Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XVIII. Tertullian a great Trial to the Church.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XVIII.
Tertullian a great Trial to the Church.
[46.] The case is the
same with Tertullian.490
| 490 Hardly anything is
known of Tertullian, besides what may be gathered from his works, in
addition to the following account given by St. Jerome (De Viris
Illustribus), which I quote from Bishop Kaye’s work on
Tertullian and his writings: “Tertullian, a presbyter, the first
Latin writer after Victor and Apollonius, was a native of the province
of Africa and city of Carthage, the son of a proconsular centurion. He
was a man of a sharp and vehement temper, flourished under Severus and
Caracalla, and wrote numerous works which, as they are generally known,
I think it unnecessary to particularize. I saw at Concordia, in Italy,
an old man named Paulus who said that, when young, he had met at Rome
with an aged amanuensis of the blessed Cyprian, who told him that
Cyprian never passed a day without reading some portion of
Tertullian’s works, and used frequently to say, ‘Give me my
master,’ meaning Tertullian. After remaining a presbyter of the
Church till he had attained the middle of life, Tertullian was by the
cruel and contumelious treatment of the Roman clergy driven to embrace
the opinions of Montanus, which he has mentioned in several of his
works, under the title of ‘The New Prophecy.’ He is
reported to have lived to a very advanced age.” He was born about
the middle of the second century, and flourished, according to the
dates indicated above, between the years 190 and 216. | For as Origen holds
by far the first place among the Greeks, so does Tertullian among the
Latins. For who more learned than he, who more versed in knowledge
whether divine or human? With marvellous capacity of mind he
comprehended all philosophy, and had a knowledge of all schools of
philosophers, and of the founders and upholders of schools, and was
acquainted with all their rules and observances, and with their various
histories and studies. Was not his genius of such unrivalled strength
and vehemence that there was scarcely any obstacle which he proposed to
himself to overcome, that he did not penetrate by acuteness, or crush
by weight? As to his style, who can sufficiently set forth its praise?
It was knit together with so much cogency of argument that it compelled
assent, even where it failed to persuade. Every word almost was a
sentence; every sentence a victory. This know the Marcions, the
Apelleses, the Praxeases, the Hermogeneses, the Jews, the Heathens, the
Gnostics, and the rest, whose blasphemies he overthrew by the force of
his many and ponderous volumes, as with so many thunderbolts. Yet this
man also, notwithstanding all that I have mentioned, this Tertullian, I
say, too little tenacious of Catholic doctrine, that is, of the
universal and ancient faith, more eloquent by far than
faithful,491
| 491 Fidelior, Baluz,
Felicior, others. | changed his belief,
and justified what the blessed Confessor, Hilary, writes of him,
namely, that “by his subsequent error he detracted from the
authority of his approved writings.”492
He
also was a great trial in the Church. But of Tertullian I am unwilling
to say more. This only I will add, that, contrary to the injunction of
Moses, by asserting the novel furies of Montanus493
| 493 Montanus, with his
two prophetesses, professed that he was intrusted with a new
dispensation,—a dispensation in advance of the Gospel, as the
Gospel was in advance of the Law. His system was a protest against the
laxity which had grown up in the Church, as has repeatedly been the
case after revivals of religious fervor, verifying Tertullian’s
apophthegm, “Christiani fiunt, non nascuntur” (men become
Christians, they are not born such). Its characteristics were extreme
ascetism, rigorous fasting, the exaltation of celibacy, the absolute
prohibition of second marriage, the expectation of our Lord’s
second advent as near at hand, the disparagement of the clergy in
comparison with its own Paraclete-inspired teachers. It had its rise in
Phrygia, and from thence spread throughout Asia Minor, thence it found
its way to Southern Gaul, to Rome, to North Western Africa, in which
last for a time it had many followers. | which arose in the Church, and those mad
dreams of new doctrine dreamed by mad women, to be true prophecies, he
deservedly made both himself and his writings obnoxious to the words,
“If there arise a prophet in the midst of
thee,”…“thou shalt not hearken to the words of that
prophet. “For why? “Because the Lord your God doth make
trial of you, whether you love Him or not.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
