Note L, Exomologesis, the whole act of doing penance PREFACE. Of the life of Tertullian little is known, except what is contained in the brief account of St. Jerome. "Tertullian a presbyter, the first Latin writer after Victor and Apollonius, was a native of the province of Africa and city of Carthage, the son of a proconsular centurion: he was a man of a sharp and vehement temper, flourished under Severus and Antoninus Caracalla, and wrote numerous works, which as they are generally known, I think it unnecessary to particularize. I saw at Concordia in Italy an old man named Paulus. He said that, when young, he had met at Rome with an aged amanuensis of the blessed Cyprian, who told him that Cyprian never passed a day without reading some portion of Tertullian's works, and used frequently to say, Give me my master, meaning Tertullian. After remaining a presbyter of the Church until he had attained the middle age of life, Tertullian was by the envy and contumelious treatment of the Roman clergy driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus, which he has mentioned in several of his works under the title of the New Prophecy; but he composed, expressly against the Church, the Treatises de Pudicitiâ, de Persecutione, de Jejuniis, de Monogamiâ, and six books de Ecstasi, to which he added a seventh against Apollonius. He is reported to have lived to a very advanced age, and to have composed many other works which are not extant." Catal. Scriptt. Eccles. b"acris et vehementis ingenii." Bp. Kaye's translation has been retained; b the words, however, appear to me indicative of intellectual as well as of moral qualities. PREFACE. In addition to these circumstances, it is known from his own writings that he was a convert from heathenism", and that he once despised the Gospel, which he afterwards embraced. As a Heathen, he had taken pleasure in the savage sports of the gladiators, and had fallen into the gross sins of Heathenism", but with these he contrasts his subsequent state, although with a deep consciousness of abiding sinfulness', and of his weakness of faith. Of special infirmities, he takes occasion of writing upon patience, to mention his own impatience. His conversion was probably A.D. 196'; his continuance in the Church can thus have been scarcely five years, since in A. D. 201*, it seems certain that he was a Montanist. He had then, at all events, reached middle age'. His Treatises addressed "to his wife," written while in the Church", imply the likelihood of continued life; the whole a h Apol. c. 18. p. 41. de Pœnit. init. p. 349. Two other passages quoted, de Fuga in Pers. c. 6. and adv. Marc. iii. 21. only imply Gentile origin. b Apol. I. c. c de Spect. c. 19. d de Res. Carnis c. 59. e l. c. f de Cult. Fem. ii. 1. de Pœnit. c. 4. and fin. gde Bapt. c. 10. p. 267. hde Pat. c. 1. p. 327. It seems clear, from the conclusion of the de Pallio, that it was written on his conversion to Christianity, the pallium being the dress of Christians. "Thus far speaketh the Pallium. But as for me, I now transfer my life to that sect and discipline, which is [not merely philosophical but] Divine also. Rejoice, Pallium, and be glad; a better philosophy hath accepted thee, from the time that thou becamest the Christian's dress." But the date of the de Pallio itself, in connection with Tertullian's other writings, then becomes fixed by the passage, in which he speaks of the peace consequent upon the harmony of the three Augusti, "How many cities hath the triple excellence of the existing rule either produced, or enlarged, or restored ? God favouring so many Augusti, making them as one, how many census have been formed! how many people purified! how many ranks ennobled how many barbarians driven out! Of a truth, the world, that most cultivated demesne of this Empire, all the aconite of hostility having been rooted out, with the cactus and brambles of treacherous intimacy, is adorned and agreeable above the orchards of Alcinous, or the rose-gardens of Midas." c. 2. The chief events alluded to, seem to have been the suppression of the revolt of Niger, the victories over the Arabians, Parthians, Adiabenians, the capture of Byzantium. The three Augusti, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla, and Albinus. The only other date would be two years later, when after the revolt and death of Albinus, Geta was made Cæsar; but they of whom T. speaks were three Augusti, Geta was not entitled Augustus until A. 208. This is subsequent to the date of some of T.'s Apologetic writings. (Pamelius and Scaliger agree in the above.) The date (as it seems) of the de Corona, (see notice, below, p. 158.) He was certainly a Montanist in A.D. 207. the date of the first book against Marcion. In the fifteenth year of Severus." (c. 15.) 1 S. Jerome above. m Tillemont (Note 3. sur Tertullien) on this ground infers that T. wrote these Treatises in the interval between his conversion and his ordination. In the absence of any marks of their precise date, the assumption cannot be disproved. tenor of the two books implies that he was living in the ordinary course of married life. Previous to his conversion, he seems to have been engaged in the practice of the law", his accurate acquaintance with which Eusebius has occasion distinctly to specify; on his conversion he abandoned it, and in the interval before his secession, was admitted to the Priesthood. In this short interval, besides the works belonging to it now extant, he "detected, and as it seemed uprooted, the heresy of Praxeas," which had spread to Carthage, and brought Praxeas himself to sign a formal, though, it subsequently appeared, a hypocritical recantation, which was preserved in the Church'. In the same period probably he wrote two treatises against Marcion, the first a sketch, the second a fuller work, lost through the treachery of an apostate Catholic'. A later author' mentions that he had "practised Rhetoric at Carthage for many years, with much distinction," and this is perhaps borne out by the very varied character of his learning". An early work of his is also mentioned by S. Jerome', written as The passage, quoted by Pamelius, (de Pallio, c. 5.) does not directly prove this; for it is spoken by the Pallium personified; it relates to other offices, judicial and military, ("non judico, non milito, ") and declares that they which wore it had abandoned public life altogether. (“I have gone aloof from the people. My only business is within myself.") Yet, doubtless T. had reference to himself also, and the great prominence given to the law in the description makes it probable that he was previously engaged in it. • H. E. ii. 2. "Tertullian, a man accurately acquainted with the Roman laws, and in other respects distinguished, and among those in great repute at Rome." This is said on occasion of the history of Tiberius' proposal to rank our Lord among the deities of Rome. P de Pallio 1. c. 9 S. Jerome above. The way in which in the de An. c. 9 he distinguishes himself from the people, implies plainly that he was a priest. In the de Monog. c. 12. and the de Exh. Cast. c. 7. in which he includes himself among the laity, he must be speaking communicative. radv. Prax. c. 1. Trithemius Abbas. de Script. Eccl. "Especially in the Apology and the de Corona. Yet in the de Idol. c. 4. p. 224. he speaks of the weakness of his memory. x adv. Jov. i. 7. "Here would be the place to descant on the straits of marriage, and to give full play to the language of Rhetoricians in their com mon-places. Certainly Tertullian also, when yet young, disported in this subject," and Ep. 22. ad Eustoch. §. 22. "Would you know from how many troubles the unmarried is free, by how many the wife beset, you may read 'Tertullian to a philosophic friend."" Baronius, A. 197. §. 14. supposes that Tertullian was already a Christian, since S. Jerome in this very Epistle and elsewhere dissuades from reading Heathen writings. But this seems almost too large an inference, knowing, as we do, nothing of the circumstances of his conversion. Tertullian speaks of his own adult, but heathen, sins. (see |