Introduction :
INTRODUCTION
I. TERTULLIAN'S LIFE AND WORKS
AFRICAN Christianity ! first comes into public notice towards the end of the second century, though there are reasons for thinking that it was then no new thing. By the middle of the third century the Churches were already numerous and flourishing, and as early as our first knowledge of them (through Tertullian) they had developed liturgical and other usages with characteristics of their own.
The Church of Carthage, whose bishop became the acknowledged leader and spokesman of the bishops of the three provinces, was pre-eminent in numbers and influence, in this reflecting the prestige of the senate of that city, who were principes semper Africae.
The African Christians appear for the most part to have belonged to the Latin-speaking section of the population, though possibly already, as certainly two centuries later, a number of them were of Punic race and speech.
But the native Berbers of the country districts seem to have remained almost untouched by Christianity—which is suggested as one of the reasons why the impact of Islam, following on the Donatist and Vandal disorders, so speedily obliterated almost all trace of Churches which had once been of such account in Christendom.?
It was in Africa, not in Italy, that the first Christian Latin literature was produced, and that at a time when (except for legal text books and a few trivial copies of verses) Latin was hardly being written.
But that is not to say that it was not spoken: it was still a living tongue, which in the late fourth century was once more to produce àn aftermath of non-theological, even selfconsciously pagan, literature: and if Tertullian was the first to 1 The designation Africa is applied in its ancient sense, denoting the provinces now called Tunisia, Tripolitania, Algeria, and Morocco, but excluding Egypt and Libya which in language and in general interest were more closely related to the Levant than to the West.
? "Tertullian, De pallio, 1.
* On this subject see Holme, The Extinction of the Christian Churches in North Africa (Hulsean Prize Essay 1895), ch. ix.
But there is some slight epigraphic evidence which may possibly suggest that Donatism was in one of its aspects a revolt of the native Christians against the Latin and Punic elements: see W. H. Frend, in the Journal of Roman Studies, vol. xxx
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
use in writing the theological terminology which is still in use in the Latin-speaking Churches and their vernacular-speaking offspring, the ease with which the words flow from his pen suggests that he had often heard them and employed them in speech before he set pen to paper—in other words, he may have been the inheritor, not the inventor, of them.
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus ! was born probably at Carthage about A.D. 160, his father being a centurion in the proconsular service.
He received the excellent literary and professional education which the municipalities then provided, becoming a ready writer in Greek as well as Latin.
For some years he practised as an advocate and legal consultant.
The juristic cast of his mind is shown in his writings, both by his employment of legal turns of phrase and in his presentation of his case: first and last, he is always a pleader. When he wishes, he can make a parade of erudite knowledge of the poets and historians whose works were the staple of the pre-professional education of that day—knowledge which at other times he will affect to despise.
Shortly before 197 he became a Christian— through what precise influences he fails to indicate—and immediately began to write in defence of the faith.
About 213 he joined the sect of the Montanists, separating himself from the Church, which he now proceeded to attack for its unspirituality, by which he meant its rejection of the Montanist revelations, and also what he regarded as the laxity of its moral code (e.g. its allowance of second marriages) and its disciplinary system.
"That he was a married man is certain: whether or not he was a presbyter, either of the Church of Carthage or of the Montanist sect, remains an open question: that at some period of his life he spent some time in Rome is probable, but not important.
St Jerome, a century and a half later, says that he lived to extreme old age, ad decrepitam aetatem, which would place his death perhaps as late as 240.
That he ever returned to the Church is not suggested; but it is significant that half a generation later Montanism seems almost to have disappeared from Africa (as it was bound to do, as soon as the too confident prophecies of Montanus were falsified by non-fulfilment), and that Cyprian, who had little patience with * This account of 'Tertullian's life and works, especially in the dates assigned to the several treatises, is largely indebted to that in Bardenhewer's Patrologie
(3rd German ed. 1910).
INTRODUCTION
disturbers of. Christian unity, admired and read his writings, apparently without a thought of their sectarian origin.!
Tertullian's works fall into three classes, apologetic, controversial, and disciplinary: in the last two groups there is also a cross division according as the works were written before or after his acceptance of Montanism.
'The treatise Against Praxeas 1. belongs to the second group, and to the Montanist period. . The following brief description of some of his other works is intended merely to assist the reader in estimating the significance of the quotations from them adduced in the commentary.
(1) Of the apologetic treatises, i.e. those addressed to nonChristians, the most comprehensive is the Apologeticus (A.D. 197), which presents in forensic form the standard and often-repeated
Christian answers to the charges of ritual murder, immorality, and cannibalism, as well as to the graver accusations of atheism and political disloyal earing on our present subject is a notable pata declaration (88 17-21)Jof the Christian doctrine of God, of revelation, of the Logos and the Incarnation, from which it appears that the theological doctrine in its essential features which Tertullian produced in opposition to Praxeas was already in hand (without any controversial intention) sixteen or more years earlier, immediately after his conversion.
'The two books Ad nationes (also 197) were a preliminary draft of the Apologeticus.
'The "solden book" (the description is Bardenhewer's) De testimonio animae naturaliter Christianae, developing an incidental remark * in the Apology, is a brilliant exposition of the thesis (already attempted by Justin, Theophilus, and Athenagoras) that the characteristic Christian and scriptural themes of the unity of God, of divine providence, of the immortality of the soul, and of judgement to come, are admitted to be true by the common consent of mankind, as is shown by the expressions used by the heathen themselves when they allow themselves to speak their natural thoughts.
The open letter To Scapula (proconsul of Africa, 211) is a protest against the ineffective cruelty of persecution.
The unfinished work Adversus Iudaeos is a report of a dis1 But, according to Augustine (Adv. haer. 86), a sect of Tertullianists, few in number and gradually declining in importance, continued until his own day, when their last remaining basilica was, with their consent, transferred to the Catholic Church. They were schismatics rather than heretics, for their peculiar tenet of the corporeal nature of the soul was not considered important enough to be regarded as heretical.
TERTULLIAN'S TREATISE AGAINST PRAXEAS
cussion covering some of the same ground as Justin's Dialogue with Trypho.
(2) The controversial works, the most important for our purpose, are with one exception attacks on specific heresies, combined with the defence of the traditional Christian faith on the points involved.
'The exception is the discourse De praescriptione haereticorum, in purpose, as apparently in date, a general introduction to the works of this group, though with a particular reference to the gnostic speculators.
In it Tertullian propounds the rule (which he insists on as axiomatic in his Montanist as in his pre-Montanist period) of principalitas veritatis et posteritas mendacitatis!| and makes a specious plea (to which there is an obvious rejoinder) that the heretics have no right to appeal to the Scriptures, since these are the property of the Church, from which they have seceded.
The five books Against Marcion (of which the first in its present revised form was published in 207, the others at intervals during several years later) may be taken as representing Tertullian's considered opinions on the faith, and on the interpretation of the Scriptures in accordance with the faith, before the influence of Montanism seriously took effect, and serve to show how little difference the new prophecy" made to the essentials of Christian belief.
A treatise Against Hermogenes, apparently of early date, combats the suggestion (which often appears in various disguises) that the material out of which the world was made existed independently of the Creator, and was somewhat intractable under his manipulation.
The work Against the Valentinians (in which first Tertullian represents himself as a Montanist) is largely based on data supplied by Irenaeus, and contains little of Tertullian's own:
Scorptace (i.e. antidote to serpent bites) is pure Tertullian on the same subject.
The homily On baptism is only by accident controversial: it contains much information bearing on the customs observed in the African Churches in the administration of that sacrament, along with some of Tertullian's personal views
—notably his objection (in which he stood almost alone) to the baptism of infants.
'The two treatises De carne Christi and De resurrectione carnis combat the docetic view, favoured by the gnostic sects, that the human body, being material, is in itself and of necessity an evil thing: from which it would follow, (a) that 1 So Adv. Prax. $ 2: id esse verum quodcunque primum, id esse adulterum quodcunque posterius.
INTRODUCTION
the Body of Christ could not have been a real one and that there was no true Incarnation, and (5) that the human body can have no part in the resurrection—a supposition which is liable to have disastrous consequences upon moral conduct.
The last work of this series is the present treatise Against .
Praxeas, which, though occasioned by the recrudescence in Africa of modalistic unitarianism, may be taken as representing the official doctrine of the African Churches on the holy Trinity and the Incarnation, as set forth by Tertullian ut instructior per paracletum: for the practical concordance of this late work with those written shortly after his conversion suggests that, while the argument and its presentation are Tertullian's, the doctrine and to a large extent the terminology are the common property of the Church.
(3) It is in the disciplinary works that 'lertullian's peculiar views, as developed in accordance with Montanist principles, are most in evidence.
'To the catholic period belong the tract On patience, and the homilies On prayer (including an exposition of the Lord's Prayer) and On penance (poenitentia, the ecclesiastical disciplinary system) as well as the oration On the public games and two books On the dress of women.
In the other treatises of this group, Tertullian inculcates, with much violent language, the intolerant ethical puritanism which was characteristic of .
African Montanism and which (in respect at least of the sin of apostasy, real or alleged) left indelible traces in African Christianity.
Though marked by a fierce animosity against the official Church, both African and Roman, yet in the expression of the faith (except for some difference in the presentment of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit) they hardly differ from the works of the earlier period.
Bearing on our present purpose is the statement of the regula fidei which introduces the argument of De virginibus velandis (perhaps 215): concerning the Father and the Son, Tertullian repeats in substance what he has frequently said elsewhere, but (his statement having « omitted all reference to the Holy Spirit) the rest of the treatise is a | plea that the Paraclete, as vicarius domini, is presently guiding the Church into that moral
Y truth which an earlier Christian age was not able to bear.
Two books stand outside all these groups.
De pallio (the philosopher's gown) is of no religious interest, being a halfserious, half-satiric, address to the populace of Carthage, not