Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TERTULLIAN, CYPRIAN AND OTHERS
TERTULLIAN
Tertullian of Carthage takes his place at the head of a distinguished series of Christian theologians who wrote in Latin. His writings belong to the period ad 196–212; around the year 206 he became a Montanist. It is in his writings that we first find the designation ‘New Testament’ for the second part of the Christian Bible.
When Melito of Sardis spoke of ‘the books of the old covenant’, the expression might be taken to imply the existence of books of the new covenant, but not necessarily so. The ‘old covenant’ certainly implies a ‘new covenant’, and vice versa (cf Heb. 8:13), but the existence of books of the old covenant does not demand the existence of books of the new covenant. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:14, speaks of ‘the reading of the old covenant’, meaning the reading of the law in the synagogue services, but while he speaks in the same context of the new covenant which supersedes the old, there can be at that stage no ‘reading of the new covenant’, except in so far as the law and the prophets can be read in the light of their fulfilment in the gospel. Paul indeed contrasts the written text of the old covenant with the unwritten form of the new covenant: ‘the letter kills; the Spirit gives life’ (2 Cor. 3:6).
But before long, as Harnack pointed out, in place of the divinely cancelled ‘handwriting which was against us with its legal demands’ (Col. 2:14), ‘there must be a new handwriting which is for us’. It was inevitable, as the eyewitnesses and their hearers passed away, that the terms of the new covenant should be set down in writing. Occasional as his letters might be, Paul himself took the lead in this activity even in the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
The Greek word diathēkē, ‘covenant’, can denote a settlement of various kinds. Occasionally (as in Gal. 3:15 and Heb. 9:16f.) it means a last will and testament, a document which does not come into effect until its signatory has died. When the word was translated into Latin, it had to be decided which Latin word best represented the meaning of the Greek. The Latin vocabulary is not deficient in legal terminology. Tertullian uses two Latin words to represent Gk. diathēkē—instrumentum, a ‘deed’ or other properly drafted legal document, and testamentum, a ‘testament’ or ‘will’. He uses these words to denote not only the old and new covenants, but also the two bodies of literature associated with them. He himself may have preferred the term instrumentum (he is commonly thought to have been a jurist by profession), but he implies that the term testamentum was more commonly in use among Latin-speaking Christians. Thus, when speaking of Marcion’s Antitheses, he says that it set up two separate Gods, ‘one belonging to one instrumentum (or, as it is more usual to say, testamentum) and one to the other’. It is mainly because of Tertullian’s use of testamentum in this sense that we speak in English of the Old Testament and the New Testament, although neither of these bodies of literature is in any real sense a will.
Since Tertullian recognized the New Testament as a collection of books, he may be expected to have had a fairly clear idea which books it contained. He did not use the word ‘canon’, but approved of the idea which ‘canon’ later came to express. When he charged Valentinus with misinterpreting the instrumentum (i.e. the New Testament) and Marcion with mutilating it, he knew exactly what he meant by the instrumentum. Although he nowhere formally enumerates its contents, it certainly comprised the four gospels and Acts, the thirteen epistles which bear Paul’s name, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation (which he ascribes to John the apostle), It also included the epistle of Jude, which he ascribes to the apostle of that name.
The reason for his very positive evaluation of Jude is interesting. In his treatise On Women’s Dress he approves the notion that female finery was first introduced on earth by the fallen angels (the ‘sons of God’) as a device for the seduction of the ‘daughters of men’ (Gen. 6:2–4). This notion was given expression in the first part of the pseudepigraphic book of Enoch (a composite work of the last century bc and first century ad). In Tertullian’s eyes, a book containing such wholesome doctrine should not have been left out of the arsenal of sacred (Old Testament) books. (Perhaps, he suggests, it was rejected because people did not believe that an antediluvian book could have survived the deluge, or because its clear proclamation of Christ was resented.) Tertullian found his good opinion of the book of Enoch confirmed by Jude’s treatment of it as a genuine prophecy of ‘Enoch, the seventh from Adam’ (Jude 14f.).
Of the remaining catholic epistles (James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John) Tertullian has nothing to say; we cannot tell whether he knew them or not. But of Hebrews he has something quite interesting to say. It had not come down to him as one of the New Testament books, and he himself had no authority to add it to the list; but in his judgment it was worthy to be ranked with the apostolic writings. He regarded it as the work of Barnabas, a man who ‘learned his doctrine from apostles and taught it with apostles’. He compared it, to its great advantage, with the Shepherd of Hermas, a work highly esteemed by many readers in the church of those days and treated by some as inspired scripture. But Tertullian had no time for the Shepherd. He was an ethical rigorist, especially in his later years after he had joined the Montanists, and he deplored the laxity of the Shepherd’s moral teaching.
Hermas tells, at the beginning of the Shepherd, how he committed, or thought himself to have committed, the sin of ‘adultery in the heart’ against which Jesus uttered a warning in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:28). His conscience was burdened about this: he wondered if there was any forgiveness for a sin committed after baptism. It was revealed to him that for post-baptismal sin there was indeed forgiveness, but for one such sin only—no more. Tertullian repudiated entirely this concession to human weakness and stigmatized the book as ‘the Shepherd of the adulterers’; he recommended rather the teaching of Hebrews 6:4–6, according to which it was impossible for those once enlightened to be ‘renewed again to repentance’ if they fell by the way. (It is most probable that the writer to the Hebrews had the sin of apostasy in mind, but Tertullian thought primarily of sexual sin.)
THE SCILLITAN MARTYRS
By Tertullian’s time a good part of the New Testament (and probably of the Old Testament too) circulated among the churches of North Africa in a Latin translation (one of the Old Latin versions, to use the term applied to all Latin biblical translations before Jerome’s Vulgate gained the ascendancy). On July 17, ad 180, a group of Christians from the North African town of Scillium were brought before the provincial governor and charged with being Christians. The governor reasoned with them and tried to make them see and acknowledge the error of their ways, but they proved obstinate and were accordingly led off to execution. In the course of the enquiry a box, the property of the church, was brought into court. On being asked what the box contained, the defendants replied, ‘Books, and the writings of Paul, a just man.’ From this we gather that among the portions of scripture and other literature in the library of a small provincial church was a collection of Paul’s letters, presumably in a Latin version. (The Roman province of Africa was the first area in which a Latin version of the New Testament was required; the church in Rome itself was Greek-speaking until the end of the second century, and indeed later.)
CYPRIAN
Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus was born to pagan parents early in the third century. He was educated in rhetoric at Carthage, and was converted to Christianity about 246. Such were his qualities that, two years later, he was elected bishop of Carthage, and occupied the see with distinction until his martyrdom in 258. He was a fluent writer, and shows a ready acquaintance with the Latin Bible and with the writings of Tertullian, to whom he refers as ‘the teacher’ (magister).
It is plain that by Cyprian’s day there existed a fairly complete Bible in the Old Latin version for him to memorize and cite as occasion required. His New Testament comprised four gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters to seven churches and to Timothy and Titus, 1 Peter, 1 John and the Apocalypse. These writings, like the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament, were the product of divine inspiration. He nowhere cites Philemon (probably because he had no occasion to refer to such a short book) nor the five disputed catholic epistles (James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude). Neither does he cite Hebrews, but he echoes its opening words at the beginning of his treatise On the Lord’s Prayer: ‘God willed many things to be said and heard through his servants the prophets, but how much greater are those spoken by the Son!’ Like other western Christians of his age, he probably knew Hebrews but did not regard it as scripture. As for the Apocalypse, he manifests a marked predilection for it, quoting it frequently as a source-book for Christology and for the blessings of martyrdom; he has no doubt that it is ‘divine scripture’.
AGAINST DICE-PLAYERS
Among the works of Cyprian there has been transmitted a Latin homily Against Dice-Players. It is not his; from the note of authority which is evident in it the author may have been, like Cyprian, a bishop in North Africa, but perhaps a generation or so later. He expresses himself eloquently and vigorously in his attack on gambling, which he thinks excites the wildest passions; gambling is sheer idolatry, and the gambler, even if he has been baptized, cannot be acknowledged as a Christian. For our purpose the interest of the little work lies in its free quotation of scripture, especially from the New Testament (the quotations are introduced by such words as ‘the Lord says’, ‘the apostle says’, ‘scripture says’). Even the Shepherd of Hermas is cited as ‘divine scripture’, and an allusion to one or two passages from the Didachē (cited not as scripture but as the Teachings of the Apostles) is introduced among apostolic quotations. But a preacher may allow himself greater liberty in such matters than the author of a theological treatise: even today, a British preacher may quote Shakespeare or Burns as well as the Bible, but if he is careful he will not let his hearers go away with the idea that the non-biblical quotations carry canonical authority.
See T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford, 1971).
See p. 71.
The ‘letter’ is the Mosaic law, which sentences the law-breaker to death (Num. 15:30f.; Deut. 17:1–6; 27:26); the ‘Spirit’ in the gospel promises forgiveness and life to the sinner.
The ‘handwriting’ (rsv ‘bond’) of Col. 2:14 may be the law-breaker’s signed acknowledgment of indebtedness, cancelled by the redemptive work of Christ on the cross.
A. Harnack, The Origin of the New Testament, E.T. (London, 1925), p. 13.
He also uses, with regard to the Old or New Testament collection, armarium (‘bookcase’) and paratura (‘equipment’).
T. D. Barnes casts doubt on this (Tertullian, pp. 22–29).
Against Marcion 4.1. In Against Praxeas 15 he uses both terms in one phrase: ‘the whole instrumentum of both testamenta’.
See p. 145.
E.g. in Against Marcion 3.14: ‘the apostle John in the Apocalypse describes a two-edged sword proceeding from the mouth of God.’
On Women’s Dress, 1.3. See p. 85 above.
On Women’s Dress, 1.2.
What is commonly called 1 Enoch (extant in its entirely only in Ethiopic) comprises five main composition. Perhaps only the first of these (1 Enoch 1–36) was known to Tertullian (most of it survives in Greek; the original language was evidently Aramaic.) But see p. 86.
Its clear proclamation of Christ is probably its announcement of the coming of the Lord with his holy myriads (1 Enoch 1:9), as quoted and interpreted in Jude 14f. See p. 51 above.
On the other hand, Jerome says that Jude was widely rejected because of its quoting from 1 Enoch (On Illustrious Men, 4).
On Modesty, 20.
See p. 166.
Hermas, Shepherd, Vision 1.1.
Hermas, Shepherd, Vision 2.2.
As rsv says explicitly, ‘if they then commit apostasy’ (Heb. 6:6).
‘Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs’, appended to The Passion of St. Perpetua, ed. J. A. Robinson, TS 1.2 (Cambridge, 1891).
See M. A. Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible: A Study in Third-Century Exegesis, BGBH 9 (Tübingen, 1971).
In Epistle 73.10 he compares the four gospels to the four rivers of Paradise (Gen. 2:10).
Testimonies, 1.20, where he links Paul’s letters to seven churches (overlooking the fact that Galatians was sent to several churches) with John’s letters to seven churches (cf the Muratorian list, p. 164); To Fortunatus, 11, where Paul’s letters and John’s find their place in a more elaborate array of sevens.
In quoting Tit. 3:10, where a heretic is to be admonished ‘once or twice’, Cyprian (Epistle 59.20; Testimonies 3.78) omits ‘or twice’ (as also do Ambrosiaster and Augustine).
E.g. On the Lapsed, 7: the prophets of old and the apostles subsequently ‘preached, being full of the Holy Spirit.’
On the Lord’s Prayer, 1 (cf Heb. 1:1f.).
Epistle 63.12.
Against Dice-Players, 2 (where Similitude 9.31.5 is quoted).
Against Dice-Players, 4 (probably a memory quotation from Didachē 4.14; 14.1–3).