Tertullian

“ The merest school-boy knows much of the history of Carthage, and how the North Africans became Roman citizens. How they became Christians is not so clear. A melancholy destiny has enveloped Carthage from the outset, and its glory and greatness as a Christian See were transient indeed. It blazed out all at once in Tertullian, after about a century of missionary labours had been exerted upon its creation: and having given a Minucius Felix, an Arnobius and a Lactantius to adorn the earliest period of Western Ecclesiastical learning, in addition to its nobler luminaries, it rapidly declined. ”

“ Further, who is able to express the praises which his style of speech deserves, which is fraught (I know none like it) with that cogency of reason, that such as it cannot persuade, it compels to assent; whose so many words almost are so many sentences; whose so many senses, so many victories? ”

“ The first and greatest is, that the natural temper of Tertullian was from the first so akin to the spirit of Montanism, that, unless there occur distinct allusions to the “New Prophecy,” or expressions specially connected with Montanistic phraseology, the general tone of any treatise is not a very safe guide. The second is, that the subject-matter of some of the treatises is not such as to afford much scope for the introduction of the peculiarities of a sect which professed to differ in discipline only, not doctrine, from the church at large. ”

“ Independent feeling, also, would have weight with such a temper as Tertullian’s, to say nothing of the suspicion which largely prevailed in the African branch of the Latin church, that the Greek copies of the Scriptures were much corrupted by the heretics, who were chiefly, if not wholly, Greeks or Greek-speaking persons. ”

“ The weeping Church might bewail him as David mourned for Absalom, but like David, she could not give the Ark of God into other hands than those of the loyal and the true. I have set the writings of Tertullian in a natural and logical order [1] , so as to aid the student, and to relieve him from the distractions of such an arrangement as one finds in Oehler’s edition. Valuable as it is, the practical use of it is irritating and confusing. The reader of that edition may turn to the slightly differing schemes of Neander and Kaye, for a theoretical order of the works ”

“ Perhaps the best thing to be done under the circumstances is to give the judgment of the learned Peter Allix. It may be premised that by the celebrated George Fabricius [72] —who published his great work, Poetarum Veterum Ecclesiasticorum Opera Christiana, etc., in 1564—the Five Books in Reply to Marcion, and the Judgment of the Lord, are ascribed to Tertullian, the Genesis and Sodom to Cyprian. Pamelius likewise seems to have ascribed the Five Books, the Jonah, and the Sodom [73] to Tertullian; and according to Lardner, Bishop Bull likewise attributed the Five Books to him. ”

“ It is important to note (1.) that providentially not one of these illustrious doctors died in Communion with the Roman See, pure though it was and venerable at that time; and (2.) that to the works of Augustine the Reformation in Germany and Continental Europe was largely due; while (3.) the specialties of the Anglican Reformation were, in like proportion, due to the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian. The hinges of great and controlling destinies for Western Europe and our own America are to be found in the period we are now approaching. ”

“ Allix, after observing that Pamelius is inconsistent with himself in attributing the Genesis and Sodom at one time to Tertullian, at another to Cyprian, rejects both views equally, and assigns the Genesis with some confidence to Salvian, a presbyter of Marseilles, whose “floruit” Cave gives cir. 440, a contemporary of Gennadius, and a copious author. To this it is, Allix thinks, that Gennadius alludes in his Catalogue of Illustrious Men, c. 77.
The Judgment of the Lord Allix ascribes to one Verecundus, an African bishop, whose date he finds it difficult to decide exactly. ”

“ He rejects entirely the supposition that Tertullian was a presbyter of the Roman church; nor does he think Eusebius’ words, καὶ τῶν μάλιστα ἐπὶ ̔Ρώμης λαμπρῶν (Eccl. Hist. ii. 2. 47 ad fin., 48 ad init.) , sufficiently plain to be relied on. One thing does seem pretty plain, that the rendering of them which Rufinus gives, and Valesius follows, “inter nostros” (sc. Latinos) “Scriptores admodum clarus,” cannot be correct. That we find a famous Roman lawyer Tertullianus, or Tertyllianus, among the writers fragments of whom are preserved in the Pandects, Neander reminds us ”

“ Hist. of First Three Centuries, ii. 105–109.↑ Or versions.↑ Tertullianus.↑ Vincentius Lirinensis, in his celebrated Commonitorium, expresses the opinion of Catholic churchmen concerning Tertullian thus: “Tertullian, among the Latins, without controversy, is the chief of all our writers. For who was more learned than he? Who in divinity or humanity more practised? For, by a certain wonderful capacity of mind, he attained to and understood all philosophy, all the sects of philosophers, all their founders and supporters, all their systems, all sorts of histories and studies. ”

“ There are some other works which have been attributed to Tertullian—on Circumcision; on Animals Clean and Unclean; on the truth that God is a Judge—which Oehler likewise rejects, believing that the expressions of Jerome refer only to passages in the Anti-Marcion and other extant works. To Novatian Jerome does ascribe a distinct work on Circumcision, [67] and this may (comp. 11, just above) have given rise to the view that Tertullian had written one also.
There were, moreover, three treatises at least written by Tertullian in Greek. They are:
1. A Book on Public Shows. See de Cor. c. 6. ”

“ A period of cruel persecutions followed, and the African Church received a baptism of blood.
Tertullian was born a heathen, and seems to have been educated at Rome, where he probably practiced as a jurisconsult. We may, perhaps, adopt most of the ideas of Allix, as conjecturally probable, and assign his birth to a.d. 145. He became a Christian about 185, and a presbyter about 190. The period of his strict orthodoxy very nearly expires with the century. He lived to an extreme old age, and some suppose even till a.d. 240. More probably we must adopt the date preferred by recent writers, a.d. ”

“ Ref. to in adv. Marc. v. 10.↑ In c. 4 Tertullian speaks as if he had already refuted all the heretics.↑ Ref. to in de Jej. c. 1.↑ Ref. to in de Idolol. 13; in de Cult. Fem. i. 8. In the de Cor. 6 is a reference to the Greek tract de Spectaculis by our author.↑ Archdeacon Evans, in his Biography of the Early Church (in the Theological Library) , suggests that the success which the Apology met with, or at least the fame it brought its author, may have been the occasion of Tertullian’s visit to Rome. ”

“ But, inasmuch as a man’s subjective development is very much guided by circumstances, it is not necessary, in agreeing with Neander, to disbelieve some such account as Jerome has given us of Tertullian (Neander’s Antignostikus, etc. Bohn’s trans., vol. ii. pp. 200–207) .↑ Introductory Notice to the Anti-Marcion, pp. xiii., xiv.↑ In the end of Chapter Second.↑ Eccl. Hist. illust. from Tertullian’s Writings, p. 36 sqq. (ed. 3, Lond. 1845) .↑ See Kaye, as above.↑ Antignostikus, p. ”

“ Hæc et nos risimus aliquando; de vestris fuimus; also De Spectac. xix.↑ [Kaye, p. 9. A fair view of this point.] ↑ These notes of Bishop Kaye may be found, in their fuller form, in his work on Tertullian, pp. 8–12.↑ Book i., chap. xv.↑ Jerome probably took this date as the central period, when Tertullian “flourished,” because of its being the only clearly authenticated one, and because also (it may be) of the importance and fame of the Treatise against Marcion.↑ So Clinton, Fasti Romani, i. 204; or 208, Pamelius, Vita Tertull.↑ In his treatise, De vera ætate ac doctrina script. ”