History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

blazing fires of persecution, than the author of this book. It breathes from first to last the assurance

of victory in apparent defeat.

"We conquer," are his concluding words to the prefects and judges of the Roman empire,

"We conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued .... Many of your

writers exhort to the courageous bearing of pain and death, as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca

in his Chances, as Diogenes, Pyrrhus, Callinicus. And yet their words do not find so many disciples

as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is

the preceptress. For who that contemplates it is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom of it?

Who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines? And, when he has embraced them, desires not

to suffer that he may become partaker of the fulness of God’s grace, that he may obtain from God

complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood? For that secures the remission of all offences.

On this account it is that we return thanks on the very spot for your sentences. As the divine and

human are ever opposed to each other, when we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by the

Highest."

The relation of the Apologeticus to the Octavius of Minucius Felix will be discussed in the

next section. But even if Tertullian should have borrowed from that author (as he undoubtedly

borrowed, without acknowledgment, much matter from Irenaeus, in his book against the

Valentinians), he remains one of the most original and vigorous writers.

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530 Moreover the plan

is different; Minucius Felix pleads for Christianity as a philosopher before philosophers, to convince

the intellect; Tertullian as a lawyer and advocate before judges, to induce them to give fair play to

the Christians, who were refused even a hearing in the courts.

The beautiful little tract "On the Testimony of the Soul," (6 chapters) is a supplement to

the Apologeticus, and furnishes one of the strongest positive arguments for Christianity. Here the

human soul is called to bear witness to the one true God: it springs from God, it longs for God; its

purer and nobler instincts and aspirations, if not diverted and perverted by selfish and sinful passions,

tend upwards and heavenwards, and find rest and peace only in God. There is, we may say, a

pre-established harmony between the soul and the Christian religion; they are made for each other;

the human soul is constitutionally Christian. And this testimony is universal, for as God is

everywhere, so the human soul is everywhere. But its testimony turns against itself if not heeded.

"Every soul," he concludes, "is a culprit as well as a witness: in the measure that it testifies

for truth, the guilt of error lies on it; and on the day of judgment it will stand before the court of

God, without a word to say. Thou proclaimedst God, O soul, but thou didst not seek to know Him;

evil spirits were detested by thee, and yet they were the objects of thy adoration; the punishments

of hell were foreseen by thee, but no care was taken to avoid them; thou hadst a savor of Christianity,

and withal wert the persecutor of Christians."

2. His polemic works are occupied chiefly with the refutation of the Gnostics. Here belongs

first of all his thoroughly catholic tract." On the Prescription of Heretics."

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 It is of a general

character and lays down the fundamental principle of the church in dealing with heresy. Tertullian

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Ebert, who was the first to assert the priority of Octavius, nevertheless admits (Gesch. der christl. lat. Lit. I. 32) "Tertullianist

einer der genialsten, originallsten und fruchtbarstem unter den christlich-lateinischen Autoren."

1530

Praescriptio, in legal terminology, means an exception made before the merits of a case are discussed, showing in limine

that the plaintiff ought not to be heard. This book has been most admired by R. Catholics as a masterly vindication of the catholic

rule of faith against heretical assailants; but its force is weakened by Tertullian’s Montanism.

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Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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cuts off all errors and neologies at the outset from the right of legal contest and appeal to the holy

Scriptures, because these belong only to the catholic church as the legitimate heir and guardian of

Christianity. Irenaeus had used the same argument, but Tertullian gave it a legal or forensic form.

The same argument, however, turns also against his own secession; for the difference between

heretics and schismatics is really only relative, at least in Cyprian’s view. Tertullian afterwards

asserted, in contradiction with this book, that in religious matters not custom nor long possession,

but truth alone, was to be consulted.

Among the heretics, he attacked chiefly the Valentinian Gnostics, and Marcion. The work

against Marcion (A. D. 208) is his largest, and the only one in which he indicates the date of

composition, namely the 15th year of the reign of Septimius Severus (A. D. 208).

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532

 He wrote

three works against this famous heretic; the first he set aside as imperfect, the second was stolen

from him and published with many blunders before it was finished. In the new work (in five books),

he elaborately defends the unity of God, the Creator of all, the integrity of the Scriptures, and the

harmony of the Old and New Testaments. He displays all his power of solid argument, subtle

sophistry, ridicule and sarcasm, and exhausts his vocabulary of vituperation. He is more severe

upon heretics than Jews or Gentiles. He begins with a graphic description of all the physical

abnormities of Pontus, the native province of Marcion, and the gloomy temper, wild passions, and

ferocious habits of its people, and then goes on to say:

"Nothing in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler

than any Scythian, more roving than the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more

audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud of the Euxine, colder than its winter, more brittle

than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay, more, the true

Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than

even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator than he

who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who

has gnawed the Gospel to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible

to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at

mid-day, to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God

whom he had found."

The tracts "On Baptism" "On the Soul," "On the Flesh of Christ," "On the Resurrection of

the Flesh" "Against Hermogenes," "Against Praxeas," are concerned with particular errors, and are

important to the doctrine of baptism, to Christian psychology, to eschatology, and christology.

3. His numerous Practical or Ascetic treatises throw much light on the moral life of the

early church, as contrasted with the immorality of the heathen world. Among these belong the

books "On Prayer" "On Penance" "On Patience,"—a virtue, which he extols with honest confession

of his own natural impatience and passionate temper, and which he urges upon himself as well as

others,—the consolation of the confessors in prison (Ad Martyres), and the admonition against

visiting theatres (De Spectaculis), which he classes with the pomp of the devil, and against all share,

direct or indirect, in the worship of idols (De Idololatria).

4. His strictly Montanistic or anti-catholic writings, in which the peculiarities of this sect

are not only incidentally touched, as in many of the works named above, but vindicated expressly

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English translation by Peter Holmes, in the "Ante-Nicene Libr., " vol. VII., 1868 (478 pages).

517

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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