 20:2)
"You yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make unto you gods of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold." (Exodus 20:22-23)
"Hear, O Israel; The Lord your God is one: and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your might, and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 6:4)
"Neither do you forget the Lord your God, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve Him only, and cleave to Him, and swear by His name. You shall not go after strange gods, and the gods of the nations which are round about you, because the Lord your God is also a jealous God among you, and lest His anger should be kindled against you, and destroy you from off the face of the earth." (Deuteronomy 6:12)
But setting before them blessings and curses, He also says: "Blessings shall be yours, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, whatsoever I command you this day, and do not wander from the way which I have commanded you, to go and serve other gods whom you know not." (Deuteronomy 11:27)
And as to rooting them out in every way: "You shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations, which you shall possess by inheritance, served their gods, upon mountains and hills, and under shady trees. You shall overthrow all their altars, you shall overturn and break in pieces their pillars, and cut down their groves, and burn with fire the graven images of the gods themselves, and destroy the names of them out of that place." (Deuteronomy 12:2-3)
He further urges, when the Israelites had entered the land of promise, and driven out its nations: "Take heed to your self, that you do not follow them after they be driven out from before you, that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, As the nations serve their gods, so let me do likewise." (Deuteronomy 12:30)
"If there arise among you a prophet himself, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and it come to pass, and he say, Let us go and serve other gods, whom you know not, do not hearken to the words of that prophet or dreamer, for the Lord your God proves you, to know whether you fear God with all your heart and with all your soul. After the Lord your God you shall go, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and serve Him, and cleave unto Him. But that prophet or dreamer shall die; for he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 13:1)
"If, however, your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, solicit you, saying secretly, Let us go and serve other gods, which you know not, nor did your fathers, of the gods of the nations which are round about you, very near unto you or far off from you, do not consent to go with him, and do not hearken to him. Your eye shall not spare him, neither shall you pity, neither shall you preserve him; you shall certainly inform upon him. Your hand shall be first upon him to kill him, and afterwards the hand of your people; and you shall stone him, and he shall die, seeing he has sought to turn you away from the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 13:6) He adds likewise concerning cities, that if one had, through the advice of unrighteous men, passed over to other gods, all its inhabitants should be slain, and everything belonging to it become accursed, and all the spoil be gathered together at all its city entrances, and be, even with all the people, burned with fire in all its streets in the sight of the Lord God; and, says He, "it shall not be for dwelling in for ever: it shall not be built again any more, and there shall cleave to your hands nought of its accursed plunder, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger." (Deuteronomy 13:16)
He has, from His abhorrence of idols, framed a series of curses too: "Cursed be the man who makes a graven or a molten image, an abomination, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and puts it in a secret place." (Deuteronomy 27:15)
"Go not after idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the Lord your God." (Revelation 19:4)
"The children of Israel are my household servants; these are they whom I led forth from the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. You shall not make you idols fashioned by the hand, neither rear you up a graven image. Nor shall you set up a remarkable stone in your land (to worship it): I am the Lord your God."
All these words were first spoken by the Lord by the lips of Moses, applicable to all whom God has led out of the Egypt of the superstitious world, out of spiritual bondage and idolatry. And the mouth of every prophet in succession sound forth the same God's utterances, augmenting the same law of His by a renewal of the same commands. There is no other duty so underscored as our commandment to be on guard against all making and worshiping of idols.
David says, "The gods of the nations are silver and gold: they have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and hear not; they have a nose, and smell not; a mouth, and they speak not; hands, and they handle not; feet and they walk not. Like to them shall be they who make them, and trust in them."
Chapter 3
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(New Advent - Scorpiace @ https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0318.htm, accessed May 30, 2023.)