Chapter 4
TERTULLIAN
Chapter 4 (1) Now, if you demand a precise scriptural precept for these and other practices of church discipline, you will find none. Tradition, you will be told, has created it, custom has strengthened it, and faith has encouraged its observance. And you will yourself understand (or someone who has ex perienced it will tell you) that reason generally lies behind such traditions, customs and faith. In the meantime, take it for granted that there is some reasonable basis for observing the custom.
(2) I will add still one example from the Old Testament, since it is fitting to draw lessons from there, too. It is so customary among the Jews that their women are veiled that we can recognize them by this sign. What law prescribed that? (Here, I'm not considering St. Paul.)1 If Rebecca lowered her veil when she recognized her betrothed in the distance,2 this one modest action of an individual could not constitute a general law. Or, as she did this because of the particular situation in which she found herself, let virgins alone be veiled, and this only when they are coming to be married, and not until they have recognized their future husbands.
(3) And if Susanna be adduced as an argument for wearing a veil, because it was removed at her trial,3 I can say here also: 'That veil was a matter of choice.' She came as the accused, ashamed of her disgrace and properly hiding her beauty, or because she feared to be pleasing any more. Surely she would not have walked veiled on the paths of her hus1 Cf. 1 Cor. 11.5.
2 Cf. Gen. 24.64,65.
3 Cf. Dan. 13.32.
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band's garden if she wished to please.4 But, let us assume that she always wore a veil: in this case, or in any other one, I demand to be shown a law prescribing dress.
(4) If I find nowhere such a law, it follows that it is tradition that has raised this fashion into a custom, which later was to find its justification in the command of the Apostle,5 from a reasonable interpretation. Therefore, from these few examples, it will be clear that, because of its being observed, also a non-written tradition can be defended, if it is confirmed by custom, which is itself a valid witness to an approved tradition from the mere fact that it has gone on for a long time.
(5) Moreover, also in the domain of civil law, custom is accepted in place of law when a law is wanting,6 and it makes no difference whether it is merely based on reason or on some written word, since reason is, in fact, the basis of law. Besides, if reason is the basis of law, then whatever is based on reason will automatically become law, whosoever its author may be.
Do you not believe that every one of the faithful is permitted to originate and establish a law, as long as it is pleasing to God, promotes discipline, and is helpful to salvation, since
4 Cf. Dan. 13.4,7,15-20,25,26,36,38.
5 Cf. 1 Cor. 11.4-15.
6 Tertullian, well versed in the field of jurisprudence, follows a prin ciple of the Roman jurists who considered custom (consuetudo) as one of the sources of civil law. Cf., for instance, Auctor ad Herennium
2.13.19: 'The constituent parts [of law] are the following: nature, statute, custom, previous judgments, equity, and agreement; Cicero,
De inventione 2.54.162: 'Customary law is either a principle that is derived only in a slight degree from nature and has been fed and strengthened by usage—religion, for example—or any of the laws which ... we see proceed from nature but which have been strength ened by custom, or any principle which lapse of time and public approval have made the habit or usage of the community'; Digesta
1.3.32: 'A custom kept for a long time is justly regarded as a law.'