Le Nourry, Dissertatio in Apologeticum, ad Nationes et ad Scapulam, Cap. VIII-XIV

CHAPTER VIII.

On the divinity of Christ.

FIRST ARTICLE.

On the various names of the Son of God, and how clearly Tertullian teaches that the attributes of the true and supreme God belong to Him, and that He is one and eternal God with His Father.

To make plain to all what the Word, the Reason, the Speech and the Son of God is, Tertullian teaches that both God and the Word, the Son of God, can be considered in two ways. For both can be viewed before God Himself founded the world or any creature, or when the world was created by Him. Of both, before the creation of the world, he lays this down as most certain: "Before all things God was alone, Himself His own world, and place, and all things. Alone, however, because there was nothing else outside, besides Him. Yet not even then alone; for He had with Him that which He had in Himself, namely His Reason. For God is rational, and reason was first in Him, and so all things are from Him. This reason is His own mind. The Greeks call it λόγος, by which word we also name speech. And so it is now the usage among our people, through the simplicity of the translation, to say that the Speech was in the beginning with God, whereas it is more fitting that Reason be held the older; because God was not speaking from the beginning, but rational even before the beginning, and because Speech itself, consisting in reason, shows reason to be prior, as its substance. Yet even so it makes no difference. For although God had not yet sent forth His Speech, He nevertheless had it within Himself, with and in His very Reason, silently thinking and ordering with Himself the things which He was soon to say through the Speech. For, thinking and ordering with His Reason, He made that into Speech which He handled with speech" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 5). We have quoted these words in full, though somewhat long, because all of them are worthy of singular attention and examination.

First, then, he declares that God before the beginning, that is, from all eternity, and therefore before the world was created, was both alone and not alone. Before the creation of the world He was indeed alone, "Himself His own world, place and all things"; because He had nothing outside besides Himself. Yet even then He was not alone, because He had His own Reason. For before the beginning, or from all eternity, He was rational; since God cannot be, unless He is endowed with mind and reason.

Secondly, that divine and eternal Reason of God "the Greeks," he says, "call λόγος," doubtless because John wrote at the beginning of his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). For Tertullian himself cited these words in Latin thus: "In the beginning was the Speech...., and the Speech was with God, and the Speech was God" (Tertullian, Against Hermogenes,

chapter 20). In his time, however, the custom had prevailed that the Son of God was called by the Latins sermo [speech], whereas that Greek name λόγος ought rather to have been rendered by them ratio [reason]. We have treated of this translation where we showed that this passage of Tertullian was copied by Lactantius (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 16, article 2).

Thirdly, he informs us why the Greek name λόγος ought to be rendered in Latin ratio rather than sermo. God, he says, was "rational" before the beginning, yet not yet "speaking", because He had reason within Himself, but had not yet sent forth speech outside Himself. But since from eternity He had within Himself speech as well as reason, Tertullian gave everyone leave to use either name, reason or speech, at will. By him, moreover, the Son of God is called not only speech, reason and word, but also sophia, or wisdom (Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, chapter 18; Against Hermogenes, chapter 18).

Moreover, he in his Apologeticum, and afterwards Lactantius, as we saw in its place, informed us that this λόγος was acknowledged by Zeno, a heathen philosopher, who proclaimed it to be the maker of the universe (the same, Apologeticum, chapter 21; Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 16, article 1). Our author adds: "Cleanthes gathers it into a spirit, which he affirms to be the pervader of the universe" (Tertullian, in the place cited; volume I of the Apparatus, page 782; Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 4, article 1, and Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 12, article 1). Now this Cleanthes was a disciple of Zeno, as we have noted elsewhere, where we also set out what his opinion about God was, from which what Tertullian relates seems to have been taken.

Now from what he said about the Word, Speech and Reason of God, thus explained, it can certainly be gathered that he was entirely persuaded that that inner Word of God is as eternal as His Father Himself, who brought Him forth from eternity indeed, but only within Himself. Of this eternity of the divine Word, however, we must treat more fully below (below, article 8 and following). For first the true and genuine opinion of our author concerning His supreme divinity must be most carefully unfolded and set out by us.

First, then, he teaches that all the names and attributes of His eternal Father belong to this divine Word and Son of God: "The names of the Father," he says, "God Almighty, Most High, Lord of hosts, King of Israel, He Who Is: inasmuch as the Scriptures so teach, we say that these have belonged to the Son also, and that the Son has come in them, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. 'All things,' He says, 'that are the Father's are Mine.' Why not the names also? When therefore you read of God Almighty, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel, and He Who Is, see whether the Son also is not pointed out by these: Almighty by His own right, inasmuch as He is the Word of God Almighty, and inasmuch as He has received power over all things; Most High, inasmuch as He was exalted by the right hand of God, as Peter preaches in the Acts; Lord of hosts, because all things have been subjected to Him by the Father; King of Israel, because the lot of that nation has fallen properly to Him. Likewise, He Who Is, since

many are called sons who are not" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 17).

But in what words, I beseech you, can the supreme divinity of Christ the Son of God be more clearly declared and asserted? Who can possess all those attributes of the true and supreme God, except one who is the supreme God, one with the eternal Father? And what of this, that Tertullian not only affirms that each and all of these belong to the Word and Son of God, but also proves it, and strives to confirm it by various reasons? He was persuaded, therefore, that the Son of God is one and the same God with His Father.

Nor let some Arian or Socinian or other rise up and object to us that he does not rightly prove how those divine attributes belong to the Son of God. For we are not now inquiring how valid and firm his arguments are (though that is very easy to prove), but what his opinion was, which he wished to prove. And from his own words it is most evidently concluded that he, and all the other orthodox Christians of his age, held as entirely certain that the Word and Son of God is true God, and that those who thought otherwise, like Praxeas, against whom he there disputes, and others, were altogether in error.

Wherefore in one place he professes most expressly that this Word and Son of God is the peer and equal of His Father, in another that He is not less than Him: "For making that Father His peer," he says, "from whom by proceeding He was made Son" (ibid., chapter 7). And later: "The same Son of God, saying, 'I and the Father are one,' shows that there are two, whom He makes equal and joins" (ibid., chapter 22). And again in another book: "And the Word," he says, "God, who, being set in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be made equal with God" (the same, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 6). You have heard how plainly he asserts that the Son of God is the peer and equal of His Father; now hear how he proclaims that He is not less: "He says that all things have been delivered to Him by the Father. You may believe it, if Christ belongs to the Creator, whose are all things, since the Creator has delivered all things to a Son not less than Himself, the things which He founded through Him, that is, through His Word" (the same, Against Marcion, chapter 25). But if the Son of God is not less, but the peer and equal of His Father, He is beyond doubt true God with Him. For by the same Tertullian, as we have just seen, He is called Most High and Almighty. But there cannot be two Most High and Almighty, just as there cannot be two gods. For elsewhere, as we have observed, he had said that God is one for this reason, that He is supreme, and therefore, "God," he says, "if He is not one, is not" (preceding chapter, article 1).

If anyone desires more, let him go to the very book of his with which we are dealing, the Apologeticum, where, after a brief exposition of the Christian teaching concerning the Son of God, Christ the Lord, he addresses the heathen in these words: "Inquire, then, whether this divinity of Christ is true: if it is that by which, once known, one is reformed to good, it follows that any other found [opposed to it] is false, above all that which (our manuscript codices and the printed editions add 'in every way', which Rigault removed), lurking under the names and images of the dead, works belief in its divinity by certain signs, and miracles, and oracles" (the same,

Apologeticum, chapter 21). In what way, then, could the true and supreme divinity of Christ ever have been more openly and emphatically asserted and proclaimed? For Tertullian openly asserts that it is as true as any other divinity acknowledged and introduced by the gentiles is false. Nay, rather, he cries out that the divinity of Christ is so true that it follows from it that the divinity of all the others, and of the demons as well, is false, who, lurking under the names and images of the dead, worked belief in their divinity by signs, miracles and oracles; that is, they tried to persuade everyone that these signs, miracles and oracles were done by their own divine power, and that they were true gods. Who, then, would not see that by this opposition of the true and the feigned divinity the true and supreme divinity of Christ is declared by Tertullian?

Nor did he think it enough to have said this there, but a little later he addresses the same heathen in these further words: "You cannot say that Christ is a man of the common condition" (ibid., chapter 23). For He is to come at the end of the world "as the power of God, and the Spirit of God, and the Word, and the Wisdom, and the Reason, and the Son of God." Openly, therefore, and to the face and before the eyes of the most bitter enemies of the Christian name, he boldly pronounces and bears witness that Christ is the Word, Wisdom and Reason of His eternal Father, whereby He is His Son from eternity. Wherefore he expressly affirms that in Christ there are two natures, of God and of man, and that He is as truly God as He is truly man.

ARTICLE II.

How expressly Tertullian asserts that the substance and nature of the eternal Father and of His Son is one and the same, although the person of each is distinct.

As expressly and constantly as Tertullian taught that the Son of God is one and the same God with His Father, so indeed he asserted that the substance and nature of both is one and the same, but the persons distinct. For he said it not once but often, and especially in his Apologeticum, where he argues thus about the generation of the Word or Son of God: "This λόγος," he says, "we have learned was brought forth from God, and by being brought forth was begotten, and is therefore called the Son of God, and God, from unity of substance. For God too is spirit: and when a ray is put forth from the sun, it is a portion from the whole; but the sun will be in the ray, because it is the sun's ray, and the substance is not separated but extended: so too Spirit from Spirit, and God from God, as light kindled from light. The parent stock of the matter remains whole and undiminished, even if you borrow from it many offshoots of its qualities: so that which has proceeded from God is God, and the Son of God, and both are one: so, Spirit from Spirit and God from God, He made a second in number by measure, in degree, not in state, and went out from the source, did not withdraw from it" (ibid., chapter 21). Thus indeed he there declares to the gentiles simply and sincerely what Christians held concerning the nature and generation of the divine Word, and therefore of the Son of God. And how sincere this explanation is appears from this: that if he could have concealed or disguised anything, he would certainly not have said it in a public book, which he was offering to all the heathen, and to the very prelates of the Roman empire as well,

But the more true and certain this exposition is, the more carefully it must be examined by us.

He says, then, first: "This we have learned was brought forth from God." But whence, I ask, had he and other Christians learned it? Surely from nowhere else than from the sacred Scriptures, and from a sure and constant tradition from the Apostles down to his own time. He cites many places of the same sacred Scripture on this matter elsewhere, and above all in the book against Praxeas, the patron of the heresy of the Patripassians. And there too he teaches admirably that this is the rule of our faith which has run down from the beginning of the Gospel, and is older than any heretics whatever: "It is agreed," he says, "that whatever is first is true, and whatever is later is false" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 2). Wrongly, therefore, have certain most witless men peddled the claim that that dogma concerning the λόγος and Son of God was unknown to the Apostles and their first disciples, and was only in the second century of the Church drawn from the opinions of the philosophers and received by the Christians. For if any change had been made in a principal head of the Christian faith, it was bound to strike the minds of all, and especially of Tertullian. For that man, of no mean learning, flourished at the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, and therefore could not be ignorant how surely this common doctrine of all had been handed down from the Apostles to his own time.

Secondly, he teaches that the divine Word is "Spirit from Spirit"; because He is the Word, the Reason and the Speech of God (the same, Apologeticum, chapter 21). For, as he says elsewhere: "We understand Spirit in the name of Word: so also we recognize Word in the name of Spirit. For Spirit is the substance of the Word, and Word the operation of the Spirit, and the two are one" (the same, Against Praxeas, chapter 26). He held, then, that the Word, or Speech, and Son of God is spirit, and a thing wholly spiritual, separate from any matter whatever and from every bodily thing. And this opinion of his is confirmed by the fact that he declares in the same place that He is "spirit from spirit", that is, brought forth and begotten by the spirit and thought of His eternal Father (the same, Apologeticum, chapter 21). For the bringing forth of the divine thought not only admits nothing bodily, but is one God with His Father, by whom it is brought forth. But what need is there for us to prove what is asserted by him most expressly and in these very words: "That which has proceeded from God is God, and the Son of God, and both are one, and God from God" (ibidem).

Thirdly, Tertullian affirms that He is one God with God the Father "from unity of substance", and therefore that the substance of both is one and the same (ibid.). For "the substance," he says, "is not separated" from His Father, "but extended"; since, as he still says, "we have learned that this was brought forth from God, and by being brought forth was begotten" (ibid.). But because He went forth from Him thus, and was begotten, therefore, just as in substance He is not separated from His Father, so in person He is distinguished from Him. For the person of the Father and of the Son of God cannot be the same. Yet the substance of both is the same; since He is one God with the Father "from unity of substance", from which

He "is not separated, but extended" (ibid.). For from this substance, as from a source, "He did not withdraw, but went out"; and so indeed both are one and the same God.

And not only there, but also in his book against Praxeas, he confirms it in these words: "We have given the reason why they are not called two Gods, nor two Lords, but in what way the Father and the Son are two; and this not from separation of substance, but from disposition, since we declare the Son undivided and unseparated from the Father, other not in state but in degree, who, although He is called God when He is named singly, does not therefore make two Gods, but one, by this very fact, that He is to be called God from the unity of the Father" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 19). You see indeed how expressly he there, as elsewhere, asserts that the Son of God is other than His Father "not in state, but in degree", that is, not in nature, but in person, which is distinguished as second in order; and that by this distinction they are indeed two, or two persons distinct from one another, but cannot be called two Gods; because the substance of both is the same, and therefore both are one God (ibid., chapter 2).

Nor should you say that the name of person is passed over in silence there. For it is sufficiently understood in this distinction of Father and Son. For since he said that the nature of both is one, they can be distinguished and be two only by person. Then, the name of person is taken in the very sense in which we now use it in the same book against Praxeas, as will appear most evidently from the places to be cited below.

But not only against Praxeas, but also against Valentinus, another heretic, he guards and defends this doctrine of the distinct person of Son and Father but the one substance of both. For there were two errors of Valentinus, which he described in these words: "Valentinus distinguishes and separates his probolai," that is, the divine emanations, "and sets them so far apart that the Aeon does not know the Father" (ibid., chapter 8). The second of these errors, concerning the Aeon that does not know the Father, he refutes by the authority of John the Evangelist: "With us," he says, "the Son alone knows the Father, and has Himself declared the bosom of the Father." Then he overturns the first error of Valentinus, concerning separated divine emanations, in these words, which bear more on our purpose: "The Word is both always in the Father, as He said, 'I am in the Father'; and always with God, as it is written, 'And the Word was with God.' And never separated from the Father, or other than the Father, because 'I and the Father are one.'" From this he concludes that this Word and Son of God is distinct from His Father, because He went forth and was brought forth from Him; but that He is not separated from Him, since the nature of both is one. Moreover, a little later he added: "That the Son is other than the Father not by diversity but by distribution; not other by division but by distinction; because the Father and the Son are not the same, being other one from the other even in measure" (ibid.). And now I would have you notice that the Son of God is called by him other than the Father, and not other: namely other than the Father in person, and not other in substance, because this substance is plainly the same in both.

Since, then, the Son is distinct from His Father, because there are two persons in one and the same substance, rightly

he wrote indeed of the same Son of God in the Apologeticum: "In measure," as he said against Valentinus, "He made a second number, in degree, not in state." But Rigault, against the testimony of our manuscripts and of all the previously printed copies, wished the former words there to be corrected thus: "Another in measure, not in number" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter 21). Nevertheless he gave no reason for this emendation. Did he then think, as it seems, that by changing the author's words in this way his antitheses would be more accurately preserved? But it is beyond doubt wrong to change the text of an ancient author by the slightest conjecture, much less by a perverse change to twist his meaning into another plainly opposite, and into the very error which he attacks. For Tertullian, as has been abundantly proved, teaches most openly that the Son of God is other than His Father "in measure" and "in degree", or in person, but one and the same in substance, and that therefore there are two distinct persons, yet one God. The two persons, then, distinct from one another, make a second number.

Moreover, as we shall see in the following article, he openly declares with the whole Catholic Church that there are three persons in the most holy Trinity. Rightly and deservedly, therefore, did he say that the Son of God "in measure" makes "a second number" with His Father. For we have already heard him saying: "The Father and the Son are not the same in measure," that is, in that manner of bringing forth by which the Son went forth from the Father (the same, Against Praxeas, chapter 8). The Son, then, makes with the Father "a second number", that is, the Father and the Son, each in turn and reciprocally, make the number of two persons. And that this is Tertullian's meaning may be gathered not unfittingly from these words of his in the same book: "The Father makes the Son, and the Son the Father. And those who come to be from one another can in no way come to be from themselves, so that the Father should make Himself Son to Himself, and the Son make Himself Father to Himself...... The Father must needs have a Son, that He may be Father, and the Son a Father, that He may be Son" (ibid., chapter 10). Do you hear how clearly he teaches that the Father and the Son are so set together that the Father with the Son, and in turn the Son with the Father, make a second number?

But because the difference between men and God is infinite, he therefore asserts without the least hesitation that the Son of God is other than the Father "in degree" indeed, "but not in state"; that is, that by His generation He is other "in degree", or second in order (ibid., chapter 2), inasmuch as He is begotten by the Father, but "not in state", that is, not in substance and nature, which is one and the same in Him and in His Father. But new light will certainly be shed on these sayings of his by what he handed down concerning the divinity of the same Son and of the Holy Spirit and the sacred mystery of the Trinity, which must now be unravelled and explained by us.

ARTICLE III.

How expressly Tertullian further explains and defends the orthodox doctrine concerning the divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit as well, and the sacred mystery of the Trinity.

Tertullian, not only in those places which we have reported, but in many others besides, [sets out] the Catholic [doctrine] concerning the supreme

opinion on the divinity of the Son of God and Christ the Lord, he guards and defends as emphatically as he does clearly. But because in them he also asserts and proclaims no less expressly the Catholic dogma concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit and the mystery of the most holy Trinity, we have thought that it should be set out separately in this article. First, then, against Praxeas the Patripassian, who babbled that the Father and the Son of God are the same, he declares that the following is firmly to be believed concerning the mystery of the Trinity, namely of three divine persons and their one and the same nature: "Let the mystery of the economy be guarded," he says, "which disposes the unity into a Trinity, setting in order three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three, however, not in state but in degree; not in substance but in form; not in power but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one state, and of one power; because there is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 2). There is no one, however, who does not understand that by the name "state", as we noted in the preceding article, the same thing is signified as the substance and nature of God; but by the names "degree", "form" and "aspect", the divine persons, and their order and manner of existing. He plainly teaches, therefore, that there are three persons of the most holy Trinity, which "admit of number without division", but that their substance is one and the same.

Later he sets out and confirms this doctrine, and, as he himself says, rule, of the Catholic Church more fully and in this manner: "The Trinity, running down from the Father through linked and connected degrees, both does no violence to the monarchy and protects the state of the economy. Hold everywhere this rule professed by me, by which I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable from one another, and you will know both what is said and how. For see, I say that the Father is one, and the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another. Every untaught or perverse person takes this saying amiss, as though it sounded of diversity, and from diversity drew out a separation of Father, and Son, and Spirit. But I say this of necessity, since they contend that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are the same, flattering the monarchy against the economy: [I say] that the Son is other than the Father not by diversity, nor other by division, but by distinction; because the Father and the Son are not the same, being other one from the other even in measure" (ibid., chapter 9). Can the true and Catholic doctrine of the sacred mystery of the Trinity be explained more clearly or better? For our author openly, and against the errors of the heretics, professes that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three persons, distinct from one another, but without diversity, division and separation, because their substance is one. And he asserts that this is the rule of the orthodox faith, which, handed down in the sacred Scriptures and received from our forebears, is to be held by all.

Wherefore, not content to have said this once or twice, he repeats and strengthens it again later: "We," he says, "who by the grace of God look into both the times and the causes of the Scriptures, being disciples above all of the Paraclete, not of men, do indeed define two, the Father and the Son, and now three

with the Holy Spirit, according to the reckoning of the economy, which makes number; lest, as your perversity infers, the Father Himself be believed to have been born and to have suffered, which it is not lawful to believe, since it has not been so handed down" (ibid., chapter 13). When he wrote this, however, he had already fallen away from the Catholic Church to the errors of the Montanists, and had imbibed the absurd fiction of the false Paraclete. Yet he expressly asserts and defends the sound and orthodox faith concerning the mystery of the Trinity. Who, then, will deny that this chief teaching of the Christian religion is true, which he, in whatever state he was, and throughout his whole life, so constantly defended, and which he testifies was attacked only by those plainly in error?

For earlier we read this written by him: "What sort of thing is it that God should seem to suffer division and dispersion in the Son and the Holy Spirit, who have been allotted the second and third place, and are such sharers in the substance of the Father, which He does not suffer in so great a number of angels, and those so alien from His substance" (ibid., chapter 3)? You understand, surely, with what clearness he further declares that the Father is distinguished in person from the Son and the Holy Spirit in such a way that the Son and the Holy Spirit hold the second and third place. Yet he plainly and absolutely contends and affirms that there is no division or dispersion among them, but that they are sharers of the same substance, which is as much one in them as it is divided and separated in the angels, however perfect.

But that surely needs no explanation which is not only declared by him most openly, but is also proved by the very authority of sacred Scripture, and chiefly by these words of John the Evangelist: "I and the Father are one." For after citing them he continues thus (ibid., chapter 22): "Here, then, the foolish, nay the blind, wish to plant their foot, who do not see, first, that 'I and the Father' is the expression of two; next, at the end, that 'are' is not from the person of one, because it is said in the plural; then, that He says 'we are one thing', not 'we are one person'. For if He had said 'We are one person', He could have helped their opinion. For 'one person' seems the expression of the singular number: moreover, when the two are of the masculine gender. He says 'one thing' with a neuter word, which pertains not to singularity, but to unity, to likeness, to conjunction, to the love of the Father... Saying 'I and the Father are one thing', He shows that there are two, whom He makes equal and joins." And later he explains these things more briefly indeed, but no less clearly and plainly: "The connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, makes three coherent, one from the other; and these three are one thing, not one person; as it was said, 'I and the Father are one thing', with reference to unity of substance, not to singularity of number" (ibid., chapter 25).

And although he does not use the name "person" there, you could nevertheless observe that he used it in the earlier passage. But you will see it brought forward more distinctly still where he again shows by various testimonies of sacred Scripture that there are three persons in the most holy Trinity, and only one nature. For he proves it by these words of Genesis: "Let Us make man to Our image and likeness" (Genesis

1:26). And by other words: "Behold, Adam has become as one of Us" (ibid., 3:22). For from this he argues thus: "Because the Son, the second person, His Word, already clung to Him, and the third, the Spirit in the Word, therefore He spoke in the plural: 'Let Us make', and 'Our', and 'Us'." Then a little later: "Finally, the Scripture that follows distinguishes between the persons: 'And God made man: to the image of God He made him.' Why not 'His own', if He who made was one, and there was none to whose image He made? But there was One to whose image He made, namely the Son's, who, being to become man, more sure and more true, had caused to be called His image that man who was then to be formed from clay, the image and likeness of the true." And not long after: "How you ought to understand that the Son is other than the Father," he says, "I have already declared: in the name of person, not of substance; for distinction, not for division. For the rest, although everywhere I hold one substance in three cohering, yet by the necessity of the sense I must call Him who commands other than Him who makes" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 22).

Earlier, however, where in disputing against the same Praxeas he plainly shows that the Son of God, who is His Wisdom and Word, is other than His Father, he there introduces Praxeas arguing thus: "Then," you say, "you grant that the Word is some substance, built up by the spirit and by the handing on of wisdom?" (ibid., chapter 7). To which he replies in one word: "Certainly," and thus freely confesses it to be true. Of which he at once gives this reason: "For you will not have Him to be substantive in reality through the property of substance, so that He may be seen to be a thing and a certain person, and so, being constituted second to God, be able to make two, Father and Son, God and Word."

We should certainly make no end of speaking if we wished to transcribe and unfold each and every word of his, as he asserts the sacred mystery of the Trinity against Praxeas as rightly as he does expressly. Wherefore, lest we be too long, we shall add only those by which he further shows that there are three persons of one divinity in the most holy Trinity: "Christ," he says, "commanding last of all that they should baptize into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not into one; nor once, but three times, into the single persons at the several names" (ibid., chapter 27). And that the substance and divinity of those three persons is one he declared most expressly not only in the places already cited, but also in another book, which no one doubts was composed by him when he was following the heresy of the Montanists as well. For there he wrote this: "The Church is, properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity, or three persons of one divinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (the same, On Modesty, chapter 21).

Further, from all that has been argued so far in this and the preceding article, it is gathered with sufficient evidence, as we think, that wholly sound and plainly orthodox was the [teaching] of Tertullian, whether Catholic or Montanist, that is, throughout the whole time of his life, concerning the supreme divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, and their same substance with the eternal God the Father, and the distinct

[his] view on the three Persons of them. No less evidently is it plain that he was wholly persuaded that this chief dogma of the whole Catholic Church is founded on the authority of Sacred Scripture, and that it was handed down from the Apostles and their successors to his own age by a sure and perpetual tradition. Finally, it is clear from what has been said that this teaching was boldly defended by him, not only against the heretics who denied it, but against the heathen too, the most bitter enemies of the Christians, who were harassing and killing them most cruelly on account of this very doctrine. Certainly he would more easily have drawn the heretics over to his side, had he been able to admit that there is only one Person in the most holy Trinity, and not several except in name only. He could also have won over the heathen, and appeased their fury against the Christians, had he said that there are three Gods, or at least one greater and others lesser. And you are not to think this has been invented by us without ground, since Tertullian himself openly and plainly professes it: "Otherwise, if our conscience," so he speaks, "by which we know that the name of God and Lord befits the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, were to name [them] Gods and Lords, we should have put out our torches, being more timid even for martyrdom, since a way of escape too would lie open to us, by swearing at once by gods and lords, as certain heretics do, whose gods are many" (Ibid., chapter XIII). Tertullian therefore, just as the other true Christians, preferred to undergo every kind of torment and to be put to death rather than in any way to weaken or dissemble this doctrine, handed down to him by Christ and His disciples, concerning the divinity of that same Christ and the mystery of the most holy Trinity. There is therefore no room for doubting that this doctrine of the same Tertullian and of the Catholic Church is true, which in this manner was asserted by the sacred writers, and was constantly and perpetually preserved and defended.

ARTICLE IV.

By what reasonings Tertullian endeavoured to explain the divine and eternal generation of the Son of God, and why He, and not the Holy Spirit, is called the Son of God.

It was not enough for Tertullian to guard and vindicate, in the manner we have seen (preceding article), his own view and that of the whole Catholic Church on the supreme divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, once set out; he endeavoured also to explain why the Word and Reason of God is, and ought to be called, His true Son. He therefore declares openly to all that God, by the very fact that He is God, has always and from all eternity been rational (Ibid.). Since therefore He cannot be without reason, from that same eternity He brought forth the Word; which Word indeed, as we have noted, ought better to have been called Ratio in Latin. That divine Word, however, is not something articulated, like the voice of a man, or some sound of the mouth, or air struck, and so a something or other empty and void; but it has, he says, "its own substance, spirit" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI). Since, however, this was denied by the heretic Praxeas, he argues against him thus, and proves that this Word of God is a true

substance: "For what is a word, you will say, but a voice and a sound of the mouth, and, as the grammarians teach, air struck, intelligible to the hearing, but otherwise an empty something, void and incorporeal? But I say that nothing empty and void could have come forth from God, since it was not brought forth from what is empty and void; nor could that lack substance which proceeded from so great a substance and made such great substances. For He Himself also made the things that were made through Him. How can it be that He is nothing without Whom nothing was made; that, being empty, He wrought solid things, being void, full things, and, being incorporeal, corporeal things? For although something can at times be made different from that through which it is made, yet nothing can be made through that which is empty and void. Is the Word of God an empty and void thing, He Who has been called the Son, Who has Himself been named God? AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD" (John 1:1) (the same, Against Praxeas, chapter VII)? By that argument, then, he shows that the Word, or the Speech and Reason of God, is not something empty and void, but a true substance.

Now this divine Word is a true substance precisely because He was brought forth by God. For "Him," he says, "we call generated by being brought forth, and therefore the Son of God." Brought forth, then, by His divine Father, He came forth from His understanding as "from a womb," and is therefore generated, and the true Son of God. For by this very generation He is not only like the Father, but the substance of both is also the same. For He, the Son of God, he says, "did not withdraw from the Father's womb, but went forth from it." Since, then, He "did not withdraw," He has the same substance as He; and because He came forth from Him, He is His Son (the same, Apology, chapter XXI, page 21).

But let us hear Tertullian again, who elsewhere (the same, Against Praxeas, chapter VIII) asserts and confirms this by several testimonies of Sacred Scripture: "Proceeding from Whom," he says, "He became the Son, the firstborn, as begotten before all things, and the only-begotten, as alone begotten of God, properly from the womb of His heart," that is, of His understanding, "according as the Father Himself also testifies: MY HEART HAS UTTERED A GOOD WORD (Ps. 44:2). To Whom He then [says], rejoicing, in His person: THOU ART MY SON, THIS DAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN THEE (Ps. 2:7); and, BEFORE THE DAYSTAR I BEGOT THEE (Ps. 109:5). So also the Son, in His own person, professes the Father under the name of Wisdom: THE LORD CREATED ME THE BEGINNING OF HIS WAYS FOR HIS WORKS (To the Hebrews, chapter I). BUT BEFORE ALL THE HILLS HE BEGOT ME (Prov. 8:22)." And this is the very reason why the Word, or Speech of God, and not the Holy Spirit, is and is called the Son of God; and, as Tertullian himself says, "Who also properly received the name of Son": both because that name is given to Him in the Sacred Scriptures, and also because He was first begotten by His Father alone into likeness of nature, and the Holy Spirit proceeded from both, as will become plain to everyone from the words of this same Tertullian of ours shortly to be cited (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter VIII).

But although the Word of God comes forth from His eternal Father, or, as Tertullian himself says, is derived "not from elsewhere, but from the substance of the Father" (ibid., chapter IV), that is, arises from His thought and understanding, He is not for that reason separated from Him. For

the most simple substance of God cannot be divided, just as there cannot be several gods. Wherefore he says again: "Everything that comes forth from something must needs be second to that from which it comes forth; yet it is not for that reason separated. But where there is a second, there are two; and where there is a third, there are three. For the Spirit is third from God," namely from the Father and the Son, "as the fruit from the shoot is third from the root" (ibid., chapter VIII). Now he teaches two things there, which must certainly be observed with attentive mind. For he says first that the Son of God is another, and second in order from His Father, because He is His eternal Word, Who came forth from His understanding and thought, and therefore is His Son. Secondly he says that the Holy Spirit is third, because He proceeds from both the Father and the Son, as the third, the fruit, arises from the root and the shoot. And since there he is setting out and defending not his own view only, but that of the whole Catholic Church, against the heretic Praxeas, it is certainly gathered from this that it was asserted and defended by all orthodox Christians, and by others too not infected with the same error as Praxeas, or a like one.

But some object that Tertullian is not there treating of the origin of the Holy Spirit, but of the order of the Persons of the most holy Trinity, in which He is placed third after the Father. But why, I ask, have these following words of our author been left out by those who argue thus: "As the fruit from the shoot is third from the root, and the stream from the river third from the spring, and the point from the ray third from the sun, yet nothing is estranged from the source from which it draws its properties"? Do not these things sufficiently show that he spoke not of the order of the Holy Spirit alone, but also of His origin? For there by these comparisons he demonstrates against Praxeas that the Son of God, even though He is not separated from His Father, is yet distinguished from Him for this reason, that He draws His origin from Him. Then, passing from there to the rise of the Holy Spirit, he argues, as you see, in plainly the same manner. He disputes, therefore, as much of the origin of the Holy Spirit as of that of the Son.

They urge nevertheless that it was stated most openly by Tertullian earlier: "I think that the Spirit arose from nowhere else than from the Father through the Son" (the same, chapter IV). But observe, I pray, how inconsiderately these things are objected. For Hilary, as they themselves admit, plainly taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, when he wrote: "But if it were believed that there is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, surely to receive from the Son will be judged one and the same thing as to receive from the Father" (Hilary, On the Trinity, book VIII, § 20). Yet we read it written by the same Hilary: "From Thee" (namely the Father) "through Him" (the Son) "is Thy Holy Spirit." And a little after he thus prays to the Father: "Grant me that I may adore Thee, namely our Father, and Thy Son together with Thee; that I may be worthy of Thy Holy Spirit, Who is from Thee through Thy Only-begotten" (ibid., book XII, §§ 56 and 57).

But if he, in the same Catholic sense, said that the Spirit [is] from the Father and the Son, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, why not Tertullian also? Can the same manner of speaking be approved in the one and rejected in the other? Both therefore, just as rightly the Holy Spirit

from the Father and the Son, so also said that He proceeds from the Father through the Son. For the Son, as it were mediate between the Father and the Holy Spirit, received His principle from the same Father alone, and from Him and the Father the Holy Spirit draws His origin. And so the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father through the Son, Who, being by His origin as it were mediate between the two, received from the Father that the Holy Spirit should proceed from Him. Wherefore this very procession is derived and drawn in one and the same manner as much from the Father as from the Son.

Since, therefore, the Son is His Word and Speech, Who came forth from the Father's understanding or thought, as from a kind of womb and matrix, hence rightly, as His Son and Only-begotten, He "properly," as he said elsewhere, "received the name of Son" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter VIII). But the Holy Spirit, since He proceeds from both, has never been called the Son either of one of them or of both, nor ought He to have been so called.

ARTICLE V.

Certain examples are set out and examined by which Tertullian endeavoured to explain the divine generation of the Son of God.

Since the divine generation of the Son of God far surpasses the grasp of man and cannot easily be understood by him, our Tertullian therefore strove to explain and illustrate it by certain comparisons. But since they are not without difficulties, they must be examined by us. First, then, he proposes them thus in the Apology: "When a ray is put forth from the Sun, it is a portion of the whole; but the Sun will be in the ray, because it is the Sun's ray; nor is the substance separated, but extended. So from Spirit [comes] Spirit, and from God God, as light kindled from light. The parent stock of the matter remains whole and undiminished, even if you borrow from it many offshoots of its quality: so too what has proceeded from God is God, and the Son of God, and both are one" (supply: God) (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, page 399). But he endeavours to unfold these things more fully elsewhere by these and other examples. Let us hear him, if you please: "God brought forth the Word, as the Paraclete also teaches, as the root the shoot, and the spring the river, and the sun the ray. For these forms too are probolae," that is, as he had said a little before, prolations, "of those substances from which they come forth. Nor should I hesitate to call the Son both the shoot of the root, and the river of the spring, and the ray of the sun; for every origin is a parent, and everything that is brought forth from an origin is offspring; much more the Word of God, Who also properly received the name of Son. Yet neither is the shoot divided from the root, nor the river from the spring, nor the ray from the sun, just as neither is the Word from God. Therefore, according to the pattern of these, I profess that I speak of two, God and His Word, the Father and His Son. For the root and the shoot are two things, but joined; and the spring and the river are two forms, but undivided; and the sun and the ray are two forms, but cohering" (the same, Against Praxeas, chapter VIII, page 639).

But it must be carefully observed that these comparisons are brought forward by our author not as wholly perfect, and as though they were plainly and in every way like the divine generation of the Son. For he himself too said: "Much more the Word of God," by which words he signifies that all these

comparisons are imperfect. And indeed, who does not know that they differ from each other as much as the creature stands apart from the Creator? He did not think, therefore, that the generation of the Son of God could be wholly explained by them, but [used them] so that we might understand it in some fashion or other, and according to the weak powers of our mind.

Then, too, these examples are applied by him not in all, but only in some of the matters that concern the divine generation of the Son. For all of them tend only to this, that he may show that the Son of God, although He comes forth from His Father, is yet not separated from Him nor divided. For because the shoot, as he says, comes forth from the root, the river from the spring, the ray from the sun, and they are not separated or divided from one another, but are joined to one another and cohere without any division, hence the understanding of man can be led to recognize, according to its plainly weak powers, that the Son of God, although He comes forth from the Father, is not separated from Him, but is joined to Him in an infinitely more perfect manner than those bodily things, and is wholly undivided from Him.

So too afterwards, to confirm that the Son of God is separated from the Father, although He went out from Him by divine generation, he introduces Him speaking thus: "I came out from the Father, as the ray from the sun, as the stream from the spring, as the shoot from the seed" (ibid., chapter XXII). Elsewhere, however, he uses the same comparison of the sun and the ray only to demonstrate that the name of God is not to be given to creatures, but to the eternal Father and His Son, Whose substance is wholly one. But it is better to hear him relating this himself: "I will by no means speak of gods," he says, "nor of lords, but I will follow the Apostle, so that, if the Father and the Son are to be named together, I call the Father God and name Jesus Christ Lord. But Christ alone I shall be able to call God, as the same Apostle [does]: Of whom is Christ, Who is, he says, God over all, blessed for all ages. For the ray of the sun too, taken by itself, I shall call sun; but in naming the sun whose ray it is, I shall not at once call the ray also the sun. For although I shall not make two suns, yet I shall count the sun and its ray as two things and two forms of one undivided substance, just as God and His Word, just as the Father and the Son" (ibidem, chapter XIII).

Nor did he stop there, but to explain once more that eternal generation of the divine Word he used another comparison, which, though far more perfect than the earlier ones, he yet openly professes to be still imperfect. It is taken by him from the inner speech and word of man, and he argues thus: "See, when you commune silently with yourself, how this very thing is done within you by reason, as it meets you with a word at every motion of your thought and at every impulse of your sense. Whatever you have thought is a word; whatever you have perceived is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind, and while you speak, you experience the word as a partner in converse, in which this very reason is present, so that, thinking with it, you speak, and through it, speaking, you think. Thus the word is in a manner a second in you, through which you speak by thinking and through which you think by speaking; the word itself is another. How much more fully, then, is this done in God, Whose

image and likeness you too are reckoned, that He has, even in keeping silence, Reason within Himself, and in the Reason the Word" (ibid., chapter V, page 637). There, then, he shows that God, Who is rational by His nature, has had from eternity within Himself Reason and Word, which He brings forth while He thinks, and that it is therefore other than He, although the substance and nature of both is the same. And who will not readily grant that this could not have been proved more aptly or more clearly than by this comparison with the inner word and speech of men? For in this, as he says, man is the image and likeness of God. Nevertheless he admits that this very comparison is plainly imperfect, and that the Word of God is brought forth from God the Father in a far fuller and more perfect manner than the word of a man from a man.

Further, from what has so far been said it ought to be plain to all that the supreme divinity of the Son and Word of God was most constantly asserted by Tertullian, whether as a Catholic or as a supporter of the Montanists. For openly, as we have seen, he teaches that He was generated by the divine thought of His Father, and that by this generation He is indeed other than the Father, that is, distinct in Person, but in no way divided or separated, since the substance and nature of both is wholly one and the same. For God the Father, rational from eternity, could never be without thought, and therefore His Word, which is the same as His thought, must be consubstantial and coeternal with Him. Is not this, then, plainly the very same as the judgement of the Council of Nicaea? For in its creed it is laid down that we must believe "in one Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Father, only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light" (or, as Tertullian says, Apology, chapter XXI, page 399, "as light kindled from light"), "true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father."

ARTICLE VI.

The arguments are weighed and answered by which some strive to prove that the orthodox doctrine on the supreme divinity of the Son of God was undermined by Tertullian, because he said that He is a portion of the divine substance, which is whole in the Father.

Although Tertullian's view on the supreme divinity and eternal generation of the Word and Son of God was, as has been explained, wholly orthodox, some nevertheless, even Catholic upholders of this dogma, boldly accuse him of an error not the least, but the gravest. For if you believe Petau, "he surpasses the Arian heresy in impiety and absurdity" (Petau, Dogmata theologica, tome II, book II, chapter V, page 24). But that learned man was at length compelled to correct himself. For elsewhere he admits that not a few passages of the same Tertullian occur in which "there appears the force of the common view and dogma, whose tradition had pervaded the minds of Christians" (the same, Preface to the tome cited, chapter V). Yet in the same place he added that the orthodox faith of the Trinity is sprinkled again and again in his writings with certain stains, which could have been smeared on it by the foul contagion of the heresy of the Montanists, to which he fell away. But although there [he sought] to soften the severity of his judgement rather

to soften than to amend, he is nevertheless not sufficiently consistent with himself. For he contends that the dogma of the Trinity was undermined not only in the books composed by Tertullian as a heretic, but in others also, composed by him while still a Catholic. We, however, have sufficiently shown that it was rightly asserted by the same Tertullian, whether Catholic or Montanist, and excellently defended against others who denied it.

Bull, however, has branded this same Tertullian of ours, even where he disputes against Praxeas, with another mark of censorious severity (Bull, Defence of the Nicene Faith, section III, chapter X, numbers 5 and 11, pages 403 and 416). For although he grants that he thinks rightly of the supreme divinity, eternity and consubstantiality of the Son and Word of God, or the sameness of His substance with the Father's, it seems to him nevertheless that he has mixed some dross into the veins of Catholic tradition, as it were into veins of gold, that he speaks absurdly enough, and plays with the most august mystery of the Trinity and chases after trifles. But who will easily persuade himself that Tertullian, a man of such gravity, plays and trifles about this mystery of the Trinity in that very book in which, as the same Bull admits, he asserts and defends that chief and greatest article of the Christian faith with all the powers of his mind against the errors of Praxeas and other heretics? (the same, ibid., § 2, chapter VII, number 1, page 150). And it has certainly already been proved by us that the orthodox view is clearly taught and explained by him not only against Praxeas and other heretics, but also against the gentiles, whom, had he dissembled it, he could easily, as we have seen, have won over to himself.

But that we may leave nothing untouched, all those arguments must be weighed which are objected to us by Petau, Bull and others. First, then, Petau does not think that point should be pressed which we read written by our author, that the Son and Word of God was brought forth by His Father and as it were embodied. For what would it press? Have we not shown clearly enough that by the name of body nothing else is understood by him than a substance of its own kind, a person and hypostasis? Nor have we less plainly made it evident, and it will become yet plainer from what is still to be said, that he most expressly asserted that the Son of God is pure spirit, Who proceeds from the understanding and thought of His eternal Father, and can therefore have nothing bodily mixed in, not in the least.

Of far greater weight, then, Petau and others think those passages in which the same author of ours seems to them to have denied that the substance of the eternal Father and of His Son is the same. For he openly teaches, they say, that the whole substance of God is in the Father, and only a certain portion of it in the Son. For what, they say, is clearer and more explicit than these words? "The Father is the whole substance, but the Son a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself professes: BECAUSE THE FATHER IS GREATER THAN I (John 14:28)." Tertullian therefore, they say, thought that the whole substance of the Divinity is in the Father, as being greater, and in the Son, as being lesser, only a part and portion (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter IX).

They urge further that this is asserted by him where the absurd [view] of †Martio, who [said] that the Father was born of the Virgin and suffered,

was chattering, he refutes the error: "Not denying," he says, "that His Christ is the Son and Spirit and substance of the Creator, you must needs grant that those who did not know the Father could not have recognized the Son either, by the condition of the same substance, whose fullness was not understood; much more [was] the portion [not understood], at least as sharing in the fullness" (Tertullian, Against Marcion, book III, chapter VI).

Finally, where he compares the generation of the Son of God with the sun and its ray, he speaks thus further: "For God too is spirit; and when a ray is put forth from the sun, it is a portion of the whole; but the sun will be in the ray, because it is the sun's ray, nor is the substance separated, but extended" (the same, Apology, chapter XXI, page 399). Petau therefore concludes from all these that the Son of God, according to Tertullian's mind, does not possess the whole divine substance, but only a portion of it, and that consequently the substance and nature of the eternal Father and of His Son is not the same.

But if the matter stands so, Tertullian has certainly contradicted himself most foolishly. For we have seen in the earlier articles how often, how constantly, how expressly he asserts that the substance in the Father and the Son is plainly one, undivided and the same. But if the Son has only a portion or part of it, it is surely not the same in Him as in the Father, but is divided as a part from the whole (above, this chapter, article I). On the contrary, Tertullian, as we have seen, in another book against Marcion committed these words to writing about Him: "The Creator delivered all things to no lesser one than Himself" (the same, Against Marcion, book IV, chapter XXV). Yet if the Son received from the Father only one portion of the divine substance, He is beyond doubt less by the other, of which He is deprived. Did Tertullian, then, both assert and deny that the Son of God is less than His Father? Who would believe this?

What, moreover, of this, that in that passage against Marcion which is objected to us the Son is indeed called a portion of the divine substance, but there it is at once added, "at least as sharing in the fullness"? Yet if He is a sharer, partner and partaker of the divine substance, which is most simple and, as we have often observed it said by the same Tertullian, is not separated in Him and the Father, He surely possesses it whole.

Besides, if only a portion or some part of the divine substance is in the Son, the Father Himself does not have it entire. For part of it will be in the Son, and drawn away from the Father. In these words, then, "The Father is the whole substance, but the Son a portion," a plainly evident contradiction will be detected. For of one thing, and above all of a most simple one, the whole cannot be in one and a part in another. Since, therefore, no one can convict Tertullian of so absurd a contradiction, what remains but that we say that by the name of portion he did not understand some part of the divine substance, which he most constantly asserted can be neither divided nor separated?

In what sense, then, someone will say, is the noun portion taken by him? It will be proved by us without any struggle that it is taken in the same meaning as the apportioning, or participation and communication, of the divine substance, which the Father derived into the Son. For in this very passage against Praxeas which is objected to us the Son is called

"a derivation and portion of the whole," which words indeed seem synonymous there. And that derivation is called a portion, or apportioning, because the Father so communicated His whole substance with the Son that He is nevertheless distinct from Him in His Person. For since the Persons of the Son and the Father are distinguished from one another, and the Son received His own [Person] from the Father together with the whole same divine substance, He is therefore called its portion, or derivation.

But that this is the true sense of Tertullian can be gathered from another argument of his against the same Praxeas. For that heretic, and others who foolishly supposed that the Father and the Son are the same, contended that by these words of Luke the Evangelist, "The Spirit of God shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you," exactly the same is signified as if he had said: "The Son of God is God, and the power of the Most High is the Most High" (Luke 1:25). But Tertullian attacks this heretical interpretation thus: "If this," he says, "were the Evangelist's sense, he would surely have written: God shall come upon [you], and the Most High shall overshadow you" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter XXVI). Yet he did not write so, but, "the power of God, not naming God directly," that is, in the nominative case, "he wished a portion of the whole to be understood, which was to pass into the name of the Son." He said, therefore, that by these words, "spirit and power of God," a portion is understood, because the name of God, taken not in the nominative but in the genitive case, signifies a portion, that is, the generation and derivation of the Son from His Father. For by that derivation or generation, although He has received the whole divine substance, His Person is nevertheless not the same as the Father's. Wherefore our author continues the argument he had begun thus: "As, then, the Word of God is not He Whose it is," namely the Father's, "so neither is the Spirit, although He has been called God, nevertheless Himself the One Whose He is said to be... And therefore the Spirit of God is God, and the Word of God is God, because [He is] from God, yet not Himself the One from Whom He is. But if He is God of God, as a substantive thing, He will not be God Himself, but God thus far: because [He is] from His substance, by which He is both a substantive thing and as it were some portion of the whole."

Do you hear how the Son and Word of God is there openly denied to be God of God, but is called true God, as His Father is? Yet although He is true God, and His substance and the Father's is the same, nevertheless, because He came forth and was begotten from His thought and understanding, He is distinguished from Him in Person. And by this generation He is called a derivation and portion of the whole, or an apportioning and communication, but one by which, as he says, He "shares in the fullness," that is, has the whole and same substance and divinity of the Father from Whom He arose.

Nor do we think those should be listened to who will urge: "If this is Tertullian's sense, the noun portion is taken by him in a wholly improper and plainly unusual way of speaking." For Tertullian sprinkled his books with barbarous, improper and unusual words and names, as no one is unaware and as we have often observed. For, to pass over for now very many met with everywhere in all his books, ought he not, in this very Apology about which we are disputing, which he addressed to the heathen magistrates, more than in others, to speak in good Latin, elegantly and correctly?

the Son is called less. The first is that the Father sent the Son, and the Son is sent by the Father. But this seems to regard the human nature of the Son, according to which no one denies that He is less than His Father. The second is that the Son is begotten of His Father, and received His divine nature [from Him]. Now by this generation He holds the second rank and order from the Father, by which indeed He can be said to be less than He, but only, as Tertullian says, on account of the observance of the economy, so that not a division but a disposition is signified. And thus, for that twofold reason too, the Son could be called by him less than the Father, and other than He, inasmuch as He was begotten of Him.

And do not, I beg, reply to us that this explanation is not orthodox. For the ancient Fathers of the Church, even after the Council of Nicaea, interpreted those words of Christ, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28), in this very sense. Hilary indeed, as keen a defender of catholic doctrine as there ever was, wrote this without the least hesitation: The Father is greater than the Son, but as Father than Son, by generation, not by kind. For He is the Son, and went forth from Him (Hilary, Tractate on Ps. 118, § 17). We know indeed that the same words of John are explained by him elsewhere (the same, On the Trinity, book IX, § 51), and by others also, of the human nature assumed by the Son of God Himself. But it is enough for us that they are understood, by Hilary too and by many others later than the synod of Nicaea, as we have noted elsewhere, of the divine generation of the Son of God Himself, by which He is second in order from His Father (Notes on Ambrose, On the Faith, book II). It is clear, then, that nothing can be inferred from this against our Tertullian, who, since he did not contradict himself, is not without reason seen to have taken those words of the evangelist in this catholic sense. And certainly he could interpret them so all the more as he was less able to foresee the senseless quibbles of the Arians, and was refuting more effectively the senseless error of Praxeas.

Against us, however, they object again that Tertullian, in his books against Marcion, denied that the substance of the eternal Father and of the Son is the same (Petavius, Dogmata theologica, vol. II, book I, ch. V). For there he teaches that the Son was made, and is visible, but the Father neither visible nor made. He therefore thought their substance to be different. To prove this they object to us these words of his: We profess that Christ always acted in the name of God the Father, that He Himself conversed [with men] from the beginning, that He Himself met with the patriarchs and prophets, the Son of the Creator, His Word, whom by bringing forth from Himself He made Son, and thenceforth set over every dispensation and will of His, lessening Him a little below the angels, as is written in David (Ps. 8:6); by which lessening He was also disposed by the Father unto these things which you censure as human, learning even from the very beginning, even from then, [to be] man, which He was to be at the end. He it is who descends; He it is who questions; He it is who swears. But that the Father has been seen by no one the common Gospel also will testify... defining the Father as invisible, in whose authority and name He who was seen was Himself God, the Son of God (Tertullian, Against Marcion, book II, ch. XXVII).

But it must be observed that Tertullian is there disputing against Marcion, who, as he says in the same place, wrongly

proclaimed that the Creator is not the good God, since many things were proclaimed of Him that were petty, weak, and unworthy of God (ibid.). But Tertullian answers this heretic that these pettinesses are indeed in Christ, but not inasmuch as He is God, but inasmuch as He is man. And he proves that He is truly God because He always acted in the Father's name, because He it was who spoke with the patriarchs and prophets, because He is the Word of God and the Son of the Creator. Now this same Tertullian most constantly asserted that the Son and Word of God is true God, and the Reason of His Father, by which [the Father] is rational from eternity. He therefore believed the eternity of the Son and of the Father to be the same, and the substance the same.

But he, you will say, wrote in the same place in no obscure terms: whom by bringing forth from Himself He made Son, and thenceforth set over His dispensation and will (ibid.). Well and good. But is the Son there said to have been made at some point of time, or is it denied that He was begotten from eternity? By no means. For he would have admitted that there are two Gods, an eternal Father and a Son not eternal, and so would have fallen into that very error of Marcion which he was attacking. When, therefore, he says that the Son of God was made by His Father at the time when He brought Him forth from Himself, his meaning is plainly seen to be this: the Father made His Son when He brought Him forth from Himself, that is, from the matrix, as he puts it, and womb of His heart and understanding, or from His eternal reason, intelligence and thought; but afterwards, when He willed to create all things, He set Him over His dispensation and will. But if anyone contends that by these words from Himself the same is meant as by sending Him forth outside Himself, his meaning will be: the Father at the beginning of the world brought forth outside Himself, and made, the Son, when He made Him manifest to creatures. For up to the first creation of the world His divine generation, as we explained a little before, lay hidden in the eternal bosom of the Father, and at the beginning of the world it began to be known by creatures endowed with reason; and then, as our author says and as we shall explain more fully below, His nativity was made perfect, which received a certain external completion.

Nor should you press the point that the Father is called by him invisible but the Son visible, and that the latter is therefore less than the Father, and not properly called God. For nothing is lighter and weaker than this argument. For in his book against Praxeas the same Tertullian openly declares: the Father invisible by reason of the fullness of His majesty, but the Son visible by reason of the measure of His derivation (ibid., ch. XIV). And a little after: We say that the Son too, in His own name, is invisible in so far as He is the Word and Spirit of God, by the condition of His substance even now, and in so far as He is God, and Word, and Spirit; but visible before the flesh (ibid.). And how He made Himself visible before He had taken flesh, he explains in the same place in this way: It appears that God was always seen of old in a mirror and an enigma, and in vision and dream, that is, the Son of God, by the patriarchs and prophets alike, and even by Moses himself still. And the Lord Himself, if perchance He spoke face to face, yet not so that man should see His face as it is, except perhaps in a mirror and in an enigma....... Or was the Son indeed seen, and thus face [to face]? But Himself

in vision, and dream, and mirror, and enigma; because the Word and Spirit cannot be seen except in an imaginary form (ibid.).

But who, having heard these words of Tertullian, would not openly admit that he is so far from denying the Son's divinity because the Father is called invisible and the Son visible, that on the contrary he plainly concludes from it against Praxeas that this same Son of God is true God, who is distinguished from His Father only by the measure of derivation, that is, by His Person? Indeed he declares positively that this same Son of God, in so far as He is Word and Spirit, was invisible in exactly the same way as the Father. Yet he does not deny that before He took flesh He made Himself to be seen by the patriarchs; but in what manner, pray? Only in vision, he says, in dream, in a mirror, in an enigma, and in a form, as he himself puts it, imaginary.

There will perhaps be some who wonder that these things are objected to us by Petavius, a man certainly most learned, against the true opinion of our Tertullian on the divinity of the Son of God (Petavius, Theologica, vol. II, book I, ch. IV). For he himself not only freely admits, but shows by very many testimonies of Fathers of the Church both before and after the synod of Nicaea, that they most plainly declared that the Son of God, although His divine nature, like the Father's, cannot be seen, was nonetheless seen and beheld by the patriarchs and prophets, before He became man, in a borrowed and visible appearance (the same, ibid., book III, ch. II, § 10 and following). What is more, it seems certain to Petavius himself that not only the Son, but the Father also, and the Holy Spirit, appeared to men in an appearance assumed from without. And from these things, duly proved, he concludes that the arguments the Arians drew from this against the divinity of the Son are utterly trivial, such as everyone will despise. We, for our part, have shown in our earlier dissertations that these visions in no way prejudice the supreme divinity of the Son of God, and why it was He, rather than His Father, who had to make Himself to be seen by men (vol. I, Apparatus, pp. 404, 593 and 689 and following).

ARTICLE VIII.

It is shown again how clearly Tertullian asserts the eternity of the Son of God, and the contrary arguments are refuted by which they think it can be concluded that Tertullian taught that before the world was founded there was no substance of the Son of God, and that His nativity was made perfect when God set about creating the world.

Having set out, and weighed in an even balance, those grounds by which Tertullian is wrongly charged with not having acknowledged the same substance of the Father and the Son, let us now come to those by which he is accused still more sharply of having denied the eternity of this same Son of God. For if any credit is to be given to the most learned Petavius, in this he surpasses the Arian heresy in impiety and absurdity (Petavius, Dogmata theologica, On the Trinity, book I, ch. V, p. 24). But if Tertullian himself rightly, as we have seen, asserted that the nature of the Son and of the Father is the same, he beyond doubt truly held Him to be coeternal with His Father.

And everyone could easily perceive, from what we have related above, and especially in the first article of this chapter, that this teaching of the Catholic faith is most manifestly asserted and proclaimed by him.

But what in particular he laid down concerning His eternity, let us now consider, if you please, with attentive mind, and first how he defines the eternity of God: What other status, he says, has God than eternity? What other status has eternity than always to have been and to be going to be, by the prerogative of no beginning, no end (Tertullian, Against Hermogenes, ch. IV). Here, as you see, he not only defines what eternity is, but [declares] it to be so proper to God alone that it can belong to no other. Now he teaches and proves no less clearly and plainly, as we have shown above, that the Son of God is true God, one and the same with His Father. He was therefore persuaded that His eternity and the Father's are the same.

But this is not our argument only; it is his own very argument, by which he most splendidly demonstrates this eternity of the Son of God. Hear his words, I beg, and you will admit this with us: God, he says, must be believed to be unchangeable and incapable of being formed [anew], as being eternal. But transfiguration is the destruction of what was before. For whatever is transfigured into something else ceases to be what it had been, and begins to be what it was not. But God neither ceases to be, nor can be anything else; and the Word is God, and the Word, the Lord, abides for ever, persevering in His own form (the same, Against Praxeas, ch. XXVII). And this Word is the Word of God, and the Son, who, as Tertullian immediately adds, was made flesh. Who, then, ever asserted His eternity in clearer words or by clearer argument? Did Tertullian, then, build up there with one hand what elsewhere he had pulled down with the other? Yet some do not fear to arraign our author of so great a paradox.

Petavius, indeed, objects to us that it was no less certainly and evidently taught by him that there was no substance of the Son of God before the beginnings of the world, but that He received it from His Father at the time when [the Father] set about creating the world. And not he alone, but some others also have thought that this can be concluded from these words of the same Tertullian: As soon as God willed to bring forth into their own substances and forms the things which He had disposed within Himself with the reason and word of Sophia, He first brought forth the Word Himself, having in Himself, as inseparable forms, Reason and Sophia, so that all things might be made through Him through whom they had been thought out and disposed; indeed already made, as far as the mind of God was concerned. For this was lacking, that they should also be known and held openly in their own forms and substances. Then therefore the Word Himself also takes up His own form and adornment, sound and voice, when He says, Let there be light (Gen. 1:3) (ibid., ch. VI). For from this Petavius thinks it can be gathered that this was his opinion on the generation of the Son of God: not indeed an eternal, but a temporal generation. He adds besides that Tertullian said a little before that God, who by His nature is rational, had with Himself from eternity Reason, Logos, and Word. But that He kept this within Himself, silently thinking and disposing with Himself the things which through the Word He was

going to speak (ibid., ch. V). At that time, therefore, that Word was only interior, and did not yet subsist of itself. But when God began to build the world, He brought forth this Word, and by animating it made it a substance and a person. Not before, therefore, as they say, did Tertullian think that the Son of God was made.

But I do not know whether Petavius, and others who argue so, have paid enough attention to those words of Tertullian which immediately follow the very ones they object to us: This, he says (ibid., ch. VI), is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He proceeds from God, established by Him first for thought under the name of Sophia: The Lord established me as the beginning of the ways. Then begotten for effect: When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him together (Prov. 8:22 and following). Thenceforth making Him equal to Himself, by proceeding from whom He was made Son; firstborn, as begotten before all things; and only-begotten, as alone begotten of God, properly from the womb of His own heart, according as the Father Himself also testifies: My heart has uttered a good word (Ps. 44:2).

For he there distinguished a twofold kind of nativity of the Son of God. The first, or the first and properly so called generation of Him, is that by which the eternal Father, before all creatures, brought forth within Himself His Reason and Word. The second, less properly called His generation, was when the Father brought Him forth at the beginning of the world; or, as our author himself says, begot [Him] for effect, that is, so that through Him He might found all things. But the first generation was beyond doubt not without effect, and by it the Father begot a true Son. For as he says: I may, not rashly, have laid it down beforehand that even then, before the establishment of the universe, God was not alone, having in Himself accordingly reason, and in reason the word, which He would make second from Himself (ibid., ch. V). And who does not see that Tertullian is there treating of the Word or Speech of God before the creation of the world, and while He was still within God His Father? Now he there plainly declares that the Father was not then alone, but had in Himself this Word, distinct from His own Person, whom He makes, or begot, second from Himself and Son. Therefore before the establishment of the world, that is, from eternity, the Word, or Son of God, as we noted above, had received His nature and substance from God the Father, and was distinct from the Father only in Person.

But the Father, Petavius argues, is said by Tertullian [to be alone]: before all things God was alone, because there was nothing outside besides Him (Tertullian, in the place cited). But hardly, indeed not even hardly, can we bring ourselves to believe that this is seriously objected by a most learned and most perceptive man. For Tertullian at once adds: but not even then alone; for He had with Him that which He had in Himself, namely His Reason (ibid.). He was therefore persuaded, as we have shown above, that the eternal Father, before the world was founded, or from eternity, was both alone and not alone. For He was alone, because He had nothing outside Himself; but not alone, because He had within Himself the Word, who is a Person distinct from Him, and His Son. We have seen, moreover, that it was observed by the same Tertullian that the Greek name Logos ought by

the Latins to have been called reason rather than speech: Because God was not speaking from the beginning, he says, but was rational even before the beginning, and because speech itself also, consisting in reason, shows that [reason] is prior, as its own substance (ibid.). By these words he plainly signifies that that name, Logos, can for this reason be better rendered in Latin as reason; because God the Father was not from eternity speaking, that is, He had not brought forth the Word outside Himself. Nevertheless, because He is by His nature rational, He had from eternity within Himself His Reason, which is of the same substance with Him, but a second and distinct Person; since indeed His Father was not alone from eternity.

And that this is indeed the true sense and mind of Tertullian is evidently concluded from the fact that he is there disputing against Praxeas, who babbled that the Son, the Word of God, was altogether the same as the Father, and not distinct from Him. And what, I ask, would he have gained against him if he had admitted that the Son and Word of God did not subsist before the beginning of the world, and was not a Person distinct from the Father? By giving up of his own accord the chief part of his case, he would have offered his throat to his adversary. But so far is he from conceding this, that on the contrary he most constantly asserts that the Word of God was distinct from the Father before the creation of the world and from eternity, and second from Him.

But Petavius yields nothing, and presses that Tertullian openly taught that the nativity of the Son of God was made perfect at the time when God created all things out of nothing. Before that, therefore, there was neither origin, nor person, nor substance: and consequently no Son of God (Petavius, Dogmata theologica, vol. II, book I, ch. V, p. 25). For in the place cited are those words of his which we have already related (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch. VII): This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He proceeds from God, established by Him first for thought under the name of Sophia: The Lord established me as the beginning of His ways. Then begotten for effect: When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him (Prov. 8:22, 27). Therefore the nativity of the Son of God, says Petavius, is called perfect by Tertullian only at the time when God, through Him who is His Word, created both the world and all things.

But that most learned man could have noticed that a twofold word of God the Father is distinguished by our author. For the first is to him the inmost, which the Greeks call endiathetos [immanent]; the other external and uttered, which they call prophorikos [expressed] (Tertullian, in the place cited). Now God the Father, says Tertullian, had by that former inmost Word disposed and thought out within Himself the creating of all things and their bringing forth into their own substances and forms. Then afterwards, by sending this Word of His outside Himself and outwardly, He created all things. But we have already seen it asserted, repeated and urged by Tertullian that that interior word was begotten by His Father from all eternity, and therefore, being distinct from Him in rank and order, is the second Person of the most holy Trinity.

Why then, you will say, does he declare so openly that His nativity was made perfect not from eternity but at the beginning of the world, and that He then received His form, adornment,

sound and voice? But did Tertullian, we shall say, come to such a pitch of madness as to think that the generation of the Son of God was at some time imperfect, or merely begun, and afterwards took on form and adornment, and so was made perfect and complete (ibid.)? It was not, then, in that sense that he called it imperfect, but in the way he himself explains in the same place: because, although it was perfect from eternity, it nevertheless lay hidden within the bosom of God, and was known to none but God alone Himself. But when, in founding the world, He brought forth this Word of His outside Himself, and sent Him forth outside Himself as if from the womb and matrix of His heart, as he likes to say, then that eternal Word took sound and voice, and therefore an exterior adornment and form. For then He was acknowledged by creatures endowed with reason. For the word species among good authors means the same as the showing of some thing. And indeed species, says Nonius, is named from aspect. When, therefore, the Word of God, or the eternal Son of God the Father, was sent forth outside Him at the beginning of the world, then He receives form and adornment, or sound and voice, and His nativity was made perfect, not indeed as regards Himself, but as regards the creatures, which acknowledged it.

No longer, then, are they to be heeded who will object again that it was said by the same Tertullian: God was not speaking from the beginning (ibid., ch. V). For he immediately added: but God was rational even before the beginning, and because the Word itself also, consisting in reason, shows that Reason to be prior, as its own substance. But if God was rational before the beginning, that is, from eternity, He also brought forth from eternity His Reason, which, as has often been said, is His Word and Son (ibid., ch. VIII). Then afterwards: this Word, he says, is built of spirit, and, if I may so speak, the body of the Word, that is, its substance, is spirit. And he admits that the two, although they are one and the same, can in some way be distinguished (ibid., ch. XXVI): For spirit, he says, is the substance of the word, and the word the operation of the spirit, and the two are one. But this Word of God the Father, or the very operation of His spirit, did not become known to creatures before the world was founded. And the knowledge of this operation, or generation, of the Son of God is called by Tertullian the perfect nativity; because what before was known to God the Father alone was then made manifest to creatures endowed with reason.

Yet Petavius and others still object to us these words of Tertullian on the same appearing of the Son of God (Petavius, Dogmata theologica, vol. II, book I, ch. V, p. 26; Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch. XII): But how is it written in the preceding works of the world as well? First indeed, when the Son had not yet appeared: And God said, Let there be light, and it was made (Gen. 1:3), the Word Himself at once the true light, which enlightens man coming into this world (John 1:9), and through Him also the light of the world. Thenceforth, with the Word, Christ, assisting and ministering, God willed [things] to be made, and God made [them]. . . . . through whom all things were made (John 1:3). From this they conclude that it is there plainly shown that the Son and the Spirit, the second and third Persons of the Trinity, did not subsist from eternity, but [only] when God willed to make the world, and actually made it.

But it must be observed that with these words Tertullian replied to the heretic Praxeas, who objected to the Catholics that God, to whom nothing is impossible, could have made Himself both Father and Son at once. Tertullian readily grants that all things indeed can be done by God; but not that all things which He could do have been done by Him. Praxeas, then, ought to have demonstrated evidently that the Father really made Himself both Father and Son, or that the Son is no other than the Father Himself. Tertullian, on the contrary, affirms the more confidently that this can never be proved by Praxeas, the more readily he gathers various testimonies of Scripture by which, he says, the Father and the Son are shown among us distinctly, distinctly, I say, not dividedly (ibid. ch. 21); since the Son of God, as we have said so many times, came forth from the Father, and is therefore indeed distinct from Him, but not divided and separated; because the substance of both is the same. Then next, by the authority of the same Scripture, he shows that there are three persons of the Trinity, joined in a simple unity. And it was there that he brought forward the words which are objected to us, and after this he concludes that all things were made through the Word of God, or through the Son of God, who is Himself also God. Because, then, He is the Word of God, He is for that reason distinguished from Him, and is called another, by reason of person, he says, not of substance, for distinction, not for division. But how is His substance and the Father's one, and He one God with Him, unless He was from eternity, as the Father was? When, therefore, he said that the Son of God did not appear before the beginning of the world, he signifies plainly enough that He was then known to no creature. But when, as he says in the same place, it was first said, Let there be light, then at once light was made, and the true light appeared, or the Word of God; not indeed because He who had been begotten from eternity came to exist then for the first time, and not before; but because He then began to appear to men, He who is the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. And so far is this reply of our Tertullian from favouring Petau and the others that it rather overturns their whole argument from its foundations.

We know indeed that his words are twisted into another sense by Bull. For he confesses that they are very obscure, but suspects nevertheless that they are to be understood thus of the Son's appearing: The Son of God, he says, in so far as He is the eternal Reason and Wisdom, first began to appear when God set about disposing, ordering and adorning by His wisdom the unformed and confused matter of things. But from the confused and unordered heap of things which is called chaos the Wisdom and Sophia of God had not yet shone forth. But it shone forth most brightly when the primal light, as the image of the Son of God, who is the splendour of eternal light, illumined matter, and clothed each several thing with its own form and its own adornment. But this interpretation seems to be contradicted by the fact that the Word and Son of God, through whom both every light and all other things were created, shines forth no less from the creation of ordered and confused matter than from that of the primal light. Yet if anyone shall rightly prove that this explanation of Tertullian's words which Bull offers is the true one, we shall not much resist it, provided

that from this too it may be gathered that Tertullian acknowledges the eternal splendour of the light, or of the Son of God, and the eternal generation which he asserted and defended, as we have seen, so constantly.

ARTICLE IX.

Another argument is resolved, drawn from the fact that Tertullian seems to have said that there was a time when the Son of God was not.

By another argument, drawn from Tertullian's book against Hermogenes, Petau thinks it can still be proved that the eternity of the Son of God was wholly unknown to him. For our African author, as it seems to Petau, declares most expressly that there was a time when the Son of God was not. And that learned man thinks that this pure and unmixed fiction of Arius and his followers is asserted by Tertullian where he refutes the arguments of Hermogenes, who prated that matter was coeternal with God. For that heretic strove to demonstrate the eternity of matter from the fact that God was never not Lord. But He could not always be Lord, he said, except of matter, of which He might always be held to be lord. But Tertullian refutes this argument of Hermogenes, and denies that God was always Lord (Tertullian, book against Hermogenes, ch. 3): For God, as he says, is the name of the substance itself, that is, of the Divinity; but Lord is the name not of substance but of power. He was Lord, then, only from the time when those things began to be which God held in His power. Then he goes on thus: Because God is both father and judge, He is not on that account always father and judge because He is always God. For He could neither be father before the son, nor judge before the offence. But there was a time when both the offence and the son did not exist, which would make Him judge, and who would make Him father, lord: so too He was not lord before those things of which He was to be lord, but was only to be lord at some time, as father through the son, as judge through the offence; so also lord through the things which He had made to serve Him. From this Petau concludes that Tertullian clearly and plainly lays it down that there was a time when the Son of God was not.

Nor is the answer to be made that Tertullian speaks not of the Son of God but of any son of men whatever. For where he discourses on the Wisdom of God, or the Son of God Himself, there he cites of Him and interprets these words of Proverbs (Proverbs 8:22 ff.): The Lord established me at the beginning of His ways: for His works He founded me before the ages... And before the deep I was begotten. And from them he argues thus (Tertullian, book against Hermogenes, ch. 18): Let Hermogenes acknowledge, then, that the wisdom of God too is proclaimed born and established for this reason, that we should not believe anything to be unborn and unestablished except God alone. For if that which was from the Lord and in Him, within the Lord, was not without beginning, namely His Wisdom, born and established from the time when it began to stir in the mind of God for the disposing of the works of the world; much less does it admit that anything was without beginning which was outside the Lord. There indeed, they will say, Tertullian openly asserts that Wisdom, or the Son of God, was not without beginning, and that He received one; and

that Wisdom was born and established at the time when it began to stir in the mind of God for the disposing of the works of the world.

We have related this whole argument, and our author's words entire, so that no one may complain that we have concealed or passed over anything. Nor shall we conceal, either, that these passages of Tertullian seem to some so obscure and difficult that they have judged no other answer should be made to the argument drawn from them than these words of Jerome, with which Jerome replies to Helvidius when he put forward the authority of the same Tertullian on another matter (book against Helvidius): And of Tertullian indeed I say nothing more than that he was not a man of the Church, that is, that he fell away into various errors of heretics. But by this answer the knot of the difficulty is cut, not untied. For Tertullian wrote this book while still a Catholic and a man of the Church. And then, even if he did fall into various errors, and, to use Hilary's words, although the man's error took away authority from his commendable writings (Hilary, Commentary on Matthew, ch. V), we have nevertheless shown above that the Catholic dogma of the divine and eternal generation of the Son of God was constantly asserted and vindicated by him, whether orthodox or heretic.

More likely to be true, then, will perhaps seem the reply of others, who say that Tertullian, a man of the keenest intelligence, in his very great dispute with the heretic Hermogenes about the eternity of matter, was carried away, in the not unusual manner of disputants, a little further than was right (Bull, Defence of the Nicene Faith, sect. 3, ch. 10, n. 4). For it cannot be unknown to anyone even moderately versed in reading his books that, to establish some proposition, he gathers arguments from every side, even those which were of no great weight. Not from the cited words of this book, then, they say, is it to be judged what he thought of the eternal generation of the Son of God, but from others, where with a calm and peaceful mind he set out his own doctrine, as we have seen, and that of the whole Church, on the supreme divinity and eternity of the Son of God.

But let us weigh more exactly, if you please, whether in the passages objected he actually overstepped the bounds of the true doctrine established by himself. In the former, then, he said that God was not always lord, just as He could neither be father before the son, nor judge before the offence. Yet the question there was not about father and judge, but about lord only. They are, then, examples which he employs to refute Hermogenes. And examples of any father and judge whatever, whether created or uncreated, served his purpose equally well.

Be it so, however, and let us grant, if you please, that he is speaking of the true God the Father and His Son: could he deny that the Son is coeternal with His Father? Has it not been proved more than enough how splendidly and how often he proclaimed that the Word, or Son of God, who is the reason of His Father, was always in Him, and never separated from Him, and is therefore eternal? Wherefore, where he says that there was a time when He was not, he beyond doubt did not mean to deny His eternity, which he asserted and defended elsewhere so often.

What, then, you will ask, is the sense of his words, in which he seems so openly to deny it? You will easily persuade us that he meant nothing other than by the others explained above, in which he had said that His nativity was perfected at the time when God set about creating the world. For although this Son of God had been begotten before, and from eternity, as we have shown, He had not yet gone forth from the bosom, or understanding, of the eternal Father, as from His matrix, womb and heart. Before created things, then, was He not known either to be the Son or to have a Father? But when the Father sent Him forth outside Himself, then men began to recognize His generation, and that He was truly the Son of God. Tertullian therefore, in order to overturn more effectively Hermogenes' frivolous argument drawn from the word "Lord", judged that it could be said that there had been a time when men recognized neither that God was a father nor His Son, because His generation and nativity had not been discovered and recognized by them. But when they recognized it, then, as we have seen it said by him, this generation was perfected. It is of this generation, then, perfected in the sense we have noted, that he appears to speak.

But that this is truly his mind can be gathered from his own words against Hermogenes already cited: "His Wisdom," he says, "was born and established from the time when it began to be stirred in the understanding of God for the ordering of the works of the world" (Tertullian, Against Hermogenes, ch. 18); because this very Wisdom, which, as we have said, by his own admission was always in God the Father, appeared to men as born from Him, and was made manifest to them. For he did not say that it then first arose and was begotten. For in this very passage, in which he explodes the quibbles of Hermogenes, he most expressly declares that it arose from eternity: "If God needed matter," he says, "for the works of the world, as Hermogenes supposed, God had a matter far worthier and fitter, not to be valued among the philosophers but to be understood among the prophets, namely His own Wisdom. This alone, in short, knew the mind of the Lord. For who knows the things that are of God, and the things that are in Him, except the spirit which is in it? But Wisdom is spirit." Whence he concludes: "Who would not rather commend this as the fount and origin of all things, the matter indeed of matters, not subject to Him, not diverse in state, not restless in motion, not formless in condition, but inborn and proper, and ordered, and comely, such as God could have needed, needing what was His own rather than what was another's?" But who does not understand that Tertullian there asserts that the Wisdom of God was begotten by His Father from all eternity, which is spirit only, and the counsellor of God the Father, which is not diverse from Him in state, that is, as we noted above, in substance, but was proper to Him and always inborn in Him, and which alone, and no other thing, He needed for the creation of the world, if indeed God can be said ever to have needed anything?

These things being thus established, he replies to Hermogenes, who babbled that God had needed matter and that it was therefore co-eternal with Him: "For this reason also the Wisdom of God is proclaimed born and established, lest we should believe anything to be unborn and unestablished save God alone" (ibid.). He says, then, that Wisdom, or the Word and Son of God, is proclaimed to have been born at some time,

and to have begun to be stirred, according to the saying of the prophet cited by him, "My heart has uttered a good word": "And so," he says, "the Word of God, who is also His Wisdom, was born"; because He then went out and went forth from the bosom of His Father, in which, begotten from eternity, He had lain hidden, and thus, as we have said, His nativity was perfected; because then, and not before, it was disclosed and shown to men. And just as this very generation of the Son of God, so also the dominion of His divine Father, and indeed His fatherhood, began at the first beginning of the world to be recognized by creatures possessed of reason, and God began to be called by the names both of Father and of Lord. Moreover, that this is Tertullian's mind is gathered from the fact that he is there disputing against Hermogenes, who contended that God was not Lord from eternity unless He had outside Himself a matter of which He was truly lord. For the rest, although Tertullian did not wholly extricate himself from every difficulty of this argument, no one can rightly conclude from it that the eternity and divine nature of the Son of God were denied by him. For who does not know that certain teachings most difficult to the understanding are asserted without hesitation by many who cannot fully untie all the knots of difficulty in which they are entangled? But we have shown most evidently how constantly, how expressly, and without any circumlocution of words Tertullian asserted and defended the eternity of the Son of God and His divine nature. But he proclaims it no less clearly elsewhere besides, as we shall see in the following chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

On Christ, God and man.

FIRST ARTICLE.

On Christ's human birth from a virgin, foretold by the holy prophets: why He is called man mingled with God: that His coming to earth cannot be rejected by the gentiles, who had invented certain similar things in order to destroy its truth.

It has been shown by us amply enough, unless we are quite mistaken, how true and orthodox was Tertullian's opinion and teaching on the supreme divinity of the Word, or Speech and Son of God. But some further light can be shed on this by what he taught about the same Son of God clothed in human flesh. To the gentiles he explains briefly, and in this manner, what Christians held about Him: "This ray of God", that is, the Son of God, who came forth from the bosom of His Father as a ray from the Sun, "as was always proclaimed of old by the ancients", namely the prophets, "having descended into a certain virgin, and being formed flesh in her womb, is born man mingled with God" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 399). But in another book he set this out in these clearer words: "Thus the record of each substance showed Him man and God: born on the one side, unborn on the other; fleshly on the one side, spiritual on the other; weak on the one side, exceedingly strong on the other; dying on the one side, living on the other. This distinctness of the divine and human conditions is certainly marked out with equal truth of each nature, with the same credibility of spirit and of flesh; the powers proved the spirit

of God, the sufferings proved the flesh of man" (the same, On the Flesh of Christ, ch. V). He therefore teaches clearly that both the divine and the human nature were wholly perfect in Christ. Nor does he declare less openly that those two natures of Christ were not confused, but so distinct from each other that their properties are entirely diverse.

So in the Apology, when he said, "He is born man mingled with God" (in the place cited above), he beyond doubt does not mean there that His two natures were mixed together and confused, as the Eutychians afterwards dreamed, but that they were so coupled and joined to each other, as we have shown elsewhere, that Christ is both true God and true man (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVII, art. 3).

He teaches, moreover, that He was not made man in the common manner of men; but "having descended", he says, "into a virgin", who bore Him without the work of any man (Apology, in the place cited). But because this was very hard to believe, and could even be mocked by the heathen, Tertullian quite deliberately reminds everyone that it had been foretold by the holy prophets, whose authority, as we said above, can be weakened by no one. For this reason he had said a little before: "(There came, therefore, He who to reform and enlighten it", that is, the grace of the Jews passed on to the Christians, "was foretold by God as one to come, that Christ, the Son of God.) Of this grace and discipline, therefore, the Son of God was announced as the arbiter and master, the enlightener and guide of the human race; not indeed so begotten that He should blush at the name of son, or at a father's seed..... The Son of God has no mother from unchastity; even she whom He seems to have had had not married" (ibid.). All these words, word for word, are shown in our manuscript codices and in the old editions down to Rigault. But Rigault, whom others afterwards followed, chose to cut away entirely the first phrase of this passage, enclosed in brackets. Yet he gave no reason for that amputation, indeed not even the least word. But although this phrase seemed to him wholly useless and inserted quite out of place into Tertullian's text, the reader ought at least to have been told of this addition.

For the rest, Tertullian's opinion can be obscure to no one, since he most manifestly pronounces that the Son of God descended into a virgin, from whom He received a human body. And he said "virgin" because this Son of God, he says, "has no mother from unchastity; even she whom He seems to have had had not married." But if any woman became a mother without the stain of unchastity and without marital union, she certainly bore Christ with the integrity of her virginity preserved. But on what ground, someone will say, could it be said, "She had not married"? Do not nearly all assert that she was truly married to Joseph? Some answer that by the words "had not married" nothing else is meant than that Mary had not known a man. For she herself answered the angel: "How shall this be, since I know not a man?" (Luke 1:34). But they had to prove by whom the verb nubo is taken in this sense. To some, however, this opinion, which they think to be Jerome's, commends itself: that Mary, when she conceived Christ,

was a bride, or, to use the Evangelists' word, betrothed indeed to Joseph, to whom she was married a short interval after the conception. But no one can open Tertullian's mind more surely than he himself (Petau, Dogmata theologica, vol. V, bk XIV, ch. 3, § 10; Jerome, Against Helvidius). Now in his book On the Flesh of Christ he wrote this of the Virgin Mary: "Although she conceived as a virgin, in her childbirth she married", by the very law of the opened body which he cites in the same place: "Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord" (the same, On the Flesh of Christ, ch. XXIII). You see plainly that the verb nubere is taken by him here for the virgin's childbirth, by which her womb was unsealed. We do not now ask in what sense he said she was opened, a point treated in our observations on Ambrose. For it is enough for us now that, as to this, the verb nubere is taken by him for the opening of the woman's womb in childbirth (Note on Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel, section on Luke). And just as we cannot deny that this is by no means the proper meaning of this verb, so certainly all must confess that Mary's unimpaired virginity is most evidently asserted by him (vol. I of the Apparatus, bk III, dissert. 2, ch. 6, art. 9, p. 973). For not only in his Apology but in another book also, as we have seen elsewhere, he establishes that teaching and confirms it as received with great consent by the universal Church of his time and before. We, for our part, have discussed it in our earlier dissertations (ibid., bk II, dissert. 6, ch. 7, § 5, p. 597; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVII, art. 3, vol. I of the Apparatus, in the place cited, and bk III, dissert. 2, ch. 6, art. 4, p. 597 and following, and Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. VIII, art. 1).

Tertullian further openly professes that this birth of Christ from a virgin, and His coming to earth, were foretold by our sacred seers. But what their oracles are he passed over in complete silence in this book, in which he was studying brevity. He, however, in his book Against the Jews, and others in other books, related many of them, which we have further dealt with in those same earlier dissertations of ours. Yet we cannot omit the testimony of Justin Martyr, which agrees excellently with Tertullian's sayings and confirms them in a wonderful way. For where that most holy martyr cites several predictions of the sacred prophets concerning Christ's coming to be, and first of all this one of Isaiah, "Behold, a Virgin shall have in her womb", he there shows that no occasion is given the heathen by it for excusing their Jupiter, who had begotten many children by adulterous intercourse. For that prophecy of Isaiah, "signifies that the virgin conceived without intercourse; for if she had had intercourse with anyone at all, she was no longer a virgin; but the power of God, coming upon the virgin, overshadowed her and caused her, being a virgin, to be with child." "It signifies that the virgin would conceive without carnal union. For if she had had union with anyone, she would no longer have been a virgin. But the power coming upon the virgin overshadowed her, and, though she was a virgin, brought it about that she bore a child, pregnant in her womb" (Justin, Apology I).

But even if no one should dare to declare with certainty that Tertullian aimed at these words of Justin, to no one, surely,

can it be doubtful that Cyprian had this passage of our Tertullian in view when he committed this to writing: "Of this indulgence, therefore, of this grace and discipline, the Word and Son of God is sent as arbiter and master, who through all the prophets of old was proclaimed the enlightener and teacher of the human race..... He glides down into a virgin; with the Holy Spirit co-operating He is clothed with flesh: God is mingled with man" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods). He is called "mingled" by him, as by Tertullian, not by a confusion of the two natures, divine and human, such as the Eutychians invented, but because Christ, as we pointed out a little before, has both natures perfect, joined and coupled to His divine Person.

Then next our Author, addressing the gentiles themselves, demonstrates thus that these things cannot be rejected by them: "Receive this story meanwhile, or, as a story, it is like your own, while we show how Christ is proved. Those knew it who among you supplied stories as rivals, for the destruction of this truth" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 399). But in our manuscript codices, and in those printed before Rigault, after the word probetur these words are written otherwise, and thus: "and who among you supplied such rival stories for the destruction of the truth of this kind." Why Rigault changed these words, you need expect no reason from him. Tertullian, however, argues thus against the heathen: "You can object to me that what I have said about Christ, His birth from a virgin, and His human life, is mere story. But even if I granted you that, you ought not to spurn it but to receive it, since it is like those you have invented. For we show how Christ born of a virgin is proved, and that there are many writers among you who supplied similar stories for the destruction of the truth." But tell me, I pray, whether the sense of Tertullian's words as copied here in our codices is more obscure than in Rigault's edition.

For the rest, Justin Martyr had earlier argued against the same gentiles in quite a similar way: "And if we put forward that He was born through a virgin, let this too be held in common with you, in view of Perseus." "And that we proclaim that Christ was born even from a virgin, let this also be common with you, because of Perseus" (Justin, Apology I). For this story is known to all, in which the gentiles invented that Jupiter, turned into a golden shower, came down to Danae and begot Perseus by her. The holy martyr in the same place mentions other stories of the heathen besides, which he shows to be similar to the things truly told of Christ. And afterwards he adds that stories of this kind were sung by the heathen poets at the instigation and by the wiles of demons precisely so that the things wonderfully done by Christ might be held for fables and poetic inventions.

And there is no one who does not understand, even if we keep silent, how far these things agree with Tertullian's sayings, and are confirmed by them. For he touched briefly, in these few words, not only the one story of Jupiter's wicked intercourse with Danae but several others too: "The Son

of God was announced, not indeed so begotten that He should blush at the name of Son, or at a Father's seed; He did not suffer as God His father, from a sister's incest, from the violation of a daughter or of another's wife, a lover scaled, or horned, or feathered, turned into gold. These names of yours belong to the Danaid Jupiter" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 396). And so these words are read in our manuscript codices and in the older printed editions, except that in these they put a full stop after the name Danaidis, and aurum for auro. But Rigault removed that name Danaidis on his own authority, as is plain, and against the witness of all the codices, manuscript and printed. Of these transformations of Jupiter for the violation of virgins and women we have spoken in our earlier dissertations, and especially in those on the books of Arnobius (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. IX, art. 4).

ARTICLE II.

That the same coming of Christ to earth cannot be denied by the Jews, unless they are punished with blind obstinacy.

After Tertullian has disputed against the gentiles in the manner we have explained, he at once proves true those things which Christians taught against the Jews about the coming of Christ the Lord. For he goes on thus: "The Jews too knew that Christ was to come, being, of course, those to whom the prophets spoke. For even now they await His coming, and there is no greater clash between us and them than that they do not believe He has already come. For two comings of His having been signified, the first, which has already been fulfilled", that is, carried out and completed, "in the lowliness of the human condition; the second, which hangs over the world as it draws to its close, in the sublimity of divinity displayed", that is, visible and manifest, "by not understanding the first they have supposed the second, which they hope for as more manifestly foretold, to be the only one" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 400). From this fountain of Tertullian Cyprian drank, after his manner, and turned it to his own uses thus: "The Jews too knew that Christ would come. For He was always announced to them by the admonitions of the prophets. But a twofold coming of His having been signified, one which should discharge the exercise and example of a man, the other which should confess Him God, by not understanding the first coming, which went before hidden in the Passion, they believe in one only, which will be manifest in power" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods).

Both, then, confess that Christ's coming, in the flesh of man that He assumed, was real. For He was foretold by the ancient and holy prophets so openly, as we pointed out a little before, that the Jews could not have been ignorant of Him. But because Christ lived a mortal life in the lowliness of the human condition, the Jews stubbornly denied that He was the true Messiah, and, puffed up with pride, await another, who is to come at the end of the world with all the glory of the divine majesty. But we have shown elsewhere that this error of the Jews was wilful, an error overthrown from its foundations not only by our Tertullian and by Cyprian but also by Lactantius (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVII, art. 5).

And the cause of so great an error of the Jews, and of so great a blindness, says Tertullian, was their sin,

as Isaiah had foretold. But our Author himself must be heard further: "For that they should not understand the first coming of Christ, they who would have believed had they understood, and would have obtained salvation had they believed, was the desert of their sin. They themselves read it so written: that they are punished by the loss of wisdom and understanding, and of the fruit of eyes and ears" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 400). And Cyprian again pressed on his footsteps thus: "But that the people of the Jews could not understand this was the desert of their sins. So were they punished with blindness of wisdom and understanding, that those who were unworthy of life should have life before their eyes and not see it" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods).

Both, beyond doubt, were aiming at these words of Isaiah, and were citing them without naming him: "You shall say to this people: Hear with hearing, and do not understand; and see the vision, and do not know. Blind the heart of this people, and make its ears heavy, and close its eyes, lest perhaps it see with its eyes, and hear with its ears, and understand with its heart, and be converted, and I heal it" (Isa. 6:9–10). These words you will find cited not only in Matthew's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, but also by John the Evangelist, in this manner: "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them" (Matt. 1:14 [i.e. 13:14]; Acts 28:26; John 12:39–40). But of the Jews blinded by an utterly intolerable vice of obstinacy, who for that reason are said to have been no longer able to believe, we have already disputed in our dissertation on the books of Lactantius, and something more is to be said below in the third article (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVI, art. 2).

Nor did the untamed and blind stubbornness of the Jews stop here: but when Christ, by miracles unheard of until then, made it most manifest to everyone that He had come from the bosom of His eternal Father, they dared to attribute these things to magic arts. "But indeed," Tertullian goes on, "Him whom from His lowliness they had presumed to be only a man, it followed that from His power they should reckon a magician, since He with a word drove demons out of men, gave light again to the blind, the lepers.... showing Himself the λόγος of God, that is, that primordial Word, first-begotten, upheld by power and reason" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 400). So in Rigault's edition. But in our codices, and in those printed before: "Showing Himself to be", or "Himself the Word of God, that is, the λόγος, that"; and after the word fultum there is added in them: "the same who by a word both made and had made all things." But since the former words were transposed by Rigault, he ought to have given at least some reason why he deleted the latter. Did he reject them either because there is a solecism there, or because he judged them useless? But what if the pronoun eumdem is referred to the λόγος? Do we not read in John's Gospel, "The Beginning, who also speak to you" (John 8:25)? Is the solecism in these words less than in Tertullian's? Finally, the last words, which we read in all our codices,

seem neither superfluous nor of little service to Tertullian's purpose.

Greater, then, was Rigault's diligence when, in the same place, he wished readers to be told that in some copies of our Author, and of Cyprian, magnum is indeed read, but that magum seems more fittingly written. Well done. For Tertullian said afterwards: "Who is this Christ with his story, if a man of common condition, if a magician?" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XX, p. 25). We too have observed besides that in the Harleian codex, where magnum is found, two points are set beneath the letter n, by which it is marked as superfluous and to be deleted. Tertullian's passage was transcribed by Cyprian thus: "When Christ Jesus, according to what had been foretold by the prophets, with a word and the command of His voice drove demons out of men, restored the paralysed, cleansed the lepers...... the Jews, who had believed Him only a man from the lowliness of His flesh and body, reckoned Him a magician from the licence of His power", and in our Tertullian, "from His power" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods). In four of the older manuscript codices of this book of Cyprian that we have obtained, magnum is read, but in the others magum. Yet this latter reading seems to be preferred to the other, because both are discoursing of the divine power of Christ, by which He performed miracles almost without number and unheard of until then, which the Jews, most shameless slanderers, had dared to ascribe to His magic arts. Of these miracles of Christ, by which He most evidently proved that He was the Son of God and, having assumed a human body, lived a mortal life, we have disputed in the preceding and other dissertations of ours (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. IX, art. 2 and following; ch. XVIII, art. 3).

ARTICLE III.

That Christ, driven to the cross by Pilate, procurator of Syria, through the violent clamour of the Jews, as He Himself had foretold, gave up His spirit of His own will and with a word; on the eclipse of the sun at that time, recorded in the archives, and on the burial of Christ.

Although so many and such astounding miracles of Christ demonstrate most invincibly, against the Jews and any others whatever, that He was truly God and man, and lived among men, Tertullian nevertheless did not think this enough for him. For he goes on, and demonstrates no less clearly that this can be further established and confirmed by other similar miracles performed by Him before and after His death. Let us then follow him, and hear him discoursing on that death of Christ: "Because by His teaching", he says (the manuscript codices: "by which"), "the masters and chief men of the Jews were refuted, they were so exasperated, above all because a huge multitude was turning aside to Him, that at last, having brought Him before Pontius Pilate, then governing Syria on the Roman side, they extorted by the violence of their votes that He be given up to them on the cross" (the manuscript codices: "Jesus") (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 400). Cyprian borrowed this from our Author in such a way that he even plucked out some of his words: "Him," he says, "their masters", the Jews', "and chief men", that is, those whom He refuted both by teaching and by wisdom,

"inflamed with anger and provoked by indignation, at last, having seized Him, handed Him over to Pontius Pilate, who was then governing Syria on the Roman side, demanding His cross and death with violent and persistent votes" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods). That both of them, and Lactantius afterwards, so expressly call Pilate procurator of Syria is not without difficulty; but we have tried to unravel it in our dissertation on the latter's books. We have also given the reason why the Jews are said to have been "exasperated" by Christ's teaching, that is, made harsher, or, as Cyprian says, "inflamed with anger and indignity": because He was loosing and abrogating their law (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVIII, art. 2).

And Tertullian adds: "He Himself had foretold that they would do so. This were little" (in the manuscripts the pronoun hoc is wanting) "if the prophets too had not of old" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 401). But this is explained a little more fully and openly by Cyprian in these words: "He Himself had foretold that they would do this, and the testimony of all the prophets had gone before in the same way, that He must suffer, not only so as to feel death, but so as to conquer it" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods). And in what way Christ foretold the death to be inflicted on Him by the Jews, not one only but all the Evangelists have testified with the fullest agreement. That it was also announced by the prophets of the Old Testament themselves we have shown elsewhere.

Then next our Author: "And yet, fastened to the cross, He gave up His spirit with a word, forestalling the executioner's office" (Matt. 20:18–19; Mark 10:35; Luke 10:35 and 18:31; John 5:4 and 8; Acts 12:32; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. VIII, art. 2; Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 401). So indeed Rigault. But mark there, as elsewhere, his truly wonderful diligence. For he noted no other variant reading than et tandem for et tamen. Yet in all our manuscript copies, as also in those printed before, we have this: "And yet, fastened, He showed many marks proper to that death of His. For He gave up His spirit with a word of His own accord, forestalling the executioner's office." But if all these words did not please Rigault, why did he, giving no reason, remove both them and the word sponte, which in Cyprian, Tertullian's trustee and faithful interpreter, is read thus: "Crucified, forestalling the executioner's office, He gave up His spirit of His own accord" (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods)? Could Rigault not understand from this that these were the very words of Tertullian which Cyprian had without doubt read in his copy of this Apology? Had he also forgotten, or could he pass over, what we observed to be written in like manner by Lactantius: "Hung up and fastened, He cried out to the Lord with a loud voice, and of His own will laid down His spirit" (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XVIII, art. 3)? Note in passing that by these words, "with a loud voice", the same is signified as by these of our Tertullian, "gave up with a word". Why, then, did Rigault scrape away other words of the same Tertullian, by which he meant to prove against the Jews and others that Christ, God and man, died of His own will, as the miracles He performed at that time demonstrated?

What he, and Cyprian afterwards, say, "forestalling the executioner's office", is explained more plainly and clearly by these words of Lactantius: "When, fixed to the cross, He had laid down His spirit, the executioners did not think it necessary to break His bones, as their custom was" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, bk IV, ch. 26). Lipsius discusses this custom, and you may consult him if you please and have leisure (Lipsius, On the Cross, bk II, ch. 14, p. 663, vol. III).

Meanwhile let us go on, and see what Tertullian adds about Christ dying: "At the same moment," he says, "in which He was breathing His last, the daylight was withdrawn, the sun marking the world's orb. They thought it an eclipse, of course, who did not know that this too had been foretold concerning Christ" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXI, p. 401). And these words, and no more, are read in all the codices, both the older printed ones and those written by any hand. But in his edition Rigault added these: "the cause not being discovered, they denied it." And so he added these words to Tertullian's text, just as he had taken not a few away from it in many other places. Where he took them from, he does not tell us, nor can we by any means divine it. He used two manuscript codices of this book, the Puteanus and the Pithoeanus, and various readings of the Fulda copy. Now we have in our hands the Puteanus, venerable for its antiquity, and the Pithoeanus, in which those added words do not occur. Rigault ought therefore to have noted whether they are found among the variant readings of the Fulda copy, and why he preferred its authority alone to all the others.

Of the eclipse of the sun next mentioned by Tertullian, and of its prediction, we have discoursed elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. VIII, art. 2). How greatly not only the Jews but the gentiles too were struck by it, judge from these following words of our Author: "And yet you have that disaster of the world recorded in your archives" (Tertullian, ibid.). These words are written so in our codices, as in Rigault's edition. But who will not praise the singular industry of that learned man, who advised us there that in other editions archivis is put for arcanis? Yet he would beyond doubt be worthy of greater praise if, having noted this and some other similar and certainly very slight readings, he had not passed over others, far more numerous and surely of graver moment. For archiva signify plainly the same as arcana, which, on the witness of Festus and Servius, are things called secret and closed, from which all are kept away (Festus, On the Meaning of Words, bk XX; Servius on Virgil, Aeneid, bk I, v. 266).

Furthermore, our Author asserts that this eclipse of the sun was recorded in the archives of the gentiles, because it and other things which had happened before and after Christ's death were written down by public notaries or by others and kept in the archives of those same gentiles. And what these archives, or arcana, are, whether of the Romans or of other gentiles, can perhaps be gathered from what we shall say a little later about Pilate's letter to the emperor Tiberius concerning Christ.

Meanwhile we shall note the hands that Rigault has further laid upon these following words of Tertullian:

"Him, taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb, the Jews besieged with the great diligence too of a military guard" (ibid.). In our manuscripts, indeed, and in the copies published before, it reads: "Then the Jews ..... with a great military band too, with the diligence of a guard, besieged." But what harm did these words, "with a great military band", do there? Did not our Author express by them more pointedly that it was no small number of soldiers who guarded the tomb of Christ most diligently? But let us pursue the rest.

ARTICLE IV.

On Christ's return from death to life, His appearances in Galilee, the disciples appointed to spread the Gospel, His ascent into the heavens, and all these things reported by Pilate to the emperor Tiberius: that the Caesars would have believed in Christ, if they were not necessary to the world.

Tertullian goes on, and informs us that Christ foretold that He would be recalled to life on the third day after His death (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, page 401). Rightly indeed, as has been explained by us elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter VIII, article 2). And Christ stood by His promises, and returned to life. But after He had so risen again, the words of the same author of ours are: "nothing was found in the tomb except the cast-off coverings of the tomb" (ibid.). In our codices and in other editions, "of the one buried"; and better indeed. For exuviae are said chiefly of men, and sometimes of beasts. Wherefore Lactantius says: "In the tomb nothing was found except the coverings in which they had enclosed the wrapped body" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book IV, chapter XXIX; Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XIX, article 2).

In that same dissertation of ours on his books we also showed how he explained the things said by Tertullian about Christ's death, burial and resurrection, and added there in this manner: "Nor did that Christ, alive again, bring Himself out before the crowd, lest the impious be freed from their error" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, page 402). And there we demonstrated that this manner of speaking, which is used not only by Tertullian and Lactantius but by Cyprian too, and by our sacred Writers, is quite undeservedly harassed by certain heterodox writers (Dissertation on Lactantius, at the place cited above, and chapter XVII, article 5).

After this Tertullian relates these things about Christ recalled to life: "With certain disciples in Galilee, a region of Judaea, He spent forty days, teaching them what they should teach" (Tertullian, ibid.). What then? Did Christ for all that time dwell in Galilee alone, and only with certain of His disciples? Did He not appear elsewhere too, and to all the disciples? But Tertullian, because in this book he aimed at brevity, does not indeed deny it, and judged it enough for himself to have narrated what was done in Galilee. Cyprian, however, though he follows him, wrote not so narrowly but in general terms: "He appeared to His disciples such ..... He had been ..... He stayed for forty days, so that they might be instructed by Him in the precepts of life, and might learn

what they should teach" (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols). And about these appearances of Christ, and the teaching with which He imbued His disciples, we have argued in other dissertations (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XIX, article 3; and Dissertation on Caecilius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter IV, article 2).

In the same we also elucidated what these following words of Tertullian mean: "Then, having appointed them to the office of preaching through the world, with a cloud poured round Him He was snatched away into heaven" (Tertullian, at the place cited). But in our copies, and in others published before Rigault, we read: "He was received into heaven." Could Rigault not bear that manner of speaking? Why then did he not rather use these words of Cyprian: "With a cloud poured round Him He was taken up into heaven" (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols)? Would he not have done better to correct the master from the disciple, if that were allowed? But authors must be left their own words. Otherwise it would be all over with the genuine works of the ancient writers.

Tertullian adds that Christ ascended to the heavens: "Much better than Proculi among you," gentiles, "are wont to assert concerning Romuluses" (Tertullian, at the place cited). But again in these same codices of ours and the printed ones older than Rigault: "Much more truly ... than Proculi are wont concerning Romulus." Who does not see that this is the better and genuine reading of Tertullian? For there he asserts that it is much more true that Christ ascended into the heavens than Romulus, although Proculi, that is, those who make wrongful use of the perjury of Proculus, are wont to affirm that Romulus was seen by them ascending into the heavens.

Finally our Author added: "All these things concerning Christ Pilate, himself by now a Christian in his conscience, reported to the Caesar of the time, Tiberius. But the Caesars too would have believed concerning Christ, if the Caesars were not necessary to the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars" (ibid.). Other words, written by him earlier, certainly lend light to these words in turn. And these are they, word for word: "Tiberius brought before the senate, with the prerogative of his own vote, the things announced" (our manuscripts and the old editions, "the thing announced") "to him from Syria Palestine, which" (Pamelius, "the thing which") "had revealed there the truth of that divinity" (the same manuscripts and other older editions, "had revealed"). "The senate, because it had not itself approved, rejected it. Caesar held to his opinion, threatening danger to the accusers of the Christians" (Tertullian, ibid., chapter V, page 291). Eusebius, moreover, transcribed this whole passage of Tertullian, naming him. But first he relates that a custom had prevailed that the governors of the provinces should report to the Emperor whatever new thing had happened among them. "Wherefore Pilate," he says, "reported to the emperor Tiberius about the resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the fame of which was widespread through all Palestine, indicating also that he had heard by report many other miracles of His, and how, having been recalled to life again, He was by now held by very many to be God. And they relate that Tiberius indeed referred it to the senate, but that the senate spurned a report of this kind; in appearance, because the authority of the senate seemed not to have been awaited for it, since there was an old law among the Romans that no one should be held for a god without a decree of the senate; but in reality, because

the preaching of the saving divine doctrine had no need of the authority and help of men. When, therefore, the senate had rejected the report about the Saviour, Tiberius nevertheless, persevering in his former opinion, is said to have contrived nothing harsher against the doctrine of Christ" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter II, page 40). So Valesius rendered the Greek words of Eusebius, which, because they are rather long, we do not transcribe here. Then Eusebius translated Tertullian's words into the Greek tongue thus: "Tiberius, therefore, when this doctrine had been announced to him from Palestine, where it first began, communicated it to the senate, being plain to them that he was pleased with the doctrine; but the senate, since it had not itself approved it, thrust it away. He, however, remained in his own decision, threatening death to the accusers of the Christians." And Valesius rendered these in the same Latin words which we have seen given in our codices and in the editions before Rigault. But in his notes, having approved the emendation of that same Rigault, he is of opinion that the Greek words of Eusebius, or of another translator, as he himself thinks, are corrupt. But if he had got wind of what was altered by Rigault in the text of Tertullian, he would perhaps rather have subscribed to the Greek writer.

However that may be, Tertullian's sense is seen clearly enough from either reading, nor can there be any difficulty about it except in these words, in which Tiberius is said to have been already a Christian in his conscience. For in the same place he said that the Caesars did not believe because they were Caesars. But there by the verb "believe" he seems to have meant nothing other than the public profession of the Christian religion. In his own conscience, then, Tiberius was a Christian, but he did not dare to profess it openly.

But why, you will say, did our Author add: "The Caesars would have believed, if they were not necessary to the world"? Rigault answers that it was said for this reason, that, as we shall see below, they were persuaded that the world, which they did not wish to be destroyed so soon, would be overthrown together with the Roman empire. But what necessity, I beg you, of the life of one Caesar or another can be inferred from this error? Could not Tertullian rather say that the Caesars were necessary to the world, that is, bound by so great a necessity to the customs of the age and of the peoples, and especially to the received institutions of the religions, that they could not shake or change them without seditions, and without the imminent danger too of overthrowing both their own life and the empire?

ARTICLE V.

That all the things said about Christ, God and man, are true; that it is lawful for no one to lie about his religion; that the Christians, without any ambiguity or dissembling, openly and even in the most dreadful torments cried out that God was worshipped by them through Christ, and that this could not be disapproved either by the Jews, who had learned to worship God through Moses, or by the gentiles, who had learned to worship false gods through Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus and Trophonius.

The things that we have seen written so far by Tertullian about Christ, whether as God and Son of God or as true man, these he affirms to be most true with such great insistence that he leaves not even the least [room] for doubting about them.

For he addresses the heathen themselves thus: "This is the order of our instruction; this account of both the sect and the name, together with its founder, we have set forth" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, page 403). By census he means a review, a survey and an explanation. "And in this," he says, "let no one think that there is anything at all that I have wished to be hidden or dissembled. For nothing can be truer than the things I have related; because it is not lawful for anyone," he says, "to lie about his religion."

And that teaching was so deeply implanted in the breasts of the Christians that they preferred to be tortured and put to death with any of the most refined punishments rather than, when questioned about their religion, either to deny or to dissemble anything, nay, even just their Christian name. Wherefore Justin Martyr, as we have said elsewhere, likewise said to the gentiles: "Consider" that, "though it is in our power, when we are examined, to deny, we do not wish to live by speaking falsely"; "that it is in our power, when we are inquired into, to deny; but we do not wish to live mendaciously", that is, we do not wish to live lying about or dissembling our religion (Justin, First Apology to Antoninus, page 57; volume I of the Apparatus, page 357). And they thought it so great a sin, when they were questioned about their religion, to answer in ambiguous words, that, again on the testimony of Tertullian himself, those who feared martyrdom more would themselves rather be tortured and put to death than, in confessing the three persons of the most holy Trinity, speak of several gods.

And if you ask why every lie about religion, or any dissembling whatever, is utterly condemned, Tertullian will answer: "because he who says that something other is worshipped by him than what he worships denies what he worships, and transfers both the worship and the honour to another, and by transferring no longer worships what he has denied" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, column 403). But Rigault was pleased to delete these words, "and the honour". Yet who will deny that they are not useless there? For worship and honour are not altogether synonyms; and even if they were, no one will deny that Tertullian could use them. But these things are of the least moment, except for marking Rigault's boldness. But certainly of far greater weight is this reasoning of our Author: he who says, for example, that Jupiter is worshipped by him, and worships another God, denies that Jupiter is a god, and transfers the worship and honour of that same Jupiter to another, and so in transferring does not worship Jupiter himself, as he was saying, and denies that he is a god.

Therefore we Christians, he says, casting away altogether all dissembling, deceit and ambiguity, "openly say, and while you heathen torture us, torn and bloody we cry aloud: We worship God through Christ" (ibid., column 403 and following), through whom, or by whose teaching, we have learned who is the true God, whom all ought to worship. But Christ, the heathen argued, was a man. Be it so, Tertullian answers; yet the Christians who worship Him ought not for that reason to be tortured and killed by the heathen, unless these condemned the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans too in the same way. For the Jews, he says, "learned to worship God through a man, Moses" (ibid., page 23). For in his books Moses taught in what manner and with what rites God was to be worshipped by them.

But the Greeks, our Author goes on, "Orpheus in Pieria, Musaeus at Athens, Melampus at Argos, Trophonius in Boeotia, bound as men by initiations of false gods" (ibid.), that is, tied and fettered them. We, for our part, have shown elsewhere that the rites and feasts of Liber were introduced by Orpheus, which are for that reason called Orphic (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XXX, article 3). And in another place we cited the words of Diodorus Siculus in which he relates that Hercules came to Athens to be initiated into the mysteries of the Eleusinian mother, over which Musaeus, the son of Orpheus, was set, "presiding", and who accordingly taught how men were to be bound by them (volume I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 2, chapter XXXV, page 1280).

Moreover, the same Diodorus Siculus, as we noted in our dissertation on the books of Lactantius, committed to writing that Melampus carried over from Egypt into Greece the orgies consecrated to Bacchus (the dissertation just cited; Diodorus, Library, book I, page 61). He added also a fabulous narrative about Saturn and the Titans and the passions of the gods, which, although it may not be approved by all, nevertheless contributes not a little to the purpose of our Tertullian.

Trophonius, further, was reputed to be the son of Erginus, or rather of Apollo; his oracle, as Tertullian says elsewhere, stood in Boeotia (Tertullian, at the place cited, and book On the Soul, chapter XLVI). But more about him, and about the temples of the gods built by that same Trophonius, and by name that of Delphic Apollo, has been handed down to memory by Pausanias, Lucian, Cicero, Philostratus, Erasmus, and others cited by us in the earlier dissertation on the books of Arnobius (Pausanias, book IX, On Boeotia, page 314; Lucian, Dialogue of Menippus, etc., page 116 and following; Cicero, Tusculans, book I, page 134; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, book VIII, page 420 and following; Erasmus, Adages, chiliad 1, adage 77; Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter XXIV, article 2; Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XXX, article 4). And who does not see that by their testimony it is proved more than enough that men were entangled in initiations of gods by him and by others whom Tertullian mentions, other men? Finally he added that Numa Pompilius burdened the Romans with most laborious institutions. And how true that is has been demonstrated by us.

Rightly, then, does Tertullian conclude from these that it was no less lawful for Christ, even if He were only a man, than for these to devise some divinity which He might teach men to worship. But Christ was not only a man, but has true divinity with His eternal Father, "a thing", as our Author says, "His own"; because it is His own, as it is His Father's (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXI, column 404). For He did not, as Numa Pompilius did, tame to humanity "rustics", that is, forest-dwellers, wild and barbarous men, as Tertullian himself explains elsewhere (the same, book On the Pallium, chapter IV, and On the Soul, chapter VI), by casting upon them the terror of false gods; but He "gave eyes" to the polished and urbane for the knowledge of the true God, that is, He gave them the faculty of seeing, or knowing, the true God. For in the same sense he said elsewhere of the swallow: "she knows how to give her chicks their eyes again with her own celandine" (the same, book On Penitence, chapter XII). Wherefore

Cyprian, imitating him in his usual way, teaches, as he does, that Christ's disciples were scattered through the world for this purpose, "that they might give eyes to the blind and ignorant for the knowledge of the truth" (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols). Indeed Pontius too, Cyprian's deacon, wrote in his life, and of him: "Not yet had the second birth given eyes to the new man with the whole splendour of the divine light" (Pontius, Life of Cyprian, towards the beginning). Further, who does not perceive from what has been argued so far how deservedly and rightly Tertullian concludes that the Christians were most unjustly tortured and killed by the Heathen and the Jews, because, having acknowledged the true God through Christ and professed His religion, they were willing neither to deny nor even to dissemble either?

CHAPTER X.

On Angels and Demons.

FIRST ARTICLE.

That the name of angels and demons was known to the gentile poets and philosophers, and by name to Socrates and Plato, and also to the magi and to the common run of unlearned men, who used the name of demon constantly as a curse; why that name is so detestable; that all angels were created perfect by God, but the wicked corrupted of their own accord; on their divorce from God, and their marriage with the daughters of men, from which a more corrupt race of demons is said to have arisen.

Tertullian passes on to another teaching of the Christian Religion, on Angels and Demons (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXII, column 404). And he strives to explain it the more carefully, the more the heathen were persuaded that demons, lurking "under the images and names of the dead" (ibid., chapter XXIII, column 404), that is, of false gods, produced signs, miracles and oracles, by which "they wrought belief in divinity" (ibid.), that is, by which the demons tried to persuade that those whom the heathen worshipped were true gods, and therefore that their religion was true. Now we have seen that this error of the heathen, on which their whole religion chiefly rested, was torn out by the roots by Minucius Felix, Lactantius and others (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter XVIII, article 1, and on Lactantius, chapter XX, article 4). But since these writers drew a good deal from this book of our Author, and watered their little gardens from it as from a pure spring, his opinion must for that reason be examined by us the more diligently.

First, then, he teaches that Angels and Demons are certain spiritual substances, whose name was not unknown to the gentiles, the poets as well as the philosophers (at the place cited), as we have also shown elsewhere. And of the philosophers he names expressly Plato and Socrates, who had a demon standing by him, "one", he says, "that plainly dissuaded from the good" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXII, column 406). And he had said in another book: "A demonic spirit found Socrates while still a boy" (the same, book On the Soul, chapter XXXIX, page 341). But about this demon of Socrates we have treated in the cited dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, and in others commended there (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter XVIII, article 1). Moreover, in the same place we made plain of either name, that is, of Angel and of Demon,

witnesses, as Tertullian further notes, are the magi (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXII, column 405).

He suggests besides another reason why Demons were known not only to these but to any heathen men whatever: "Now the unlearned crowd," he says, "uses it constantly for cursing" (ibid.). So Rigault; but two of our manuscript codices, the more recent, have "in use", the older "in use for curses", and the older editions "for the use of curses". And the sense of our Author is: the heathen crowd, when it spoke ill of others and cursed them, used to call them Demons, or invoke the name of a Demon. For so he continues: "For Satan too, the prince of this evil kind, it likewise pronounces from the soul's own consciousness with the same word of execration." In the old manuscript and printed codices it reads "from the sacrament", but doubtless only through the yawning carelessness of copyists. For Tertullian explains his mind clearly enough in another book: "When we affirm that Demons exist, as if, forsooth, we did not also prove it, we who alone drive them out of bodies, some follower of Chrysippus mocks. Your execrations answer both that they exist and that they bear abomination. You call a man a demon who is troublesome through uncleanness, or malice, or insolence, or any stain that we ascribe to demons, or to the point of compelling hatred. Satan, finally, you pronounce in every turning-away, spurning and detestation, he whom we call the Angel of malice, the artificer of all error, the corrupter of the whole world" (the same, book On the Testimony of the Soul, chapter III).

It was, then, the custom of the heathen, in speaking ill of others and cursing them, to call them Demons, or to devote them with dire imprecations in the name of a Demon and of Satan, and to execrate them. And if you want another witness of this custom, you will have Augustine, who further reminds us that wherever in the sacred Scriptures the name of Demon or of Demons occurs, evil spirits are meant by it. Here are his very words: "But we, as the Scripture speaks, according to which we are Christians, read of Angels, some indeed good, some evil, but never of good Demons. But wherever this name is found set down in those Writings, whether they are called Demons or demonic beings, none but evil spirits are meant. And the peoples everywhere have followed this manner of speaking to such a degree that even of those who are called pagans, and contend that many gods and demons are to be worshipped, there is hardly anyone so lettered and learned as to dare to say by way of praise, even to his own slave: You have a demon; but whoever he may wish to say this to, he cannot doubt that he is taken to have meant nothing else than to curse" (Augustine, City of God, book IX, chapter XIX, page 235). And afterwards he added: "So detestable is the name of demons that we ought by every means to remove it from the holy Angels" (ibid., chapter XXIII, page 236). Augustine, then, like our Tertullian, distinguishes a twofold kind of angels: the one good, who are simply called Angels; the other that of the demons, whose detestable name always means evil spirits.

Why then, someone will say, is that so detestable

name, and why was it always taken in a bad sense not only by the Christians but by the gentiles too? Do not Augustine himself and other Latin writers, as we have observed elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XX, article 4), testify that the Greek name daimones means the same as those who know and are skilled in things? Moreover, Tertullian in this Apologetic book reminds us that the name of demons and of genii is the same: "Do you not know," he says, "that genii are called daemones, and from that, by a diminutive word, daemonia?" And a little after, "demons: that is, genii" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXXII, column 447). And elsewhere: "To all men genii are assigned, which is the name of demons" (the same, book On the Soul, chapter XXXIX, column 341). What, then, is there in that name so evil, and so detestable to each and all? Well indeed, if they did not make ill use of their knowledge, skill and powers of intellect. But since they plainly abuse them for harassing and deceiving men, as we shall see afterwards, it is surely no wonder if all detested this name and applied it to others in their curses.

And although our Author has handed down little about the good Angels in the Apology, he nevertheless distinguishes them from the evil, and these from the demons, not obscurely. About them indeed he says this, but very briefly: "How from certain angels, corrupted of their own accord, there issued a more corrupt race of demons, condemned by God together with the authors of their race and with that prince of whom we speak, is learned in order from the holy Scriptures" (the same, Apology, chapter XXII, column 405). But he embraces in few words many things which must be touched on not so briefly, nor without some observations.

First, then, he declares that certain Angels were corrupted. He signifies, therefore, that there were many others who were not corrupted, and whom for that reason we name good, and believe with every right to be blessed on account of their perseverance in the good. Secondly, that these same Angels were endowed with free choice of the will, by which, in acting well or ill, they could merit reward or punishment. Thirdly, that some of them, corrupted and through abuse of their free power, fell into certain sins, for which they were condemned by God. Fourthly, that they had a prince, of whom he had said a little before: "Satan, the prince of this evil kind" (ibid.). And elsewhere he calls him an Angel whom God, "from the form of good works, established good", and the wisest of all; "an Angel good by institution, according to the prophecy of Ezekiel, as much as corrupted of his own accord" (Tertullian, Against Marcion, book II, chapter X). And then: "he was blameless from the day of his creation, created by God for good, as by the good creator of blameless creations, and adorned with all Angelic glory, and set beside God, as a good one beside the Good, but afterwards transferred by himself into evil ...... no less, himself established with free choice, as a spirit" (ibid., column 462). He adds finally that this Satan fell from his loftiness by his own offence, of which he himself was the author. And we have treated of him in our dissertation on the books of Lactantius (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XX, article 5).

But what was the [sin] of this one and of the others whom in

drew to his ruin, the sin of the wicked angels, he did not explain altogether clearly either there or in the Apology. But in another book he seems to denote two sins of theirs in these words: "Let nothing be imputed to those angels on account of" (others read "besides") "their repudiation of heaven and their marriage of the flesh" (Tertullian, book On the Dress of Women, chapter IV). Wherefore elsewhere he calls them "Angels, deserters of God, lovers of women", and for that reason condemned by God (the same, book On Idolatry, chapter IX). Does he not there distinguish a twofold sin of the angels: the first, by which they repudiated heaven and deserted God; the second, the perverse love of women and the marriage of the flesh?

About this second crime of theirs, then, he says this: "They are condemned," he says, "and assigned to the penalty of death", namely those angels "who rushed down from heaven to the daughters of men, so that this ignominy too might attach to woman" (the same, book On the Dress of Women, chapter II). But if from this crime of the Angels ignominy attached to women, if on that account, as we have just seen said by our same Author, the Angels were condemned, why then, someone will say, is it called by him simply a marriage of the flesh, and not an abominable debauchery? To anyone, then, who asks this of us, we shall answer in these, and just as many, words of Tertullian himself: "The sons of God, having seen the daughters of men, that they were fair, took them wives of all whom they chose. For here the Greek name of women means wives, because there is mention of marriage. When therefore he says 'daughters of men', he plainly indicates virgins, who would still be reckoned as at their parents' (for married women are named as their husbands'), whereas he could have said 'wives of men': likewise naming the angels not adulterers but husbands, while they take unmarried daughters of men, whom he said above were born, thus too signifying virgins: above, born; but here, married to angels" (the same, book On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter VII). He calls it a marriage of the prevaricating Angels, therefore, for this reason: because they took the daughters of men not married but virgins, and for that reason they themselves are not called adulterers either.

Yet he did not think this marriage lawful, but plainly unlawful and wicked, on account of which ignominy attached to women and damnation to the angels. Wherefore he says in another book: "The Apostle too knew that the spiritual forces of wickedness of the Angels who were made to stumble over the daughters of men had been at work in the heavens" (the same, Against Marcion, book V, chapter XVIII). But about this criminal marriage of the wicked angels with the daughters of men, or rather true debauchery, we have argued more than once, both in our dissertation on the Works of Lactantius and in other places noted there (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter XX, articles 3 and 4).

In the fifth and last place, finally, it remains to be observed that Tertullian in the Apology asserted without any hesitation that from the intercourse of those corrupted Angels with the daughters of men there arose a more corrupt race of demons. But no lesser difficulties indeed arise in this opinion than in the other about the marriage of Angels with women. And they are increased by what he [says] of these same demons, and

of the Angels, whether good or evil, determines concerning their nature. These things must be investigated by us first, and the others afterwards.

ARTICLE II.

Whether Tertullian believed the nature of all Angels and demons to be spiritual: how great a difficulty there is on that matter because of the origin of these from the wicked angels and the daughters of men: on the envy of these same demons, by which they conspire for the ruin of men, to whom they are subject.

Tertullian begins his disputation on Angels and demons in the Apology with these words: "We say that there are certain spiritual substances" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter XXII, page 404). And in the preceding article we saw it said of Satan, "the most eminent", as he himself says, "of the Angels, and an Archangel", that he was "established by God with free choice, as a spirit" (the same, Against Marcion, book II, chapter VII). And all the Angels, as he further writes (ibid., book III, chapter IX), "the creator made spirits as truly as He made His attendants a flaming fire" (Ps. 103:4; Heb. 1:7). He never doubted, therefore, that all Angels are spirits, and that their substance is spiritual.

But it is called into controversy what he understands by that name "spirit": whether a substance altogether distinct from every corporeal thing, or some most thin and most subtle body which escapes all sight of man. Nor indeed can we deny that this dispute cannot easily be settled by anyone. Yet we shall try to explore what can be put forward with more certainty about this opinion of our Tertullian.

First, then, it must be noticed how he argues against the heretics who denied that a true body was assumed by Christ, and refutes their error. Those heretics, from the example of the Angels who are related once to have appeared to the patriarchs clothed in human flesh, inferred that Christ's flesh was neither true nor born. But Tertullian contends that it was not the flesh of the Angels but that of Christ that was born; because not they but Christ was born, in order to be crucified and to die: "For it is established," he says, "that Angels bore flesh not their own, being natures" (another reading, "of the nature") "of spiritual substance, even if of some body, yet of its own kind; but transfigurable into flesh for a time, so that they could be seen and could converse with men" (Tertullian, book On the Flesh of Christ, chapter VI). He acknowledges, then, that these Angels assumed human flesh for a time, which, though true, was yet not their own flesh, because, as he himself affirms without hesitation, their substance is spiritual. But since either he himself or others thought it could be doubted whether there was anything, as we noted above (above, chapter VII, article 3), intermediate between body and nothing, he therefore, so as to give no room for cavilling, added there, "even if of some body, yet of its own kind", just as if he had said: If anyone should contend too obstinately that every substance whatever

to be some body, I shall not now dispute, provided it be granted me that the angelic substance, if perhaps it is a body, is a body of its own kind. But by the name of body he signifies nothing other, as we have seen elsewhere (loc. cit.), than any thing whatever that exists and that is opposed to a thing not existing, and to nothing. Can it not, then, be inferred from this not at all absurdly that he held the nature of the angels to be purely spiritual, which may nevertheless be called a body of its own kind for this reason, that it is not nothing, and really exists?

With plainly the same argument he attacks the same error of Marcion: All the more, he says, the angels, not being appointed to die for us either, ought not to have taken a brief furlough of flesh by being born, since they were not going to lay it down by dying either... If the Creator makes His angels spirits, and His attendants a flaming fire, He makes them as truly spirits as He also makes them fire (Tertullian, Against Marcion III, ch. IX). Do you hear how openly he declares that the angels who were seen in human form by the patriarchs were as truly spirits as the flesh of men which they had taken on was true? Their flesh, however, was not their own, but given them by God for a short time, so that they might converse and speak with men. Their substance, therefore, is other than that of men, namely spiritual, by which, being superior to men, they are truly spirits.

If anyone wants more, let him go to his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, and there he will be able to read his words in so many terms: The angels were at one time as men, in eating and drinking and offering their feet to be washed: for they had put on a human surface, their substance within remaining intact (the same, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. LXII). What that proper substance and nature of the angels was, lying hidden beneath the human likeness, he himself explains in the same place thus: The angels, having become as men, in the same substance of spirit took on fleshly handling (ibid.). But in what clearer words, I pray you, could it be expressed that the angels are truly spirits, and that their spiritual nature admits nothing at all of any matter, and body?

What we have related so far, moreover, concerns that nature with which all the angels were created, which he asserts clearly enough to be spiritual — unless he had obscured this view, as if spread over with a black fog and thick darkness, by what he put forth about the wicked angels and demons. For he calls them all spirits, no differently from the good angels. Nor is that difficult to prove. For it has already been observed that he wrote of all angels in general, good as well as bad: We say that there are certain spiritual substances. Later, indeed, and still more expressly: Every spirit is winged, this both angels and demons (the same, Apology, ch. XXII, p. 404). And again: Angels and demons, in substance most wicked spirits (ibid., ch. XXXIX, col. 468). The prince of the wicked angels too, of whom we spoke in the preceding article, is called by him spirit of demonic and angelic make (ibid., ch. XXVII, col. 433), that is, a spirit which has of demons and angels

the dispositions and qualities. But of this name more below, in the following article.

What, indeed, of the fact that we saw above (preceding article) that it is expressly declared by that same Tertullian that both this Satan and all the other wicked angels were created in the same way as the good ones too? Indeed, the demons, he says, cannot deny that they are unclean spirits (Tertullian, ibid., ch. XXIII, col. 410). Lastly he says that their subtlety and fineness is very great, who by their swiftness invade both substances of man, are everywhere in a single moment, and the whole world is one place to them. Moreover, he says, being invisible and imperceptible, they appear in their effect rather than in their act (ibid., ch. XXII, p. 406). Do not all these things show clearly enough that Tertullian was persuaded that the bad angels and demons, no less than the good angels, were spirits?

But this view seems to be contradicted by what we noted above was handed down by him, that the wicked angels defiled themselves by an unspeakable intercourse with women, by which they begot the demons. But someone could answer that by those wicked ones, just as by the good angels, the flesh of men was assumed, as we were saying a little earlier, with which they were able to mingle with women. But against this another will at once object that it must be proved whence the wicked angels took human flesh for some time. For although Tertullian openly declares more than once, as we have noted, that it was given by God to the good angels, yet no one can prove that it is likewise ascribed by him to the wicked angels, so that they might debauch women.

But grant that they put it on in whatever way at last, whether by their own sorceries or by other unspeakable arts: a greater difficulty certainly remains about the demons. For of what kind of spirit can these demons be, whom Tertullian thinks were sprung from the abominable union of unwedded virgins? How could there be procreated from them substances most fine, most subtle, invisible, surpassing the speed of birds, which pass through the body and soul of men and are everywhere in a single moment? It certainly cannot be denied that this is wrapped in the greatest obscurity. For if Tertullian thought the demons' body to be anything, he doubtless judged it to be neither human nor fashioned in human shape. What then? Did he suppose that there are certain monsters which are neither angels nor men? But is not this itself a monster of absurd opinion? Nevertheless Lactantius, as we noted in its place (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XX, art. 4), seems to have drawn from this his opinion, by which he teaches that the nature of the demons is a certain middle one between angels and men. But Tertullian, in his Apology at least, defined that neither altogether openly nor absolutely, but said it to be that which is known in order from the holy writings (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, col. 403). Very well indeed, had he kept himself within these bounds of true doctrine in his other books.

For the rest, although he was of the opinion that the nature of the demons was neither

equal to the angelic nor to the human, but something midway between the two, it ought not, however, to be inferred at once from this that he denied that the angels are spirits. For indeed, if he attributes some body to the demons, he held it to be of a fineness and subtlety, as we have seen, than which none can be greater. And he seems to have been persuaded that the nature of the good angels is more excellent than that of the demons. But in what way, I beseech you, can it be more excellent, unless it be purely spiritual and have nothing whatever bodily? But of what weight for proving this are the arguments we have related so far, we leave to others to judge. No one, however, unless we are quite mistaken, will deny that, if there is any error of Tertullian in all these matters, none is worse than that by which he tries to explain the intercourse of the wicked angels with the daughters of men, and the procreation of demons from it. But see, I pray, what was argued about these things in the preceding dissertation (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XX, art. 5), and whether his opinion can on that basis be brought back to the rules of truth.

But no one will doubt that what he afterwards relates about Satan and the demons is true. Our Satan, he says, on account of his divorce, namely from God, and on account of his own sin a rival, that is, an enemy and foe, and on account of the grace of God granted to Christians envious, has always tried by hidden inspiration to persuade the suborned heathen to turn them away by every kind of torment from the worship of the true God, and to drive them to worship false gods (Tertullian, ibid., ch. XXVII, p. 432). For although the whole power of the demons and of spirits of that sort is subject to us (ibid., col. 433), that is, of Satan.... Nevertheless, like rebellious workhouse slaves, or those in the mines, or of this kind of penal servitude, they break out against us Christians; that is, they break out after the likeness of those who, shut up in workhouses and prisons, or condemned to digging in the mines, or to some other kind of penal servitude, resist and fight against their masters. And those whom these wicked demons could not bring to their own worship and that of the false gods by violence and armed force, they strove to suborn by any other contrivances, deceits, tricks and evil arts whatever. But what our Author has handed down about them must be unfolded a little more fully.

ARTICLE III.

How Tertullian shows that some things which the heathen ascribed to their gods as true miracles were done by the arts and sorceries of the demons.

Much labour indeed, and not undeservedly but by right, does Tertullian spend in explaining and laying bare the operation, as he himself says, of the demons (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, col. 405), that is, the contrivances, sorceries, tricks, deceits and other evil arts by which they seemed to produce false miracles, oracles and many other things beyond the usual order of nature. For the heathen ascribed all those things, which they supposed to be true, to the power of their gods, and concluded from this that their gods were true gods, and their religion true. This last bulwark of theirs, therefore, Tertullian, with a twofold argument

as with a twofold battering-ram, shakes and overthrows from its foundations. For first he shows that those extraordinary deeds were produced not by their gods, as they supposed, but by the perverse arts of the demons. Then, that these same demons, when adjured by Christians, openly confess that these things were done by none other than themselves, who were not gods but only demons.

To demonstrate the first proposition more clearly, he laid down as certain (ibid.) what no one can deny: that the substance of the demons, as we saw in the preceding article, is not only most subtle and fine, but that their powers too are spiritual, and their swiftness the highest, by which they can be everywhere in a single moment and pass through each and every thing, and the very substance of man. Since, therefore, they are so formed, their spiritual malice, says Tertullian, made its beginning from the first origin of the world for the ruin of man (ibid.); namely when it deceived Eve and Adam, who were leading a happy life in the earthly Paradise. With the same malice too they strive to lead the rest of men into error and every sort of crime, and above all into idolatry, and under the name of false gods into the worship of themselves.

To begin with the miracles which the heathen attributed to their gods, our author shows that these were done by the demons in this way. Equipped, he says, with such great powers, both spiritual and invisible, they oppress unwary men with certain sicknesses, and drive them away with remedies either new to the point of wonder or even contrary, so that they are believed to have healed those whom they merely cease to harm by withdrawing their evil workings. Wherefore he mocks them and their feigned miracles thus: Beneficent indeed, and in the care of health too; for first they do harm, then they prescribe remedies, new to the point of wonder, or contrary, after which they cease to harm, and are believed to have cured (ibid., col. 409). Nor do they conspire for the ruin of men only by these blows inflicted on the human body and healed, but by their subtlety they also pass through their very soul and, having stirred up savage lusts, madness and frenzies, lead them into every kind of crime (ibid.). We, however, have discussed these unspeakable arts of the demons elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XVIII, art. 2).

By the same subtlety the demons put on phantoms, or the likeness of the Castors (Tertullian, ibid.), that is, of Castor and Pollux, and by their innate speed announced at Rome the famous victory of the Romans over King Perseus on the same day on which it had been won. This indeed has been related by us elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XVIII, art. 2).

To this point also belong these words of our Author, few indeed, but which will seem obscure to most: And the beard reddened by a touch (Tertullian, ibid.). But Suetonius explains them more clearly where he discourses on the origin of the family of the Ahenobarbi: The Ahenobarbi, he says, have as author of their origin and likewise of their surname Lucius Domitius, whom, as he was returning from the country, twin youths, Castor and Pollux, of more majestic form, are said to have met and commanded to announce to the senate and people a victory about which there was as yet no certainty; and in proof of their majesty, divine namely, so

stroked his cheeks that they made the hair red from black and like bronze. Which mark remained in his descendants too, and a great part of them had red beards (Suetonius, Life of Nero, § 1). And this indeed is confirmed by Plutarch (Plutarch, Life of Aemilius Paulus, vol. I, p. 268). Tertullian therefore said the beard was reddened, because it was changed from a black colour into red. But for brevity's sake he mentions only this sudden and wondrous change of the beard, by which, indeed, the other miracles too which the heathen paraded were indicated plainly enough.

He asserts that these things were done by the spiritual cunning, powers and deceits of the demons (Tertullian, loc. cit.), as was also the ship, as he says further, moved by a girdle, namely by Claudia, a Vestal virgin, as we have already noted elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XVII, art. 1). The heathen paraded besides water, as he continues (ibid.), carried in a sieve, namely by Tuccia, another likewise Vestal virgin: by which miracle, as they asserted, she entirely washed away the charge of violated chastity brought against her, or, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus says (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities II, p. 128 and following), of the sacred fire extinguished. But on this story, whatever it may be, Valerius Maximus says more, whom you may consult, as also Pliny, Augustine and others (Valerius Maximus, book VIII, ch. I; Pliny, Natural History XXVIII, ch. II, p. 157; Augustine, City of God X, ch. XVI, p. 252).

Tertullian therefore asserts that these and other extraordinary deeds of this kind, at which the heathen wondered, were produced by the art and sorceries of the demons to this end, that stones as divinities, that is, images of the gods fashioned from stones, might be believed to be not false gods, and that the true God might not be sought (Tertullian, ibid.). In our earlier dissertations, however, we have discussed these things abundantly, and there we made plain by what reasoning Arnobius tries to demonstrate their falsity (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. XVIII, arts. 1 and 2). And Minucius Felix and Lactantius, following Tertullian, show that these things were done by the tricks and frauds of the demons, as we have said (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XX, art. 2; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XX, art. 7, and ch. XXXII, art. 4). What Tertullian himself holds as peculiar to himself and has related specially, we shall try to make plain in the following articles.

ARTICLE IV.

How the demons tried to steal the knowledge of future things, and in the name of false gods gave ambiguous oracles to certain persons, and especially to Pyrrhus and Croesus.

The foreknowledge and knowledge of future things is a magnificent thing, says Cicero, and a salutary one, if only there is any such, and one that may befall mortal nature as the thing nearest to the power of the gods (Cicero, On Divination I, p. 254). Nor was this unknown to the demons. Wherefore they wished to claim this knowledge for themselves in whatever way at last. For, as our Tertullian puts it altogether aptly, They emulate divinity, he says, while they steal divination (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, col. 408). Nay rather, if

you give him credit, nothing was dearer or more important to them than this emulation: And what pasture, he says, is more choice to them than to turn man away from the consideration of the true divinity by the sorceries of false divination (ibid., p. 407). And so indeed it stands in the edition of Rigault, who was of the opinion that these words, to them and they turn away, are to be referred to the demons. But in our manuscript codices and in the early editions we read to it and it turns away, which can certainly be referred to the inspiration of the demons noted by Tertullian in the same place. The noun pasture is taken by him, as by our sacred Writers, for pasturing and nourishment. For, to pass over many of their passages, in the twenty-second psalm it is written: In a place of pasture, there He has set me (Ps. 22:2).

How the demons strove to steal divination, our Author has set out in this manner: By the subtlety of their nature they both caught up the dispositions of God, then, when the prophets were preaching, and now pick them up when the readings of sacred Scripture resound (Tertullian, ibid., p. 408). Moreover they take, that is, they recognize certain lots of the times, that is, the future states and outcomes of the times. In our dissertation on the books of Lactantius, however, we have unfolded these things (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XX, art. 7).

In yet another way they easily foretell rains. For they are able, says Tertullian further (ibid.), from their dwelling in the air, and from the nearness of the stars, and from their commerce with the clouds, to know the heavenly preparations, that is, to recognize them, so that they also promise the rains which they already feel. Pamelius, for his part, wished to warn us here that he did not remember whether the noun paratura is read in other authors. But either he had not read, or did not remember that he had read, these words of Pontius in the Life of Saint Cyprian: Not yet had the second birth enlightened the new man with the whole splendour of the divine light, and already the mere preparation of the light was overcoming the old and former darkness (Pontius, Life of Saint Cyprian, ch. II). The noun paratura is there used in Tertullian's very sense, for disposition, apparatus and preparation, as has already been observed (preceding article).

Our author says, therefore, that what was being prepared in the higher region of the sky is known by the demons, through commerce with the clouds, from their dwelling in the air. For he knew that Satan is called by the apostle The prince of the power of this air, and the demons the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:2; 6:12). Finally, something must be said below about the rain foretold by them.

In the same way too he further shows that the oracles of their gods, which the heathen paraded so greatly, proceeded from these same demons. Who is so blind as not to detect in them the customary frauds and malignant subtlety of the demons all the more easily, the more ambiguous they were? If anyone, however, will not believe Tertullian, let him at least hear and weigh how plainly this is proved by him: In oracles, he says, with what cunning they temper their ambiguities to the outcomes, the Croesuses know, the Pyrrhuses know (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, p. 408). He therefore brings forward two most famous examples of oracles, one of which was given to Pyrrhus, the other to Croesus. How ambiguous and deceitful the first

was, Augustine has laid open in these words: For the soothsayer says, I say that you, Pyrrhus, can conquer the Romans: and so, whether Pyrrhus were conquered by the Romans or the Romans by Pyrrhus, the soothsayer could await either outcome without anxiety (Augustine, City of God III, ch. XVII, p. 75). But deceits and fraudulent traps of this kind cannot proceed from the true God, but from the malignant demons, who, lurking by the subtlety of their nature under the images of the false gods, deceived men with these answers. Of this deceitful answer of the Pythian Apollo to King Pyrrhus we have argued in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XVII, art. 3). Of the same kind, assuredly, is another, given to Croesus. For Eusebius relates (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel V, chs. XXI and XXII, p. 211 and following) that this king of Lydia, when he was planning to make war on the Persians, consulted the Delphic Apollo, whose temple he had adorned with boundless wealth and offerings, about the future outcome of this war, and received this plainly ambiguous answer:

Croesus, having crossed the Halys, will destroy a great empire.

Croesus, passing over the Halys, will overturn a great power of wealth (Herodotus, book I, ch. LXV).

This he afterwards confirms by the testimony of Oenomaus. But if that does not suffice you, you can go to Herodotus, and to those who treat of both Pyrrhus and Croesus, Cicero, Bulenger and others (Cicero, On Divination II, p. 296; Bulenger, On Oracles and Seers, ch. VI).

To the same Croesus, further, belong these following words of Tertullian: Moreover, that a tortoise was being cooked with the flesh of a sheep, the Pythian announced in the way we said above: in a moment he had been in Lydia (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, p. 409). For Herodotus, already cited by us, has recorded that messengers were sent by Croesus to consult the various oracles of the gods and to ask what he himself was doing in Lydia. When he had received the answers of each, he approved none except that of the Delphic Apollo, who declared what was really being done by him in this answer: Having chopped up a tortoise and a lamb together, he is boiling them himself in a bronze cauldron, having put a bronze lid on it. He cooked a tortoise together with a lamb, cut up, in a bronze cauldron with a bronze lid put on it (Herodotus, book I, § 48). But that demon did not know what Croesus was doing by divine inspiration; rather, says Tertullian, by his innate agility he flew to Lydia in a single moment and, returning with the same speed, gave Croesus's messengers the answer mentioned, in the name of Apollo.

Of these and similar oracles, further, and of the ambiguous and deceitful answers of the demons, and of their failure, we have treated not only in the dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius already cited, but in our other dissertations too (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XXX, art. 3; and on Lactantius, ch. XX, arts. 7 and 8, and ch. XXXII, art. 1). But we think there is no one who does not understand from what has been said how far a certain more recent writer, as we have noted elsewhere, departs from the view of Tertullian and the other most ancient Fathers of the Church, who [holds] that the ancient oracles of the heathen were given not by these tricks and most wicked arts of the demons, but by the deceits and sorceries of the priests serving the idols

wrongly asserts. For although it were established that some things came from these priests, yet they could not have produced most of them all, just as they could not produce true miracles either, of which we must now treat.

ARTICLE V.

How Tertullian shows that those things were done by the power and frauds of the demons which the magicians play out with their mountebank sorceries, by which the souls of the dead are defamed, boys are forced into the utterance of an oracle, dreams are sent, goats and tables divine; and that no one can answer that at least the things done within their temples are to be ascribed to the gods.

Tertullian presses the heathen still more sharply, and makes plain that the things which they supposed were produced by the mountebank magicians beyond the order of nature were done by the frauds and sorceries of the demons. And certainly, how could those magicians do anything with their execrable arts, unless they had, says Tertullian, the assisting power of angels once invited, namely evil ones, and of demons (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXIII, p. 410)? For they do not have from themselves that power which surpasses the ordinary strength of man, nor yet from the most good God, who cannot be the author of sorceries. Therefore they received it from the demons, who by their malignity, as we have said, strive to lead men into every kind of crime. But he demonstrates these things more clearly and fully in another book (the same, On the Soul, ch. LVII).

The magicians, therefore, having received from those demons the power of producing certain things beyond the accustomed order of nature, play, says Tertullian, with mountebank sorceries (the same, Apology, ch. XXIII, p. 411). But what, someone will ask, are these mountebank sorceries? Some answer that they are so called because the magicians of the market-place, surrounded by a crowd or circle of onlookers, play with tales or tricks. But we shall more easily be persuaded that by these words nothing else is signified by Tertullian than magical sorceries. For where he refutes Marcion's error about the phantasmal flesh of Christ, he says: Then you ought to have brought down Christ not from heaven but from some mountebank, that is, magicians', gathering, and not God besides man, but a man a magician (the same, On the Flesh of Christ, ch. V). And elsewhere: Another species of magic, which works by miracles...... hence Simon Magus too, already a believer, because he was still thinking something of the mountebank sect (the same, On Idolatry, ch. IX). And what does mountebank sect signify there, if not the sect of the magicians? Somewhere, however, not to conceal anything, he seems to distinguish the magicians from the mountebanks, where he argues thus against the heretics: The dealings of the heretics have also been noted with very many magicians, with mountebanks, with astrologers, with philosophers, given, of course, to curiosity (the same, at the end of the book On the Prescription of Heretics, ch. XLIII). But do you not see that there only various species of men given to magical arts are noted? Is not this, then, his sense in the Apology: the magicians play out many miracles by mountebank, that is, magical arts; that is, they feign them and falsely boast that they are done by themselves, and so they make sport of men and deceive them?

Moreover, by those detestable arts they produce phantoms and defame the souls of the dead (the same, Apology, ch. XXIII, p. 410). Now we have observed it said by him that the phantoms of the Castors were produced by the demons (above, art. 3); but now he asserts that phantoms, that is, feigned likenesses, of other dead persons are represented by the magicians through the craft of the demons. But he explains this more fully in the book On the Soul, and in these words: In that species of magic which is believed to pluck souls already at rest out of the underworld and to display them to view, no other power is more at work than that of deceit; plainly because a phantom is supplied, because a body too is feigned, nor is it a great matter for one to delude the outward eyes for whom it is very easy to blind the inward sight of the mind. Bodies, in short, were seen by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, serpents of the magicians' rods; but the truth of Moses devoured the lie (Tertullian, On the Soul, ch. LVII, p. 355). In these magical evocations, therefore, he contends that there is nothing else but the frauds, deceits, pretence and lying of the demons. This he proves in the same place by this reasoning, as certain as it is evident: This deceit of the wicked spirit, lurking under the persons of the dead, we also prove, if I am not mistaken, by the facts, when in exorcisms it affirms itself to be sometimes one of the man's own kinsmen, sometimes a gladiator or a beast-fighter, as elsewhere too a god, caring for nothing more than to exclude this very thing which we preach, so that we may not readily believe that all souls are brought down to the underworld, in order to disturb faith in both the judgement and the resurrection (ibid.).

But why, you will say, are the souls of the dead then said by him to be defamed? Some think it was said for this reason, that they are subjected to infamy and insult. But we fear this word may be taken by Tertullian in another sense, namely for to feign and to display falsely. For in the same book he proves that men's eyes are deceived, and that a lie is set before their sight which defames a perfectly even portico as narrower at its far end (ibid., ch. XVII), that is, displays it falsely and represents it by a lie. Afterwards indeed he adds that there is then no deceit of the eyes and no lie, if the objects too are freed from the defamation of the cause of right seeing. No one, however, would say that the word defame is used by him there for a stain with which the portico is branded. If anyone, however, should prove that in the Apology, as in the passages just cited, it is taken in this second meaning [rather than] in the first sense, we shall not dare to oppose it altogether.

The magicians moreover, he says, force boys into the utterance of an oracle (the same, Apology, ch. XXIII, p. 411). And so indeed it stands in our manuscript codices and in the more recent printed ones, in, etc. Less well, however, the first editions have they elicit. For Apuleius testifies that it was the common custom and usage of his time that the magicians took boys or slaves for pouring out oracles, who, being enchanted by them, collapsed, and were for that reason forced down (Apuleius, Apology I, p. 340).

By the same fraud too, says Tertullian (Tertullian, ibid.; Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XX, art. 2; on Arnobius, ch. XVIII, art. 1; on Lactantius, ch. XXXII, art. 4), they send dreams, doubtless foretelling future things. But of dreams of this kind we have said more in our earlier dissertations.

Nor did men alone by this art of the magicians, or rather of the demons who abused their ministry, but also goats, says our author, and tables were accustomed to divine (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, p. 404). But what, I beseech you, were these tables? Were they the sacred tripods, as the heathen prattled, from which the Pythias, priestesses of Apollo, used to pour out their oracles? Certainly Virgil sang of them (Virgil, Aeneid III, line 358):

Trojan-born interpreter of the gods, who perceivest the will of Phoebus,

who the tripods, the laurels of the Clarian, who the stars.

For Servius, on these verses of the Poet, says: The tripods were tables in the temple of the Delphic Apollo, set upon which the priestesses of Phoebus prophesied (Bulenger, On Oracles and Seers, ch. XVII and following). Those tripods are known to all, and if you wish to know more about them you can go to Bulenger and others.

Nevertheless, since Tertullian seems to have spoken there of the things which are brought about by the work not of heathen priests but of magicians, if anyone should prove that he is speaking of other tables, we shall assent to him without reluctance. Let him weigh, all the same, that these things can be referred no less to the oracles of the gods than to the divining goats also noted in the same place by Tertullian himself, of which we have argued in the first volume of our Apparatus (Apparatus, vol. I, book I, ch. X, p. 772 and following).

Since, however, Tertullian in this passage of the Apology argues about the things that were done within and outside the temples of the gods, he refutes those who objected that a difference of places must be distinguished, and that only those things are to be ascribed to the gods which were wont to be done in the temples (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXII, p. 407). For when you heathen, so he addresses them, object these things to us, elsewhere, that is, outside the temples, you do not call them gods (ibid.); that is, when you confess that your gods are and act nowhere else than in the temples, by that very fact you say that they are false gods. For the true God is everywhere.

Then, he says, he who flies over the sacred towers of the temples seems to be out of his mind, that is, as in Lucretius, Apuleius and Lactantius (Lucretius III, line 396; Apuleius, Apology I, p. 341; Lactantius, Divine Institutes IV, ch. XVII, p. 441; Tertullian, Apology, ch. XIII, p. 343), to be mad, to rave, or to go out of his mind, no otherwise than he who leaps over the roofs of the neighbourhood, or who, flying from the neighbouring roofs of the temples, commits himself to the air. He asserts, therefore, that the madness is equal of the one who, casting himself down from any towers whatever, and of the other who, casting himself from the towers of temples dedicated to false gods, was reported to have flown through the air. I would have you consider, however, whether there, without naming him, he marked out Simon Magus, of whom he had made mention earlier. Lucian, moreover, brings in Philocles asserting that he had seen a certain Babylonian who flitted through the air (Lucian, dialogue Philopseudes, p. 831). Some add the example of a certain Hagarene conjuror who, by the testimony of Nicetas Choniates, when he was flying through the air from the top of a tower of the Hippodrome, was driven headlong and perished. But by this example it can only be concluded

it is no wonder if, in Tertullian's time or before, reckless conjurers attempted to fly in this manner.

He presses further that the frenzy and madness of the one who cuts away his genitals or his arms is equal to that of the other who cuts his own throat (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 25, p. 421). The former was the gallus or Archigallus, who in the rites of the Mother of the gods, or of Bellona, was accustomed to cut his own members (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 20, art. 2, and Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 34, art. 1). Of this Archigallus he speaks a little later, and we have discoursed elsewhere of him and of the other galli: "And yet," he says, "the issue of the frenzy is alike, and the cause of the instigation is one" in them and in him "who cuts his own throat", that is, who slits his own throat, or plunges his sword into his throat (Tertullian, ibid.). In our manuscript codices, however, in place of compar there stands compara, which, although it plainly seems corrupt, yet is not altogether without its own sense. But Minucius Felix, as we noted in its place, said it a little differently, but to the same end (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 20, art. 3): "In them the instigation of the demon is equal, but the evidence of the frenzy unequal." For the argument of both against the heathen is the same, by which they tear their error out by the roots. See the books of Cicero On Divination cited by us in that dissertation, and as many books of Augustine On the Divination of Demons.

Further, from what has been argued so far, who does not see that this conclusion is rightly drawn by Tertullian? If those things which the gentiles attributed to their gods were done outside the customary order of nature by the malign arts, deceits and illusions of demons, then all these gods are false, and the religion of these same gentiles is false, and that of the Christians true. For they worship the one and almighty God, by Whose power alone, superior to all others, true miracles can be done.

ARTICLE VI.

By what reasoning Tertullian demonstrates that those who are thought to suffer from a god, who breathe over the altars, who conceive the divinity from the reek of sacrifice, who strain by belching, who prophesy by panting; and also the Virgin Caelestis, promiser of rains, and Aesculapius, provider of life to Socordius, Thanatius and Asclepiodotus on another day, when they were adjured by Christians, then openly answered that they were not gods but demons.

Tertullian goes very much further indeed, and with a far more effective argument, against which the heathen did not dare even to mutter, he demonstrates most evidently that all those miracles, oracles and other things which they boasted had been done by their gods beyond human strength were done by the demons themselves, and consequently that those whom they called gods were in truth demons. For he does not prove it by the private authority of some man, or by reasoning devised by any human wit, but by the public testimony of the gods themselves, given in the presence of any gentiles whatever.

The sum of this whole argument is this (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 22, p. 405): by whatever demon, or by whatever demons, a man

is driven, whether he is agitated by their evil spirit, [or] the body of any man whatever is beset by them, these same demons are at once expelled from all of them by the adjuration of Christians alone, and by exorcisms, or by a mere touch, or by a breath. And then, although they were cast out unwillingly and not without the greatest ignominy, they were compelled openly and in the presence of all the heathen to confess that they were not gods, as the gentiles babbled, but mere demons, and that the one true God is He Whom the Christian faith worships and adores.

Since then the matter stands so, our Author rightly concludes from it (ibid., col. 405): "What is plainer than this work? What more trustworthy than this proof? The simplicity of the truth is in full view." For either that public confession of the demons was true, or false and lying. If true, they must without doubt be believed, and the heathen ought to have confessed that their gods were false, and that only the One Whom the Christians venerate is the true God. But if the demons were then lying, in the first place you will not easily persuade anyone of it. For anyone will at times lie for his own honour, but never for his own disgrace and infamy. Moreover, if they were lying, and by this lie were humouring the Christians, it follows most certainly that their divinity, which the heathen boasted of, is nothing. For the true God can neither lie nor defer to creatures to His own disgrace. False therefore is that divinity which does something "to its disgrace", as our Author says, "for its rivals", that is, which to its own disgrace lies for its enemies the Christians, and by lying subjects itself to them (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, ch. 20, art. 3, and on Lactantius, ch. 9, art. 2). Of how much strength this argument is has been abundantly demonstrated in our earlier dissertations.

Wherefore nothing else remains to be explained except what occurs written somewhat obscurely in our Author's text. There he boldly challenges the heathen to make trial of this power of the Christians over demons, and of that public confession of the demons denying that they are gods. With how much confidence he declares it you will learn from this very challenge of his (Tertullian, Apology, col. 23, p. 24): "Adjured," he says, "by Christians, unless they confess themselves demons, there and then", that is, in that very place and moment, "shed the blood of that most impudent Christian." And lest anyone should suspect some fraud or deceit, he demands for that test no private place, or one suspect to the heathen, but a public one and safe for them all (ibid.). For he addresses them thus: "Let someone be produced here before your tribunals who is agreed to be driven by a demon; bidden by any Christian whatever to speak, that spirit will confess himself a demon as truly as elsewhere he falsely [calls himself] a god." In our codices is read not deum indeed but dominum, yet not in a different sense.

And he steadfastly asserts that this can be proved likewise not by this one test only, but by any other, on any man whatever who is agitated in any way by a demon. For he continues thus (ibid.): "Likewise let there be brought forward

before the tribunals of the heathen one of those who are thought to suffer from a god, who, breathing over the altars, conceive the divinity from the reek of sacrifice, who strain by belching, who prophesy by panting. That Virgin Caelestis herself, promiser of rains; that Aesculapius himself, demonstrator of medicines, provider of life to Socordius and Thanatius and Asclepiodotus, who were to die on another day": all these, adjured by Christians, will at once confess that they are demons.

Do you hear how many examples he brings forward, which could never be denied by the heathen, nor in any way at all dissembled? But because these, and especially the latter ones, are sprinkled with no small obscurity, let us strive for our part to dispel it. First, then, we shall observe that some light can be shed on what he set down first by these verses of Virgil (Virgil, Aeneid VI, v. 77 and following):

But the prophetess, not yet submitting to Phoebus, raves wildly in the cave, if she might shake the great god from her breast; so much the more he wearies her raging mouth, taming her wild heart, and shapes her by pressing.

On the first verse Servius says: "not yet submitting, that is, as one who could not yet fulfil the utterances of the oracles." A prophet, then, is said to "suffer" the god who, inspired by the divinity of some god to pour forth oracles, laboured, was tormented, was tamed, was pressed, until he had shaken them out of his breast. And indeed prophets of this kind, as the heathen themselves said, were filled with an unwonted frenzy.

Those whom Tertullian next calls "breathing over the altars" are beyond doubt the arioli, of whom Donatus says in his observations on Terence (Donatus on Terence, Phormio, Act IV, scene IV, v. 27): "A hariolus," he says, "is one who prophesies with a divine mind, who [is called] fariolus from fata and from fari, since F is put for H, and likewise H for F, in many expressions. Or is it because they imitate an aspiration in breathing out? For they are accustomed to drive out the mortal soul with their breath, so as to receive the divine. Hence also they gave out a sound of this kind, namely OE, because the sound OE has the force of breathing out." Again, Maro, already cited by us, sang of the Sibyl (Virgil, Aeneid VI, v. 45):

They had come to the threshold, when the maiden said: "It is time to ask the fates: the god, behold the god!" As she spoke so before the doors, suddenly neither her face nor her colour stayed the same, nor did her hair stay bound; but her breast heaved, and her wild heart swelled with frenzy, and she seemed taller and sounded not as a mortal, when she was breathed upon by the now nearer power of the god.

So too Lucan, of the Cumaean Sibyl as she strove to prophesy (Lucan, book V, v. 91 and following):

Such was the Cumaean prophetess in her Euboean retreat, who, disdaining that her labour should serve many nations, proudly singled out the Roman with her hand from so great a heap of fates; so Phemonoe labours, full of Phoebus . . . . . . / . . . . . . . . . . . / Then first a foaming madness flows raving through her mouth, and groans, and murmurs loud with panting breath; then a mournful wailing in the vast caves, and last cries sound as the maiden is at length subdued.

Wherefore Cicero (Cicero, On Divination I, p. 274, line 35): "I believe too," he says, "that there were certain exhalations of the earth, by which minds were inspired to pour forth oracles." But on these matters we have cited many other writers in

our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 10, art. 2). But see, I beg you, whether this can be gathered from them to be Tertullian's meaning: prophets and soothsayers are thought "to suffer from a god" when, driven by him, they were tormented with heat and frenzy.

Those "breathing over the altars", that is, breathing and sending out their breath upon the altars, "conceive the divinity", that is, the will and power of some god, "from the reek", that is, from the smell of some victim burnt through. Next, those who "by belching", that is, by blowing out belches and various pantings, "strain" to pour forth oracles, and to belch them out and send them forth from their breast. But in our manuscript copies, and in the older printed ones, in place of conantur is written curantur (Tertullian, loc. cit.). Its sense can be that by belching and sending forth an oracle they are said to be freed from their labour and torment and to be cured. But the other reading seems preferable. For our author seems to be speaking of those still tormented and labouring, since he immediately added: "who prophesy by panting" (ibid.); the manuscripts and others printed before Rigault's time [read] praefantur, but in a meaning not much different. For he says that the god is then shaken out of them, as we have heard from Virgil and others, and that they pour forth oracles at the prompting of some god. But he demonstrates most evidently that all these things are not the works of the true God, but are done, as has been said, by the deceitful illusions of demons. For then, adjured by Christians, they were compelled to confess that they were demons, as we shall say further below.

What follows these is far more difficult to explain. For who could easily say who that "Virgin Caelestis" is whom he calls "promiser of rains" (ibid.)? For some think her Juno, others Fortune, others Ceres, others Urania, others Venus, because Herodotus, Pausanias and Lucian made mention of Venus Urania, or Caelestis, and of her temple (Herodotus, book I, § 31 and 105; Pausanias, book I, pp. 14 and 17; Lucian, dialogue Mat. and the Muses, p. 973). To us, however, it will more easily be shown that Tertullian there designates a goddess proper to Africa and local to it, whom a little later he testifies is worshipped in Africa (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 24, col. 416). For Augustine, certainly an eyewitness, has handed down to memory these things of that goddess: "We used to come sometimes as young men to the shows and mockeries of the sacrilegious. We watched the possessed, we heard the musicians; we delighted in the most shameful games which were put on for the gods and goddesses, for the Virgin Caelestis and for the Berecynthian mother of all" (Augustine, City of God II, ch. 4, p. 34). And again afterwards: "Where and when the initiates of Caelestis heard precepts of chastity we do not know. Before the shrine itself, however, where we beheld that image set up, all of us flocking together from every side and standing wherever each could, we watched most intently the games that were performed, looking with alternating gaze on this side at the harlots' procession, on that side at the virgin goddess being suppliantly adored, and shameful things being celebrated before her: we saw there no modest mimes, no more decent scene; all the offices of obscenity were fulfilled. It was known what pleased the virgin divinity, and there was displayed

what a matron might carry home from the temple better instructed" (ibid., ch. 26, p. 56). He says more of her elsewhere. But these things prove abundantly that among the Africans there was a temple of the Virgin Caelestis, who was not only worshipped by them but, invoked by them in time of drought, promised rains and foretold that they would soon come. And this view which we propose is not so far removed from the opinions of others that it cannot be reconciled with them. For that goddess was called by different names according to the diversity of places. If you want a witness, here is Ambrose asserting it: "Whom the Africans worship as Caelestis," he says, "the Persians as Mithra, most as Venus, by a diversity of name, not by a variety of divinity" (Ambrose, Letter 18, against Symmachus, § 30, p. 840).

Thence the author passes to Aesculapius, whom he calls "demonstrator of medicines", and elsewhere, the one "who first explored remedies" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, p. 419, and the book On the Crown, ch. 8, Apparatus vol. I, p. 1192). We have shown in our earlier dissertations on what ground the heathen ascribed the invention of medicine to him. But the clearer that is, the greater indeed the obscurity of his following words: "provider of life," he says, "to Socordius and Thanatius and Asclepiodotus, who were to die on another day" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, col. 24). It is remarkable how much these words have exercised the wits of learned men. But this place is certainly corrupt. For in our codices written by both an older and a more recent hand there stands: Alia die morituris (or alia demorituris) Socordio, et Denatio, et Asclopiodoto subministratur. In the editions older than Rigault: Alias demorituris Socordii et Denatii et Asclepiodoti subministrator (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 9, art. 2, and on Lactantius, ch. 30, art. 5). But who does not see that these different readings increase the difficulty rather than remove it?

Some, however, suspect that these are words of the agyrtae, or conjurers, who falsely claimed to minister to Aesculapius, words which they judge it better to pass over in silence than to waste laughable and useless effort in explaining them. Others consider them the names of three men whose course of life Aesculapius was reported to have prolonged a little before. But these things ought to have been confirmed by at least some reason. Others again think those three are the names of herbs by which diseases could be driven off. For Pliny lists among various antidotes scordotis, as he says, or scordion (Pliny, Natural History book II, ch. 6, p. 395). And elsewhere he writes that this herb is useful for removing many diseases (the same, book XXVI, ch. 7, p. 451, ch. 8, p. 471, and ch. 10, p. 475). But that which he said further elsewhere ought beyond doubt not to have been omitted: "Against all these poisons and magic arts there will be first that Homeric moly, then mithridation, and scordotis, and centaurion" (the same, book XXV, ch. 10, p. 412).

But it has seemed to some that by the name of Asclepiodotus Tertullian indicates the Asclepion, of which we read these things handed down in writing by Pliny: "Panaces by its very name promises remedies for all diseases; it is of many kinds and ascribed to the gods. One indeed is surnamed Asclepion" (the same,

ibid., ch. 4, p. 382), namely from Aesculapius, the false god of the heathen, its discoverer, or so named on account of its power.

There remains the third name, in explaining which everyone is at a loss. Those who read Denatio maintain that something is denoted which used to be given to those already dying. Those who prefer to read Thenatio suspect that something else is meant, by which those breathing their last could be refreshed and, as it were, called back from death to life. But these are mere conjectures, which are supported by no reason at all.

Weigh a little more attentively, then, I beg you, whether these words of Julius Firmicus Maternus the Younger could give some light to this dark place of our author: "Mercury, placed equally with the sun from the horoscope, will make exorcists, and men who free those suffering from the assault of demons with fitting remedies, whence from those arts very great wealth will be brought to them" (Julius Firmicus, Mathesis book III, ch. 9). You hear him plainly speaking of Mercury, who was believed to cure with fitting remedies men suffering from the assault of demons. Can it not therefore be gathered from this that these remedies, which Firmicus calls only generally "remedies", by which exorcists made by Mercury freed those harassed by the assault of demons, are called by Tertullian by their own names, though corrupted in his text? For it is certain that Tertullian himself in this whole place is speaking of those whom, driven by a demon, certain men strove in vain to cure by magic art. But from these the demon himself, adjured by Christians, was at once expelled, and was compelled to declare his name and to confess the true God of the Christians. If anyone, however, suggests something better to us, we shall plainly not resist him.

Tertullian goes on, and steadfastly asserts that nothing is simpler and more trustworthy than this work of the Christians and the argument drawn from it. For in it, he says, "nothing may be suspected. Will you say it is done by magic or some deceit of that kind, if your eyes and ears allow you?" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, col. 410). And so Rigault did not hesitate to emend this place of Tertullian, noting no variant reading. In the old editions, however, was read: nihil..... fieri. Dictis non statis, si oculi; and in two of our older codices: nihil.... fieri dicitis. Then next, in others likewise: Non dicetis si oculi, etc. But if there is some difficulty in discerning the genuine reading, it is nevertheless clear that our author's sense is plain. For he says that the heathen cannot either suspect or object that there is anything in that work of the Christians either magical or deceitful, provided that these same heathen are not blind and deaf through untamed obstinacy. For they could easily see how simply the Christians acted, and also hear the demons confessing that they were in truth not gods but unclean spirits, "condemned beforehand for their malice to the day of judgement, with all their worshippers and workers" (ibid.). Indeed, the demons themselves could not, in the hearing of the heathen themselves, "rebut the brand at least of their own ignominy and damnation", that is, cover it, wash it away, deny it. Wherefore

he boldly challenges them to deny it at some time, if ever they could. "Let them refuse," he says; our manuscript codices [have] Renuntiant, the old editions better, Renuntient, that is, though by an improper manner of speaking, let them deny, refuse, and disavow that they are condemned beforehand. But beyond doubt they could not deny it then, when, questioned and adjured by Christians, they were compelled to answer.

For how could they have denied that they were unclean spirits, which, as Tertullian says, "ought to have been understood from their food, the blood and smoke and putrid pyres of cattle, and from the most impure tongues of their prophets themselves" (ibid.)? Go, if you please, to Augustine, and read, if you have leisure, what he reported from Porphyry's letter to Anebo about the impious and fraudulent arts of demons and deceitful spirits (Augustine, City of God X, ch. 11, p. 247 and following). For there he writes that they delight in the reek of sacrifice, and are enticed by victims, that is, by slaughtered cattle, and are compelled to do what men wish. You will notice there also other things by which much of what we have argued so far about the illusions of these same demons can be confirmed and illustrated. Tertullian added that those unclean spirits are declared to be such "by the most impure tongues of the prophets themselves", either those who, as we said before, breathed over the altars and were defiled with the smoke and blood of victims, or those who by the adjuration of Christians were compelled to confess that the divinity which they had conceived was not a god but a demon. Minucius Felix used the word impuratus where he speaks of the statue of any false god: "It is polished," he says, "by an impure man" (Minucius, Octavius, p. 307). And Prudentius later sang of Apollo:

Soon the impure one wept for him slain by the wicked discus. Prudentius, Hymn on St Romanus, v. 205.

ARTICLE VII.

How splendidly Tertullian confirms the argument above from the fact that demons were cast out in various ways from the bodies of men which they besieged, either by exorcists or by other Christians, whom, fearing them, they hated, and to whom they were subject; in what sense their condition is called desperate; and on the delay of punishment, by which they are said to have the solace of enjoying their malignity.

Tertullian presses the heathen most sharply still, and makes plain to all how great was the power of the Christians to put demons to flight and to drive them out of the bodies of the possessed, and how great their command over them: "For at our touch," he says, "and at our breath, seized by the contemplation and representation of that fire, they depart even from bodies at our command, unwilling and grieving, and blushing in your presence" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, col. 410). The heathen therefore could by no reason at all, and only by an utterly hardened and never-to-be-conquered obstinacy, deny both the feebleness of the demons and the wonderful power of the Christians over them, by which they demonstrated the truth of their religion more clearly than the noonday sun.

But someone will perhaps ask whether Tertullian there speaks only of our exorcists. For Cyprian, where [he speaks] of the things that used to be done in his time, to

writes to Magnus, there he bears witness thus to demons put to flight by exorcists by name: "As is done even today, that through exorcists, by a human voice and by divine power, the devil is scourged and burned and tortured" (Cyprian, Letter 69, to Magnus, p. 187). Did not Tertullian himself, another will say, also say this, and in as many words, about these same exorcists in another book: "There occurred the example, the Lord being witness, of that woman who went to the theatre and came back from it with a demon. And so in the exorcism, when the unclean spirit was charged with having dared to attack a believer, 'I did it,' he said, 'with constancy and with full justice: I found her on my own ground'" (Tertullian, On the Shows, ch. 26)? And did he not say again elsewhere: "With what mouth will a Christian incense-seller", that is, one who burns incense to idols, "if he passes through the temples, spit upon and blow away the smoking altars for which he himself has provided? With what constancy will he exorcize his own foster-children", that is, the demons, "to whom he furnishes his house as a store-room? If indeed he casts out a demon, let him not congratulate himself on his faith. For he has not cast out an enemy. He ought easily to have obtained it from one whom he feeds every day" (the same, On Idolatry, ch. 2)?

Someone could indeed answer that in both those places of Tertullian it is not exorcists that are named but exorcisms, that is, adjurations, which could beyond doubt be used by all Christians. But no one can deny that demons were driven out of men's bodies above all by exorcists, as Cyprian says, and that this was enough for our Author to prove the power of Christians over those same demons.

But he goes further, and in the cited place of the Apology speaks generally of all Christians casting out demons. For he affirms without hesitation that so great was the multitude of gentiles whom the Christians freed from the assaults of demons that, had that benefit been withdrawn, they would have avenged themselves more than enough on the monstrous cruelty of those same gentiles. Here are his very words: "Who would snatch you from those hidden enemies, laying waste your minds and your health on every side, from the assaults of demons, I mean, which we drive off from you without reward, without payment? This alone would have sufficed for our vengeance, that the vacant possession should thenceforth lie open to unclean spirits" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 37, col. 460). Moreover, he wrote to Scapula in this manner: "And how many respectable men (for we do not speak of the common people) have been healed either of demons or of illnesses!" (the same, To Scapula, ch. 4). But who will deny that these things were done not only by exorcists but by all Christians? For the number of exorcists was then too small for them alone to free so great a multitude of men from the assaults of demons.

Wherefore, when the heathen objected that Christians were wholly useless to the commonwealth, he refutes them thus: "At what value do you hold those who now shake demons out of you?" (ibid., ch. 43). And so indeed in our manuscript codices. No less well, however, in the old editions, Quantas; and in La Cerda's edition, Quando. For Tertullian's sense is: if Christians

are useless to the commonwealth, at how much then do you value them, or at what price do you hold those who drive so many demons, and so often, out of you?

But what need is there of argument? Did he not himself declare it in the most explicit words? "Bidden by any Christian whatever to speak, that spirit will confess himself a demon as truly as elsewhere he falsely [calls himself] a god" (ibid., ch. 23). Did he not also write again to the same Scapula: "We not only spurn demons, but also refute them, and daily expose them, and expel them from men, as is known to very many" (the same, To Scapula, ch. 3, 4)? And who would not see that these things were said not of exorcists only but of all Christians? Very great, then, was the power over demons not only of the exorcists but of all Christians, by which they very often cast them out of the bodies of the heathen.

But if anyone asks whence, or in what name, they had it, Tertullian will answer him: "All our", that is, the Christians', "dominion and power over them", the demons, "has its force from the naming of Christ", that is, from Christ's name pronounced when they adjured the demons, "and from the recalling of the things which they await as impending upon them from God through Christ the judge" (the same, Apology, ch. 23, p. 410). Some, however, supported by the authority of no manuscript codex, think comminatione should be read, no doubt because the demons were adjured by the living God, Who is to judge the living and the dead. But perhaps they did not sufficiently notice that a little later in Tertullian's text is written de repraesentatione, which is the same as commemoratione, of that eternal fire by which the demons are to be punished. See Eusebius recounting these things in his oration in praise of Constantine the Great, and others cited by us elsewhere (Eusebius, Oration in Praise of Constantine the Great, ch. 16, p. 658 and following; the place cited below).

Rightly therefore Tertullian concludes from this: "The demons, fearing Christ in God, and God in Christ, are subjected to the servants of God and of Christ" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, p. 410). But how did they fear them? "As worthless slaves," he says, "with fear" (ibid., ch. 27, p. 432), as we read in our manuscript codices. With a servile fear, then, they dreaded Christ and His disciples: "And fear," he goes on, "breathes hatred", or, as Minucius says, "they sow hatred of us secretly through fear" (Minucius, Octavius, p. 235). The demons, then, were both subject to the Christians and also feared them, and for that reason hated them. Why should they not fear them? Since, as our author says further, "they are subdued by them, and give way to their own condition, and those whom they assail from afar they beseech from near at hand" (Tertullian, ibid., ch. 27, col. 432). But if they beseech them, fear them, hate them, and are subject to them, then, when adjured by them, they were certainly not lying, but then truly, as we have already said, confessed that they were in truth demons and in no way gods, and that there is only one God. So true, moreover, was that confession, so public a testimony, says our Author, did it use to make Christians, and to establish and confirm the truth of the Christian religion (ibid.

col. 23, p. 26). But we have dealt with these things in our earlier dissertations (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 20, art. 3; on Arnobius, ch. 3, art. 1; on Lactantius, ch. 9, art. 2, ch. 16, art. 1, ch. 20, art. 7, ch. 33, art. 4).

But as we now hasten, after our usual manner, to explain other matters, someone will perhaps hold us back and ask of us why our Author said that the demons are "condemned beforehand for their malice", and afterwards added: "their desperate condition, from its condemnation beforehand, counts it a solace to enjoy their malignity meanwhile, from the delay of punishment" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 22, c. 404; ibid., col. 27, p. 432). What is this, he will say, this condemnation beforehand of the demons and delay of punishment, and what is the solace of enjoying their malignity? For this same Tertullian, as we have pointed out, had said no less plainly that it is gathered from the sacred Scriptures that the race of demons, with the authors of their kind and their prince, is not indeed condemned beforehand, but condemned absolutely. But although the condemnation of the demons is certain, they do not yet pay all the penalties due to their crimes. For in the sacred Scriptures themselves they are said to have reproached Christ the Lord: "Hast Thou come here before the time to torment us?" (Matt. 8:29). But Augustine has set this out more clearly from the epistle of the apostle Peter: "That certain angels sinned," he says, "and were thrust down into the lowest parts of this world, which is as it were a prison for them, and [are kept] for the final condemnation to come on the day of judgement, the apostle Peter shows most openly, saying that God did not spare the angels that sinned, but, thrusting them into the prisons of the darkness of hell, delivered them to be reserved for punishment at the judgement" (Augustine, City of God X, ch. 33, p. 293; Peter, 2 Pet. 2:4). And this delay and postponement of the infernal darkness and of the fire reserved [for them] was some sort of solace to them for their condemnation beforehand and desperate condition. For meanwhile they enjoyed their malignity, by which, as we have seen, they either led Christians to the worship of themselves, that is, of the false gods, or brought it about that those who refused were butchered with the cruellest tortures even to death. But we have discussed this solace of theirs and their deferred punishment elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 20, art. 5).

CHAPTER XI.

On the recalling of dead men to life, the last judgement of God, the eternal punishments of the wicked and the rewards of the just, and the receptacles of souls before the last judgement.

ARTICLE I.

By what arguments Tertullian proved that all dead men can be recalled to life, and in fact are to be recalled; whether souls exiled from their bodies, and without their ministry, can do anything, suffer, grieve, and rejoice.

We must now pass to other doctrines of the Christian religion which Tertullian asserts and defends in his books against the heathen. One of them, worthy of our notice, is what he constantly teaches and proves by various weighty reasons, that all dead men without exception are to be recalled to life at the end of the world.

The first he takes from the infinite power of God: He Who, he says, composed this body of the world out of that which had not been, that is, out of nothing (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 520), or, as our codices and those printed before Rigault have it, "imposed", that is, created, He assuredly can raise men from the death of vacancy and emptiness, that is, from death, or emptiness and the privation of life, to a second life. For these make up only one part of the world, which is agreed to be animated by the spirit that animates all things. And so indeed Rigault, and others after him, present this text of Tertullian. But our older printed codices read better: "animated by the spirit, the animator of all souls". For our author's argument runs from the greater, as they say, to the less, or from the whole, which was made, to the part, which can for that reason be made. The world, he says, was animated, or created, by the Spirit of God, the animator of all souls; therefore the same Spirit of God can animate again after their death men animated not by the spirit of all things but only by His own, and call them back once more, not out of nothing, as before, but out of destruction and a life previously lost, to a second and the same life.

What, moreover, of the fact that this very power of God to raise dead men is shown clearly by Tertullian not only from the creation of the whole world but also from the creation of man alone? For man, before he was created, was nothing; otherwise he would remember having been at least at some time. But if he was created by God out of nothing, he can certainly be called back from death by the same power and will of God (ibid.). For no greater power is required for the first creation than for renewal and restoration. Nor should you ask too curiously or importunately how this can be done: For give, if you can, says Tertullian, the account of how you were made, and then ask how you will be made (the same, ibid.). For by the very power by which you were first made, by that same power you will afterwards be remade. Therefore, if you do not doubt of the first, you ought much less to doubt of the second: For surely more easily, as he says further, will you become what you once were, since you were made, with no difficulty either, what you once were not (ibid.). In like manner we have heard Minucius Felix, Lactantius and others argue in the preceding dissertations (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 7, art. 2, and on Lactantius, ch. 29, art. 4).

But if this lies entirely within the power of God, nothing else remains to be proved than that He wills it and has in fact made known that He has willed it. And this He has, as our author says, determined and proclaimed (Tertullian, ibid.), and not once only but very often, in the sacred Scriptures of the Old and especially of the New Testament. Nor need their testimonies be heaped up here, since they lie open to all everywhere, and no one at all who has touched them even very lightly can be ignorant of them. And their authority is most certain, as we showed above (above, ch. 6, art. 3 and following). It is settled, therefore, that God both can and wills that all dead men without exception be restored to the former condition of their life; and consequently a future

resurrection, that is, the complete return of them all to life, must certainly take place.

Tertullian presses on further, and shows by another argument that it is altogether necessary that all dead men should at some time return to life. He sums up that whole argument in these words: Surely, since the reason for the restoration is the appointment of judgement, the very same man who had been must necessarily be brought forth, so that he may receive judgement for good or contrary desert (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48). He teaches, then, that there is no room at all for doubt that all men must present themselves at God's last judgement at the end of the world. But this cannot happen unless they return to life, and receive from God the final sentence according to their deserts, good or bad, and reward or punishment.

But our author presses this argument far more fully in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, where he argues thus: This will be the whole cause, nay the necessity, of the resurrection, namely the appointment of judgement, most befitting to God; from the arrangement of which you may discern whether the divine censure presides over the judging of human substance in both respects, as much for the soul as for the flesh (the same, book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 14). For man assuredly acts well or ill not by his soul alone but also by his body. For such is the partnership of the soul with the body that what is done in the heart is done in the flesh, and with the flesh, and through the flesh (ibid., ch. 15), that is, in the soul. Indeed, even if the soul at some time thinks alone, this thought of it is hardly ever had without some dealing with the body: For if the soul turns something over, says Tertullian, the countenance gives the sign of it; the face is the mirror of all intentions (ibid.).

Now this is not the place to inquire whether he really held that the soul can do nothing at all without dealing with the body and without its senses. For we have said something of this opinion already, and an occasion of discussing it will be given shortly. For now let it suffice to have noted that very many acts of the soul, as no one denies, are not accomplished without the service of the body and the senses. For the body of man is so joined to the soul that it is certainly a sharer in at least most of its good or bad deserts. The whole man, therefore, that is, his body and his soul, must be presented at God's last and most just judgement, so that they may receive either punishment or reward for all things done in this mortal life.

Nor does our author allow the objection to be made to him that the soul of man alone uses the free choice of the will, and that the body is driven to everything as an instrument. For the body is not an instrument external to the soul, but so united to the soul that, as it shares in its actions, so it shares also in its deserts. After the end of the world, therefore, it must be called back to life, so that by God's just judgement it may be punished or rewarded according to its deserts.

The third argument by which Tertullian strives to prove the future resurrection of man is not without its difficulty, and will seem false to many. For he argued in this manner (the same, Apology, ch. 48, p. 520): Therefore souls and bodies will be presented, because the soul alone cannot suffer anything without stable matter, that is, flesh. Does the soul, then,

suffer nothing whatever without the flesh? So indeed, someone will say, Tertullian thought. For in another book he addresses the soul in these very words (the same, book On the Testimony of the Soul, ch. 4): We affirm that you remain after the closing of life, and await the day of judgement, and according to your desert are appointed either to torment or to refreshment, both everlasting. To bear these, your former substance, and the matter and memory of the same man, must necessarily return to you, because you can feel nothing either bad or good without the faculty of the passible flesh, and there is no ground for judgement without the presentation of the very one who deserved to suffer the judgement. Not once, therefore, nor hesitantly, but with assurance, he affirms and repeats that the soul can feel nothing at all without the partnership of its body. And he held this to be so true that he concludes from it that the dead human body will for this reason return to life, because the soul without it is able to do nothing good or bad.

But withhold your assent, if you can, for a little while. First, I should like you to turn your mind to what the same Tertullian has argued in his books On the Soul and On the Resurrection of the Flesh, where he discusses at greater length, and of set purpose, the return of the dead body to life and the soul's faculty of acting and suffering. And in the former book he asserts most expressly and most firmly that the soul, separated from the body, either suffers pain or is filled with joy. For all the souls of men after their death remain in the underworld, and, he says, whether you will or not, there are already punishments and refreshments there. Then, to one who objects to him that the soul must wait for the resurrection of the flesh, the partner of its works, in order to grieve or rejoice, he answers without hesitation that this is not necessary. For of its own, as he puts it, it suffices for either kind of suffering. And certainly the soul alone, without the service of the body, is sometimes tormented by anger or by hatred, and sometimes too, while the body is afflicted, as he confirms by the example of Mucius, Zeno and others, it seeks out a stolen joy for itself (ibid.). On the other hand, sometimes, with the body unharmed, it grieves, is oppressed and is tormented. But if in this life, even when bound to the body, it alone is affected by joy or sorrow, how much more when, separated from it after death, it awaits the last judgement. Finally, some of its acts take place without dealing with the flesh, such as mere thoughts and bare wishes, which the divine censure pursues (the same, book On the Soul, ch. 17). From which he draws this conclusion: Therefore it is most fitting that the soul, without waiting for the flesh, be punished for what it committed without the flesh as partner; and also, for pious and kindly thoughts, in which it did not need the flesh, it will be refreshed without the flesh. These same things, and many others, he set down in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, where he expressly demonstrates that men are altogether to be called back to life.

What then, you will say, did Tertullian contradict himself so absurdly? But if you are willing to keep your mind in suspense a while longer, you will see that this appearance of contradiction, though not the least, is removed by him. For in the same book On the Resurrection he repeats what he had said,

that souls are now tormented and comforted in the underworld, though naked, though still exiles from the flesh (the same, book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 17). But since some could object against him that it could be inferred from this that the soul is so sufficient to itself for the faculty, as he himself says, of suffering and sensation, that it does not need the presentation of the flesh, he answers them (ibid.): Rather, it will need it to this extent: not in that it cannot feel anything without the flesh, but in that it must also feel with the flesh. For as far as it suffices of itself for acting, so far for suffering. But for acting it suffices less of itself. For of itself it has only to think, to will, to desire, to plan; but for accomplishing it waits for the work of the flesh. So therefore for suffering it demands the work of the flesh, so that it may suffer fully through the flesh, as without it it could not act fully. And therefore, in those things for which it suffices of itself, it pays the sentence meanwhile for desire, and thought, and will. Further, if these were enough for the fullness of deserts, so that deeds too were not required, the soul would suffice entirely for the completion of the judgement, to be judged on those things for which it alone had sufficed to do. But since deeds too are bound up with deserts, and deeds are carried out through the flesh, it is no longer enough that the soul be comforted or tormented without the flesh for the works of the flesh, even though it has members, which consequently do not suffice it for feeling fully, just as they do not for acting perfectly. Therefore, for whatever way it has acted, for that it also suffers in the underworld, tasting the judgement first, as it first brought on the offence; yet awaiting the flesh as well, so that through it it may also pay for the deeds to which it entrusted its thoughts. We have transcribed this whole argument and answer of our author, although somewhat long, since by it not only is the knot of the difficulty set before us plainly untied, but some things about the nature of the soul are also drawn from it which ought not to be passed over without some remark.

He teaches, then, that the soul, naked and without the partnership of the body, is really either tormented or comforted in the underworld. But since it could be objected to him from this that it is not a purely spiritual substance but a corporeal one, or, as he himself says, a bodiliness of its own, he did not wish to sift this question, which was a harder task, lest he stray too long from his purpose. Meanwhile he grants, though he does not confess it, that the soul has some body, and certain members proper to its kind. But he asserts most expressly that the soul has acts of its own, in no way dependent on the body, such as thoughts, wishes and desires. And these acts, to say it in passing, if they are wholly spiritual, he could not deny that the soul itself is much more spiritual.

Since, moreover, these acts belong to the soul alone, it has of itself not only that by which it acts and suffers, but that by which it can merit either reward or punishment. Released from the body, therefore, it can and must be visited with punishment or reward according to its deserts. For as long as it is united to the body, it is always the first either to sin or to merit. After death, therefore, it must needs be visited with the punishments or rewards due, alone and before the return of the body. Tertullian, therefore, was persuaded that the soul, the bonds

of the body being broken, suffers, is tormented, is tortured. But since in this life too it has sinned much together with its body, for that reason, so that it may be punished and tortured according to its deserts, it must be joined again to its body, called back to life.

These things being thus explained, the contradiction alleged against Tertullian vanishes. For he rightly said both that the soul without the body really suffers something, and that it can suffer nothing. For where he says that it can suffer nothing, there "fully and perfectly" must be understood, that is, as much as it deserved by sinning together with the body. For with that with which it sinned, with that it must surely be punished. Rightly, then, does Tertullian prove from this the future recall of the dead body to life, because the soul alone cannot suffer the punishment, namely, the full and perfect punishment, such as it deserved by sinning together with the body.

If, moreover, you will allow us to add anything to these, we shall observe that by this very same argument, drawn from the punishments or rewards due to a man who acts well or ill in this life, this future return of the same man to life is clearly proved by Ambrose, as in its place, and by Athenagoras, Minucius Felix and Lactantius, as we have shown in our dissertations on their books; nay more, that from it the immortality of our soul is demonstrated by the same Lactantius (Ambrose, book II On Faith in the Resurrection, § 12, p. 1147; vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 475; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 24, art. 3, and ch. 29, art. 5; dissertation on Minucius, ch. 7, art. 2).

ARTICLE II.

By what examples, or by what oracle of the Pythia, and by what opinion of the philosophers on the transmigration of souls Tertullian shows that all dead men whatever are to be restored to their former state of life, and how he refutes the arguments set against it.

Although by the foregoing arguments Tertullian has most evidently demonstrated that any men whatever can be raised from death, in whatever manner it was met, by the will of almighty God, he nevertheless strives to confirm this with several examples. But it is not right for us to conceal that from these, as being not altogether equal, a perfect demonstration of human resurrection, complete in every respect, cannot be made. Yet by them it can at least be confirmed, not unfittingly, that the gentiles deny in vain that men can be called back to the former state of the life they have passed through.

These remarks having been set down against the more captious critics, we must hear Tertullian himself (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 520): There has been sealed, he says, also by Him, namely God, an example of human resurrection as a testimony to you. The light, slain every day, shines again, and the darkness by like turns departs and returns; the stars, dead, revive. In our manuscript copies, and in the editions older than Rigault: "vivescunt", that is, as is clear from Pliny, "become alive" (Pliny, Natural History, book XVII, ch. 10, p. 344). Our author continues: The seasons, where they end, begin; the fruits are consumed (our same manuscripts and printed codices: "are completed"), and return.

Surely seeds rise more fruitfully only when corrupted and dissolved: all things are preserved by perishing, all things are re-formed out of destruction (Tertullian, book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 12). But he pursues these things with greater pomp of words in another book, and Minucius Felix more briefly, and Theophilus of Antioch more fully, as we have made plain elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 7, art. 2).

And our Tertullian completes his argument with these words (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 43): You, man, so great a name, if you understood yourself, how great, that is, you are, learning it even from the inscription of the Pythia, that you are lord of all things that die and rise again, will you die for this, that you may perish? He says, then, that the condition of man is not worse than that of the other things, dying and rising again, of which he is lord. Man, therefore, by a far stronger right than they, must both die and rise again.

But someone will ask what that oracle of the Pythia cited by him is. Some answer that it is what is related by him in the same place: Lord of all things that die and rise again. But they have proved by no argument that this was pronounced by the Pythia. Then again, he did not say that the oracle of the Pythia was reported in these words, but that man could learn from the oracle of the Pythia that he is lord of all things that die and rise again (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1170). To us, therefore, that oracle of the Pythia seems to be nothing other than this famous saying of Apollo: Know thyself; of which we have treated elsewhere. And Tertullian seems to have added deliberately, "even from the inscription of the Pythia", because it had been inscribed on the temple of Pythian, or Delphic, Apollo, as we noted in the same place. Why then, you will say, did Tertullian write "of the Pythia" and not "of the Pythian", the name by which alone Apollo was sometimes called? But if in his text "of the Pythia", and not "of the Pythian", is to be read, we shall answer that it is called "of the Pythia" because the prophetess Pythia used to prophesy in his temple. For, to omit others, this is expressed in this verse of Lucretius (Lucretius, book V, line 113):

which the Pythia speaks forth from the tripod and laurel of Phoebus.

Tertullian continues, and to break and more and more to refute the obstinacy of the gentiles, he presses them thus with this argument "ad hominem", as they say. It is certain, he says, that they put faith in any philosopher who, by certain arguments set forth as ingeniously as elegantly, tried to defend Pythagoras's vain opinion of the transmigration of souls. Indeed, none of them, fearing the gibes of the biting Laberius, who mocked it, abstained from eating all flesh of animals; lest perhaps, Tertullian says further, he should buy beef for his table out of some ancestor of his, that is, lest by eating the flesh of an ox he should eat the soul of some ancestor of his, which he supposed had migrated into the body of an ox (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 42). But he did not think so ridiculous an opinion needed refuting here (ibid.): For there will also be need, he says, of many jests and of leisure, if we wish to make sport on this side, as to who is changed into what beast

might seem to be re-formed. So indeed Rigault; but in our manuscript codices and in the printed ones older than his there stands: There will be need also of many places (from which arguments can be drawn to refute this error) "ex otio", or "otio", as Pliny wrote "ex facili" for "facile" (book III, letter 3). Yet to most it will doubtless seem that "jocis" (jests) should be read, since by jests, rather than by stronger arguments, this altogether ridiculous opinion of Pythagoras and his followers was to be hissed off. For the noun "jests" seems, not without reason, to agree better with the verb "make sport" than "places" does (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 42). Nevertheless, a little before he had said that any philosopher can be overwhelmed by an immense weight of arguments who affirms, as Laberius says, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, that a man is made out of a mule, a snake out of a woman (the same, book On the Cloak, ch. 1). And these are the verses of this writer of mimes, whom he mentions elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 7, art. 1), made public by Crinitus, as we have noted elsewhere:

And now out of a mule they make a man, a snake out of a woman, / and out of different things other different things.

And mention of this Laberius is frequent in various writers, and especially Cicero, Suetonius, both Senecas, Aulus Gellius and Macrobius; of whom, among others, Horace sang:

Yet, granting this, I would not grant the rest as well; for / should I then admire the mimes of Laberius too, as fine poems?

But such was the madness of the heathen, and such their fury against the Christians, that the Christian opinion, as our author rightly remarks in another book, though more honourable than the Pythagorean, which transfers you into beasts; though fuller than the Platonic, which gives you back even the endowment of the body; though weightier than the Epicurean, which defends you from destruction; nevertheless, solely because of the name of Christians, is set down to vanity and stupidity and, as it is said, to presumption. And it was not enough for the gentiles to reject and spurn this opinion of the Christians, better than the rest, but the Christian, its defender, will be driven out by them rather with stones (these are other words of Tertullian in the Apology), not even with fists, by the people (the same, Apology, ch. 48, col. 42). But for "caestibus" there is read in our codices "coetibus", that is, he will be expelled from meetings and gatherings. For Tertullian argues from the greater, as they say, to the less, and not badly indeed. The Christian, he says, the champion of that doctrine of man's future return to life, will not only be expelled from the meetings of the heathen but, what is worse, will be overwhelmed with stones. But if "caestibus" in Rigault's edition is not so well written, far worse certainly is "caedibus" (slaughter) in the older ones, which are crueller than stoning. Of those opinions of Pythagoras, Plato and Epicurus noted by our author, moreover, we have treated in our dissertations on the books of Minucius Felix and Lactantius (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 7, art. 1, and on Lactantius, ch. 34, art. 1).

But since Tertullian [proves] the return of man to life by the examples he set forth of light and darkness, of the stars and

of the seasons, of fruits and of seeds, had tried to strengthen (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 45), the heathen argued from this: Then we shall always have to die and always to rise again. But this is plainly absurd. But first, Tertullian answers, if the Lord of all things had so appointed, you would undergo the law of your condition against your will (ibid.); that is, since the true and almighty God is the Lord of all things, and consequently of death and life, He can certainly raise a dead man to life not once only but as often as He wishes. If, then, He had decreed for man several returns to life, man would undergo this law against his will. And he said "ingratis", that is, unwillingly and against one's will. For in that sense our author himself often used this word, and indeed Cicero himself: what he does not owe, he says, must be wrung from him unwilling and against his will. And elsewhere: What they can, they will willingly keep silent; what they must, they will say against their will (the same, ch. 4, col. 5; book Against Hermogenes, ch. 19; and book Against the Valentinians, ch. 26, p. 300; Cicero, First Speech for Quinctius, p. 9, line 2, and book IV Against Verres, p. 163, line 15). Do you see the words "willingly" and "against their will" set against each other?

Secondly, Tertullian answers: But in fact God has not appointed otherwise than He has proclaimed (Tertullian, Apology, col. 48, p. 43), namely in the sacred Scriptures, as we noted above, where He proclaims that He has decreed that man is to die once and to rise again once.

Finally, he answers that men rise again for this purpose, that they may receive, for the measureless perpetuity of eternity, the evil or good they deserved in this life (ibid.). Once, therefore, must they be called back to life. For afterwards there will be neither death nor resurrection, but eternal life.

Next he also meets those who used to object that it cannot happen that the body of a man sunk in the deep and boundless sea, reduced to ashes, devoured by beasts and sometimes by men, should itself, the very same, at some time rise again: For the nothing itself, he says, belongs to God, Whose also is the whole (ibid.). For since God created all things out of nothing, and is Lord both of the thing that exists and of the thing that does not exist, and of nothing, He can certainly both make and remake anything in whatever way He pleases. Rightly, therefore, does he conclude from this: Wherever you have been dissolved, whatever matter has destroyed you, swallowed you, abolished you, squandered you into nothing, it will give you back (ibid.). But we have treated this matter more fully in our earlier dissertations (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 7, art. 2, and Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 28, art. 4).

ARTICLE III.

At what time dead men will be raised to life and will present themselves at God's last judgement, and how Tertullian confirms from the opinions of the heathen about Minos and Rhadamanthus that the evil and good deserts of all are then to be examined.

After Tertullian had proved, by the weight of the reasons we have set out, that [there would be] a future [return] of every

of a dead man to life, he at once shows when all men must rise again: The world, he says, which reason (that is, beyond doubt, the Word and Speech of God) composed out of rivals (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, col. 43), or out of things contrary to one another, or, as he said in another book, out of different substances, so that they might subsist under a unity (the same, book On the Cloak, ch. 2); this same reason willed that time should flow from the beginning of this world, ever flowing down to the eternity set over against it. But between infinite and measureless eternity and finite time He set a middle boundary, by which the age (Apology, place cited), or the whole time of the world, is ended and infinite eternity begins: And at that last boundary of time and first of eternity, he says, the whole human race will be restored, to settle what it deserved, good or bad, in this age of its mortal life, and thereafter to pay it out into the measureless perpetuity of eternity (ibid.). So in Rigault's and the old editions, and in our manuscript codices. But in some printed ones "deprehendendum" (to be detected) is read for "dependendum" (to be paid out), or in others "exinde dependendum". In others again this word is removed entirely. Nor does it seem very necessary, if by the word "expungendum" Tertullian there, as elsewhere, and other writers, mean "to be paid in full". But if it is taken by him for the rendering by men of the sum of their works, and for the reckoning and settling of accounts, the word "dependendum" must be kept, so that its sense here is: all men without exception will be restored, so that all the accounts of their good and bad desert may be reckoned, examined and settled, and that thereafter, through all eternity, they may pay out and discharge what they deserved through this life. And Suetonius seems to have used the verb "expungo" in this second sense, where he wrote of Claudius Caesar: When he reviewed the records of the decuries (Suetonius, Life of Claudius, § 15), that is, as some have observed, when he arranged and reckoned which of the decuries were to be kept in the number of the judges. Here too they bring in these words of Papinian: One marked down on account of desertion and restored is struck off the pay for the time he was in desertion (Digest, book XLIX, title 16, law 15, On Military Affairs).

Whatever, moreover, may be the true and genuine reading of our author, he teaches it as more certain than certain that the merits of each man will be weighed and accurately examined at the last judgement of Christ. For Christ Himself will come with all the glory and majesty of the Godhead, as Tertullian says, and also with the convulsion of the whole world, by which indeed it will be overturned, with the shuddering of the globe, with the wailing of all, of unbelievers and the wicked, but not of Christians (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, col. 25), that is, of the faithful who have lived piously and holily. Of this last judgement we have already treated elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 47, p. 42).

But we are laughed at by the heathen, Tertullian says further, for proclaiming that God, Whom he had earlier called Christ, will judge (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 47, col. 42). But surely this cold mockery [he could] not more fittingly

than by their own traditional tenets did he think this cold mockery should be hissed off: For so, he says, both the poets and the philosophers place a tribunal in the underworld (ibid.). And what that tribunal is he had declared in these words, with which he addresses the gentiles: You laugh; let them laugh too, the demons, along with you.... Let them say before the tribunal whether perhaps Minos and Rhadamanthus have been allotted it, according to the agreement of Plato and the poets (ibid., ch. 23, col. 25). And since the tribunal of Minos and Rhadamanthus was very well known to all, he cites the poets as witnesses in general, very many of whom, both Greek and Latin, sang of it. Of the philosophers he names Plato expressly, because he was reputed easily the chief of them all. In a like manner Justin Martyr too had argued against the same heathen: And Plato [said] that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the unjust who came before them; and we say that the same thing will come to pass, but by Christ, and upon the same bodies, joined with their souls, which will be punished with eternal punishment. Plato taught that Rhadamanthus and Minos would likewise chastise the unjust coming before them. And we say that this very thing will be done, but by Christ, the same bodies being united with their souls and tortured with eternal torments (Justin, Apology I to Antoninus, p. 57). In the same manner Athenagoras also afterwards argued against the heathen. And the passages of Plato cited by him you will find in his Gorgias and Axiochus (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 12; Plato, Gorgias, vol. I, p. 124, and Axiochus, vol. III, p. 371).

And if anyone wishes at least some one of the poets cited by Tertullian to be brought forward, we shall cite the two leaders of the Greeks and Latins, Homer and Virgil. For in the Odyssey he sang this of Erebus:

There indeed I saw Minos, the glorious son of Zeus, / holding a golden sceptre, giving judgement to the dead, / seated; and they around him asked the king for judgements, / seated and standing, through the wide-gated house of Hades.

(Homer, Odyssey XI, near the end.)

There I saw Minos, the splendid son of Jove, / bearing a golden sceptre, giving laws to the dead, / seated; and others around him pleaded their causes to the king, / seated and standing, through the broad house of Pluto.

And Virgil:

Nor indeed are these seats given without lot, without a judge: / Minos the inquisitor shakes the urn; he summons the council / of the silent, and learns their lives and crimes.

(Virgil, Aeneid, book VI, line 431 and following.)

Then afterwards:

Cnossian Rhadamanthus holds these most dreadful realms, / and chastises and hears their deceits, and compels each to confess / the crimes committed among those above which, rejoicing in an empty concealment, / he put off for atonement until a late death.

(Ibid., line 561 and following.)

But if the heathen, as Tertullian rightly argues, believed these poets and philosophers, much more must our sacred writers be believed, who, filled with the divine Spirit, constantly proclaim that it is Christ Himself Who, this age having been drawn out, that is, completed and consumed, will judge His worshippers to the recompense of eternal life, and the profane to a fire equally perpetual and unceasing,

all the dead from the beginning having been raised, and refashioned, and reviewed for the reckoning of either desert, whether good or evil. Here he says "for the reckoning" (ad dispunctionem), doubtless in the same sense in which we saw that he said earlier "for the striking off of accounts" (ad expungendum). For we have seen it written by him elsewhere: "We, who are reckoned up under God, the watcher of all," that is, are examined and judged by God, Who knows all things, "foresee an eternal punishment from Him" (Ibid., Chapter 45, col. 39), that is, we guard against it beforehand, or we foresee that it will come to pass that He will visit the wicked with eternal punishment. Therefore we go to meet Him with innocence and integrity of morals, so as not to suffer the eternal punishments and eternal torments of the impious. In the last judgement of Christ, then, each one will render the account of his own merits, good or evil; and when these have been examined and the final sentence passed, the wicked will be punished with eternal fire, while the just will be rewarded with the prize of everlasting happiness. But what our author teaches about this eternal fire and about the prize must now be examined by us.

ARTICLE IV.

On the eternal fire by which wicked and impious men will be tormented; by what reasoning Tertullian asserts its eternity and confirms it by the examples of fiery rivers, of mountains always burning, and of a man struck by lightning; and why that fire is called eternal.

What the Christians had learned from the sacred Scriptures they openly proclaimed: that impious and wicked men are to be tormented after their death by eternal fire. "But if we threaten gehenna," says Tertullian, "which is a subterranean treasure-house of eternal fire for punishment, we are laughed to scorn in like manner" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 47, col. 42). And so indeed it reads in our manuscripts, and in the Rigault edition and other later editions; but in the older ones it reads subterraneus, as though it ought to be referred to the noun thesaurus. Yet it can also be referred to the noun gehenna, but always with the same sense. Our Author therefore teaches that gehenna is an inexhaustible treasure-house of eternal fire, in which wicked men will be tortured after this life. But the heathen hissed this teaching off the stage like an old wives' tale, with guffaws and unrestrained laughter.

Yet this teaching of the Christians was true; or else the Gentiles themselves were equally to be laughed at, by whom, as our Author says (Ibid.), the Pyriphlegethon was proclaimed a river among the dead. And so he, and afterwards Arnobius, throws back the dart that they had hurled (Arnobius, Against the Nations, Book III, p. 52). These are the latter's words: "Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of gehennas, and of certain unquenchable fires into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? What of Plato, in the volume which he composed on the immortality of the soul: does he not name the Acheron, the Styx, the Cocytus and the Pyriphlegethon, in which he asserts that souls are rolled about, plunged and burned up?" Plato is rightly cited by him, for in the Phaedo he described those four rivers of the underworld, feigned by the heathen and well enough known to all (Plato, Phaedo, vol. 1, p. 112 ff.). The Pyriphlegethon, however, is called Phlegethon by Virgil and other Latin poets.

But in a matter well enough known it may suffice to quote some of his verses:

"Gods, whose dominion is over souls, and you silent shades, / And Chaos, and Phlegethon, places silent far and wide in night." (Virgil, Aeneid VI, line 264 ff.)

And again, later:

"Aeneas suddenly looks back, and beneath a cliff on the left / He sees broad walls, girt with a triple rampart, / Which a swift river encircles with torrents of flame, / Tartarean Phlegethon, and it whirls along roaring rocks." (Ibid., line 543 ff.)

You may consult Prudentius and others, if you please (Prudentius, Hamartigenia, near the end). But in whatever way the heathen either invented or believed these things, they certainly could not mock the Christians, who, taught by their divine Writers, asserted that profane men, defiled with crimes, are to be punished after this life with the torment of perpetual fire (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 45, p. 497). And in the first dissertation of this volume we heard Minucius Felix arguing in the same way against the Gentiles (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, Chapter VII, Article 3).

But the heathen demanded in what way, then, a fire could be eternal and never be extinguished. To this Tertullian answers that by divine power it has a supply of incorruptibility (Tertullian, ibid.). Nor could the Gentile philosophers deny this, for they acknowledged a twofold fire, of quite different kinds. The first, as they said, is the earthly fire, common and public, which serves men's daily use. The other is hidden, and far less common: "from heaven," says our Author, "drawing forth thunderbolts, or from the earth," by which mountains, namely Etna and Vesuvius, "burn and endure," and are not consumed. For this fire, as he says, "does not consume what it burns, but while it spends, it renews"; therefore the mountains remain always burning. We have discussed this fire elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, Chapter VII, Article 3, and on Lactantius, Chapter XXIX, Article 7).

Two things therefore remain for us to observe. First, that these examples of thunderbolts and burning mountains are not taken by Tertullian and our other writers as though their fire were the same as the eternal fire of the underworld, but "as a testimony," he says, "of the eternal fire, and an example of the perpetual judgement that feeds the punishment" (Tertullian, loc. cit., p. 497). By him, therefore, these are brought forward only as a testimony and example of another fire, which, kindled by divine power and to be preserved for ever, will burn the impious through all eternity and will never consume them.

Second, he puts forward in the same place another, but more obscure, example in these words: "He who is touched from heaven," that is, by a thunderbolt, "is safe, so that he is no longer reduced to ashes by any fire" (Ibid.). In explaining these words, certainly difficult ones, there is no small variety and disagreement among the interpreters. For some think that they aim at the ancient law of the Gentiles, by which it was provided that no one struck by lightning should thereafter be punished with any penalty; for Jupiter was held to have punished him sufficiently, however impious he was. Others, however, think that the author

our author had in view what Pliny records in these words: "It is not lawful for a man killed in this way to be cremated; religion has handed down that he be buried in the earth" (Pliny, Natural History, Book II, Chapter 54, p. 209). But what, I ask, has this to do with the purpose of Tertullian, who strives to confirm by this example that the bodies of certain men, struck by lightning, are so preserved that they are no longer reduced to ashes by any fire?

Consider, then, whether he does not rather allude to what Plutarch has recorded, that it is known to almost everyone that bodies touched from heaven are by many neither cremated nor buried, but left with a fence put round them, so that, free from decay, they may be seen for ever (Plutarch, Table-Talk, Book IV, Question 2, p. 665). And afterwards: "You see," he says, "that we also hold the fire of the thunderbolt to be sacred and divine, because we see that the bodies of those struck by Zeus remain undecayed, holding out for a long time." "You know that the fire of the thunderbolt is called sacred and divine, because we see that the bodies of those touched from heaven resist putrefaction for a long time" (Ibid., Book VI, Question 10, p. 685). And this example, though not altogether perfect, could be brought forward by Tertullian to show and confirm that the bodies of men can be burned by eternal fire, by which they will nevertheless never be consumed.

If anyone wishes to know why this fire is called "hidden" by him, we shall answer him: because he thought it concealed and hidden away in the bowels of the earth. For in another book he explains both Plato's opinion and his own about the place where the underworld is situated, thus: "Plato in the Phaedo describes the underworld as a kind of bosom of the earth, into which all the stains of worldly filth, flowing together and settling there, exhale, and, as with the mire of their own uncleannesses, pack the air there into a thicker draught and one peculiar to the place. By us the underworld is believed to be not a bare hollow, nor some sink of the world open to the sky, but a vastness in a pit of the earth and in the deep, and a profundity hidden in its very bowels" (Tertullian, On the Soul, Chapter 54). And if anyone should further ask whence he drew this opinion, he will soon hear his answer in the same place: "For we read that Christ spent the three days of His death in the heart of the earth, that is, in an inmost and interior recess, covered within the earth itself, enclosed within it, and built above abysses lower still, … so that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself. You have, then, reason to believe the region of the underworld to be subterranean" (Ibid., Chapter 53). And there he again praises Plato, in the Phaedo already quoted by us, so as further to refute the heathen by this authority of the chief of their own philosophers.

ARTICLE V.

On the eternal blessedness of the saints; in what place they dwell; whether they enjoy it immediately after death, or await it in certain dwellings until the last day of judgement; and by what reasoning Tertullian proves that the tenets of the Christian religion recounted so far cannot be rejected by the heathen, and that Christians ought not to be harassed and slaughtered for defending them.

"By the reasoning by which the wicked," says Tertullian, "and the impious

men the eternal punishment of fire, by the same reasoning an everlasting reward for their good works awaits the good and the just. For after our dead body has been raised to life again, "We shall be," he says, "the same as we are now, and not others afterwards" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 48, p. 520), because, as was said above, our very same body will rise again. "Then the worshippers of God," he continues, "will be with God for ever, clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity" (Ibid.); that is, they will be clothed upon with the gift of immortality, which will subsist and endure for ever. He said "with the proper substance of eternity" (Ibid., Chapter 49, p. 528), by which just men will enjoy not only immortality but perpetual happiness, or, as he himself says, "eternal refreshment and divine delight" (Ibid., Chapter 47, p. 515).

But as surely and truly as he asserts this, so readily do we find his mind doubtful and wavering about the place where their souls, released from their bodies, will be received until the last judgement. For first, in his Apologeticum, he says: "We call paradise a place of divine delight, appointed to receive the spirits of the saints, cut off from the knowledge of the common world by a kind of wall, that fiery Zone" (Ibid.). Now some think that he there had in view these words of Genesis: "And He cast out Adam, and placed before the paradise of pleasure cherubim, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to guard the way of the tree of life" (Gen. 3:24). Others, however, deny this; for they cannot bring their minds to accept that the wall of the fiery Zone signifies the same thing as the flaming sword. They think, therefore, that another fire is meant, the arbiter of a more delightful place. But this opinion ought at least to be supported by some argument. So until they bring one forward, we do not see what prevents Tertullian from having called that place "of divine delight" which in the cited words of Genesis is named the paradise of pleasure. For what is against it, if he judged that the fiery Zone is signified by the fiery sword? But we have already treated this passage of Tertullian somewhat in an earlier dissertation (Dissertation on Lactantius, Chapter XXII, Article 6).

A surer judgement could be passed on this matter if his little book on paradise were extant, which he testifies he composed. For he himself has referred us to it thus: "You have also a little book of ours on paradise, in which we have established that every soul is held in custody in the underworld until the day of the Lord" (Tertullian, On the Soul, Chapter 55), that is, the general and last judgement. But from these words, few as they are, no small difficulty certainly arises. For although he might be said to have distinguished paradise from the underworld, he nevertheless teaches most plainly that every soul, namely of the just as well as of the impious, is held in custody and reserved in this underworld until the last judgement. But to many these things will doubtless seem obscure and not easy to understand. Therefore we must investigate what he laid down about them in his other works that remain.

In his book On the Soul he has set down the following from the Gospel: "The soul of a certain man," namely the famous rich man, "is in pain in the underworld, and is punished in flame, is tormented in

tongue, and begs help from the finger of a happier soul" (Ibid., Chapter 7), namely that of the poor man Lazarus. Nor does he allow it to be objected to him that this is a parable. The added name of Lazarus indicates, in truth, a real event; and even if it were a parable, it is itself a testimony to the truth. Then he added: "But what is that which is carried off to the underworld after its separation from the body, which is detained there, which is reserved for the day of judgement, to which Christ also descended by dying? To the souls of the patriarchs, I think. But why so, if the soul is nothing under the earth? …… in a prison under the lodging of the underworld, in fire, or in the bosom of Abraham" (Ibid.). He teaches, then, that the underworld is a subterranean place, and the bosom of Abraham, where the soul of the wicked rich man was tormented, into which Christ descended after His death, and where the patriarchs were awaiting Him. Afterwards, however, he says: "Thus the rich man too has a tongue in the underworld, and the poor man a finger, and there is the bosom of Abraham. By these outlines the souls of the martyrs under the altar are also understood" (Ibid., Chapter 9). Do the souls of the martyrs, then, also dwell there, and in the same underworld, under the altar? But this will be explained a little more clearly later on.

Meanwhile let us hear him speaking further. He says that Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth "so that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself. You have, then, reason to believe the region of the underworld to be subterranean, and to thrust away with the elbow those who, proudly enough, do not think the souls of the faithful worthy of the underworld: servants above their lord, and disciples above their master, disdaining, it may be, to take the comfort of awaiting the resurrection in the bosom of Abraham" (Ibid., Chapter 55). Do you see that this same underworld is still called the bosom of Abraham, and the dwelling of the patriarchs and prophets, where souls take comfort in the hope of the resurrection?

Finally, towards the end of the same book, he introduces someone objecting to him: "All souls, then, are in the underworld." To whom he at once replies: "Whether you will or no; and both punishments and refreshments are there already. You have the poor man and the rich man" (Ibid., Chapter 58). Since, therefore, he says "every soul", he excepts none.

Nor does he profess to hold this only in that book, but in another also he confirms it not obscurely in these words: "For the example of Lazarus has proved that even now souls are tormented and cherished in the underworld, though naked, though still exiles from the flesh" (The same, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Chapter 17). Further, of the martyrs themselves he did not hesitate to write this in the Scorpiace: "Who are these, the sons of Zebedee, such blessed victors, if not properly martyrs? For the victories belong to those whose battles they are, and the battles to those whose blood it is. But meanwhile the souls of the martyrs rest peacefully under the altar, and feed their patience on confidence of vengeance, and, clothed in robes, they take up the white of glory, until others also fill up the fellowship of their glory" (The same, Scorpiace, Chapter 12). Was it not, then, Tertullian's opinion that the souls of all dead men whatsoever, stripped of their bodies, are reserved until the last day of judgement in the underworld, in paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, and under the altar, by which, though they are different names, he beyond doubt seems to have designated one and the same place?

But wait a little, I pray, and bear with me somewhat. For you will soon hear from him that, as there is a threefold kind of souls, or of dead men, namely of the impious, of the just and of the martyrs, so there is a threefold place for them, and that the underworld is distinguished from the bosom of Abraham. For he refutes Marcion's error about the receptacles of these same souls by the authority of sacred Scripture, "which," he says, "distinguishes the bosom of Abraham, for the poor man, from the underworld. For the underworld, I think, is one thing, and the bosom of Abraham another. For it says that a great gulf lies between those regions and prevents passage from either side. Nor would the rich man have lifted up his eyes, and that from afar, unless to higher places, and from the remoteness of height across that immense distance of loftiness and depth. …… That region, then, I call the bosom of Abraham, though not heavenly, yet higher than the underworld, which will meanwhile afford refreshment to the souls of the just, until the consummation of all things completes the resurrection of all with the fullness of reward. …… Why should it not admit of the bosom of Abraham being called some temporary receptacle of the souls of the faithful, in which the image of the future is already sketched, and a certain white glimpse of both judgements is seen beforehand" (The same, Against Marcion, Book IV, Chapter 34)?

Do you not see now how clearly he separates the underworld, where the souls of wicked men dwell and are tormented, from the bosom of Abraham, or the dwelling of the just, where these, foretasting the reward of eternal happiness, enjoy a temporary and anticipatory delight and blessedness, or, as he says, refreshment? That region, though it is not heavenly, he asserts to be far distant from the underworld and much higher than it.

As for the souls of the martyrs, he seems to assign to them a third place, namely paradise itself. For these are his very words about these souls of the martyrs: "How is it that the region of paradise, revealed to John in the spirit, which lies beneath the altar, shows no other souls beside it except those of the martyrs? How is it that Perpetua, most valiant martyr, on the day of her passion, in a revelation of paradise saw there only her fellow martyrs, unless because the sword that keeps the gate of paradise gives way to none except those who have died in Christ, not in Adam? A new death for God, an extraordinary one for Christ, is received into another and a private lodging. Recognize, then, the difference between the heathen and the believer in death. If you fall for God, as the Paraclete admonishes, not in soft fevers and in little beds but in martyrdoms; if you take up your cross and follow the Lord, as He Himself commanded, your blood is the whole key of paradise" (The same, On the Soul, Chapter 55). He thus indicates a third place, separate from both of those already mentioned by us, which he calls the private lodging of the martyrs, of whom we shall speak below (below, Chapter XV, Article 4).

Irenaeus had doubtless gone before him, who likewise sets out his opinion about the martyrs: "The Church in every place," he says, "because of the love which she has towards God, sends forward at all times a multitude of martyrs to the Father" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, Chapter 33, § 9, new edition, p. 272). But why, I beseech you, to

the Father, unless that they may obtain the reward of eternal happiness immediately after death?

Both these opinions were later endorsed by Tertullian's disciple Cyprian in these very words: "Blessed enough are those of you who, travelling along the footprints of glories, have already departed from the world and, having completed the journey of virtue and faith, have come to the embrace and kiss of the Lord, the Lord Himself rejoicing" (Cyprian, Letter 37, p. 73). Elsewhere he expressly affirms that martyrdom is a second baptism, which, as we depart from the world, unites us at once to God. He then concludes his book with these words: "If persecution finds such a soldier of God, the virtue ready for battle cannot be conquered. Or if the summons should come first, the faith that was prepared for martyrdom will not be without its reward. Without loss of time the recompense is rendered, God being judge; in persecution the soldiery, in peace the conscience is crowned" (The same, Exhortation to Martyrdom, p. 168; Ibid., p. 184). He therefore did not think the eternal glory and happiness of the martyrs deferred. And had he not drawn this, too, from his master and our author Tertullian, who had likewise said that martyrdom is a second baptism by which martyrs are led straight to the divine throne? For he asserted that by unconquered patience and fortitude they are brought forward "to the proof of happiness, to the occasion of a second dipping, to the ascent to the divine throne itself" (Tertullian, On Patience, p. 13). This second dipping, as we shall see elsewhere, he calls a second washing, by which all offences are forgiven and the whole grace of God is bought back (below, Chapter XVI, Article 3).

But, as with him, so with Irenaeus, the opinion about the souls of the other just does not seem to have been the same. For about them Irenaeus has handed down the following. After the death of the body, "They will go away," he says, "into an invisible place appointed for them by God, and will abide there until the resurrection, awaiting the resurrection," after which "they will come into the sight of God" (Irenaeus, Book V, Chapter 31, p. 331). Nor, I pray, let it be a wonder to you if our Tertullian, like Irenaeus, hesitates, uncertain and wavering, in assigning the dwellings of souls released from the body, and if they do not always speak in the same way. For the opinions of the other ancient Fathers of the Church were no more certain and constant, as we have noted elsewhere (Admonition on Ambrose's book On the Good of Death, vol. I, p. 385).

But whatever our author's opinion about them was, he rightly contends that it ought not to have been rejected by the Gentiles, "whose belief," he says, "the Elysian Fields have taken possession of" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 47, p. 515), where they supposed that the souls of the dead enjoyed delights. And indeed, since this opinion is not unlike the one he puts forward, the former, he says, doubtless drew its origin from the latter. For that teaching, and the other doctrines of the Christians, as has been proved before (above, Chapter IV, Article 4), are far older than the tenets of the heathen. The heathen, then, had drawn their tenets from the Christians, not the Christians from the heathen, and they ought accordingly to have given the former no less credence than their own.

For the rest, although that and all the other things which we have so far

reviewed as tenets of the Christian religion are altogether unlike and contrary to the opinions of the Gentile philosophers, yet in these philosophers, says Tertullian, they "were called the highest knowledge and distinguished genius" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 49, p. 528) — or rather "marks of genius", that is, conspicuous signs and indications of genius; but the sense of both will be plainly the same. Who, then, will not marvel that these most true doctrines of the Christians are called false by the heathen, men lacking neither reason nor genius, and, as our author further says, "foolish presumptions" (On the Testimony of the Soul, Chapter 4), that is, utterly empty and absurd guesses and conjectures in a doubtful matter?

Suppose, however, what is utterly false, that they were entirely false: yet they were certainly harmful to no one; on the contrary, they were useful and necessary to all. For all are compelled to become better "by fear of eternal punishment and hope of eternal life" (The same, Apologeticum, Chapter 49, p. 529). For whoever, as Athenagoras rightly teaches, is persuaded that the soul will perish together with the body, "that the soul too perishes along with the body," dares every crime, "would abstain from no deed of daring" (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 39). But he who believes that, raised to life, he will render an account of all his sins at the last judgement of God, fears to offend even in the least things.

Most unjust, therefore, were the Gentiles, who condemned the Christians, the defenders of these doctrines, just as though they were the most wicked of men and guilty of the gravest crimes. Hence our author presses and assails them thus: "But in a thing of this kind" (in some editions "error" is added, perhaps better "errore") "if anything is to be judged worthy of derision" — that is, of mockery — "it is not to be judged worthy of swords and fires and crosses and beasts" (Tertullian, loc. cit.); and yet for that reason the Christians were to be slaughtered most cruelly. But surely, so far is it from being the case that anything false lay hidden in their doctrine that, on the contrary, their altogether wonderful patience under so many and such great torments demonstrated most invincibly, as has been observed more than once, the truth of that same doctrine and of the whole Christian religion. And this is plainly confirmed by the holy manners, laws and institutions of these same Christians, which must now be treated.

CHAPTER XII.

It is shown who the Christians were and of what kind; how they were distinguished from the heathen; and how much purer their manners were than those of the heathen, and their laws much better and holier.

ARTICLE I.

Who the Christians were in Tertullian's time, of what kind, and how greatly multiplied; and how they were then distinguished from the heathen among whom they lived.

Having set out the doctrines of the Christian religion asserted by Tertullian, we must now examine with him who and of what kind were the Christians who defended them, and how they lived with the heathen.

It is pleasing, then, to hear him speaking of himself and of the other followers of Christ: "We are," he says (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 39, p. 431), "a body," as the Apostle had written earlier: "We, being many, are one body in Christ" (Rom. 12:5); that is, one society, congregation and community of many gathered together. If you ask in what way or on what ground they were gathered, he will answer you: "By the consciousness of religion" (Tertullian, loc. cit.); that is, convinced by the inmost and most certain persuasion of the mind that the religion which all of them professed was the true one. Further, joined "by unity of discipline" (Ibid.), that is, by one and the same, and most holy, instruction in doctrine and discipline of morals handed down by Christ. Finally, bound together "by the covenant of hope" (Ibid.), that is, covenanted and associated by the most certain hope of eternal life, which the true, the only, the almighty God has promised them after this mortal life.

How greatly that body of Christians had multiplied in the very age of our Tertullian, he himself has certainly informed us (Ibid., Chapter 1, p. 262). For then, as he relates (Ibid., Chapter 37, p. 462), they had filled every place in the world: "cities, islands, fortresses, towns, meeting-places, camps, tribes, decuries, the forum, the senate, the palace", and had left nothing to the heathen for their own except only their temples (Ibid., Chapter 42, p. 491). They therefore mixed with them everywhere: in the forum, the meat-market, the baths, the shops, the workshops, the inns, the fairs and the trading-places, of which we must speak below. Mingled together, then, they lived together, served as soldiers, farmed, traded, and by mutual use combined their crafts and their labours.

Hence in another book he addresses Scapula thus: "What will you do with so many thousands" (the old editions read "ten thousands") "of people, so many men and women, of every sex, every age, every rank, offering themselves to you? How many fires, how many swords will be needed? What will Carthage itself suffer, decimated by you, when each one there recognizes his own companions, when he sees there perhaps men of your own order too, and matrons, and all the leading persons, and the kinsmen or friends of your own friends" (The same, To Scapula, Chapter IV)? What more need be said? So great indeed was the number of Christians then, not only at Carthage but everywhere on earth, that "if so great a force of men" — these are still the words of the same Tertullian — "had broken away from you into some recess of a remote part of the world, the loss of so many citizens, of whatever kind, would surely have put your dominion to shame, nay, would have punished it by the very desertion; beyond doubt you would have been terrified at your solitude, at the silence of affairs and a kind of stupor as of a dead world; you would have sought whom to rule. More enemies than citizens would have remained to you" (The same, Apologeticum, Chapter 37, p. 463).

But we seem to hear someone whispering in our ears that there is some exaggeration on Tertullian's part here. "For to whom," he will say, "can it ever be proved that the multitude of Christians was then so great?" But with what face, I ask, would Tertullian himself, in public books, which not only to Scapula, of Carthage

governor, but to the Romans, or, if you like, to the governors of Africa, nay, even to the Nations, that is, to all the Gentiles, the most hostile enemies of the Christians, have been able to assert this so boldly, unless it were most true? Would he not have had to fear that, convicted of a lie, he would lose his case amid laughter and hissing? If, however, someone obstinately refuses to believe him, he will certainly not refuse credence to Pliny the Younger, who earlier wrote this about these same Christians to the Emperor Trajan: "Many of every age, of every rank, of both sexes too, are being called into danger, and will be called. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only through the cities but through the villages and the countryside as well" (Pliny, Letter 101, p. 376).

For this reason indeed the heathen grieved, Tertullian further says, that their number was so great, and openly complained of it: "They cry out," he says, "that the city is besieged; that there are Christians in the fields, in the fortresses, in the islands; they grieve, as at a loss, that every sex, age, condition, and now rank, is going over to this name" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, Chapter 1, p. 263). Will you still say, then, that this complaint of the Gentiles was invented or exaggerated by him? But he repeats it in almost the same words in another book, addressing the heathen themselves (The same, To the Nations, Book I, Chapter 1).

Since, then, the Christians had multiplied so greatly, there is certainly no room for doubting that, mingled with the heathen, they had a common manner of life with them. For, as Tertullian says, living with them, they were "of the same food, dress" — that is, of the same diet and clothing — "equipment, the same necessities of life" (The same, Apologeticum, Chapter 42, p. 490). But did he not put it better, someone will say, in the book To the Nations, where he said "apparatus", that is, refinement and adornment (The same, To the Nations, Book I, Chapter 10)? But if this is the meaning of the word apparatus, and if instructus is taken by him, as by Cicero (Cicero, On the Orator, Book III, p. 181, line 37), for adornment, how could he assert that the instructus of the Christians was the same? Had he not said in the same Apologeticum, in reproving the luxury of the heathen: "In dress, food, equipment and wealth you have renounced your forefathers" (The same, Apologeticum, Chapter 6, p. 305)? And it is established, as he himself testifies, that the frugality of the Christians in all these things was far greater. We shall therefore readily be persuaded that in the first passage he spoke of the things that are necessary for sustaining life, which the Christians used just as the common people or the more modest of the heathen did.

But certainly, although the food and clothing of Christians and Gentiles were the same, and the same their manner of living and acting in public, the Christians were nevertheless distinguished from them, and could easily be recognized by their singular modesty, patience and amendment of their former vices. Nor was this unknown to the Gentiles, whom our author therefore addresses in these words: "That we act by that discipline of divine patience can be clear enough to you, since so great a multitude of people, almost the greater part of every city, we live in silence and modesty, known perhaps individually rather than all together; nor from any other source

more recognizable than by the amendment of their vices (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. 2).

Such, then, were the Christians at that time, whose number was greater than that of the gentiles. Nor is it any wonder, surely, if they pursued so pious and holy a manner of life, although mingled with the heathen; since they held nothing more important or dearer than to obey those most holy laws which they knew had been given them by God and by Christ the Lord, and which were far more excellent than all human laws. This, indeed, it now falls to us to prove together with our author.

ARTICLE II.

How far the laws of the Christians surpass in their perfection and authority all others enacted by the gentiles; with what diligence they were observed by those same Christians, who for that reason refused, at the peril of life itself, to eat the sausages stuffed with blood offered to them by the heathen.

Since the Christian religion was founded and established by the true God and His Son, all its laws must beyond doubt be most perfect. Therefore in Tertullian's time the Christians obeyed them with the greater care, the more certainly they knew that they had been enacted by One who sees all things and is almighty, and who for that reason can be neither deceived at all by anyone nor despised with impunity. And so our author openly declares to all: "Having been taught innocence by God, we both know it to be perfect, as revealed by a perfect Master, and faithfully keep it, as commanded by a Searcher who is not to be despised" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XLV, p. 498).

But the laws of the heathen, sanctioned by men alone, are plainly imperfect, and can be spurned, undermined and violated by all with impunity: "For how great," Tertullian continues, or, as is read in our manuscripts, "so" great, that is, so small and slight, "is the authority of man to exact" (ibid.) a faithful keeping of the laws enacted by him, that it can be deceived as easily as it is despised by all. For such is the weakness of human wit that no man can foresee all those things which are good and evil to all others, or are always to endure. And so great is the malice of the wicked that very many escape without much difficulty the penalties imposed on transgressors by any human law whatever.

Tertullian shows besides by many examples that the laws of the Christians are far more perfect than those of the gentiles. For first, "which is fuller," he says (ibid.), "to say: You shall not kill; or to teach: Be not even angry?" (Matt. 5:21 ff.). And so it stands in all our manuscripts and old editions; but the former words did not please Rigault, and he ordered it to be written: "What is said more fully." He wished, no doubt, to make Tertullian speak more purely and correctly. "But if human law," he says, "forbids adultery, divine law restrains even from the solitary lust of the eyes" (ibid.). He said "solitary", that is, lone, secret and hidden. So Cicero asserts that virtue cannot be solitary, and that nature loves nothing solitary (Cicero, On Friendship, p. 43, lines 7 and 42). The divine law, therefore, not only adultery, as the human does, but the secret

and hidden lust of the eyes also forbids.

Besides this, human law permits, not indeed an evil deed, but the avenging of an injury; whereas divine law forbids even evil-speaking itself, and the repaying of an injury in kind (Tertullian, place cited). And how far this law excels the human has already been noted by us elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XIII, art. IV, and Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XXVI, art. 1 ff.). Tertullian does not deny, however, that certain laws of men are good, but he contends that these were taken from the divine books of Moses and the other prophets, whose antiquity, as we saw above, he had proved earlier (above, ch. IV, art. 4).

Not only is the perfection of the divine law greater than that of the human, but its authority also. For nothing at all is hidden from God; and those guilty of violating His law, as we showed a little before, He punishes with eternal torments according to their desert (ibid.). But to a man who acts against human laws it happens that "for the most part," says our Author, "he lies hidden in his misdeeds," or spurns those laws "from will, or from necessity of transgressing" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XLV, p. 497). And these words of our manuscripts and editors Rigault changed thus: "From unwillingness or necessity, for one transgressing." But there, without indicating any variant reading of any manuscript, he observes only that "from unwillingness" is the same as "by chance". What then, if Tertullian sets against those words "from will" the words "or from necessity" (ibid.)? Can his meaning here not be: the guilty man for the most part lies hidden, when he sins either from his own will or from some necessity?

Moreover, he says, human laws are brought to nothing "when the brevity of the punishment is considered", since it cannot be inflicted by men beyond death. For which reason Epicurus, he continues, "depreciates all torture and pain, declaring the moderate indeed contemptible, and the great not lasting" (the same, To the Nations, book I, ch. X; To his Wife, book II, ch. III; Against Marcion, book I, ch. VI; On the Shows, ch. XXII; On the Soul, ch. XXIV; On Flight, ch. X). He uses the word "depreciates" rather often, by which he meant nothing else than "diminishes" the value or magnitude of some thing. Cicero, further, sets out Epicurus's saying more clearly: "Let them bring out," he says, "those Epicurean remedies for pain as if from a medicine-chest: if severe, brief; if long, light." And elsewhere: "He consoles the greatness of pain by its brevity, its length by its lightness." If you want more, you may consult Laertius, Plutarch and others (Cicero, On Ends, book II, p. 55, line 10, and Tusculans, book IV, p. 190, line 49; Laertius, book X, Life of Epicurus, § 140; Plutarch, On How to Listen to the Poets, near the end, p. 36).

The Christians, therefore, since they well knew the supreme perfection and authority of their laws, complied with them with such diligence that they preferred to risk even their life rather than do anything that seemed to oppose any law whatever. Out of the almost countless examples by which this can be proved most evidently, we shall now take one, which our Tertullian records (Vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 680, Dissertation

on Minucius, ch. IX, art. 1). It was known to the heathen that among those same Christians there was in force that law by which, as we have noted elsewhere, they were forbidden the blood of animals, what is strangled, and carrion. Therefore the heathen, with the utmost malice, "among the tests of the Christians," says Tertullian, that is, in order to test their faith and religion, "offered sausages stuffed with blood" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. IX, p. 314). Now a botulus, says Festus, is a kind of stuffed meat, which is so called from the joining together of morsels (Festus, On the Meaning of Words, book II). Concerning it there are also these verses of Martial:

The sausage that came to me in the middle of the winter season / had come before the seven days of Saturn. (Martial, book XIV, epigram 72.)

The heathen, therefore, by offering these sausages, made of small bits of flesh mixed with the blood of animals, were made certain that those by whom they were refused were in truth followers of the Christian religion. And when they spurned them, they made it plain to all that they preferred to undergo the peril of their life rather than ever to oppose their laws. Nor did they obey this and the other laws of God and of Christ only, but with the same diligence nearly all His counsels too, even though not bound by them. But these things will become clearer to everyone from what Tertullian has handed down about their manners, which must now be set out.

ARTICLE III.

That the manners of the Christians were as chaste as those of the gentiles were depraved; how great was the love and charity of the Christians towards all; why they called one another by the name of brothers, and all things except their wives were common to them; how the heathen, on the contrary, violated with impunity the more sacred rights of brotherhood.

To show what the Christians' manner of life was like, and how pious and holy, our Tertullian compares their manners with those of the heathen, and shows clearly that those of the former were as holy and chaste as those of the latter were depraved and corrupt. For first, the Christians, although they lived their life with the heathen in the manner we have described, were nevertheless joined by so strong a bond of charity and mutual love that the heathen themselves, their bitterest enemies, could not but marvel at it. And why indeed should they not have marvelled, recognizing as best what they were not able to imitate? Therefore Tertullian, by bringing them in speaking thus, lays bare the mutual hatred of the one, as well as the love of the Christians. This is how he puts it: "See," they say, "how they love one another" (for they themselves, the gentiles, "hate one another"), "and how ready" the same Christians "are to die for one another. For they themselves," the heathen, "are readier to kill one another" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 467). How much the gentiles hated one another, and how ready they were to kill one another, will become plain to all from what is to be said below.

So great, indeed, was the very charity of the Christians that, as we have already noted elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. XIII, art. 4), they called one another brothers, not only by the right of nature itself, by which also of the heathen [they were] brothers,

but by a fourfold title besides: first, because they had acknowledged one Father, God, unknown to the heathen or rejected by them; second, being steeped in the religion of Christ, they "drank the one Spirit of holiness" (Tertullian, place cited); third, because "from the one womb of ignorance", in which, the true God not yet being known, they had lain so long in the foul darkness of idolatry, "they were struck with awe at the one light of truth." For they were astounded that they had not known before their own most absurd errors, nor the supreme God, whom, as we have shown above (above, ch. V, art. 1), all were compelled, even against their will, to acknowledge by the light and goad of their conscience alone.

Fourthly, finally, they addressed one another by the name of brothers because, our Author says further, "we are brothers by our household substance" (Tertullian, ibid.). For they used to share this among themselves much more fully than brothers german. In a word, all things, says Tertullian (ibid.), were among them wholly undivided and common.

At that time, then, they diligently observed, for the most part at least, what we read handed down to memory concerning the first Christians in the Acts of the Apostles: "The multitude of believers had one heart and one soul, nor did any of them say that anything of what they possessed was his own, but all things were common to them" (Acts 4:32). Of the Christians of his own age too Irenaeus wrote in this manner: "They indeed," the Jews, "had the tithes of their goods consecrated; but those who have received liberty," that is, the Christians, "set apart all that is theirs for the Lord's uses, giving them cheerfully and freely, not the lesser things, inasmuch as they have the hope of greater ones; that widow, the poor woman here, casting her whole living into the treasury of God" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book IV, ch. XVIII, p. 250, new edition).

Cyprian, however, the disciple of Tertullian, complains in these words of that charity of the Christians as already diminished, of which more later: "Then they used to sell houses and estates, and, laying up treasures for themselves in heaven, offered the prices to the apostles to be distributed for the uses of the needy. But now we do not give even tithes from our patrimony; and when the Lord bids us sell, we rather buy and increase. So has the vigour of faith withered away in us, so has the strength of believers languished" (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, p. 119 ff.; below, ch. XV, art. 2). And in another book, again setting forth the example of the first Christians, he does not ask his own people to sell their patrimonies and estates; but "he who is a possessor on earth," he says, "and shares his revenues and fruits with the brotherhood, while by free bounties he is generous and just, is an imitator of God the Father" (the same, On Works and Almsgiving, p. 208). Does not our Tertullian himself, then, also seem to speak of those same revenues of goods and estates, which, if not all, at least very many Christians shared with others with the greatest liberality.

From this, however, the gentiles were as far removed as could be, who for the sake of their paternal goods broke off all brotherhood, and therefore they greatly marvelled that "no," says Tertullian again, "about our brotherhood

"does any tragedy cry out" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 431). For what is more frequent in tragedies than outcries about brotherhood broken by the heathen? But beyond the rest they are found above all in the one which Seneca composed on Atreus and Thyestes. For who does not know that in it is represented the fable, sung over and over by Horace, Ovid and others, in which they had feigned that Thyestes, who had defiled the wife of his brother Atreus, was despoiled of his kingdom by him, and his own sons were given him to eat at a banquet? For of this horrible tragedy Horace sang:

Let not Medea butcher her boys before the people, / nor wicked Atreus cook human entrails in the open. (Horace, Art of Poetry, line 185.)

But the heathen, more cruel than the very beasts, watched this tragedy with the greatest pleasure.

But the Christians so shrank from these spectacles, from crimes, and from greed for other men's goods that they had, as we have said, absolutely nothing undivided except their wives. "For in this alone," says Tertullian, "we dissolve partnership, in which alone the rest of men practise partnership" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 431), that is, by handing over their own wives to others, or corrupting those of others. But these things we shall examine in the following articles.

ARTICLE IV.

It is shown how great was the chastity of Christian spouses, and how certain it is that many persevered in the state of virginity until death; how far removed from these manners were the heathen, among whom Cato and Socrates gave their wives to friends in marriage.

The more severe the law by which the Christians knew adultery was forbidden them, the greater the care with which they kept the faith given in wedlock. Therefore all Christian spouses, says Tertullian, "a most diligent and most faithful chastity ..... fenced off from debaucheries and from every excess after marriage" (ibid., ch. IX, p. 314). Nor need we prove this more at length now, since from what has been said elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XXVII, art. 5 and 6), and from what will be said below, it can be doubtful to no one.

But not a few, indeed, desiring to do something beyond that divine precept, were accustomed to remain in celibacy and virginity through the whole course of their life. But hear, I pray, our Author relating this in his own words: "Some, much more secure, drive off the whole force of this error," against the rights of marriage, "by virgin continence, old men as boys" (Tertullian, place cited); that is, from the first age of boyhood even to extreme old age and the last breath of life they kept their virginity unimpaired. For the followers of the true philosophy, says Eusebius (Eusebius, Oration in Praise of Constantine, ch. XVII, p. 661), and worshippers of God, men, holy women and choirs of virgins, had learned from Christ to devote themselves, even through the horrible storms of persecution, to perpetual chastity of mind and body. Of this perpetual chastity and virginity of very many Christians we have treated in the earlier dissertations

(Dissertation on Minucius, ch. X, art. 1; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XXVII, art. 6).

But from this purity of body the gentiles were very far removed. "For not only," says Tertullian, "do they usurp the marriages of their friends, but they also most patiently supply their own to their friends" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 467). He notes there two outrages by which chastity was violated by the gentiles. The first is that of adulterers, who defiled the marriage beds of friends and others. And most frequent was that crime, against which Juvenal and other gentile poets too inveigh as often as they do deservedly. Therefore Jerome says: "Whatever tragedies swell with, and whatever overturns houses, cities and kingdoms, is the rivalry of wives and concubines" (Jerome, Against Jovinian, book II, p. 191).

Another crime, no lighter than the first, was that of those who prostituted the chastity of their wives to their friends. Tertullian proves this by two examples, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who nevertheless were reckoned the wisest among those nations: "For these," he says, "shared with their friends their wives, whom they had married for the sake of children" to be begotten "elsewhere too", that is, in another, but plainly unlawful and infamous, marriage (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 431). Plutarch, moreover, in the life of Cato the Younger relates that he had it from Thrasea, and Thrasea from Munatius, the companion of that same Cato, that Hortensius, joined to Cato in friendship before all others, asked him to give him in marriage the wife he had married, Marcia, daughter of Philippus, by whom he had earlier had several children, and who was then still pregnant (Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, p. 770 ff.). Cato, easily won over by his friend's entreaties, granted her to him, with Philippus her father present and approving. But when Hortensius later died, Cato took his Marcia back again, whom Hortensius had left heir of his goods. For this reason Caesar, as Plutarch puts it, "charged him with love of wealth and with taking hire for the marriage": "He reproached him with avarice, and with the receiving of payment in wedlock" (ibid., p. 784).

Appian reported it more briefly, in these words: "When Cato had married Marcia, daughter of Philippus, as a virgin, much beloved and already the mother of their common children, he yielded her to his friend Hortensius, who was desirous of children and of a fruitful wife, which he had lacked till then; until, she having become a mother by him also, he took her back home as though she had been on loan" (Appian, Civil Wars, book II, after the middle, p. 266). We also read it written by Strabo that it was received by law among the Tapyri that men, after they had had two or three children by their wives, let them out to others in marriage: "just as Cato too, at the request of Hortensius, gave him Marcia in our time, according to an old custom of the Romans"; "Just as Cato too in our age handed over his Marcia to Hortensius at his asking, following the old custom of the Romans" (Strabo, Geography, book XI, p. 265). Nor were poets lacking who sang this deed of Cato in their verses, and among them above all Lucan:

Meanwhile, as Phoebus was driving off the chill darkness, / the doors were knocked and sounded, through which holy Marcia, / mourning, burst in, having left the tomb of Hortensius, / once joined as a virgin to the bed of a better husband.

Then, when the price and wage of the marriage had been paid, / she, fruitful now for a third offspring, is given / to fill another household, to mingle two houses / by the blood of the mother. (Lucan, book II, line 328 ff.)

Then next he describes how Cato, after the death of Hortensius, had her again in a second marriage:

The customary jests did not play, nor did the grim husband / receive the festive taunts in the Sabine manner. / No pledges of the house, no kinsmen gathered: / they are joined in silence, content with Brutus as auspex. / He neither moved the shaggy hair from his holy face, / nor admitted joy to his stern countenance. (Ibid., line 367 ff.)

Finally, to let Augustine and others go, Jerome argues thus against Jovinian: "Cato married Marcia, not a virgin; but Marcia ran to and fro between Hortensius and Cato, and Marcia was able to live without Cato." And again in the following book: "The nation of the Scots," he says, "has no wives of its own, and, as if it had read Plato's Republic and were following the example of Cato, no wife among them is a man's own, but as it pleases each one they wanton after the manner of cattle" (Augustine, On Faith and Works, ch. VI, and On the Good of Marriage, ch. XVIII; Jerome, Against Jovinian, book I, p. 188; ibid., book II, p. 201).

Now although there were many distinguished by the name of Cato, whose genealogy is set out by Aulus Gellius (Gellius, Attic Nights, book XIII, ch. XIX), it is nevertheless clear from the writers cited that the Cato of whom we are treating was Cato of Utica, who is therefore called the Younger, because he was the grandson of Cato the Censor through his son, as the same Gellius says. Why then, someone will say, is he called Censor by our Tertullian? For he plainly wrote in that same place: "Pandars" (our manuscripts: "A pandar") "is the philosopher Socrates, and Cato the Censor" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXXIX, p. 467). Is there, then, a slip of memory and an error there? But to this it can be answered that Cato is called censor by Tertullian not for his office but for the severity of his mind and manners. For Lucan, already cited by us, sang:

. . . These were the manners, this the unshaken / school of stern Cato, (Lucan, book II, line 379.)

namely, the Stoic. In the same sense too the name of censor is taken by Horace:

But he who will desire to have made a lawful poem / will take up, with his tablets, the mind of an honest censor. (Horace, Epistles, book II, epistle 2, line 379.)

And elsewhere, in the Art of Poetry:

. . . a censor and chastiser of the younger. (Art of Poetry, line 174.)

And that Cato, Appian again being witness, "was held the gravest of all men and most tenacious of his purpose, as one who measured the just and the honourable not by the manners of the crowd, but by upright and noble reasons"; or as Lucan sang again:

A worshipper of justice, a keeper of strict honour. (Lucan, book II, line 388.)

But he, however much a preacher of a severer discipline, nevertheless his own wife to Hortensius, his friend,

placed out, against the rights and faith of marriage, by shameful pandering.

Our Author accuses Socrates of the same crime. Now it is indeed certain that he had two wives at once: namely Xanthippe, and Myrto, the daughter, or the granddaughter through a daughter, of a certain Aristides. But the more witnesses show this, Athenaeus, Laertius, Plutarch, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, the harder it is to prove whether that Socrates, no differently from Cato, really shared his wife with his friends (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book XIII, beginning, p. 555; Laertius, book XII, Life of Socrates, § 26; Plutarch, end of the Life of Aristides, p. 335; Jerome, Against Jovinian, book II, p. 190; Cyril, Against Julian, book VI, p. 186, and book VII, p. 226; Theodoret, vol. IV, discourse XII, On Practical Virtue, p. 673). But see whether what Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret have handed down suffices to loose the knot of this difficulty (Cyril and Theodoret, place cited): that Xanthippe, married by Socrates, was "somewhat common", at one time rather promiscuous, and that he, having had secret intercourse with her, begot his son Lamprocles.

Further, of both, Socrates and Cato, Tertullian added: "I do not know indeed whether" they placed out their wives "unwilling" in marriage to their friends. For how could it have come about that these two wives were given in marriage to others by their husbands against their will? Does not our author, then, seem to have alluded to the words of Lucan, in which Marcia is related, as we have said, to have addressed Cato her husband thus?

While there was blood in me, while a mother's strength, I carried out / your commands, Cato, and, fruitful, I received two husbands; / with wearied womb, exhausted by childbirth, I return, / now to be handed over to no man: give back the compact of our former / bed unbroken, give me only the empty name / of marriage; let it be allowed to write on my tomb "Cato's / Marcia", and let no one in the long ages ask in doubt / whether I changed my first marriage torches driven out or handed over. (Lucan, book II, line 231.)

For there indeed she is said to have asked that, Hortensius being dead, she be taken back by Cato into her former marriage. But she gives this reason for her petition: that posterity may know that she was not repulsed and repudiated by Cato himself, by whom she had been handed over to Hortensius. Now she could have been handed over by him neither unwilling nor resisting. Yet because she had said before "I carried out your commands", it may be inferred that she left her first husband and took the second against her will. Not wrongly, therefore, does Tertullian confess that this is uncertain to him. But however the matter stands, the Christians were far removed from this corruption of manners, who always kept the sacred rights of marriage, established by God, whole and intact with the utmost zeal. But how he confirms this we shall examine, if you please, in the following article.

ARTICLE V.

How Tertullian demonstrates that the chastity of the Christians and the incontinence of the gentiles were very great: that the former did not change the female sex, but that young men were corrupted by Socrates; that the Christians kept the faith given to their wives; that Aristippus loved the harlot Phryne to distraction, and Speusippus perished in adultery; that the Christians saw with sound eyes and a blind mind

the women for whom Democritus blinded himself so as not to lust; that the heathen, by condemning a Christian woman to the pandar rather than to the lion, betrayed their own intemperance and the chastity of the Christians.

Let us follow our Author, and see how he pursues the comparison he has begun between the chastity of the Christians and of the heathen: "The Christian," he says, "does not change even to the sex of a woman" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XLVI, p. 500). So indeed in the edition of Rigault, who observes that by these two words, "to the sex of a woman", it is the same as "changes the female sex". But where he took this reading from, neither he nor his other followers have shown us. In our manuscripts, however, and all the other printed editions we read: "The Christian does not change even the female sex", that is, to use the Apostle's words, he is not "a lier with males" (1 Cor. 6:10, 1 Tim. 1:10). For there our author sets the Christians against Socrates, of whom he writes this: "I read a part of the Attic sentence against Socrates: he is pronounced a corrupter of youths." But here again the text of Tertullian was altered by Rigault, which in our manuscripts and all the other printed copies reads thus: "I read .... against Socrates pronounced a corrupter of youths" (Tertullian, place cited). Why then should it be changed there, without the testimony of any manuscript at all and against the concordant faith of all the books? Is not Tertullian's true meaning expressed clearly enough and in good Latin by this way of speaking: that the sentence of death was passed on Socrates by the Athenians partly for this reason, that he was accused not only of denying the gods but also of corrupting youths? And certainly he is arraigned more than once by Lucian for this abominable crime, who somewhere brings him in confessing himself guilty (Lucian, The Sale of Lives, p. 193), and elsewhere charges him with perjury, as one who had sworn that he kept company with young men innocently (the same, True History, book II, 597), although Hyacinthus and Narcissus openly testified that they had been shamefully loved by him. Moreover, Athenaeus convicts him of a most infamous love for Alcibiades, as afterwards did Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book V, ch. XIX, p. 219; Cyril, Against Julian, book VI, p. 137; Theodoret, discourse XII, On Practical Virtue, p. 672). Indeed, these two latter affirm that he burned with detestable lusts.

But by what witnesses, you will say, can it be proved that he was condemned by the Athenians not only for having spurned and rejected the gods of the gentiles, but also for this never sufficiently execrable love of youths? First you have Plato, who recorded that this same Socrates was charged by Meletus with corrupting the youth against right and law and, denying the gods, introducing new ones. Laertius repeats the same. Xenophon, however, tried to free him from both charges, and above all from the first (Xenophon, Memorabilia, book I, p. 711 ff.), both because he cultivated continence with the greatest zeal, and because he constantly taught this virtue to his disciples. He does not deny, however, that Alcibiades, and Critias likewise, when handed over to his teaching, were abandoned youths

and most dissolute, but not, he says, before they had left him.

But he says this perhaps more from partiality towards Socrates than from zeal for the truth. For if he thought the gods of the gentiles were true, and worshipped them, why was he afraid to imitate their deeds and outrages? And then, although he had preached continence in the public schools, did not the gentile philosophers, as we have said elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. XXXV, art. 4), make a habit of doing privately and at home what they condemned openly and in their schools? Finally, Xenophon himself could not deny that Socrates was accused of a most shameful love of youths, of which very many, as we have shown, were persuaded that he was in fact guilty. And who will not readily persuade himself that in part of the sentence passed against him mention was made of this crime also?

Moreover, the Christian, says our author, "is born a male for his own wife alone" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XLVI, p. 500). For he greatly shunned every forbidden kind of unchastity, and always kept faith, as we have seen, with his wife. Among the heathen, on the contrary, he says: "I know too of Phryne the harlot, in heat for the ardour of Diogenes lying upon her." In the editions older than Rigault: "in heat for the ardour of one lying upon her". In our manuscripts, however: "in heat for the ardour of one lying above". There he assails the plainly untamed lust of Diogenes, who loved Phryne to distraction. And we read it written by Athenaeus that Aristippus was rebuked by his slave for bestowing a huge sum of money on Phryne, who wallowed with Diogenes the Cynic for nothing (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book XIII, p. 588). Of that most notorious harlot Phryne we have said something elsewhere, and more than once (Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 744; Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. XX, art. 3).

After this Tertullian says: "I hear also that a certain Speusippus of the school of Plato perished in adultery" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XLVI, p. 500). Now it has been noted by us elsewhere that this Speusippus was the son of Plato's sister, namely Potone, as Laertius says, and his successor in the Academic school (Vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 1131 and 1134; Laertius, book IV, Life of Speusippus, § 1). But he, by the witness of the same Laertius, is said to have been "irascible, and was a slave to pleasures": "he was irascible and given to pleasures" (the same, ibid.). Athenaeus also bore witness that he was not far removed from the pleasure-loving Epicureans and Cyrenaics, and that his love for the harlot Lasthenia was cast in his teeth by the tyrant Dionysius (book XII, ch. XII, p. 546): "Speusippus too, Plato's kinsman and successor in the school, was a lover of pleasure. Dionysius, at any rate, the tyrant of Sicily, in his letter to him, having spoken against his love of pleasure, also reproaches him with love of money, and with his passion for Lastheneia the Arcadian, who had been a hearer of Plato." "Speusippus too was given to pleasure, Plato's successor and kinsman. And so Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, in his letter to him rebukes his pursuit of pleasure, reproaches his avarice, and his love for Lastheneia of Arcadia, who attended Plato's lectures." Earlier, however, this Lastheneia is called by him "Sardian", a woman of Sardis, and by Laertius "Mantinean", of Mantinea (Laertius, book

Life of Plato, § 45, and Book IV, Life of Speusippus, § 2).

This writer, moreover, reports two opinions about the death of Speusippus (Ibid. §§ 3 and 4): the first, that he, worn out by paralysis, grief and old age, put himself to death of his own accord; the second, that his life was snatched from him by lice swarming over him. When, therefore, Tertullian says that he perished in adultery, he does not seem to mean, as some think, that he breathed his last caught in adultery, but that he wallowed in adultery right up to his death.

Our author goes on: The Christian with his eyes unharmed does not see women (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). For so we read these words in the manuscript codices and in the editions of Rigault and of later editors; but in the older printed editions: The Christian with his eyes unharmed sees a woman. Yet it is easily understood that this is Tertullian's meaning: although the Christian has the eyes of his body safe and sound, yet he does not see women such that he would lust after them in his mind. For he at once added: In mind he is blind towards lust (Ibid.). For he knew the law laid down by Christ: Everyone who has looked on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28). Therefore, so that as a true disciple of Christ he may satisfy this precept, he sees women with bodily eyes that are indeed unharmed; but in the mind, with which he might lust after them, he is blind and unmoved.

But how great, on the other hand, was the incontinence of the gentiles, even of the philosophers, Tertullian shows by the example of Democritus: Democritus, he says, by blinding himself because he could not look upon a woman without lust, and was pained if he had not possessed her, confesses his incontinence by the cure (Tertullian, ibid.). But concerning this voluntary blindness of Democritus and its cause there may be no small reason for doubt. For Plutarch flatly and entirely denies that he put out his own eyes of his own accord for this reason, lest they call his mind away and not let it dwell on things to be discerned by the mind alone (Plutarch, On Curiosity, p. 521, vol. II). Cicero, moreover, seems to pronounce nothing with certainty about his blindness: Democritus, he says, who, whether truly or falsely we might ask, is said to have deprived himself of his eyes: certainly so that his mind might be drawn away from its thoughts as little as possible (Cicero, De finibus, book V, p. 113, line 43). For if there, as some suppose, the word quaereremus is to be struck out and falsone read, he plainly signifies that he was doubtful and undecided about that blindness of Democritus. But even if the word quaereremus did come from him, yet by the other word, dicitur, he declares clearly enough that this could not be affirmed by him with certainty. Aulus Gellius, however, testifies that mention is made in the records of Greek history of Democritus, who of his own will deprived himself of the light of his eyes, so that the thoughts of his mind might be livelier and more exact in contemplating the principles of nature (Gellius, Attic Nights, book X, ch. 17, p. 541). Then he straightway quotes lines of Laberius, in which he describes how the reason for this blindness, brought upon himself by him, was another one, which the poet expressed in this verse:

So that he might not see it go well with wicked citizens.

Jerome, moreover, without naming anyone individually, relates that certain philosophers tore out their own eyes, so that they might not be called away from the contemplation of philosophy, and might gather their whole thought towards purity of mind (Jerome, Against Jovinian, book II, p. 203, and Letter 55 to Abigaus, p. 589). And who will not readily allow himself to be persuaded that Democritus was one of these philosophers, and perhaps the chief of them?

Although, therefore, some appear to have doubted his voluntary blindness, we have nevertheless cited a good many witnesses to it. But certainly far fewer are found who report that this same Democritus deprived himself of his eyes so as not to lust after women. Yet I would have you weigh whether the sophist Himerius, in Photius, did not indicate this in these words: ἑκὼν δὲ ἐνόσει σῶμα Δημόκριτος ἵνα ὑγιαίνῃ τὰ κρείττονα. Democritus afflicted his body with a voluntary sickness, so that the better part might be sound (Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 243, p. 1087). For did he not, by this general manner of speaking, point to his self-chosen blindness, by which he had wished to heal his mind, the better part of himself? However that may be, Christians certainly had no need of a voluntary blindness of this kind: being blind in mind towards lust, they not only cultivated with the greatest zeal the chastity prescribed by the divine law, but very many of them, as we were saying a little earlier (above, this chapter, art. 4), were also accustomed to persevere in the state of virginity for the whole time of their life.

Finally, Tertullian proves by an example still recent that Christians were the more anxious to keep their chastity the more shamelessly this virtue was outraged by the heathen. Hear, I beg you, with what words he addresses and harries these haters of chastity: Lately, he says, by condemning a Christian woman to the pimp rather than to the lion, you have confessed that among us a stain on chastity is reckoned more dreadful than any punishment and than any death (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 50, p. 530). And although that Christian woman is unknown to us, yet no one can call into doubt that she had shortly before been condemned, by a most unjust and most shameful sentence, to the brothel, where her chastity was to be stormed. But these most wicked men made a mockery of the chastity not of one woman only, but of many others. And we think there is no one who has not read many examples of them in the Acts of the martyrs.

CHAPTER XIII.

How absurdly the heathen boasted that the other virtues of their philosophers and of the Christians were equal; and how Tertullian shows that those of the latter are true, and those of the former false.

ARTICLE I.

With what undeserved praises, statues and salaries the heathen rewarded the philosophers, who of their own accord destroyed the worship of the gods, barked at the princes, and did not cast out the demons, whom they held to be gods in the second rank, although they put Christians to death, against all law human and divine, by every kind of torment, merely for their name.

Not only the chastity of the Christians and of the heathen, but all the virtues of both, does our Tertullian

compares with one another, and shows that the virtues of the latter are as corrupt as those of the former are perfect. And he made this comparison the more carefully, the more insistently the heathen used to cry out that the philosophers professed an innocence, justice, patience and sobriety equal to that of the Christians (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). For, to pass over many others, Celsus argued against the Christians in the same way (Origen, Against Celsus, book I, p. 6). The Christian teaching, he used to say, brought nothing new, nothing great concerning morals that was not common to it with other ancient philosophers and handed down by them.

Tertullian, therefore, first refutes and overthrows the heathen who raised this objection by a general argument. If, he says, the morals of the philosophers and of the Christians are the same, and their virtues the same, then surely both ought to have the same freedom to profess their religion. Why, then, are the Christians, and not the philosophers, compelled, as will be explained below (Tertullian, loc. cit.), to sacrifice to the gods or to swear by them, or to bring out useless lamps at midday (Rigault, against the testimony of the manuscript and printed codices, reads prostituere)? Why, our author goes on, do the philosophers openly destroy your gods, and also arraign your superstitions in their writings, while you applaud them? Such indeed were Diagoras, Theodorus and Nicagoras, of whom we have treated elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 23, art. 2, and the dissertation above, ch. 14, art. 1). But since he added, While you applaud (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 14, p. 348), he perhaps rather seems to point to Socrates, named by him just before and earlier, and to Epicurus and his follower and admirer Lucretius, and to Cicero, by whom the gods of the gentiles are utterly done away with in his books on their nature.

And when our author added (Ibid., ch. 46, p. 500), they arraign your superstitions, he was without doubt looking to Seneca, whom he had cited before. For there he says (Ibid., ch. 12, p. 337): You are the same people who approve a certain Seneca when he holds forth at greater length and more bitterly about your superstition. These words of Seneca we have quoted elsewhere, and they are to be brought forward again below in their own place.

Moreover, Tertullian says further (Ibid., ch. 46, p. 500), that most philosophers bark at the princes. In a certain Vatican codex they have noted that Lacerant ("they tear at") is written: but less well. For he seems to have said latrant deliberately, and to censure the Cynics by this word. For the emperor Vespasian, as Suetonius witnesses, when Demetrius the Cynic met him on the road after his condemnation, and did not deign either to rise or to greet him, and even barked out something or other, thought it enough to call him a dog (Suetonius, book VIII, Life of Vespasian, § 13). Xiphilinus, moreover, relates that this same Vespasian, at the urging of Marcianus, sent the philosophers into exile, because not only that Demetrius the Cynic but other philosophers too were saying many disgraceful things in public (Xiphilinus, Epitome, book X, p. 220 and following). But to the same Demetrius, who would not keep quiet, he ordered it to be written privately: Even though you do many things worthy of death, and to command

I could have you killed for it: ἐγὼ δὲ κύνα ὑλακτοῦντα οὐ φονεύω. But I do not kill a barking dog.

Nor was it enough for the gentiles to bear such philosophers patiently and to praise them: but rather, says our author, they will be rewarded with statues and salaries (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 45, p. 497; Ibid., ch. 14, p. 348). And does he not there, without naming Socrates, point to his golden image, which, as he observed above, the Athenians themselves, by whom he had been punished with death, afterwards set up in a temple? And if you ask to be shown the statues of other philosophers, hear Juvenal rebuking unlearned men who thought they had sufficiently proved their counterfeit learning by placing statues and images of the philosophers each in his own library. Here are his lines:

Unlearned, first of all, although you may find everything full of plaster

Chrysippuses. For the most accomplished of them

is anyone who has bought a likeness of Aristotle or of Pittacus,

and bids his shelf keep original portraits of Cleanthes.

(Juvenal, Satire II, line 4 and following.)

Many portraits of philosophers, moreover, are given by Ménage in his edition of Laertius.

Besides this a salary was given to the philosophers, that is, an allowance and wage, so named, as Pliny notes, from salt (Pliny, Natural History, book XXXI, ch. 7, p. 809). Indeed, Capitolinus attests that the emperor Antoninus ordered that salaries and honours be conferred on rhetoricians and philosophers throughout all the provinces (Capitolinus, Life of Antoninus, near the end). And Lucian recorded (Lucian, The Eunuch, or Pamphilus, p. 535) that the emperor had established μισθοφορά τις οὐ φαύλη, no small salary, ἀλλὰ μυρίαι, ten thousand coins, to be distributed among Stoics, Platonists, Epicureans, Peripatetics and other philosophers, to teach the young. Does not Augustine too, concerning these same philosophers, as well as others, speak these words, which serve our purpose not a little (Augustine, City of God, book I, ch. 3, p. 4)? The heathen are angry with us when we say such things about their gods, and they are not angry with their own authors, whom they paid to learn by heart, and whose very teachers, besides, they held most worthy of a public salary and of honours.

With what face, then, or with what madness did these men torture and slaughter Christians with every kind of punishment, while they let their own philosophers go unpunished, praised them, and rewarded them with great benefits and prizes, although they paraded the morals of both as alike and their virtues as alike? Yet the Christians were not merely equal to the heathen in virtue, but far holier and more excellent, as we have shown beyond all refutation.

Whence, then, so great a discrepancy of judgements? Because the philosophers, as Tertullian rightly observes, are not called Christians (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). For the heathen, not without the greatest injustice, cried out that the Christians, solely, as has been said, for their name, were worthy of public hatred and to be punished with any

punishments whatever. For on account of their most holy manner of life they were the more worthy of the same rewards and salaries with which the philosophers were loaded, the more often they cast out demons from the bodies of possessed men, as we have shown, by the name of Christ alone, and not by the name of any philosopher.

And indeed, how could demons be put to flight by the name of the philosophers, who thought them, as Tertullian says further, to be secundum deos, that is, as some will have it, next to the gods, or, as others prefer, held them as gods? For Cicero wrote: to judge an absent party secundum the one present. And Suetonius, of the emperor Claudius: He gave judgement for the absent secundum those present (Suetonius, book V, Life of Claudius, § 15), that is, just as if they were present. But both explanations come back to nearly the same sense, though this second seems the better.

Be that as it may, Tertullian plainly declares (Tertullian, loc. cit.) that the philosophers believed the demons to be above them and to be their masters. So far, then, were they from being able to put them to flight that they were obedient to them. For Socrates, as our author goes on, although he had been proclaimed by the oracle of Apollo the wisest of all, as was observed by us elsewhere (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, ch. 5, arts. 2 and 3; Ibid., and vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1115), used to say, If the daemonion (supply: my) permits me to do this or that (Tertullian, loc. cit., and above, ch. 22). For in this and other dissertations we have shown how he asserted that a demon had stood by him from boyhood, without whose being consulted and approving he never did anything (the same, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). And yet this same Socrates, nevertheless, when dying, ordered a cock to be cut up, that is, sacrificed, to Aesculapius. But because he had some taste of the truth, he denied that the gods existed. These matters have been explained by us in another dissertation (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 39, art. 1, and Dissertation on Minucius' Octavius, loc. cit.).

But further, whether Socrates acknowledged the gods or denied them, he certainly could not put to flight the demons, which, like the other heathen, he held to be gods or next to them, nor expel them from the bodies of the possessed. Yet if the power of rendering so great a benefit to the heathen was granted to the Christians, if their morals and virtues were better than those of the gentiles, then surely those same gentiles could not, except against all law human and divine, kill the former with every penalty and torment, and load the latter with great praises and benefits. But let us follow Tertullian further as he compares the virtues of both one by one.

ARTICLE II.

How absurdly the gentile philosophers are made equal to the Christians in knowledge and discipline: men lustful for glory, pretending to teach the truth, which they had found in sacred Scripture and corrupted for the sake of catching popular favour, and who were compelled by the Spartans, Thebans and Argives to leave their country.

It is truly astonishing with what vain and witless display

the heathen objected that the knowledge, discipline and wisdom of their philosophers and of the Christians were equal (Tertullian, To the Nations, book II, p. 585). For of this [wisdom], as Solomon, cited by Tertullian, most rightly teaches: The beginning of wisdom is fear towards God (Sir. 1:16). And these words are taken from the book of Ecclesiasticus, which our author and others, as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 11, art. 3), expressly attribute to Solomon. But even if it were denied to him, this saying would be no less true. Yet how could the gentile philosophers have the beginning of wisdom by fearing God, Whom they never acknowledged? The Christians, on the other hand, truly knew Him and feared Him, and were therefore endowed with this beginning of wisdom.

Moreover, the Christians necessarily pursue this wisdom, says Tertullian, as truth drawn not only from this but also from the other books of sacred Scripture, as from divine and most pure springs, in order to provide for their eternal salvation (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). But the gentile philosophers, he says, affect the truth, and by affecting it corrupt it, as men who chase after glory (Ibid., ch. 47, p. 515). For nothing was dearer to their hearts than to hunt down, by any means at all, the renown of name, reputation and vain glory. Therefore he afterwards calls them lustful for glory and for eloquence alone (the same, On the Soul, ch. 7), that is, most greedy of them. And in another book: The philosopher, he says, is an animal of glory. And Jerome, without doubt borrowing these words of our author, endorsed his judgement: The philosopher is an animal of glory, and the cheap slave of popular favour and of rumours (Jerome, Letter 54, to Pammachius, p. 585). But Lucian, though a heathen, attacks these philosophers far more sharply. For he openly asserts that they are a race of men ἀργὸν, φιλόνεικον, κενόδοξον, ὀξύχολον, ὑπόλιχνον, ὑπόμωρον, τετυφωμένον, ὕβρεως ἀνάπλεων, καὶ ἵνα καθ' Ὅμηρον εἴπω, ἄχθος ἀρούρης: idle, quarrelsome, greedy for glory, irascible, given to gluttony, foolish, haughty, insolent, and, to speak in Homer's words, a useless burden of the earth (Lucian, Icaromenippus, p. 739 and following). He says more still in his dialogue on the sects (the same, Hieronym., p. 284), where he testifies that he had heard for certain from everyone that the Epicureans were corrupted by luxuries and pleasures; that the Peripatetics were slaves to getting and heaping up riches, and some of them immoderately quarrelsome; that the Platonists were arrogant, swollen with excessive pride, and most covetous of glory: οἱ πλατωνικοὶ, he says, τετύφωνται, καὶ φιλόδοξοί εἰσι, the Platonists are puffed up and lovers of glory. We have gathered these things here in anticipation of what our Author is about to say shortly. But we have already touched on something of these matters in the preceding dissertation.

The philosophers, therefore, by a fraudulent display of truth adulterated it with depraved opinions, lest, once laid open, it should offend the crazed mob, and so that they themselves might win and hunt down for themselves the false glory of a vain learning. But indeed, as far as truth blazes with hatred, says Tertullian, so far does he give offence who presents it faithfully. But he who adulterates it, chiefly on this account [finds] favour

wins with the persecutors of truth (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). And so much, and no more, stands in Rigault's edition and in the others that followed it. But in the older ones, and also in our manuscript codices, after the word adulterat there is added, et affectat, and after the noun veritatis there is read, quam (the printed editions qua) illusores, et corruptores inimice (the printed editions mimice) philosophi affectant. If you ask why Rigault cut all this away, you will find no reason given by him. What then? Did he think these words too obscure, and therefore to be removed? Rightly indeed, if they were his own and not the words of an ancient Author, which no editor ever had the right to suppress without giving a reason. But do they not make this excellent sense? As much as truth is held in hatred, so much does he who teaches it sincerely give offence to others. But he who adulterates it by affecting it wins, on this very account, the same favour with its persecutors as do its mockers and corrupters. Therefore the gentile philosophers, having recognized the truth, affect and corrupt it, as mimes do the sayings, deeds and characters of others. And Tertullian seems to have said that the philosophers affected the truth, not indeed inimice, as is written in the manuscript codices through the carelessness of the scribes, who out of the first letter m made two, in: but rather mimice, as in another book he said that the soldier of Mithras was a sort of mime of martyrdom (the same, On the Crown, at the end, p. 131).

He admits, therefore, that the truth was quite often recognized by these same philosophers: For who, he says, among the poets, who among the sophists, is there that has not drunk from the spring of the prophets? From there, then, the philosophers too have watered the thirst of their wit (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 47, p. 515). So far Rigault's edition, together with the others and also our manuscript codices: but in these last the following words, cut off by Rigault, are added: So that what they have from ours, they might compare with those. Now if these words dropped out of Rigault's text through his own fault or through erring printers, who will not wish he had been more careful? But if he removed them alone, on his own authority, who will be able to excuse his boldness? For these words bear directly on Tertullian's purpose. For he had undertaken to prove that the gentile philosophers were quite perversely made equal to the Christians in knowledge. And he rightly demonstrates this by the fact that, in order to compare their own doctrine with ours, they had watered their little gardens, to use Cicero's words, from the sacred spring of the prophets (the same, loc. cit. above, ch. 4, art. 4). Nor was this very difficult for them. For the sacred scripture of the Old Testament is far older than all the writings of the heathen, as he himself says and as we have shown more than once. So they stole many teachings from our sacred books, as has been proved by us elsewhere, so as to be thought equal to the Christians in knowledge (above, ch. 6, art. 4 and following; vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 384, 531, 909 and 1112 and following).

But those philosophers, lustful, says Tertullian, for glory and for eloquence alone, if they came upon anything in the sacred Scriptures, set it in order according to the bent of their curiosity and turned it to their own works (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 47, p. 515). But Rigault there, against the manuscript and printed

codices, struck out the noun Scripturis, and supposed that the word digestis was a substantive and meant the same as libris. But wrongly. For it is an adjective, meaning the same as "disposed" and "ordered", or "explained" and "interpreted". In the first sense Virgil said of the Sibyl:

Whatever songs the Maiden has written out on leaves,

she sets in order.

(Virgil, Aeneid, book III, line 445.)

that is, says Servius, she orders and arranges (Servius, ibid., p. 295). Elsewhere too in this second meaning:

. . . So Calchas expounds all things.

(Virgil, Aeneid, book II, line 182.)

that is, as Servius again interprets it (Servius, ibid., p. 233), he lays open the stirring of the deity, or of the future, that is, the order of the oracles; or he orders and arranges them.

Next, Rigault wished these words, ex pro instituto, to be corrected and written thus, exinde regestum pro instituto; and finally, having added this word regestum, he cut away the noun opera entirely, without citing any codex. Yet all the unpublished codices side with us, and the editions printed before Rigault himself; except that in the older of these we read ex improstituto. But this seems corrupt. In the later editions, however, the preposition ex was removed, and simply pro instituto was written. Better indeed; but we do not dare to determine which is the true reading of Tertullian until some uncorrupted codex is found.

Its sense, however, seems without doubt to be this: if the philosophers drew something true from the sacred Scriptures, rightly ordered and explained, they turned it, according to the bent of their curiosity, that is, of their excessive care to explain them badly, to their own works, that is, to the false opinions of the crowd and popular errors. For since they did not believe the Scriptures to be divine, they thought themselves given licence to interpolate them and to interpret them at their pleasure. Nor, understanding that their teachings were wrapped in obscurity and in Jewish shadows, did they scorn their simplicity (Tertullian, ibid., p. 515). Therefore what they found certain in them they made uncertain, and, rejecting what was true, or mixing false with true, they perverted them. But on these matters Clement of Alexandria says more, as we have noted in its place (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 871 and 113 and following).

Tertullian proves this, moreover (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 47, p. 515), by the various opinions and errors of the philosophers concerning the nature, character and providence of God; concerning the creation of the world and its duration; concerning the nature of the human soul, which some held to be incorporeal, divine and eternal, others dissoluble and corporeal; and concerning its state after the death of the body, its punishments and rewards. But all these various opinions of theirs we have unravelled and discussed elsewhere (above, ch. 5, art. 4, and ch. 9, art. 1 and following; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 12, art. 1 and following; ch. 14, arts. 1 and 2 and following; and ch. 23, art. 1 and following; and ch. 28, arts. 4 and 6).

Nor is it only in this apology that our Author argues thus against the gentile philosophers, but in the second

book To the Nations as well, where he further proves that the vanity and weakness of philosophical wisdom is most plainly shown by the variety of their opinions, which flowed from nowhere else than from ignorance of the truth: For although, he says, through curiosity in examining every kind of literature they may be seen to have come upon the divine Scriptures too, as being older, and to have taken some things from them (Tertullian, To the Nations, book II, ch. 2); yet, despising its simplicity, and led besides by lust for glory, they changed and adulterated the truth they had found in our sacred Scriptures.

And hence also, as he says in the Apologeticum, philosophy was cast out by certain peoples too, by the Thebans, by the Spartans and the Argives, while they are contaminated by approaching our things (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 47, p. 515). So indeed in Rigault's and the later editions. But in our manuscript codices and in the older printed editions: Hence, I think, by certain peoples too...... the Spartiacae..... while they attempt to approach our things (wrongly, in some editions, a vestra), with "to corrupt them by imitation" understood; just as he said poma conantur, the fruits attempt (Ibid., ch. 40, p. 478), supply: to become ripe. But why, by whom, and by whose doing or negligence the word opinor was omitted, and what harm it does there, nobody has told us; and you will easily persuade others that it is Tertullian's. For he uses this word in that sense elsewhere, where he discusses a matter not in the least doubtful to him.

As for the casting out of philosophy by the heathen, Athenaeus relates (Athenaeus, book XI, ch. 12, p. 542, and book XIII, ch. 9, p. 160) that the sophists and two Epicurean philosophers, Alcaeus and Philiscus, were expelled from their city by the Romans; all of that same sect from their town by the Messenians; all of them whatever from their kingdoms by Antiochus and Lysimachus; and from Attica by the Athenians, by a public edict of Sophocles; and finally that philosophy and rhetoric were not admitted by the Lacedaemonians. Julius Pollux too recalls this same decree of the Athenians, which he calls νόμος ἀττικὸς, the Attic law (Pollux, book XI, p. 427). He does not, however, say that it was given by Sophocles, but only that mention of it was made. But Laertius openly supports Athenaeus, likewise asserting that a law was in fact made by that same Sophocles, by which it was forbidden for anyone to preside over a school of philosophers unless the senate and people approved, on pain of death (Laertius, book V, Life of Theophrastus, § 38). But by whom and how this law was made contributes nothing, or little, to our purpose: it is surely enough that by its command philosophy was rejected.

And Aulus Gellius sets before us that senatorial decree and also another, and adds a third, enacted in the reign of Domitian, by which the philosophers were banned not only from Rome but from Italy as well, and that for this reason Epictetus withdrew from there to Nicomedia (Gellius, Attic Nights, book XV, ch. 14). Suetonius too mentions this edict (Suetonius, book VIII, Life of Domitian, § 10). But Philostratus adds that so great a terror was struck into the philosophers by it that, changing their dress, some fled into Spain, others into the deserts of Libya and Scythia, while others attached themselves to Domitian as counsellors of his crimes (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, book VII, p. 877). Finally

to say nothing more, we have noted elsewhere that Clement of Alexandria put on record that Greek philosophy perished as often as it was prohibited by the magistrates (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 823). However, the philosophers deservedly paid these penalties because they adulterated the truth they had recognized, and, as Tertullian says, argued about the truth against the truth (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500). But what hurled them into so great an abyss of errors was a blind craving and lust for human glory and popular favour.

But the Christians, scorning the praises of men, of necessity, says Tertullian, seek out the truth handed down in the sacred Scriptures and keep it whole, as men who care for their own salvation (Ibid.). And from this he duly concludes against the gentiles whom he is addressing: Neither in knowledge nor in discipline, as you think, are we equal (Ibid.). No comparison, then, more unequal and more perverse could have been made by the heathen than in making the two equal in knowledge and discipline. Nor with any better right did they parade the other virtues of the two as equal and alike, which must now be weighed with our Tertullian.

ARTICLE III.

How perversely the gentiles maintained that the probity of their philosophers and of the Christians was equal, whereas Diogenes trampled on the pride of Plato with another pride: that the modesty of the Christians was supreme, whereas Pythagoras and Zeno had aimed at tyranny; that the equanimity of the Christians' mind was the greatest, whereas Lycurgus chose death by starvation; that good faith was carefully kept by the Christians, whereas Anaxagoras denied a deposit to his guests; that the simplicity of the Christians was wonderful, whereas Aristotle removed Hermias from his place and flattered Alexander the Great, and Aristippus squandered his life in purple, and Hippias laid a plot against his city.

If we pass with our Tertullian to the other moral virtues of the Christians and of the gentiles, there is surely no less difference to be found between them than between those mentioned above. For if the contest between gentiles and Christians is about probity, as he likes to call it, that is, integrity of morals, or, as it is commonly called, about the virtue of humility: see, he says, with muddy feet, or as he wrote elsewhere, with filthy feet, Diogenes tramples on the proud couches of Plato with another pride (Tertullian, Apologeticum, ch. 46, p. 500, and On the Cloak, ch. 4). And does not Jerome seem to have aimed at this passage of Tertullian, where he said that Diogenes with muddied feet trampled on the couches of the rich Plato (Jerome, Against Jovinian, book II, p. 203; Laertius, book VI, Life of Diogenes, § 26)? But before both, Laertius relates that Diogenes, while treading on Plato's στρώματα, coverlets, said πατῶ τὴν Πλάτωνος κενοσπουδίαν, I trample on Plato's empty zeal, and that Plato himself replied: Ὅσον τοῦ τύφου διαφαίνεις, δοκῶν μὴ τετυφῶσθαι: How much pride you show, you who wish to seem swollen with no pride! Or, as others report it, Diogenes said: πατῶ τὸν Πλάτωνος τῦφον, I trample on Plato's pride; to which Plato replied: ἑτέρῳ γε τύφῳ, yes, but with another pride. But to whom

[what our] Author would call muddy, or miry, or, as Jerome says, mudded, that is, feet stained with mud, you will hear from the same Laertius that disciples were led by this Diogenes without shoes, ἀνυποδήτους [barefoot], while he himself γυμνοῖς ποσὶ χιόνα ἐπάτει, trod the snow with bare feet. Although, then, he openly professed so great a poverty, he was no less puffed up with the vice of pride and arrogance than the rich Plato.

To those proud philosophers, therefore, Tertullian rightly opposes the Christian, who is not proud even towards the poor man, much less towards the rich (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500; ibid., chapter 25, page 422). For indeed among the Christians, joined by the bond of brotherhood, as we remarked above, and by the spirit of holiness, all things except wives were common, and there was no contention over higher rank or dignity.

But next, if the question is, says Tertullian (ibid., chapter 46, page 500), of modesty, which is the restrained moderation of the desires in the mind, no comparison at all can be drawn between Christians and gentiles. For Pythagoras, as he says, among the Thurians, and Zeno among the Prienians, aim at tyranny. We read it handed down in writing by Laertius that the house of Milo, where Pythagoras then was, was set on fire by the Crotoniates, τυραννίδος ἐπίθεσιν εὐλαβούμενοι, since they feared his tyranny (Laertius, book VIII, Life of Pythagoras, § 38). Tzetzes and Iamblichus too made mention of this fire being raised, in which they wished to burn Pythagoras alive, and of the war waged on him and his disciples (Tzetzes, Chiliads 11, verse 67 and following; Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, chapter 35, volume 1, Apparatus, page 1246 and following). To what end, then, that fire and war, unless because he was plotting revolution and to usurp a tyranny, or, as Laertius says, others truly feared that he might attempt it? Now we have observed that Zeno of Elea, when he was being racked with tortures by the tyrant Demysius or Nearchus to betray some secret, doubtless of a conspiracy, spat his tongue out at the tyrant. We are indeed not unaware that this fortitude of mind is attributed by some, for instance Pliny and Valerius Maximus, to Anaxarchus, by others to Diomedon. But many others, cited by us in the place just mentioned, ascribe it to Zeno of Elea. Among them is Plutarch, who testifies that Zeno, the γνώριμον, the disciple, of Parmenides (Plutarch, book I, Against Colotes, page 1126), or, as others held, on the witness of Laertius, his son by nature or by adoption, was tormented with such great tortures by the tyrant Demysius because he had laid a plot against him. Philostratus indeed says: "Zeno of Elea, overthrowing the tyranny of Nearchus the Mysian, was caught, and when racked, kept silent about his own fellow conspirators; but those who were loyal to the tyrant he slandered as not loyal; and they died as though on true charges, while he brought the Mysians freedom, making the tyranny trip over itself." "Zeno of Elea, attempting to overthrow the tyranny of Nearchus the Mysian, and having been caught, when he was tortured with various punishments, did not betray the associates of the conspiracy at all; but slandering those whom he knew to be most faithful to the tyrant, he brought it about that they were condemned to death. He himself, however, freed Mysia, making the tyranny go astray upon itself" (Philostratus, book VII,

Life of Apollonius, chapter 1, page 320). For the citizens, making a sudden attack, as Laertius says, overwhelmed him with stones (Laertius, book IX, Life of Zeno, § 27). Let us add this testimony of the Latin Cicero: "Zeno of Elea suffered everything rather than reveal those privy to the overthrow of the tyranny." Elsewhere, however, he records simply that he was killed under torture (Cicero, Tusculans, book II, page 146, line 2, and On the Nature of the Gods, book III, page 252, line 28).

But since several men were called by the name of Zeno, there is perhaps no small reason for doubting whether the one whom Tertullian simply names Zeno is Zeno of Elea himself, who indeed is not said to have aimed at tyranny, but rather to have wished to overthrow it. But it could be answered that while he was plotting against the tyrant, he was then also thinking of seizing his kingdom. Moreover, since there was a great variety of opinions about the death of this Zeno, what wonder if Tertullian, following others, has related something peculiar about this Zeno? For the rest, if anyone points out to us another Zeno, and proves more certainly that tyranny was aimed at by him, we shall yield at once. But Zeno must be dealt with again later.

The Christian, on the other hand, is as far as possible removed from that desire of reigning and of invading the kingdoms of others; as one who, Tertullian says, does not aim even at the aedileship, that is, at no magistracy, no public office. Now the aedile, as Festus notes after Varro, was at first so called as the one who had the care of sacred and private buildings. But this name was afterwards transferred to other magistrates (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500; Varro, On the Latin Language, book IV, § 14; Festus, On the Meaning of Words, book XX, at the word Aedilis).

Then next Tertullian: "If I join battle concerning evenness of mind" (our manuscripts written in an ancient hand, and the early editions, have "equanimity"), that is, the even constitution of a calm mind, "here Lycurgus is at hand for us, who chose to starve himself to death because the Laconians had amended his laws" (Tertullian, in the place cited), as we explained above. But the Christian, as our author says, even when condemned by the heathen on account of his religion, then too, always keeping the same evenness of mind, gives thanks, as we shall show later (below, chapter 16, article 3).

The same author of ours goes on: "If, in the matter of faith, which is always to be kept towards all, the Christian is compared with the heathen, Anaxagoras denied a deposit to his guests." But does he not there allude to the story of Pericles written down by Plutarch, who, accused of extortion, of embezzlement, and of spending money which had been deposited with the Prytanes, in order to clear himself, in alarm drove Anaxagoras out of the city and sent him into exile (Plutarch, Life of Pericles, page 169, volume 1)? But the Christian, as Tertullian added, "is called faithful even outside" (Tertullian, ibid.), that is, he always keeps unbroken the faith given not only to his fellow Christians but also to any outsiders whatever. Ambrose discusses more about a deposit to be faithfully kept by Christians in his books On the Duties of Ministers and in another book, and there he said: "It makes no difference whether you forswear a deposit, or grieve

to restore it. In either case there is a doubtful danger to the life of faith" (Ambrose, On Duties, book II, chapter 36, page 105 and following, and On the Death of Satyrus, book 1, § 3, page 1114).

Moreover, "if I take my stand on simplicity," says Tertullian, the gentile sins against it all the more, the more the Christian strives to attain it. For "Aristotle shamefully made his friend Hermias quit his place" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500). Now if we believe Laertius, that Hermias was a eunuch and king of the Atarnians, Ἀταρνέων τύραννος, tyrant of the Atarneans (Laertius, book V, Life of Aristotle, § 3), and when Aristotle had come to him, he so won his friendship that he obtained his daughter, or his concubine, whom he loved, to be given him as wife, as we have noted elsewhere (volume I, Apparatus, page 1152). And in witness of an altogether grateful mind Aristotle is said to have offered sacrifice to the woman, and to have written a hymn in her honour and Hermias's, on account of which he was accused of impiety (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book XV, chapter 16, page 696; Suidas at the word). But the more witnesses confirm these things, the harder it is to prove why and how Hermias was driven out by him, either from his kingdom or from this life. For Aristocles, a disciple of the same Aristotle, admits indeed that he was assailed by many calumnies, which he strives in the same place to refute (Aristocles in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book XIV, page 791 and following). But through an excessive leaning of mind towards his master he could, beyond doubt, have concealed many things. What then if this flattery of Aristocles was the more suspect to Tertullian, the more certainly he had learned from elsewhere that Hermias too, his very close friend, was injured by Aristotle? For against him he sets the Christian man, who "does not injure even his enemy" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500; ibid., chapters 31 and 37), so as to obey the divine precepts, as has often been observed, by which he is commanded to hate no one, not to repay the one who injures him in kind, to love his enemies, and to pray to God for them.

He goes on: "The same Aristotle flatters Alexander, whom he rather ought to rule, as shamefully as Plato is put up for sale by Dionysius" (ibid., chapter 46, page 500). Some, however, to whom this phrase seemed rather obscure, think that potitus should be read there instead of potius. But in vain, and against the protest of all the manuscripts. For what if the adverb potius is taken by our author for "sooner", "earlier", or even "more", so that his sense is: Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander the Great, as everyone knows, flattered him sooner and more shamefully than Plato was wickedly put up for sale by the tyrant Dionysius? We have discussed the sale of Plato elsewhere (volume I, Apparatus, pages 554, 620, 1144, and Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 39, article 10). And it is no less certain that Aristotle flattered Alexander, whose ambition, to say nothing of other vices, he not only did not check but fostered, and softened by the art of flattery: "soothing this ambition of his," says Plutarch (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, page 668, volume 1).

Then next Tertullian: "Aristippus, in purple, under a great show of gravity, plays the spendthrift," that is, he lived luxuriously and intemperately. And Laertius handed down to memory

that Dionysius ordered that at a certain banquet each guest should put on a purple garment and dance (Laertius, book II, Life of Aristippus, § 78). When Plato refused, Aristippus promptly put on the garment, began to dance, and recited these verses, which Gregory Nazianzen and Suidas affirm to be Euripides' (Gregory Nazianzen, Iambic Poem 18, page 209; Suidas at the word Ἀρίστιππος):

. . . "For even amid Bacchic revels / The temperate mind will not be corrupted."

. . . "Nor in the rites of Liber / Is the chaste mind of the wise ever corrupted."

You may consult Gregory Nazianzen, who there sets the vices of the other philosophers against the virtues of the Christians (Gregory Nazianzen, in the place cited). Furthermore, of the same Aristippus, though without naming him, our Tertullian says elsewhere: "I hear," he says, "that he philosophized even in purple" (Tertullian, On the Pallium, chapter 4; the same, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500).

Finally he added: "Hippias, while he lays plots against the city, is killed: this no Christian ever attempted on behalf of his own, though they were scattered with every atrocity." It is truly remarkable how corrupted the name of Hippias is in the manuscripts. For in two of ours, the older ones, Icthidias is read; in two more recent Colbertine ones, Icthiclias; in certain others, Hidias, which comes nearer to the Hippias shown in the printed editions. But that our author is in fact to be understood of Hippias can surely be confirmed by these words of Cicero: "The wicked Hippias, son of Pisistratus, who fell in the battle of Marathon bearing arms against his country" (Cicero, To Atticus, book IX, letter 12, page 306). More about him is given by Herodotus, Pausanias, Suidas and others (Herodotus, book I, § 61, book V, § 93 and following; Pausanias, book I, page 20; Suidas at the word Ἱππίας). But it is not so certain that this is the very man of whom Tertullian speaks as a philosopher, unless you prove that he gave his attention to philosophy.

Another Hippias, a sophist and philosopher, a disciple of Hegesidamus, who taught that the mind should be content with its lot, is mentioned by the same Suidas. And is he not the one who, much praised by Cicero, as we have said elsewhere (volume I, Apparatus, page 1222), boasted that there was nothing in any art which he himself did not know? But if this man was the philosopher, certainly neither Cicero nor Suidas has told us by what death he died. To many, therefore, it will doubtless seem more likely that Tertullian was speaking of the former Hippias, unless the name of this philosopher has been corrupted in his text by drowsy copyists.

But what he added is more certain than certain: that nothing was ever attempted against their country by the Christians, although they were "scattered", that is, torn and killed, "with every atrocity" of punishments inflicted on them for their religion (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 46, page 500). For, taught by Christ, they imitated the simplicity of doves, and, injuring no one, they were eager to deserve well of all, even of those who slaughtered them with such cruelty.

And now who does not easily see how rightly Tertullian (ibid.), after drawing these comparisons between the gentile philosophers and the Christians, concludes with these words:

"So what is alike" (some editions: "What, then, is alike"), supply "do they have", "the philosopher and the Christian? The disciple of Greece", where above all the philosophers flourished, "and of heaven", that is, of the true God and of Christ? What have the philosopher, "a trader in fame", or "an animal of glory", as was said a little before, and the Christian, "a trader in life" (the edition of Rigault and others after it: "of salvation")? What have the philosopher, a worker of words only, and the Christian, of deeds? What have the Christian, a builder of things, and the philosopher, a destroyer? What have the philosopher, a friend of error, and the Christian, its enemy, in common? But Rigault on his own authority cut away these last words. Then next, in our unpublished manuscripts and in the older printed editions: "What have the interpolator of the truth, and its restorer and expresser, its thief and its guardian?" Rigault, however, changed this thus: "the interpolator of error, and the restorer of truth; its thief and its guardian?" But since that emendation rests on the authority of no manuscript, it was doubtless made by him, because those words seemed rather obscure and not elegant enough. Yet what prevents the words as they are written in our manuscripts from being called genuine, and their sense from being this: the philosopher is the interpolator of the truth handed down in our sacred Scripture, because by interposing his own errors he gave it a new form; he is also its thief, since, as we have often said, he plucked many things from it and corrupted them. But the Christian is the restorer of the truth, and its expresser and guardian, because he presents it whole, expresses it, and guards it. Nor did Rigault keep his hands off there, but removed besides these following words: "Truth is older than all things, if I am not mistaken." By what right he took these away is clear enough from his other, bolder corrections. For our part, let it be enough to have noted the various readings of Tertullian's text, and how rightly he asserts that the doctrine of the Christians is far more excellent than that of the philosophers, and their morals purer and holier than those of any heathen whatever. We have dealt with these comparisons in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 13, article 4).

CHAPTER XIV.

On the fasts of the Christians, their works of penance, their prayers, and the solemn feast of the Lord's day, and how great a difference there was in all these between them and the gentiles.

ARTICLE I.

How long and rough the fasts of the Christians were; how far from this severity of abstinence were the banquets and suppers of the Megarians, of the tribes, curiae and decuriae, of Hercules' tithes, of the sacrificial feasts, of the Apaturia, of the Dionysia, of the Attic mysteries, of the Serapic suppers; where also of the fire-watchmen and the infamous parasites.

Among the other virtues of the Christians there shone out above all their care and concern, as diligent as it was hard, for keeping fasts, in which they differed from the heathen no less than in their other virtues. For often, and more often in public calamities, they [strove to win] the divine mercy, not for themselves only, but even for their enemies,

they strove to win, by no perfunctory but by a most hard observance of a stricter fast. I would have you hear Tertullian himself: "We," he says, "dry with fasts", that is, worn out and dried up, since at those times we eat no food but dry food. For elsewhere he says "late or dry foods", and a little more explicitly: "we observe xerophagies, drying our food of all flesh, all juiciness, and all the juicier fruits, lest we either eat or drink anything with the taste of wine; abstinence from the bath too, in keeping with a dry diet" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 478; On Fasting, chapter 1 and chapter 13).

But if you ask Epiphanius what that dry food is, and what dry nourishment, he will answer you that it is nothing other than bread, salt and water. Throughout all those days "of fastings", as he puts it, "and of xerophagies", it was not lawful for Christians to taste these foods beforehand at any time of day, however little savoury and sweet they were (Epiphanius, Exposition of the Faith, § 22, page 1015); but "kept back", as our Author says further, "from every fruit of life", that is, from any food whatever (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 487), they took it only late and at the beginning of night. Nor is this explanation of these words ours, but his own, who said most plainly elsewhere: "Abstaining from things which, however, we do not reject, as certain heretics do, but defer" (the same, On Fasting, chapter 15), and so we prolong our fasts into the evening. Indeed Christ, as Eusebius witnesses, had taught His followers to abstain most gladly from food and wine for many days, to lead a hard and severe kind of life, and had moved an immense multitude, not only of men but also of women, to such a point that, despising the nourishment of the body, they sought instead the rational food of the divine readings (Eusebius, Oration in Praise of Constantine, chapter 17, page 661). What wonder, then, if these are said by the same Tertullian of ours to be "wrung out by all that continence" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 487), that is, so exhausted that the strength of their body failed?

But plainly and utterly at odds with this frugality of the Christians, with their abstinence from food and their fasts, were the suppers of the heathen, got up at lavish expense, their immoderate banquets, drinking bouts, revels and gluttonies. For first the intemperance of the Megarians, says Tertullian, is plainly refuted by this saying of Diogenes: "The Megarians feast as though they would die tomorrow, but build as though they would never die" (ibid., chapter 39, page 473). But if you trust Laertius, it was Empedocles who lashed the Agrigentines with this taunt (Laertius, book VIII, Life of Empedocles, § 33); if Aelian, Plato lashed these same people (Aelian, Various History, book XII, chapter 28); if Plutarch, Stratonicus lashed the Rhodians (Plutarch, On the Love of Wealth, page 525, volume II). But who will deny that it could have been said and repeated by many and of many? Whoever these peoples were, they were as far as could be from the sobriety and fasts of the Christians.

But it was not of them, beyond doubt, but of many others that our Author added this: "For so many tribes and curiae and

decuriae belching" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 39, page 473), that is, breathing out the excess of food and drink which could not be digested in the stomach, "the air turns sour". "But surely," you will say, "this could not have been written by him without great hyperbole?" Yet what, pray, prevents its being said of the public banquets which used to be laid out in the forum, in the public squares, in the streets and at the crossroads of cities on the great solemnities of certain days, and especially of the emperors? For then the cities, each one of them and the whole of each, presented, as we shall see below, the look of taverns and cookshops. What wonder, then, if with so great a multitude of men breathing out food undigested and immoderately taken, the air turned sour with belching? Turnebus therefore wrongly thought that by the name curiae were meant those banquets which were given in the curia itself by the curials (Turnebus, Adversaria, book XII, chapter 13). For Tertullian is without doubt to be understood of those public banquets.

Then afterwards he says: "For the Salii," of whom we have treated elsewhere, "when they are going to dine, a creditor will be necessary" (Tertullian, in the place cited), because no one was able to pay their expenses all at once. If, however, you do not believe us (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 20, article 3), and wish it proved to you, hear these words of Festus: "The Salii are so called from dancing; and because ample suppers are set before them on every day, wherever they stay, any other suppers that are great are called Saliar" (Festus at the word Salii). Wherefore Horace sang:

"Now is the time to drink, now with free foot / To strike the earth, now with Saliar feasts / To adorn the couch of the gods / It was time, comrades." (Horace, book I, ode 27.)

For he calls Saliar feasts rich ones, most exquisite and procured at great expense, with which the couch of the gods was loaded, and which were afterwards devoured by the Salii. For this very reason the emperor Claudius, as Suetonius relates, "struck by the smell of a luncheon which was being prepared in the nearby temple of Mars, left the tribunal, went down to the priests, and reclined at table with them" (Suetonius, Life of Claudius, § 33). And Apuleius says that his horse was sated with so great a quantity of barley "that he believed he had dined on a Saliar supper" (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book IV, after the middle).

Now the Salii were priests of Hercules, of whom Tertullian adds this: "The costs of Hercules' tithes and of the sacrificial feasts" (the manuscripts: "of the undertakers") "the accountants" (the same printed editions, and other unpublished manuscripts: "the stable-keepers") "used to reckon up" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 39, page 473). Now the pollinctores anointed the bodies of the dead and took care of the funeral. But Tertullian does not seem to have spoken of them. Polluctorum is therefore the better reading, as can be confirmed by these verses of Plautus, which shed no little light on this passage:

"There is need to have come here now as fast as may be, / So that I may offer the tenth part to Hercules." (Plautus, Stichus, act II, scene 1, verse 80.)

For the gentiles, as our Author had said above, consecrated the tenth part of their goods to Hercules and placed it on his altar, and afterwards splendidly

feasted. Whence the same Plautus says: "Buy provisions lavishly, as for an offering" (the same, Mostellaria, act II, scene 4, verse 11). And Festus: "To offer as pollucere: wares ..... spelt, barley-groats, wine. To Hercules, however, they offered all things eatable" (Festus at the word Pollucere), that is, they offered the tenth part. On that tithe of Hercules, the sacrifice and the feast, see Varro, Plutarch and Macrobius, who also calls it the "offering supper" (Varro, On the Latin Language, book V, page 58; Plutarch, Roman Questions, page 267; Macrobius, Saturnalia, book III, chapters 12, 15 and 17). And at what great cost it was prepared, "the accountants reckoned up", that is, those who kept the accounts of the cities and provinces, as is plain from the Theodosian Code, where there is a title On Accountants. Our Author therefore means that the costs of these suppers were so great that only the public accountants, used to reckoning the largest sums of expenditure, could scarcely count them. This reading, then, is better than stabularii, that is, innkeepers and tavern-keepers, who had grown used to reckoning more easily, in their inns, the costs, great or small, run up by those feasting there.

Tertullian continues: "For the Apaturia, the Dionysia, the Attic mysteries, a levy of cooks is proclaimed" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 39, page 473). Now the Apaturia was a solemn feast day which was celebrated yearly by the Athenians in the month of October for three days. On the first day, the tribesmen or fellows enrolled for this solemnity dined sumptuously together. On the second day they sacrificed to Jupiter and Minerva. On the third day, finally, they enrolled the boys and girls in the curiae. And Herodotus handed down to memory that Homer, invited to this supper by the fellows, did indeed recline at their tables. But the same historian mentions this feast elsewhere too (Herodotus, Life of Homer, § 29 and following, and book I, § 147), about which Pollux also wrote, and Suidas, Pierre Castellan, Johann Fasold, and above all Johannes Meursius (Pollux, book VI; Suidas; Castellan and Fasold, On the Greek Feasts; Meursius, Graecia feriata, at the word ἀπατούρια).

The Dionysia, or διονύσια, were feasts celebrated by the Athenians in the eighth month in honour of Dionysus, or Bacchus, which were also called the Bacchanalia. Tertullian named these the Dionysia and the Attic mysteries, to signify that they were the same feasts at which the Athenians laid on suppers with so great an abundance of the most delicate foods that more skilled cooks were chosen to prepare them.

And he turns to the Romans, who celebrated the feasts of Serapis with equal, or even greater, intemperance in dining, thus: "At the smoke of a Serapic supper the fire-watchmen will be roused" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 39, page 473). Now the sparteoli were a certain kind of soldiers who kept watch at Rome for the protection of the city, as the old commentator on Juvenal says, with buckets and water with which to put out fires (Juvenal, Satire 14, verse 313). And they were so called from their tunics and footwear, as some have thought, or rather from the vessels of esparto in which they carried water. But Suetonius, if Casaubon is to be trusted, declared that they were instituted by the emperor Augustus in these words: "Against fires he devised night watches and watchmen

(Suetonius, book II, Life of Augustus, § 30). Who would not readily understand that Tertullian is dealing with those who, being common and low men, and walking about the city by night, were roused by the smoke of a rich supper laid out on the feast of Serapis, and ran to it? Furthermore these feasts and rites, called Serapia, or Serapida, or of Serapis or of Isis, used to be celebrated in the month of April. But we have dealt with these in earlier dissertations (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 22, article 1).

Worse than the fire-watchmen, beyond doubt, were the parasites, the basest hangers-on of every table, "who aim," says our Author, "at the glory of enslaving their liberty under a hiring-contract" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 39, page 473), that is, as is gathered from Cicero, Suetonius and others, for a kind of wage, price and payment, "of fattening the belly amid insults" (Cicero, On Duties, book I, page 372, line 3; Suetonius, book III, Life of Tiberius, § 7). In another book he calls them "labourers for the belly", whom a patience inspired by the devil "assigns to insulting patrons by the surrender of their liberty" (Tertullian, On Patience, near the end, chapter 16). But Terence paints this race of most worthless men vividly above all others; if you do not mind consulting him, you will find explained what you find obscure in Tertullian's words (Terence, Eunuch, act II, scene 2).

From all these suppers and banquets of the heathen, so intemperate and lustful, the Christians utterly recoiled, who mortified their body by fasts so long and hard, as we have said, and whose supper was wholly frugal and most modest, as we shall show later.

ARTICLE II.

How different were the penitential works of the Christians and of the gentiles: by them the former beat upon heaven with reproach, while the latter by impious superstitions constantly provoked the true God.

It was not enough for the Christians, not only in public calamities but on other days too, to appease the wrath of God by so severe and austere an observance of fasts; but also "in sackcloth," says Tertullian, "and rolling in ashes" (wrongly, in two of our older manuscripts, volvitantes, with the letter i added out of place), "we beat upon heaven with reproach" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 487). Then, therefore, when about to entreat God, they rolled themselves in sackcloth and ashes, just like the others who were doing public penance in the churches for some grave crime. For the discipline of these, as our Author has related elsewhere, "as to dress itself and food, commands them to lie upon sackcloth and ashes, to darken the body with filth, to cast down the mind with sorrows" (the same, On Penance, chapter 9). And a little after: "One must live apart from gladness, in the roughness of sackcloth and the horror of ashes, and the emptiness of the face from fasting" (the same, ibid., chapter 11). And certainly Cyprian exhorts the lapsed to penance in these words: "One must pray more earnestly and entreat, pass the day in mourning, spend the nights in vigils and weeping, fill all one's time with tearful lamentations, laid

on the ground, to cling to ashes and haircloth" (otherwise: "in ashes and haircloth"), "and to roll in filth" (Cyprian, On the Lapsed, near the end). But that not only those guilty of some crime, but others too, did penance of this kind is plain from a letter of Celerinus published among Cyprian's, in which he testifies that he thus bewails the crime of his lapsed sister: "For whose deeds I, weeping in the gladness of Easter, have spent my days day and night in haircloth and ashes, in tears, and spend them so to this day" (the same, letter 21).

The other Christians, therefore, though conscious of no crime, yet with the acts and dress of the public penitents "beat upon heaven", as Tertullian says, "with reproach" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 487). And if the word invidia has some obscurity there, some light can be thrown on it by what he relates elsewhere of the heathen themselves: "Among certain colonies, by a yearly rite, veiled in sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes, they cast a suppliant reproach at their idols ... a Ninevite cessation of business, I suppose." And of our holy martyrs: "The souls of the martyrs under the altar cry to the Lord with reproach: How long, O Lord, wilt Thou not avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (the same, On Prayer, chapter 5). He also calls their scars "a reproach before Christ, because they desired to conquer" (the same, On Modesty, at the end). And indeed he said likewise of himself: "I would rather bring reproach upon Him," that is, upon God, "by perishing through His will, than provoke His anger by escaping through mine" (the same, On Flight in Persecution, chapter 10). What more? Statius, where he laments his father's death, sang this:

"Surely I would beat upon other gods above and on Tartarus / With a greater reproach." (Statius, Silvae, book IX, in the Epicedion on his father.)

And again in the Epicedion on his son:

. . . "Should I not, wild, beat upon the very gods above / And unjust Tartarus with reproach? / Should I not lament you, dear boy?" (Ibid.)

But it is surely certain that in all these places the word invidia is not taken in its common meaning, for hatred and ill will, or grief at someone's prosperity. For these things neither befall God, nor is He touched by them or moved to mercy. And certainly Cicero admits that the word invidia is ambiguous: "This word," he says, "is drawn from looking too closely at another's fortune, as in the Menalippus:

Who has looked with envy on the flower of my children?

It seems bad Latin, but Accius put it splendidly: for as one says 'to see the flower', so 'to envy the flower' is more correctly said than 'to envy to the flower'. We are prevented by usage; the poet held to his right and spoke more boldly" (Cicero, Tusculans, book III, page 181, line 10). What, then, if Tertullian took the word invidia in the same sense as Accius, for the beholding, the sight and the look of the wretched state and dress of the Christian penitents, by which they strove to touch and move the divine mercy (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 40, page 487)?

We cannot deny, however, that certain works of penance were performed by the heathen too in public calamities,

works by which they thought they could bend their gods and that these could be appeased. For then they proclaimed to the people rain-rites and barefoot processions, the magistrates laid aside the insignia of their dignities, and they did other things, about all of which we shall treat below (below, ch. XXIII, art. 4). But they wrongly invoked and prayed to a manufactured Jupiter and others who were not gods. And indeed, since they provoked the true God by those impious acts and superstitions, they could without doubt obtain nothing from Him, just as nothing from their false gods.

ARTICLE III.

In what manner the Christians prayed to God without a prompter, with hands spread out to heaven, with head bare, with innocent soul, and turned towards the east; and in how unlike a manner the heathen worshipped their gods, and the Persians the sun.

The Christians, with these rough labours of penance which we have related, not only in time of public calamities but also on single days, and especially on fixed days, prayed to God both for themselves and for others, "without a prompter", as our Author says, but "from the inmost breast" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXX, p. 443). And he said "without a prompter" deliberately, because it was the custom of the heathen that someone should go before all who were praying with his voice and prompt them. Some indeed judge that these verses of Statius are to be referred to this custom:

Hence the vows of the fathers were entrusted to you, and the noble youth was ruled with you as prompter, to tell the manners and deeds of those before. (Statius, Silvae, book V, l. 488.)

But there it is not a question of any prayers recited with some prompter going before. Pliny comes nearer to them in these words: "We have seen the highest magistrates make supplication with fixed prayers; and, lest any of the words be passed over or said out of order, that someone goes before from a written text, and again that another is given as a guard to attend, and yet another set over them to command that tongues be favourable", that is, be silent (Pliny, Natural History, book XXVIII, ch. II, p. 556). If, however, anyone should object that the discourse here is about magic tricks and the words then spoken in advance, he will certainly be unable to deny that Plutarch speaks of the solemn prayers of the gentiles, where he informs us that it was enjoined by Numa Pompilius that, when the magistrates and priests perform some divine rite, a herald should go before and cry with a loud voice: "Hoc age" [Do this]: "the herald goes before with a loud voice, 'Hoc age'" (Plutarch, vol. I, in the Life of Coriolanus, p. 225). By that cry, he says, he bade all be intent on the divine rites and be interrupted by no work or business. To this is added Juvenal, who sang these things of a woman asking Janus and Vesta that Pollio might win:

. . . She stood before the altar, and did not think it shameful to veil her head for a lyre-player, and she uttered the dictated words, as the custom is. (Juvenal, Satire VI, after the middle.)

Consult, if you have leisure and the wish, Brisson in his book On Formulas (Brisson, On Formulas, book II, p. 68). But the Christians did not admit such a prompter, since not with the mouth and lips only, but "from the breast",

and with the inmost and sincere affection of the heart did they pray to God.

Moreover they prayed looking up to heaven and, says Tertullian, "with hands spread out", or as he speaks in another book: "But we not only raise them, but also spread them out, shaped after the Lord's passion" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXX, p. 441; the same, book On Prayer, ch. XI), that is, in the manner and form of Christ fastened to the cross. We have discussed this manner of praying elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius' Octavius, ch. XII, art. 3). But because the heathen too were accustomed to pray to their gods in the same way, as we have shown already, our Author therefore, after these words "with hands spread out", added "because they are harmless" (Tertullian, Apology, at the place cited). For the gentiles raised to heaven in prayer hands polluted with impiety, idolatry and other crimes; but the Christians raised their own, no less than their breast and soul, wholly clean and pure.

And further, they prayed besides "with head bare", Tertullian says again, "because we do not blush" (ibid.). There, moreover, he again sets them against the gentiles, whose custom it was to pray and sacrifice with veiled head. Hear, I pray, Virgil's verses on this rite:

Nay, when the fleets have been carried over across the seas, and, altars set up, you now pay your vows upon the shore, cover your hair, veiled in a purple robe, lest amid the holy fires, in the honour of the gods, some hostile face appear and trouble all. This custom of rites let your comrades keep, this keep yourself; in this observance let your descendants remain pure. (Virgil, Aeneid, book III, l. 403 and following.)

On these verses Servius notes this: "It is certainly to be known that those sacrificing to all the gods were accustomed to veil their heads for this reason, that nothing should present itself to their wandering gaze during the rite, with the sole exception of Saturn, lest it seem an imitation of the deity, and of Hercules in his own temple, because he too has his head covered, or because these altars were consecrated by Juno and Evander before the arrival of Aeneas" (Servius on the verses cited, p. 292). That exception proves well enough that this was the rite and custom of the gentiles, which they observed also in greeting and praying to the gods. But on it Brisson says more, whom you can consult (Brisson, On Formulas, book I, p. 140 and following).

The Christians therefore, on the contrary, prayed "with bare head", because they knew it had been said by the Apostle: "Every man praying or prophesying with veiled head disgraces his head" (1 Cor. 11:4). But why, someone will say, did Tertullian not bring forward this reason of the Apostle, but "because", as he says, "we do not blush"? We shall answer him, then, that it seems to have been given by him because it most served his purpose. For there, as we have said, he sets the Christians against the gentiles. And these, as he adds in the same place, in sacrificing to false gods, as in praying, brought "after all their defilements also a foul conscience" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XXX, pp. 443, 445), and one stained with every kind of crime, for which, if any shame had remained to them, they ought to have been suffused with a perpetual blush. But on the contrary the Christians offered to their almighty God "prayer from a chaste flesh", as we were noting a little before (preceding article), "from an innocent soul, proceeding from the Holy Spirit"

(Tertullian, ibid.), as was explained more fully by us in the earlier dissertations (Dissertation on Minucius' Octavius, ch. XII, art. 2, and on Lactantius, ch. XXXIII, art. 1). So far, then, were the Christians from blushing when they thus prayed to God; on the contrary: "Let the claws dig into us," says our Author, "spread out towards God, let crosses hang us up, let fires lick us, let swords cut off our throats, let beasts leap upon us: the very posture of the praying Christian is ready for every punishment" (Tertullian, Apology, at the place cited); for he did not blush either to profess his religion or to pray to God. And not only "with head bare" but also with body prostrate, as we have shown in another dissertation (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. VIII, art. 2), they poured out their prayers openly and in the public assemblies.

Besides this, they prayed to God turned towards the east, or, as Tertullian speaks, "turned towards the region of the east" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XVI, p. 369). Nor was that custom, about which we have argued elsewhere (vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, diss. 2, ch. VIII, art. 7, p. 1040), unknown to the heathen, who were accustomed to pray in the same way too, but in a manner wholly and utterly perverse. Therefore our Author addresses those very men in these words: "Most of you, through an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies too, move your lips towards the sunrise" (Tertullian, at the place cited). He repeats the same in the first book To the Nations (book I, ch. XIII, p. 579). If you require a witness of this custom, you can hear Virgil, singing these things of Aeneas:

He rises, and, looking at the rising light of the heavenly Sun, he duly took up water from the river in his hollow palms, and pours out such words to the sky. (Virgil, Aeneid, book VIII, l. 68 and following.)

And in another book, of others performing sacrifices:

They, turning their eyes towards the rising Sun, give salted grain with their hands, and mark with the knife the tops of the victims' foreheads, and pour libations on the altars from bowls. (Ibid., book XII, l. 72 and following.)

And Servius on these last verses remarks this: "He did not of course call the sun rising now, for it had long been day; but he followed the discipline of ceremonies, so as to say that he who was about to pray looked to the east" (Servius, p. 676). Therefore Latinus Pacatus, at the beginning of the panegyric which he delivered to Theodosius, and in his presence, says: "When performing divine rites, we turn our faces to that quarter of the sky from which is the beginning of light" (Pacatus, Panegyric of Theodosius, p. 246). Finally, to dismiss many more, Ovid sang of the goddess Pales:

With these the goddess is to be appeased; say these things four times, turned towards the sunrise, and wash your hands in living dew. (Ovid, Fasti, book IV, l. 365.)

But although that rite was common to Christians and gentiles, yet for different reasons did these pray to their gods, and those to the one and true God, turned towards the east; for the gentiles did so, as Tertullian notes, through a most wicked "affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies too" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XVI, p. 371, and To the Nations, book I, ch. XIII, p. 579). Since, then, they worshipped heavenly things, namely the stars and planets, and thought them to be gods, therefore towards the sun, of them

the greatest and chief of all, they turned themselves when praying.

But the Christians prayed in this manner for far different reasons, and chiefly because they had to look back towards paradise, from which they had been cast out, and towards the Sun of justice, Christ the Lord. Cardinal Bona has related many other reasons from various writers, which one may readily read in his books, and it is not necessary to heap them up here (Bona, On the Divine Psalmody, ch. VI, § 3, p. 177). Nevertheless Origen, as we have observed elsewhere (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1040), frankly confesses that a sufficiently valid reason for this rite cannot be brought forward. Yet no one will easily be persuaded that it was adopted by the Christians for no cause, when it was observed by the public and unanimous consent of all, so that it was not unknown even to the heathen themselves. For hence some of them suspected, as our Author says, that the bodily sun was the Christians' God and was worshipped by them. But this absurd calumny is crushed by him in these few words: "If perhaps we shall be reckoned with the Persians, though we do not worship the sun painted on a linen cloth, having it everywhere in its own shield" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XVI, p. 369). It is established that the Persians worshipped the sun, which they held for the true God. Witnesses of this impiety are Herodotus, Strabo, Justin the historian and many others, whom indeed, lest we do over again what has often been done by others, we have not thought it necessary to name (Herodotus, book I, § 131; Strabo, Geography, book XV, p. 732; Justin, Histories, book I, ch. X). It should therefore seem strange to no one if these worshippers of the sun had it painted on a shield, since soldiers were accustomed to carry images painted or carved on their shields. Indeed, if we believe Pliny, the very name of the shield (clypeus) is derived from this. And he adds: "It was an origin full of valour that the face of each man who had used it should be rendered on his shield. The Carthaginians made both shields and images of gold, and carried them with them in their camps" (Pliny, Natural History, book XXXV, ch. III, p. 177). And to whom are those things unknown which Homer sang of the shield of Achilles, and Virgil of that of Aeneas, in Greek and in Latin verse? (Homer, Iliad XVIII, l. 478 and following; Virgil, Aeneid, book VIII, l. 925 and following.) In the same way, then, the Persians bore on the shield the likeness of the sun, which they thought to be the greatest god.

Granted, you will say, and I concede that this was really the custom of the Persians. But how can one gather from it what Tertullian's true sense is? Some indeed interpret his words thus: the Persians paint the sun on a linen cloth, which the Christians have in its own shield, that is, in that which is the eye of the world and like a shield; or, as others would have it, they behold the face of the sun as in a shield. But this explanation, certainly more subtle than solid, had beyond doubt never entered Tertullian's mind. His sense here, as is clear from what has been observed, seems to be simpler: the heathen falsely thought that the sun was worshipped by the Christians, as it was by the Persians. For these had everywhere on their shields the image of the sun, their god, fashioned and represented, whereas the Christians did not have it painted anywhere, not even on a linen cloth.

ARTICLE IV.

Why the Christians kept the Lord's day, dedicated by the heathen to the Sun, joyfully as a feast, and so differed in this one respect only from the gentiles and from the Jews, who celebrated the sabbath day as solemn.

Another error of the gentiles, and certainly no smaller one, was that they still supposed that the sun was worshipped as God by the Christians because these kept with gladness the Lord's day, dedicated by them to the Sun. Therefore Tertullian refutes and harries them thus: "Equally, if we give the day of the sun", that is, the Lord's day, "to gladness, it is for a reason far other than religion or worship of the Sun" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XVI, p. 371). He is silent, indeed, about what that other reason is why they celebrated that day joyfully and indeed as a feast. But Barnabas has given it to us: "Therefore," he says, "we keep the eighth day", that is, the Lord's day, "in gladness, on which Jesus also rose from the dead, and when He had appeared, ascended into the heavens" (Epistle of Barnabas, § 15, p. 16). This Justin Martyr finely confirms, who, no differently from Barnabas and our Tertullian, openly declares that this day on which the Christians were accustomed to assemble was called the day of the sun: "on the day called of the sun", the day which is called the sun's (Justin, First Apology). It is called by the same name also in various laws of Constantine the Great, of Valentinian the younger and of Theodosius, on which Godefroy and others have made many observations elsewhere bearing on our subject (Theodosian Code, laws 1 and 2 on holidays, p. 118 and following).

Sometimes, too, it was called the Lord's day, or the Lord's solemnities, or simply the Lord's. For our Tertullian left it written: "How shall we celebrate the Lord's solemnities?" (Tertullian, book On Flight, last chapter.) And Cyprian, in his letter to the presbyters, deacons and the whole people, wrote: "Meanwhile on the Lord's day he read for us, that is, he inaugurated peace in dedicating the reading" (Cyprian, Letter XXXVIII, p. 57). And what, I beg you, is that reading but the one which was customarily made in the public assemblies of the Christians, as we shall say in the following chapter? If you desire something clearer, I would have you hear Eusebius, who has recorded that this custom of celebrating the Lord's day with solemn rite flowed from Christ the Lord: "He handed down that each week they should come together in one place and keep as a feast the day named the Lord's, and He provided that they should fatten their very bodies, but rekindle their souls with divine teachings." "He enjoined that each week, coming together into one, they should keep the Lord's day as a feast, and not fatten their bodies, but refresh their minds with divine precepts" (Eusebius, Oration in Praise of Constantine, ch. XVII, p. 664). And so Valesius interprets this passage of Eusebius, who does not doubt that before the word "to fatten" the particle "not" was omitted through a copyist's carelessness, because fattening does not befit Christians. And afterwards Epiphanius committed to writing this about the same celebration of the Lord's day: "This holy catholic Church holds all Lord's days to be days of delight, and performs assemblies from dawn; it does not fast." "The catholic Church has ordained all Lord's days to be festive and joyful, and solemn assemblies at the morning

hours it appoints, and it celebrates no fasts" (Epiphanius, Exposition of the Faith, § 22, p. 105). Elsewhere he informs us that this custom proceeds from the apostles (the same, Heresy of Arius, § 6, p. 910). There is plainly no need to heap up more on this matter, which is known to all. For it is enough to have proved to all that this day was rightly and deservedly instituted in honour of Christ, raised from the dead on this very day.

Therefore Tertullian goes on thus: "We come in second place after those who assign the day of Saturn to idleness and feasting, themselves too swerving from the Jewish custom, of which they are ignorant" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. XV, p. 357). But he set this out more fully and clearly elsewhere, where he addresses the gentiles in these words: "It is certainly you who have even received the sun into the list of the seven days, and from among the days have preferred that very one on which to omit the bath, or put it off till evening, or to attend to idleness or to dinner. This indeed you do, yourselves too swerving from your own rites to other religions. For the Jewish feasts, the sabbaths and the pure supper, and the Jewish rites of the lamps, and the fasts with unleavened bread, and the prayers on the shore, are certainly foreign to your gods. Wherefore, to return from the digression, you who reproach us with the sun and its day, recognize your nearness to us. We are not far from Saturn and your sabbaths" (the same, To the Nations, book I, ch. XIII, p. 579). But it is not easy to say whether these words, "prayers on the shore", are genuine and uncorrupted (Philo the Jew, Against Flaccus, p. 992, D). For if they were written by Tertullian, what is meant by them is still harder to say, and no one has tried to explain them in his notes. But did our Author perhaps aim at certain prayers of the Jews which the Jews were accustomed to pour out on the banks of rivers or springs before they were washed in their waters? He rebukes, then, the gentiles, who imputed it as a fault to the Christians that they kept the Lord's day as a feast. For these did not depart far from the sabbaths of the Jews and from the rite of the gentiles themselves, who had also named one day of the week after the sun.

Moreover, as Philo the Jew writes, although the several peoples and nations lived by their own proper and differing laws, yet there was none which "has not honoured that holy seventh day, granting rest from labours and ease to himself and to those near him, not to the free only but also to slaves, and indeed to beasts of burden": "which would not honour that sacred day recurring every week, bringing remission of labours and holidays to the father of the family together with his household, not the freeborn only but also the slaves, and the beasts of burden besides" (Philo, Life of Moses, book I, after the beginning, p. 657). We have another witness of the same nation, Josephus, who likewise declared: "There is no city of the Greeks, nor any barbarian one, nor any single nation, to which the custom of the seventh day, on which we rest, has not spread, and the fasts and the lighting of lamps." "There is no city of the Greeks or barbarians, nor any nation, to which the custom of the week on which we take rest has not come, and the fasts and the lit lampstands" (Josephus, Against Apion, book II, p. 1081). Finally, we have observed elsewhere (vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, diss. 2, ch. XVI, art. 1, p. 1117) that it is proved by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, through various testimonies of writers, that the seventh

day of the week was sacred to Jews and Greeks.

It should therefore be certain to everyone from what has been said so far, first, that the Christians celebrated the day of the sun, or the Lord's day, for a far different reason and with a different rite than the Jews and gentiles, of whom Lactantius too speaks, whatever some may have said. Secondly, that these same Christians on this day gave themselves to gladness, namely spiritual gladness; because all, from every side, as we have noted elsewhere from Justin Martyr (ibid., p. 25), flocked together into the same place and held their sacred assembly in the manner we have described. But our Tertullian has handed down more about it, which must now be unfolded.