But enough has been said for the present. So humbly committing this lowly effort to promote His honour to the blessing of the great Head of the Church, and to the kind consideration of every servant of His who may cast his eye on these pages, let them close with a beautiful Collect which has been placed in our hands for the Baptism of Christ, should that great event ever be rescued from its present obscurity in our calendar, agreeably to the spirit of the prayer we all repeat so often:

By the mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation (Collect for the Annunciation), by Thy Holy Nativity and Circumcision (Christmas and New Year's Days), by Thy Baptism,

Good Lord, deliver us.

COLLECT FOR THE FESTIVAL OF THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD.

Eternal King, Who by the Baptism of Thy well-beloved Son in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin: Mercifully grant that we, being baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, may be sanctified by Thy grace and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, through the same Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

PROMINENT FIGURES IN CHURCH HISTORY.

No. 5.

TERTULLIAN.

It has often been pointed out that the cradle of Latin theology is not Rome, but Africa. The first two great Christian writers who used the Latin language belonged to Carthage, the third was born and lived at no great distance from this ancient rival of Rome. Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine-these are the three men who moulded the religious mind and shaped the theological system of the Western Church. Augustine, the greatest of the three, was under great obligations to Cyprian. It is well known that Cyprian acknowledged Tertullian as his master. "Give me the master (Da magistrum)," he would say, when questions of controversy arose.

Of Tertullian we must say, as of many others belonging to this period, that we cannot tell with certainty the year of his birth or his death. It seems to be agreed that he was born about 160 (seventeen years, let us remember, before Irenæus became Bishop of Lyons); but the year of his death has been set down diversely as 220, 240, and 245. As St. Jerome tells us that he is said to have lived to a decrepit age, it is more likely that one of the later dates is nearest to the truth.

Of the greatness of Tertullian there can be no question. His fame rests upon the solid basis of writings which awaken respect and admiration to this day. He was a man of considerable education, knew and wrote Greek well, and was thoroughly acquainted with its literature and versed in its sciences. He had a mind of great power, depth, and penetration, kindled by a brilliant imagination. He was intended for the law, and studied this subject with the greatest assiduity and devotion-a fact which has left its impress upon all his writings. Eusebius says (unless he is speaking of another of the same name) that he had a most accurate knowledge of the laws of the Romans.

With all his intellectual and logical power, however, Tertullian had characteristics which, although they may have added to the effectiveness of his rhetoric, somewhat injured the calmness of his judgment and the cogency of his logic. He was of an

ardent and passionate temperament, he describes himself as miserably and excessively impatient. This disposition showed itself throughout his whole life, and helps to explain his errors as well as his excellences.

The parents of Tertullian were heathens. Unlike Augustine, he had no Christian mother, but like him he was not converted to Christianity until between his thirtieth and fortieth year. In earlier days he was violently opposed to its truths. "I, too," he says, in his Apology, "once laughed at these things: I was one of you." While he remained a heathen, he gave himself without restraint to the sensual pleasures which were indulged in by most of his neighbours at Carthage.

It is only from his writings that we can judge of the causes which induced him to embrace the Gospel of Christ. We may indeed well believe that a lofty spirit like that of Tertullian could not find perfect and lasting satisfaction in the kind of life which he led as a heathen. If we may judge from what we know of his teaching and his manner of life as a Christian, we may believe that the severe and elevated character of the Christian morality had no slight attraction for him. But we may judge from his writings that he was most powerfully impressed by the moral power exhibited by the Christians of his day, and the extraordinary constancy of the Confessors and Martyrs (it was he who first used the celebrated expression, "the blood of Christians is seed ");' and led to renounce his old unbelief and consecrate himself to the service of Christ.

That Tertullian was a married man we have an abiding proof in the treatise addressed to his wife (ad uxorem). After his conversion he was ordained priest; but whether at Rome or at Carthage we cannot tell. He informs us himself that he resided for a time at Rome, and Eusebius speaks of his fame there; but whether he was famous as a lawyer or a priest we are not informed.

It is well known that there were two periods in the life of Tertullian, that which is known as his Catholic period, before he fell under the errors of Montanism, and that which belongs to the latter part of his life. It is believed that his conversion took place about 193, and that he became a Montanist about 203, while his chief literary activity extended from 193 to 217. The principal writings of Tertullian were apologetic, and were directed against heathenism, heresy in general, and more

1 "Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum."-Apologet, c. 50.

especially against Gnosticism. Like his predecessor in this work, Irenæus, he opposed the historical faith of the Catholic Church to the novelties of heresy, and contrasted the life of Christians with the grossness of the heathens.

Several explanations have been given of the lapse of Tertullian into the enthusiastic and fanatical dreams and usages of Montanism. St. Jerome says he was disgusted with the envy of the Roman clergy which he had drawn upon himself by his superiority. Others find that the rigorism of Montanism and its pretended spiritual illumination had attractions for a man of the most ascetic life, and of an ardent and excitable temperament. It is possible that there may have been a combination of causes, external and internal; but it is clear that Tertullian's spirit was greatly in harmony with Montanist tendencies.

The history of this sect is obscure. It would appear that they regarded Montanus as the Paraclete promised by our Lord. "He was distinguished," says Hagenbach, "rather as an enthusiastic and eccentric character than for any particular doctrinal heresy ; and thus he is the forerunner of all the fanaticism which pervades the history of the Church." And Marheineke observes with truth, "If any doctrine was dangerou to Christianity, it was that of Montanus. Though noted in other respects only for a strict external morality, and agreeing with the Catholic Church in all its doctrines, he yet attacked the fundamental principle of orthodoxy. For he regarded Christianity not as complete, but as allowing, and even demanding and promising, further revelations, as in the words of Jesus concerning the Paraclete."

Doubtless the mystical claims of this system had attractions for the enthusiastic nature of Tertullian, whose pure, lofty asceticism also welcomed the exaggerated severity which was practised by its followers, who held in great contempt all who adopted rules of life less rigorous than their own. From the time that Tertullian became a Montanist he was as ardent in defending and setting forth their peculiar views as he had been in advocating the claims of the Catholic Church. It has been said that he abandoned his errors before his death; but the story is ill supported and improbable.

It would be quite beyond the scope of this paper to give even the most condensed account of the writings of Tertullian.' The principal of those which belong to his Catholic period are the

1 The names of all the treatises, and the class (whether Catholic or Montanist) to which they belong, will be found in Hagenbach's "History of Doctrines.”

"Apologeticus,""Ad Nationes," "De Testimonio Animæ,"&c. The chief of his Montanist writings are " Adversus Marcionem," "De Anima,""DeResurrectione Carnis," "De Pudicitia," "DePatientia," &c. It will be sufficient for us to give an account of his greatest treatise, the "Apologeticus," or " Apologeticum," and then to show the nature of his teaching and his testimony to Christian revelation and doctrine. Baur says that the "Apologeticus" is "one of the finest writings of Christian antiquity, in which the writer's energy and power are displayed in all their glory;" and no one who has read the work with ordinary care will deny the justice of his language. Few, indeed, will escape from being swayed by the power of its massive and masculine reasoning, and swept onwards by the enthusiastic warmth of its rhetoric.

This book was written close upon the end of the second century, before Septimus Severus had promulgated his edict against the Christians. Tertullian addresses his Apology to the authorities (antistites) of the Roman Empire, especially to the proconsuls of provinces, and endeavours to show them the injustice of the hatred which the heathen bore towards the Christians, who do not deserve the accusations brought against them. He asks for no favour to be shown, but simply demands that Christians be judged, like heathens, by the law. "The Christian religion," he says, "does not wish to conceal itself, and remain unknown; it asks to be known and judged."

Even the lowest of the people, he says, have more justice shown them than Christians. These are persecuted simply on account of their name; whereas this name, like the doctrine which they profess, is harmless and good. Is it said that the law is against them? He replies that law, if unjust, can be abolished, as other laws have been when found unsuited to the age, or oppressive to the people. If the law, he says, prohibits what is good, must it not be wrong? "If your law has erred, I think it has been conceived by man, and has not dropped from heaven."

He examines in detail the accusations brought against Christians by the heathen, who accuse them of cannibalism and incest. He shows that these crimes are repugnant to nature, and are in themselves incredible, and that, if they exist, it is among the heathen themselves. He next refutes the charge of impiety, showing that Christians had ceased to adore the heathen divinities only since they had been convinced that they had no existence, that they had been men, and that the figures which represented them were the work of men's hands, and the