CHAPTER VIL
Tertuthan's Apology for the Christians. against law, by the best of princes, and struck at root and branch only by our brethren in iniquity.
CHAPTER VIL
THAT THE ROMANS ARE MIGHTY PRAISERS OF THE ANTIQUITY OF
THEIR
RELIGION,
AND YET ADMIT OF
NOVELTIES
INTO IT
EVERY DAY.
But now I would argue the case a little with these scrupulous gentlemen who are such mighty sticklers for the observation of old ~ laws; I would know whether they themselves have religiously adhered to their forefathers in everything, whether they quitted no law, nor have gone one step out of the ancient way.
Nay, whether they have not made ineffectual some of the most necessary and proper rules of government; if not, what is become of those excellent laws for the bridling luxury and ambition?
Those laws 3 which allowed not above a noble! for an entertainment, and but. one hen, and that not a crammed one, for a supper.
Those laws which excluded a senator the house, as a man of ambitious designs, for having but ten pound weight of silver plate in his family ; which levelled the rising theatres? to the ground immediately, as seminaries only of lewdness and immorality; and which under severe penalties forbade the commons to usurp the badges and distinctions of the nobility.
But now I see the enormous entertainments, with 1 Centum era non amplius, This was the Lex Licinia vel Fannia called
_Centussis, according to that of Lucilius, Fann Centussique misellos, Vid. A.
_ Gell. lib. ii, cap. 24.
To what Zephirus in his paraphrase, and Pamelius in his notes, have said concerning the sumptuary laws, and against canvassing for places,
— I add, that C. Orchius the third year before Cato was censor, preferred a law to moderate the number of guests only.
Twenty-two years after, C. Fannius being consul, enacted another for moderating the expenses of ordinary feasts, allowing not more denis assiéus.
Licinius Crassus revived the Fannian law.
The Lex Cornelia, and the Lex Antia, were to the same purposes of frugality.
Whosoever desires to see more de Legibus Sumptuariis et de Ambitu, may read Stuc. conviv. lib, i. cap. 3; A. Gell. lib. ii. cap. 24; Macrob. Saturz. lib. iii, cap.
17; Alex. ab Alexan, Genial, Di. lib. iii. cap. 2, p. 685, tom. i., and likewise cap.
17, P. 755.
coe Bee " Theatra stuprandis moribus orientia statim destruebant, P. Cornius Nasica after the second Punic war demolished the theatre as the school of wickedness and effeminacy.
Vid. Alexand. ab Alex. tom, i. lib. iv. capl 25, Poilo3:2 soe
t * = AS Tertullian's A [pology for the Christians.
y ¥ a ee bie ee ae _ new names from their extravagance ; a centenarian supper, so called from the hundred sestertias expended on it, that is about seven hundred and eighty-one pounds five shillings for a meal; and I see mines of silver melted into dishes, not for the table of senators
| only, for that would be tolerable, but for such fellows as are but just made free, and hardly out of the lash of slavery.
I see also theatres in abundance,! and all-indulgingly covered over.
The hardy Lacedemonians, I suppose, were the first authors of this soft _ invention, for fear Venus should take cold in the winter without a _ covering; and that odious heavy cloak of frieze, which in time
See Seat) Oe Pe ee _ of war was to screen the Spartans from the injuries of weather, was chiefly designed no doubt to defend the Romans at the _, enjoyment of their sports.
Moreover, I see now no difference in habit between a lady of quality and a common strumpet;? all those wise institutions about women are fallen to the ground, _ wherein your aricestors made such provisions for modesty and temperance ; when a woman was to wear no more gold about her than the wedding-ring upon her finger ;? when women were so _ Sttictly prohibited to the use of wine, that a matron was starved to _ 1 Video Theatra nec singula satis esse.
In the 'time of Augustus there were 'but three theatres, and one amphitheatre; but as they grew in vices, they a increased in theatres; and then we read of the theatre of Marcellus, and one of Scaurus so tapacious that Pliny affirms it large enough to hold 80,000 men,
Plin. lib. xxxvi, cap. 15.
Concerning the number of theatres, vid. Just. Lips Amphitheatrum, et Tertull. de Spectac. et Vitruv. lib. v. cap. 3.
2 Inter Matronas atque Prostibulas nullum de habitu discrimen.
The Stola, Flammeum, Vitta, and Reticulum were the distinctions of matrons of repute,
"from prostitutes who had the Toga, and were not allowed the Flammeum and Vitta.
More of this you may see in Alex. ab Alexand. tom. ii. lib. v. p. 216.
3 Cum aurum nulla norat preter unico digito quem sponsus oppignorasset _ pronubo annulo.
The ring in matrimony has been a very general and ancient ceremony: Digito pignus fortasse dedisti, Juven. sat. 6.
This nuptial ring was.
__put upon the finger next the least, on the left hand, out of an imagination that _ there was a particular vein there which went directly to the bottom of the heart.
Aul. Gell. lib. x. cap. 10, Macrob. lib. vii. cap. 13.
"And this, I suppose, may be the Unicus Digitus in Tertullian.
The primitive Christians made no scruple of complying with this ancient ceremony of the ring in matrimony,
_ for, says Tertullian, de /dol. de nullius Idoli honore descendit, it did not arise from any honour given to an idol.
_And Clemens Alexandrinus sets forth, not only the rite, but the reason of it, Clem. Alex. Ped. lib. iii. cap. 2.
St. Ambrose brings in _ St. Agnes, mentioning the wedding-ring, Amb. lib. iv. ep. 34.
In the year 611, Isidore Hispalensis, Zzymo/. lib. xx. and de devin. Off. lib. ii., proves it to be in use, and all the offices of the Western Churches since that time prove the + same.
As to the Greek Churches, we find by the Eucologicon, that they used two rings, one of gold, which was given to the man, another of silver, which was given to the woman.
Vzd. ord. Sfonsalior.
And therefore it was not without good authority that our wise reformers did retain this innocent, ancient ceremony, approved of even by Bucer himself.
Buceri Censur. p. 48.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians, death by her friends for breaking the seals of a cellar where the wine was kept ;! and Mecenius in the reign of Romulus was acquitted for killing his wife for the same attempt; and for the same reason parents were by law obliged to kiss their children, in order to discover them by their breath.
Where is now the happiness of a conjugal state, maintained of old by rugged virtue, in so long and perfect harmony, that from the foundation of the city for almost six hundred years together,? we read not of a divorce in any family ?
But now, instead of wedding-rings only, women are so begolded 'over, that every limb labours under. the burthen ; and:so addicted to wine, that you shall not receive a salute without a smack of the bottle; and divorces are now become the object of your desires, and looked upon as the constant fruit of matrimony.
But this is not all, for what your fathers have bravely decreed, even about the worship of the gods, you with all your obedience have rescinded,
The consuls with the authority of the senate banished father Bacchus* 1 Cum mulieres usque adeo vino abstinerentur, ut matronam ob resignatos celle vinarie loculos sui inedia necarint.
This story, and almost the very words, are taken out of Pliny's Watwral History, lib. iv. cap. 13, where he says likewise that Egnatius Metellus (here called Mecenius) killed his wife with a club for drinking wine.
The drinking of wine was interdicted women under the severest penalty.
Vid. Dionys. Halicarn. lib. ii., Polyb. lib. vi., Cicer. 26. de nat. Deor.
At was as capital a crime for a woman to be taken in wine as in adultery.
It was by the law of Romulus made one of the conditions for a divorce.
Cneus Domitius deprived a woman of her dowry for drinking more liberally than her healt required.
The law mentioned here by Tertullian, which obliged relations to salute women to find whether they did not smell of wine, was overruled by an edict of Tiberius Cesar.
Vd. Sueton. vit. Tiber.
See more to this purpose in Alexand, ab Alex. tom. i. lib, iii. cap. 2, pp. 672 and 673,
2 Per annos ferme sexcentos ab urbe conditd, nulla repudium domus scripstt.
P.. Carvillius Ruga, or Spurius Carbilius, as he is called by Valer. Maximus, lib. ii, cap. I, was the first who divorced his wife upon pretence of barrenness, though divorces afterwards upon the most trifling occasions came to be a common practice.
LL. Antonius was noted by the censors, and turned out of the senate for putting away his wife upon no reason but his humour.
Vid. Val. Max. lib. ii, cap. 4. _ Tiberius Czesar degraded_a censor upon the like occasion, Sueton. in vit. Tih.
Q. Antistius and C. Sulpitius divorced their wives merely upon a pet.
Val. Max, lib, vi. cap. 3.
And Meecenas is severely taxed by Seneca upon the like occasion, Sen. /2b. de Divin. Provid. ~So that it is not without reason that Tertullian affirms divorces in his time to be the constant fruit of matrimony, ©
By the laws of Romulus a man could not divorce his-wife, but either for adultery, for attempting to poison him, for false keys, or for drinking of wine.
The form of divorces between parties only contracted was in these words—Conditzone tud non wtar.
'This was properly Repudium ; that between a married couple was called Divortzum, and ran in this form—Aes tuas tibi habeto.
3 Liberum Patrem cum mysteriis suis..
The Bacchanalia or Nyctileia grew to that excessive lewdness, that they were forbid in all parts of Italy under a severe penalty.
Vid. Alex. ad Alex, tom, i. lib. vi. cap. 7, p. 650.
i .
Tertultian's Apology for the Christians.
—_—a ae . and his mysteries, not out of Rome only, but all Italy, and Serapis,! and Isis, and Harpocrates, with his dog's head of a god Cynocephalus, were excluded the capitol, the palace of your deities, during the taal consulship of Piso and Gabinius, who were not Christians, and all their altars levelled to the ground, in order to suppress this rabble of deities, and the abominable filthinesses attending on them; but these gods you have recalled from banishment, and restored them to their original worship.
Where now is your old religion, and the great veneration you pretend to have for your ancestors?
You have degenerated from them in your habit, in your modes of living, in your furniture," and in the riches and revenues you allow to the different ranks of men, and in the yery delicacy of your language.
You are eternal praisers of antiquity, and yet every day in a new , fashion ; which is a plain proof that it is your peculiar talent to be in the wrong, to forsake your ancestors where you should follow, and to follow where you should forsake them.- And although you may take yourselves for zealous defenders of the traditions of your fathers, especially in those things for the neglect of which you principally accuse the Christians, namely, the worship of the gods, in which point your ancestors have been the most unhappily mistaken; although you have rebuilt the altars of Serapis, and made him now a Roman god; although Bacchus now has his frantic sacrifices offered him in Italy ;—notwithstanding all this, I say, i will show in its proper place that you have not in truth this warm affection for the gods of your forefathers, but that you have despised, slighted, and destroyed them, in spite of all your loud pretences to the obligations of antiquity.
In the meantime, I shall return an answer to those infamous objections against our actions in secret, in order to make way for the vindication of those things we do in the face of the world.
- \ 1 Serapidem et Isidem, et Harpocratem cum suo Cynocephalo, etc.
Serapis and Isis were celebrated idols of Egypt.
Harpocrates is said to be born of Isis and Osiris, and coming unluckily before his time, was born mute, and for that reason made the god of silence, according to that of Ovid—Quingue premit wocem, digitog.; silentia suadet.
Cynocephalus was an Egyptian god with a _dog's head, under which shape Mercury is said to have been worshipped, according to that of Virgil, ead.
8, Omnigenumg.; Detlm monstra, et Latrator Anubis.
See more of this and their expulsion out of Italy in Alex. ad Alex. tom. i,-lib. ii. cap. 19, p. 431.
; 2 Censu.
1 conclude this word should be written with a c, and I have translated it accordingly ; but if it is to be written with an 5, as it is both in Rigaltius and Pamelius, I would translate it ofizion ; but Rigaltius in his
Animadversions has corrected his text, and writes Censu.
Vid. Rigal. Aninadver, juxta fin.