Form of doctrine held unobjectionable by S. Augustine. 129 sifting of the Day of Judgment, the mass of the saints will appear [separated from the chaff] resplendent in dignity, very mighty in good deeds, and shewing forth the mercy of their Redeemer. And this shall be the seventh day. When that sixth day" [of the reformation of men after the image of our Creator in Christ] "shall have passed away, then shall come the rest after that sifting, and the saints and righteous of God shall have their sabbath. But after the sabbath, we shall pass into that life and that rest of which it is written, "That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." (ib.) S. Augustine, even when he had changed his view, speaks very tenderly of the spiritual Millennium. "They who on account of the first words in this book [Rev. xx. 1 sqq.] have imagined that there will be a first corporeal resurrection, have among other things been chiefly moved by the number of 1000 years,' as though there ought thus to be fulfilled in the saints as it were a sabbath of such duration, a holy rest namely after the labours of 6000 years since man's creation, and ejection from the bliss of paradise, entailed by that great sin, into the sorrows of this mortal life: so that, since it is written, 'One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,' the 6000 years [of the duration of the world] being accomplished, as it were six days, there should follow as it were the seventh day of the sabbath in the last 1000 years, the saints namely rising again to celebrate their sabbath. Which opinion would be at all events unobjectionable, if it were believed that the saints should in that sabbath have spiritual joys through the presence of the Lord. For we too so thought once. But since they say that they who shall then rise again, shall be wholly given up to most immoderate carnal feasts [epulis vacaturos], in which there shall be so much eating and drinking, as not only to preserve no moderation, but even to pass the bounds of Heathenism [incredulitatis] itself, these things cannot be believed except by carnal men. But they who are spiritual call those who believe these things by a Greek term, Chiliasts, whom we, rendering literally, may term Millarians." (de Civ. D. xx. 7.) In like way Epiphanius says (Hær. 77. §. 26.) that he had heard it confidently affirmed of Apollinarius, (though he did not believe it,) that he said that in the first resurrection, we shall pass a space of 1000 years, in the same manner of life as now, keeping the law and other things, making use of the same things as now, partaking of marriage, circumcision, and the rest." If the doctrine of the Millennium had thus degenerated, it is not surprising that it sunk, even independently of the influence of three such names as S. Dionysius, S. Augustine, and S. Jerome; nor need these, on the other hand, be necessarily supposed to object to the doctrine as set forth by S. Irenæus, to which S. Augustine at least sees no objection, even while he prefers another interpretation. In later times, the doctrine of purgatory took the place of this as well as of that of the intermediate state; the characteristic of both these doctrines being the inculcation of the gradual preparation of the soul (in S. Irenæus' words) to "receive God;" for this the Church of Rome has substituted the fierce purifying K ON APOL. 130 Difficulties of the question-modesty due either way. NOTES fire of purgatory, so that these have no place in her system; and the doctrine of the Millennium also is, by her writers, generally treated as contrary to sound faith. The teaching of the early fathers has however been well cleared by a Romanist writer, Le P. Lambert, Exposition des prédictions et des promisses faites à l'Eglise, &c. (Paris, 1806.) c. 16. The subject has many difficulties. If the Millennium be placed (as by S. Irenæus) before the Day of Judgment, (and one sees not how the Apocalypse (c. 20.) admits of its being placed otherwise,) and include (as in him) all those who shall then be accepted, it seems to forestall the sentence of that Day; but it may be safe perhaps to separate what S Irenæus declares to be traditionary, from what he gives as his own exposition of Holy Scripture, to anticipate that there may be a Millennium, without defining whom it shall include. The doctrine of the Millennium depends upon the book of the Revelations, and so is independent of the question whether the latter parts of Isaiah and Ezekiel are then to find a more complete fulfilment. It cannot be doubted that they have received a large fulfilment in the Church and its gifts, its privileges, holiness and peace; a larger fulfilment of the same kind, though fuller in degree, may yet be in store for her. The more modest way seems to be, not peremptorily to decide either way; either way we may be prescribing to the Wisdom of the AllWise; it may be that the prophecies, after their first partial temporal fulfilment, are to have no other than their spiritual fulfilment, which is their highest meaning; and we should not require more, as if God must be a debtor to our interpretations: on the other hand, one should not decide peremptorily that it may not please Him to give them a second literal fulfilment; it were but analogous to an expectation, which is found in the Fathers, that Elias may yet come personally before the second advent of our Lord, although we know, on Divine authority, that the prophecy of his coming was fulfilled (i. e. had one complete fulfilment, so as to require no other) before His first Advent. i Hence (as Feu-ardent admits) the five last chapters of S. Irenæus were omitted in most MSS. and in those from which his work was first published. Feu-ardent restored thein. It is remarkable, that the objections to the doctrine, in Origen, (see p. 126.) and S. Jerome, (p. 127.) are almost entirely founded on the literal application of the prophecies of Isaiah, Revelations. not of the Insufficiency of learned arguments against the Heathen. 131 OF THE WITNESS OF THE SOUL. [The De Testimonio Animæ is the expansion of an argument, touched upon in the Apology, c. 17. to which it contains an allusion, c. 5. It was written therefore somewhat, probably not much, later; as being a supplement to it. It is perhaps the most original and acute of Tertullian's works.] I. IT is a work, which needeth to be laboured at with much nicety of research, and far more of memory, if one I would call the testimonies to Christian Truth out of all the most received writings of philosophers, or poets, or any teachers whatever of the learning and wisdom of this world, so that its rivals and persecutors may, by their own peculiar documents, be proved guilty both of error in themselves, and of injustice towards us. Some indeed, in whom, as respecteth ancient writings, both the diligence of curious research and the retentiveness of their memory hath held out to the last, have composed books to the heathen, which are in our hands, declaring and attesting, to their disgrace, both the origin, and handing-down, and proofs, of our opinions, whereby it may be seen that we have taken up nothing new or strange, in which even the common and popular books do not give us the countenance of their support, wheresoever we have cast out what is wrong, or admitted what is right. But that hardness, arising in unbelief, which belongeth to man, hath inclined them not to trust even their own teachers, (on other points most approved and choice authorities,) if they any where fall upon arguments tending "Quadratus, Aristides, Justin, Athenagoras, Melito, Theophilus, Antioch., Apollinarius, Tatian, Irenæus, Clem. AI., Miltiades." Pam. b Insuggillationem. Rig. (apparently from conjecture) has in singula rationem," "attesting on each separate point, the nature, &c." TEST. 132 Testimony of soul, independent of its origin and culture. DE to the vindication of the Christian Faith. Then are the AN. poets foolish, when they make the gods the subjects of II.1. human sufferings and fables: then are the philosophers hard 28. с and to be believed, when they knock at the door of truth. So long only shall a man be esteemed wise and prudent, who Acts 26, teacheth that which is almost Christian, whereas, if he affect prudence or wisdom, either in rejecting heathen ceremonies or in convicting the world, he is branded as a Christian. Now therefore, we will have nothing to do with books, and with doctrine, whose success is on the wrong side, which is more believed in falsehood than in truth. No matter whether any have taught One God and One only. Yea let them be thought to have declared nothing which a Christian can allow of, lest he be able to upbraid them with it. For even that which is declared, all do not know, they who do know it, are not assured that it is true. So far are men from assenting to our writings, to which no one cometh, unless he be already a Christian! I call a new witness yea one more known than all writings, more a-stir than all doctrine, more public than all publications, greater than the whole of man, in other words that which is the whole of man. Soul, stand thou forth in the midst, whether thou art a thing divine and eternal according to most philosophers, and therefore the less able to speak falsely, or, as seemeth to Epicurus only, in no wise divine, because mortal, and therefore the less to be expected to speak falsely; whether thou art received from Heaven, or conceived of the earth, or fitly framed together of parts or of atoms'; whether thou hadst thy beginning with the body, or art sent into the body after that it is formed; from whatever source, and in whatever manner, thou makest man a reasonable creature more capable than any of understanding and of knowledge. But I summon thee not such as when, formed in the Schools, exercised in libraries, nourished" in the academies and porches of Athens, thou utterest thy crude wisdom. I c in contrast with the Apology. The Stoics, ib. c. 25. h pasta, cod. Ag. Rig. supposes that T. refers to the notion, which (de Anim. c. 6.) he attributes to the Stoics, that "the arts are corporeal;" the context implies irony. Soul attests Unity, and goodness of God; evil of man. 133 address thee as simple, and rude, and unpolished, and unlearned, such as they have thee who have nothing else but thee, the very and entire thing that thou art in the road, in the highway, in the shop of the artizan. I have need of thy inexperience; since in thy experience, however small, no one putteth faith. I demand of thee those truths which thou carriest with thyself into man, which thou hast learnt to know either from thyself, or from the author, whosoever he be, of thy being. Thou art not, as I know, a Christian soul, for thou art wont to be made Christian not to be born so'. Yet now the Christians demand a testimony from thee, who art a stranger, against thine own friends, that they may blush even before thee, for hating and scoffing at us on account of those very things, which now charge thee as a party to them. II. We give offence, in preaching God as the One God, under the one Name of God, from Whom are all things, and 1 Cor. under Whom is the whole body of things. Bear witness to 8, 6. this, if thou knowest it to be so, since we hear thee also saying openly and with full liberty, not allowed to us, at home and abroad, "Which God grant'," and, "If God will;" by which word thou both declarest that there is some God, and confessest that all power is His, to Whose will thou lookest; and at the same time thou deniest that the rest are gods, in that thou callest them by their proper names, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Minerva. Thou affirmest that He Alone is God, Whom Alone thou namest God, so that even when thou dost sometimes call these gods, thou seemest to use the name as a foreign and, as it were, a borrowed one. Neither art thou in ignorance concerning the nature of God, which we preach. "God is good," "God doeth good," is thine own word. Clearly thou impliest besides," But man is evil," uttering, that is, indirectly and covertly in the contrary proposition, the reproach, that man is therefore evil, because he hath departed from the good God. Again, whereas with us every blessing pronounced in the name of the God of goodness and kindness is a thing of the highest sacredness in our discipline and conversation, thou sayest as 1 See on Apol. c. 18. p. 41. n. d. j See on Apol. c. 17. p. 40. n. z, |