Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack

“ There were many who did not become, but who were, and therefore remained, Christians. Then, in addition to this, Christians were already found in all ranks and occupations—in the Imperial palace, among the officials, in the abodes of labour and the halls of learning, amongst slaves and freemen. Should the Church take the decisive step into the world, conform to its customs, and acknowledge as far as possible its authorities? ”

“ One great divergence is manifest: Tertullian never himself deviated from orthodox and vehemently asserts the orthodoxy of all Montanists, but both Montanus (“I am the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost”) and Maximilla (“I am Word and Spirit and Power”) used language which has a distinctly “monarchian” flavour. There were really divided views on the question of the Divine Monarchy among the Montanists as among the Catholics. The orthodox party were known as the Cataproclans, the heterodox as Cataeschinites, and both appealed to the oracles of their prophets. ”

“ At Rome in mature manhood Tertullian became a Christian, under what circumstances we do not know, and forthwith he bent himself with all his energy to the study of Scripture and'of Christian literature. ”

“ It is true that there was no rivalry between the new organization and the old, as in Asia and Phrygia, for the Western Montanists recognized in its main features the Catholic organization as it had been developed in the contest with Gnosticism; but the demand that the “organs of the Spirit” should direct the whole discipline of the congregation contained implicitly a protest against the actual constitution of the Church. ”

“ Not only did an extreme party arise in Asia Minor rejecting all prophecy and the Apocalypse of John along with it, but the majority of the Churches and bishops in that district appear (c. 178) to have broken off all fellowship with the new prophets, while books were written to show that the very form of the Montanistic prophecy was sufficient proof of its spuriousness. [3] In Gaul and Rome the prospects of Montanism seemed for a while more favourable. The confessors of the Gallican Church at Lyons were of opinion that communion ought to be maintained with the zealots of Asia and Phrygia ”

“ His central proposition was to the effect that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same person, three names thus being attached to one and the same being, What weighed most with Sabellius was the monotheistic interest. The One Being was also named by him νίοπάτωρ—an expression purposely chosen to obviate ambiguity. To explain how one and the same being could have various, forms of manifestation, he pointed to the tripartite nature of man (body, soul, spirit) , and to the sun, which manifests itself as a heavenly body, as a source of light and also as a source of warmth. ”

“ The same Tertullian who had fortified the Catholic church against Gnosticism was none the less anxious to protect it from becoming a political organization. Being unable to reconcile incompatibles, he broke with the church and became the most powerful representative of Montanism in the West.
Although Tertullian’s extant works are both numerous and copious, our knowledge of his life is very vague. He cannot have been born much later than about 150. His activity as a jurist in Rome must fall within the period of Commodus ”

“ The burden of the new prophecy seems to have been a new standard of moral obligations, especially with regard to marriage, fasting and martyrdom. But Montanus had larger schemes in view. He wished to organize a special community of true Christians to wait for the coming of their Lord. The small Phrygian towns of Pepuza and Tymion were selected as the headquarters of his church. Funds were raised for the new organization, and from these the leader and missionaries, who were to have nothing to do with worldly life, drew their pay. ”

“ Of great moment also is the De praescriptione haereticorum, in which the jurist is more clearly heard than the Christian. It is the chief of the dogmatic or polemical works, and rules the accuser out of court at the very opening of the case. The De spectaculis and De idololatria show that Tertullian was already in a certain sense a Montanist before he formally went over to that creed; on the other hand, his De poeriilenlia proves that his earlier views on church discipline were much more tolerant than his later. ”

“ He is often outrageously unjust in the substance of what he says, and in manner harsh to cynicism, scornful to gruesomeness; but in no battle that he fought was he ever actuated by selfish interests. What he did was really done for the Gospel, as he understood it, with all the faculties of his soul. ”

“ In the 4th century this and the allied doctrine of Marcellus of Ancyra were frequently confounded, so that it is exceedingly difficult 'to arrive at a clear account of it in its genuine form. Sabellianism, in fact, became a collective name for all those Unitarian doctrines in which the divine nature of Christ was acknowledged. The teaching of Sabellius himself was very closely allied to the older Modalism (“Patripassianism”) of Noetus and Praxeas, but was distinguished from it by its more careful theological elaboration and 7 by the account it took of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ These in turn split into two principal groups—the Adoptianists and the Modalists—the former holding Christ to be the man chosen of God, on whom the Holy Spirit rested in a quite unique sense, and who after toil and suffering, through His oneness of will with God, became divine, the latter maintaining Christ to be a manifestation of God Himself. ”

“ The Churches soon found numbers within their pale who stood in need of supervision, instruction and regular control. The enthusiasm for a life of holiness and separation from the world no longer swayed all minds. ”

“ Among all the fathers of the first three centuries'Tertullian has given the most powerful expression to the terrible earnestness of the Gospel.
(3) The course of Tertullian's personal development fitted him in an altogether remarkable degree to be a teacher of the church. Born at Carthage of good family-his father was a “ centurio pro consular is ”-he received a first-rate education both in Latin and in Greek. He was able to speak and write Greek, and gives evidence of familiarity alike with its prose and with its poetry ”

“ Meanwhile in Phrygia and its neighbourhood—especially in Galatia, and also in Thrace—a controversy was raging between the adherents and the opponents of the new prophecy. Between 150 and 176 the authority of the episcopate had been immensely strengthened, and along with it a settled order had been introduced into the Churches. As a rule, the bishops were resolute enemies of the Montanistic enthusiasm. It disturbed the peace and order of the congregations, and threatened their safety. Moreover, it made demands on individual Christians such as very few could comply with. ”

“ His special gift lay in the power to make what had been traditionally received impressive, to give to it its proper form, and to gain for it new currency. From Rome Tertullian visited Greece and perhaps also Asia Minor; at any rate we know that he had temporary relations with the churches there. He was consequently placed in a position in which he could check the doctrine and practice of the Roman church. Thus equipped with knowledge and experience, he returned to Carthage and there laid the foundation of Latin ~Christian literature. ”

“ He starts with a theory of man's relation to the world. Man is the vinculum of the cosmos, uniting in his person the material and the spiritual. This bond, broken by sin, was restored by Christ. According to Theodore the Logos assumed a complete manhood, which had to pass through the stages of ethical development just as in the case of any other human being. ”

“ In this the Logos only supported the man Christ Jesus, but was not essentially connected with him; the Logos dwelt in him (evolkeiv) , but any such thing as epwoig fvrucg did not and could not exist, because the finite is not "capax infiniti," and because any epwoig would have destroyed the reality of the human nature. ”

“ On his breach with the Catholic church, probably in 207–208, he became the head of a small Montanist community in Carthage. In this position he continued to labour, to write, and to assail the lax Catholics and their clergy until at least the time of Bishop Calixtus in the reign of Elagabalus. The year of his death is uncertain. Jerome (ut sup.) says: “Fertur vixisse usque ad decrepit am aetatem.” That he returned at last to the bosom of the Catholic church is a mere legend, the motive of which is obvious ”

“ He studied in Carthage, probably also in Rome, where, according to Eusebius, he enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most eminent jurists. This statement derives confirmation from the Digest, where references are made to two works, De Castrensi Peculio and Quaestionum Libri VIII., of a Roman jurist named Tertullian, who must have flourished about 180 A.D. In point of fact the quondam advocate never disappeared in the Christian presbyter. ”

“ The Pelagians driven from the East were received by him in Cilicia.
A brother of Theodore, Polychronius by name, bishop of Apamea in Syria (d. 430) also achieved high fame as an exegete, and expounded the theology of the school of Antioch. [5]
Literature.—Migne, Patrol., ser. Gr., lxvi. The Greek fragments of Theodore's New Testament commentaries have been collected by O. Fr Fritzsche (Theod. Mops, in N.T. Comm., Turin, 1847) . The commentaries on the Pauline epistles (Pitra, Spicilegium Sotesmense, Paris, 1852, i. 49 seq.) ”

“ It is by this doctrine of the succession of the 1rp6ow1ra that Sabellius is distinguished from the older Modalists. In particular it is significant, in conjunction with the reference to the Holy Spirit, that Sabellius regards the Father also as merely a form of manifestation of the one Godin other words, has formally put Him in a position of complete equality with theother Persons. This view prepares the way for Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity. ”

“ T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, chap. x. (London, 1909) ; and the various Histories of Dogma and Church Histories.
For a complete bibliography see G. Krüger, Hist. of Early Christian Literature (Eng. tr. New York and London, 1897) ; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. für prot. Theologie, xix.; and O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (Eng. tr. Freiburg im Breisgau and St Louis, 1908) . A large number of earlier monographs on special points are cited in the 9th edn. of the Ency. Brit. (A. Ha.; X.) ”