I GIFT OF JANE KcSATHER CHURCH LIFE AND THOUGHT IN NORTH AFRICA A.D. 200 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Hottlron: FETTER LANE, E.G. C. F. CLAY, Manager flHiinbursi): 100, PRINCES STREET i3erlm: A. ASHER AND CO. leipjtg: F. A. BROCKHAUS m^ Sorfe: Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS »om6as anU ffalrutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. All rights reserved Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/churchlifethoughOOdonarich ^V K I The Tombstone of S. Perpetua, S. Felicitas, and their comrades. CHURCH LIFE AND THOUGHT IN NORTH AFRICA A.D. 200 by STUART A. DONALDSON, D.D, ' 1 Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge Cambridge : at the University Press 1909 -^ r (ffambrilrget PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. '< MATRI ET UXORI 376151 PREFACE 1% /TY aim in writing the following pages has been -^^^ twofold. On the one hand I have had in view those whom Tertullian calls " Simple folk — not to say ignorant and unlettered — who ever form the majority of Believing Christians^"; and I have endeavoured for their sake to draw a picture of the Church Life and Thought of North Africa in Tertullian's time, which will not demand a knowledge of Latin or Greek, nor call for more than the most elementary acquaintance with the problems of Church History: for their sake, I have made it a rule to translate all my references from Greek or Latin into English. On the other hand, I have not been without hopes that the passages I have tabulated in support of my statements may serve as a catena of references for the more serious student of Theology: I have therefore also made it a rule to subjoin in each case the original words of the passage translated. 1 Simplices quique — ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotae — quae major semper credentium pars est. adv. Prax. in. Vlll PREFACE In this way, I trust that this Essay may serve the double purpose of assisting those who are entering upon a serious study of Early Church History, and also of interesting a wider public. The search into the developments of Christian Doctrine and Practice in the Church of North Africa, as shewn particularly in the writings of TertuUian, has proved a delightful subject for myself: I hope it may be so to others also. STUART A, DONALDSON. The Lodge, Magdalene College, Cambridge. November 2Qth, 1909. I wish to express my thanks to the Divinity Professors, and especially to the Regius Professor of Divinity, in the University of Cambridge, for much kindness and many valuable suggestions. The Essay was submitted to them as a Thesis for the D.D. degree. I should like also to say how much I owe to the unfailing courtesy and patience of the authorities of the University Press. I have to acknowledge my obligations to the following books, viz. : Oehler's edition of The Works of TertulUan. (3 volumes, Weigel, Leipzig. 1854.) Bishop Kaye's Account of the Writings of Tertullian. (Riving- tons. 3rd edn. 1845.) Prof. Bigg's The ChurcKs Task under the Roman Empire. (Clarendon Press. 1905.) The Origins of Christianity. Ed. T. B. Strong. (Clarendon Press. 1909.) Glover's Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. (Methuen. 1909.) Bindley's edition of Tertullian's Apology. (Clarendon Press. 1889.) Translation with introduction &c. of Tertullian's Apology. (Parker. 1890.) Woodham's edition of Tertullian's Apology. (Deighton. 1850.) Monceaux's Tertullien et les Origines. (First Volume of Histoire Litteraire de VAfrique Chretienne.) (Leroux, Paris. 1901.) Leclercq's VAfrique Chretienne. (LecoflFre, Paris. 1904.) Adhemar d'Al^s' La Theologie de Tertullien. (Beauchesne, Paris. 1905.) Guignebert's Tertullien : JEtude sur ses sentiments d V4gard de V Empire et de la Society civile. (Leroux, Paris. 1901.) Kolberg's Verfassung, Cultus, und Disciplin der christlichen Kirche nach den Schriften Tertullians. (Wichert, Brauns- berg. 1886.) Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. TertuUianus, Montanus etc. Cabrol's Dictionnaire d^ Archeologie Chretienne, s.v. Africa. Cumont's Mysteries of Mithra, English Translation. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., London. 1903.) Bethune Baker's Introduction to Early History of Christian Doctrine. (Methuen. 1903.) Dill's Roman Society from Nero to M. Aurelius. (Macmillan, London. 1904.) Various magazine articles, and especially some by Professor Swete in the Joum, Theol. Studies and elsewhere. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 1 II. Sources of Information 10 III. Tertullian 21 IV. The Church in North Africa in Ter- tullian's Time. § i. Church Government. The Threefold order of ministry. The position of the Laity. 42 § ii. Baptism 54 § iii. The Agape. 66 § iv. The Eucharist 70 § V. Prayer. a. The de Oratione. .... 80 h. Turning to the East in Prayer. . 83 c. Attitude in Prayer. ... 83 d. Prayers for the dead. ... 86 § vi. Penance and the Forgiveness of Sins. . 88 § vii. Liturgy 92 § viii. The Creed 96 § ix. The Cross 101 § X. The Jews in North Africa. . . . 105 § xi. Heresy and Heretics 110 § xii. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. . 119 XU TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE V. North African Martyrs. § i. The Scillitan Martyrs 124 § ii. The Passion of S. Perpetua. . . . 128 VI. The Rivals of Christianity. . . . 138 § i. The Cult of Isis 139 § ii. The Cult of Mithra 148 § iii. Caesar Worship 158 VII. MONTANISM 166 VIII. The "Octavius" of Minucius Felix.. . 173 IX. The Bible in North Africa. . . . 179 X. Recapitulatory 183 Appendix. List of Tertullian's Works WITH probable dates 192 Index I. General 195 II. List of quotations from the writings of TertuUian . . . . 198 PHOTOGRAPHS. Tombstone of Perpetua. View of Timgad . The Theatre, Carthage The Amphitheatre " Salvum lotum ! " Frontispiece between pp. 2 and 3 to face p. 33 to face p. 124 to face p. 133 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Under the term " North Africa " we must include not only the Roman Province of Africa, but also the Kingdoms of Numidia and Maure tarda, all of which came more or less under the influence of Roman Rule and shared in the advantages as well as the disad- vantages incident thereto. The Dictator, C. Julius Caesar, had done much to reorganize the government of the country; in fact as Mommsen truly says, "Latin Africa is not much less his work than Latin Gaul." On the destruction of Carthage in B.C. 146, the Roman Province of Africa had been constituted : to this Caesar added part of Numidia, and "the old and the new Africa " included not only the modern state of Tunis, but also Tripoli and the French Province of Constan- tine : and this remained the constitution of the Roman Province until the end of the reign of Tiberius. In the year 37 A.D. it was arranged that the coast- land from Hippo (Bona) eastward to Cyrene should be called Africa and placed under the direction of the Proconsul : whereas the western part of the Province D. 1 2^\ i •"'^i y ^ '^ ^* '' 'i ii . INTRODUCTORY including Cirta (Constantine) the capital, and all the great military camps in the interior, was to be placed under the commander of the African Legion. The immediate result of this was the rapid de- velopment of the country. Under the skilful care of the Roman government, large permanent camps for the maintenance of their troops were prepared, connected with one another by roads, and before the end of the first century A.D. North Africa became one of the most populous, fertile, and highly cultivated regions of the Roman Empire. Carthage itself was indisputably the second city of the Latin half of the Empire : next to Rome it was the most lively, perhaps also the most corrupt, city of the West, and the most important centre of Latin culture and literature. From Carthage radiated the network of roads, traces of which still survive after more than 1000 years of Mussulman rule : and travellers to-day in Tunis and Algeria are amazed at the evidences of Roman civili- zation and power which meet them at every turn. Theveste (Tebessa) 190 miles S.W. of Carthage was a military centre of great importance : founded during the reign of Vespasian it was the headquarters of the Third Augustan Legion and the centre of defence against the inroads of Berbers, standing as it did at the junction of nine roads. Towards the end of the second century A.D. it was surpassed in its wealth and importance only by Carthage, and under Septimius • • • • ,• • • • '• • • • • .• • •: • • •: Timgad (Thamugas). INTRODUCTORY 3 Severus it reached a high degree of prosperity and became the central trade depot of the country. About 100 miles due west of Theveste, we reach the " Pompeii " of Africa, Timgad, ancient Thamugadis or Thamugas, a colony apparently founded by Trajan, and handed over to the Thirtieth Legion, the Ulpia Victrix, to recompense its veterans for their share in his victory over the Parthians, and also as entrusting them with a position of great military importance. (A general view of the present condition of the remains is given in the adjoining photograph.) Eighteen or nine- teen miles west of Timgad, on the way to Batna, lies another important military centre, Lambese (Lamhessay or Lambaesis), built about 169 A.D. as the new head- quarters of the Third Augustan Legion, ultimately becoming a city of some 60,000 inhabitants, and the headquarters of the Roman army. It was in imme- diate communication with Cirta, Calama (Gelma), and Hippo Regius (Bona), as well as with stations to the south towards the desert; the modern El Kantara (Calceus Herculis), and Biskra (Beskera), and eastwards to Ain Khenschla (Mascula), one of Trajan's colonies. In fact the whole country bears on every side marked traces of Roman vigour and enterprise, even after the long period of Arab domination, and the great im- portance of the district to the Roman Empire is very clearly brought to the notice of everyone who travels there to-day. 1—2 4» INTRODUCTORY The N. and N.W. portions of the province of Africa were the great corn-producing areas : even in the time of Augustus, while one third of Roman corn came from Egypt, another third was sent by North Africa. Later on, in the fourth century, Africa was the chief source of the oil used for Roman baths, though it was of inferior quality to that from Italy and Spain, less skill being used in its preparation. We also find that .the export trade of horses and cattle from Numidia and Mauretania was extensive. Altogether, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the part played by N. Africa of the second and third centuries in the development of European history: for although geo- graphically part of Africa, Tunis and Algeria really belong to Europe : a fact which is delightfully brought home to the reader in Mr Belloc's brilliant Essay> Esto Perpetua. Thus North Africa must be understood to be that part of Africa which the Arabs, with their eye for the configuration of natural features, have called Djezirat- N el-Maghreb, "The Isle of the West," a district with the modern Tunis for its centre, jutting out from the African continent towards Sicily and Italy, bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the south and east by the desert of the Sahara, and on the west by the Atlantic ocean. The great range of Atlas runs along its whole course from east to west, causing the ^ country to look northwards towards Europe, rather INTRODUCTORY 6 than southwards towards Africa: it is in fact an " annexe of Europe," and since the foundation by the Phoenicians of its metropolis Carthage, with its com- manding position on what is now the Bay of Tunis, its history has had to do with Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean rather than with its own continent. After nearly 150 years of rivalry and conflict, Carthage had been obliged to submit to the might of Rome, but before long she had reappeared after her eclipse, and resumed her position as one of the world-centres of trade, though she could be no longer formidable as a military power. It was doubtless through Carthage that Christianity reached the interior, and found there almost as wonderful a fusion of races as go to make up the Anglo-Saxons. Not to speak of the aboriginal Libyans, who appear so little in history that they may be passed by, we find the "African" type consists of an inter- fusion of indigenous Berbers and Moors on the one hand, with Phoenicians and Europeans — Italians or Greeks — on the other: these again naturally divided themselves into men of the mountain, the plain, and the sea coast, each with their marked characteristics, and each contributing their share to the development of the national type. So far as the Church of North Africa is concerned, we find its whole genius summarized as well as typified in the three great names of Tertullian, Cyprian and 6 INTRODUCTORY Augustine : apart from these three, though it produced men of action, it gave to the world no great thinker, no great poet, no great representative of literature \ But these three leaders are enough in themselves to redeem any society from the charge of being ordinary or commonplace, and are indicative of the strong vitality that underlay the quiet surface of the national life. Mommsen has well said (Prov. Rom. Emp. vol. ii. p. 343) "In the development of Christianity Africa plays the very first part: if it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became the religion for the world... If Christianity was by the destruction of the Jewish Church-state released from its Jewish basis, it became the religion of the world by the fact, that in the great world-empire it began to speak the universally current imperial language : and those nameless men, who since the second century Latinized the Christian writings. ..were in part Italians, but above all Africans. In Africa, to all appearance, the knowledge of Greek, which is able to dispense with translations, was far more seldom to be met with than at least in Rome : and, on the other hand, the oriental element, that preponderated particularly in the early stages of Christianity, here found a readier reception than in the other Latin-speaking lands of the west. 1 The writer is not forgetful of the claims of Arnobius, Lactantius, and Apuleius. INTRODUCTORY 7 Even as regards the polemic literature called especially into existence by the new faith, since the Roman Church at this epoch belonged to the Greek circle, Africa took the lead in the Latin tongue. The whole Christian authorship down to the end of this period is,' so far as it is Latin, African : Tertullian and Cyprian were from Carthage, Amobius from Sicca, Lactantius, and probably in like manner Minucius Felix, were, in spite of their classic Latin, Africans, and not less the somewhat later Augustine. In Africa the growing Church found its most zealous confessors, and its most gifted defenders. For the literary conflict of the Faith Africa furnished by far the most and the ablest com- batants, whose special characteristics, now in eloquent discussion, now in witty ridicule of fables, now in vehement indignation, found a true and mighty field for their display in the onslaught on the old gods." Ethnographically, the aboriginals of " North Africa " are to be distinguished most sharply from the Blacks of the south and also from the Egyptians of the east. They appear near Tangier as Amazigh, in the Sahara as Im6shagh, as Maxyes at the foundation of Carthage, as Mazices in the Roman period : but however marked may have been their characteristics in early days, they are hardly to be distinguished now from the many and various stocks with which they have intermingled. The origin of the generic term Afer and the name Africa is unknown ; all we can say is that it is the name 8 INTRODUCTORY applied to all the inhabitants of the continent lying over against Sicily, especially to the Phoenicians. Libyans is the term applied to the easterly tribes, coming in contact with Egypt. Numidians (= Nomades) is the name associated most with King Masinissa: the name Mauri is restricted to the inhabitants of the western portion of the sea-board, the Gaetulians lying to the S. of the Mauri. Berber is the generic term applied originally on their arrival by the Arabs to the northern tribes, and now including all of non- Arabic descent, among whom may be especially mentioned the Kabyles. The Berber language has survived even to the present day: on the other hand, the Phoenicians, who from Carthage dominated N. Africa for some 600 years, have left no public document extant after the time of Tiberius, though their language was in use till the end of the fourth century. It is Latin which takes the place of Punic as the official tongue, and not Greek, as already noticed. This we find to be the case too with Punic urban organization: though it was at first adopted by the Komans for their government of the country, it gradually gave way to " Italian Rights," as we see in the case of Utica, under Julius Caesar and Augustus: and this form of government was much extended under Trajan. The bulk of the population to-day is Arab : these, as their name implies, came from Arabia, and overran the country in the middle of the seventh century A.D. INTRODUCTORY 9 Since then Christianity has only been allowed to exist on sufferance, and the high degree of civilization and prosperity attained under the Roman Rule was lost, never to be regained till now. To-day, under the care of France, there is good prospect of N. Africa resuming her old position of importance : the varied beauty and attractiveness of her country, the healthiness of her climate, and the resources of her soil, lead one to hope that this prospect may be realized, and that this de- lightful region may once more take its part in the History of Europe, to which rather than to the " Dark Continent " it rightly belongs. CHAPTER II SOURCES OF INFORMATION The Church in North Africa at the end of the second and beginning of the third century presents itself to us in the writings of Tertullian as an organization com- plete and matured, full of life and vigour, progressive and hopeful. But we are baffled when we try to outline the birth and gradual development of this vigorous community. It is possible that Christianity was intro- duced into Carthage from the East, with which it had numerous ties through trade and commerce; while it had special relations with the metropolis of the Empire, it cannot be said that it owed its Christianity to Rome more than to Antioch or Alexandria or Jeru- salem itself \ 1 At the same time it must be remembered that Tertullian asserts that African Christianity owed much to Rome. He says, while urging Heretics to bow to the authority of Apostolic churches, *' If you are near Italy, you have Rome, where there is for us also an authority close at hand.... See what it has learnt, what it has taught, and what it has held also in common with the churches of Africa." He then proceeds to summarize the chief points of Faith and practice common to both. (Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam, unde nobis quoque auctoritas praesto est....Videamus quid didicerit, quid docuerit, cum Africanis quoque ecclesiis contesserarit. de Praes. Haeret. xxxvi.) SOURCES OF INFORMATION 11 The evidence of French excavations at Tunis shews that for some time Jews and Christians used common cemeteries, and so must have lived more or less amicably together : but this state of affairs did not last long, and by Tertullian's time we find the Jews among the most vehement persecutors of the Christians. "All outside the Christian Faith are its enemies, especially the Jews," he says, "in consequence of their jealous rivalry V To the outside Gentile world, there was often con- fusion between Jews and Christians, and either sect often found it necessary to disclaim connexion with the other: but there seems no reason to doubt that in Carthage, as in other parts of the world, the regular annual visits of Jews to Jerusalem kept up a close con- nexion between those two centres, and at an early date introduced at least a knowledge of Christian Faith and practice into the Province of Africa. Whatever its origin, there can be no doubt that once introduced Christianity made rapid progress in North Africa, and this is perhaps largely due to the fact that underlying all their polytheism, the Pagans of that district had firmly grasped the idea of a supreme Deity, and so were ready to welcome the monotheism of Christianity, with its high ethical standard of teaching and conduct. For an investigation into the condition of the ^ Tot hostes ejus (sc. disciplinae) quot extranei, et quidem proprie ex aemulatione Judaei. Apol. vii. 12 SOURCES OF INFORMATION Christian Church in North Africa, we have three chief sources of information : (1) Inscriptions : (2) Buildings : (3) Writings. As our present enquiry concerns only the condition of the Church about the year 200 A.D. these sources of information become much curtailed: (8) practically resolves itself into the writings of Ter- tullian, (2) is non-existent, except in the cemeteries, (1) can give us but few examples, and they are often of doubtful value. (1) Inscriptions. There are two epitaphs which seem to be undoubtedly Christian and to belong to our period. First, there is the inscription of Rasinia Secunda who died at Tipasa A.D. 238 {C.I.L. viii. 9289)^ RASINIA SECVNDA REDD. XVI KAL. NOVEM. P. CLXXXXVIIII (Rasinia Secunda redd(-idit spiritum) xvi Kalend. Novembres, (anno) P(rovinciae) 199=238 A.D.). Secondly, there is the epitaph of a Christian Lady as her name shews, who was buried at Giufi ( = Henscher Mscherga) before the year 227 A.D. Her husband was perhaps connected with the Proconsul C. Quintilius Marcellus. The inscription runs thus: ^ See Leclercq, UAfrique Chretienne, i. p. 51. SOURCES OF INFORMATION 13 PESCENNIA QVOD VVL (51c)'DEVS H. M. F. BONIS NATALIBVS NATA . MATRONALITER NVPTA . VXOR CASTA MATER PIA GENVIT FILI OS . Ill . ET FILIAS . II . VIXIT ANNIS . XXX . P . VICTORI NA . VIXIT . ANNIS . VII . P. SVNNIVS . VIXIT .ANNIS III . P . MARCVS VIXIT ANNIS . II . P . MARCEL LVS . VIXIT . ANNV . I . P . FO RTVNATA . VIXIT . ANNIS XIII . M . VIII . P MARCEL LVS CONIVGI DIGNAE SED ET FILIS FILIABVS I^VE NOSTRIS ME VI VO MEMORIAM FECI OMNIBVS ESSE PERENNEM^ " Pescennia God's-will — honestae memoriae femina — a lady of honourable memory — well born — duly wedded — a chaste wife — an affectionate mother — bore three sons and two daughters and died aged 30 : her children were Pescennia Victorina who lived seven years : Pescennius Sunnius lived three years : P. Marcus two : P. Marcellus one : P. Fortunata 13 years and eight months. I, Pescen- nius Marcellus who survive them, have erected this 1 C.I.L. VIII. 870. 14 SOURCES OF INFORMATION tombstone to be an everlasting memorial for all to see, to my dearest wife and our sons and daughters^" It is worth noticing that a similar phrase was used a few years previously to describe the Martyr S. Perpetua: Vibia Perpetua, honeste nata, liheraliter instituta, matronaliter 'nupta\ Such inscriptions as the foregoing do not take us very far into the inner life of the North African Christians of our period, though the second reveals the fact that a Roman of high rank could have a Christian wife and be tenderly devoted to her : whether he also himself was Christian, does not appear^. (2) Buildings. There were no buildings used exclusively as churches in North Africa at the be- ginning of the third century, but cemeteries, like the catacombs at Rome, formed the first meeting places 1 Leclercq, I.e. p. 52. 2 See the Dean of Westminster's Passion of S. Perpetua, p. 62. 3 Tertullian mentions another Proconsul, Claudius Lucius Her- minianus (or Gerominianus) of Cappadocia, who had a Christian wife, and in consequence persecuted the Christians. Suffering from some loathsome disease which bred worms, and deserted by all in his palace, he exclaimed, *' Let no one know of this, lest Christian men rejoice and Christian women hope." Afterwards, he acknowledged that he had been wrong in forcing Believers under torture to abjure their faith, and died "almost a Christian." (Claudius Lucius Her- minianus in Cappadocia, cum, indigne ferens uxorem suam ad hanc sectam transisse, Christianos crudeliter tractasset, solusque inpraetorio suo vastatus peste convivis vermibus ebullisset, "nemo sciat," aiebat, **ne gaudeant Christiani aut sperent Christianae." Postea, cognito errore suo, quod tormentis quosdam a proposito suo excidere fecisset, paene Christianus decessit. ad Scap. iii.) SOURCES OF INFORMATION 15 of the Christians, both for retirement and for worship. The excavations of French archaeologists have revealed many interesting points, and we owe much to the enthusiasm and zeal of the White Fathers, a missionary- order instituted by Cardinal Lavigerie, to whom and especially to Pere Delattre is due the establishment of the museum at Carthage, with its unique collection of discoveries made in the neighbourhood: these throw light not only upon Punic, Greek, and Roman history, but also give us priceless information as to the customs and life of Christians in North Africa during a prolonged period \ As has been pointed out by many writers — notably Sir William Ramsay — the early Christians earned their recognition as a legally constituted body in the eyes of the state by enrolling themselves as members of a j Burial Club : their cemeteries were recognized as the lawful property of the community, and they themselves ^ In his brochure Un Pelerinage aux mines de Carthage et au musee Lavigerie (J. Poncet, 18 Rue Francois-Dauphin, Lyon) Pere Delattre quotes several Christian inscriptions found in various places, but particularly in the Great Basilica of Damous-el-Karita. Here have been discovered more than 14,000 fragments of Christian epitaphs, containing more than 400 different names (p. 106), but as these necessarily belong to a period later than a.d. 200, they must not detain us here. Among those specially named however by Pere Delattre (p. 63) we notice QVOD VVLT DEVS FIDELIS IN PACE a parallel to the epitaph of Pescennia quoted above. 16 SOURCES OF INFORMATION were allowed to assemble at the spot where their dead lay buried ; and so for North Africa at least the ceme- f teries — areae — became the first churches, and the tombs of martyrs the first altars: though it must be re- membered that there was neither church nor altar proper, till a much later date. We find therefore that the first cry of the populace in time of persecution was " away with the cemeteries ! " and Tertullian with bitter play upon the word, which means "threshing floor" as well as "cemetery," says "No state can tolerate with impunity the shedding of Christian blood : in the procuratorship of Hilarianus^ when the people shouted, with reference to the fields belonging to our burial places, 'Away with the burial fields ' (areae), their own fields (areae) suffered : for they gathered in none of their crops V A good example of one of these areae has been excavated at a place called Cherchel some 60 or 70 miles west of Algiers on the coast (the ancient Gaesarea near Tenez — ancient Gartennae) which apparently be- longs to our period, the time of the persecutions of Septimius Severus. Here we find the burial ground (hortus) in the middle of which is a small enclosure of some 30 yards by 15, surrounded by a lofty wall, and 1 Under whom SS. Perpetua and Felicitas suffered, a.d. 203. 2 ad Scap. iii. Doleamus necesse est, quod nulla civitas impune latura sit sanguinis nostri effusionem : sicut et sub Hilariano praeside^ cum de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamassent, Areae non sint I areae ipsorum non fuerunt : messes enim suas non egerunt. SOURCES OF INFORMATION 17 only accessible by a single door (area muro cincta, or area martyrum, or casa major). This formed a veritable sanctuary, in the centre of which is found a vaulted shrine {cello) covering the tombstone of a martyr which takes the shape of a table (mensa). At this table as at an altar was celebrated the Eucharist, the oflficiating clergy taking up their position under the vaulted dome, as in a kind of apse, the congregation standing all round outside \ Such seems to have been the earliest form of church in North Africa, whither the Christian com- munity could betake themselves outside the city walls, and find privacy, and in case of need a safe refuge. But besides these areae there must also have been a common meeting place within the city itself, probably the actual house where the bishop lived, or some hall in connexion with it. It must be this to which Ter- tullian refers when (in de Virgin, vel. xiii.) he argues that unmarried girls who wear the veil of their virginity in the streets, ought also to wear it in church, where it seems to have been the custom, at Carthage at least, for virgins to attend unveiled: "As they veil their head among the heathen, in church they certainly should hide their maidenhood which they conceal outside of the church. They are afraid of outsiders, they say : let them reverence also the brethren : or else let them be consistent and dare to be seen as virgins in the streets also, as they do in church.... Why do they hide away 1 Monceaux, i. p. 14 : Leclercq, i. p. 58. D. 2 18 SOURCES OF INFORMATION their advantages abroad, but make them public in church^?" That this custom was not universal, but varied in different churches, appears from a passage in de Orat. xxi, " But this point must be dealt with, which is observed differently in different churches as a matter of uncertainty: I mean, whether virgins ought to be veiled or not (sc. in church)^," Tertullian speaks of the church as an actual edifice in de Pudic. iv. where he says that the excommunication of gross and unnatural offenders against morality is "not only from the threshold of the church but from the whole building^." Although the Christians of North Africa erected no buildings specially set apart as churches for another \ century, yet even in Tertullian's time, in the atria of the private houses where meetings were held, it would seem that special seats of honour were reserved for the clergy*: we read in de Exhort. Castit vil. "The * Ut apud ethnicos caput velant, certe in ecclesia virginitatem suam abscondant quam extra ecclesiam celant. Timent extraneos, revereantur et fratres : aut constanter audeant et in vicis virgines videri, sicutaudent in ecclesiis...,Quo ergo foris quidem bonum suum abstrudunt, in ecclesia vero provulgant ? 2 Sed quod promiscue observatur per ecclesias quasi incertum, id retractandum est, velarine debeant virgines an non. The whole dis- cussion of course turns on the interpretation of 1 Cor. xi. 2 — 16. * Eeliquas autem libidinum furias impias et in corpora et in sexus ultra jura naturae, non modo limine verum omni ecclesiae tecto submovemus, quia non sunt delicta sed monstra. * Monceaux, p. 16. SOURCES OF INFORMATION 19 authority of the church has arranged a difference between the clergy and the laity and a sanctified dignity is added by the special seats allotted to the clergy \" He seems to imply the existence of an altar in several passages, e.g. de oral, xxviii. " We are the true worshippers and the true priests, who praying in the spirit, in the spirit offer up prayer as a sacrifice, a victim peculiarly acceptable unto God.... This victim we ought to bring with whole hearted devotion, fed by faith, nurtured on truth, of spotless innocence, and blameless chastity, crowned with the Agape, accompanied by a train of good works amid psalms and hymns to the altar of God, sure to obtain from God all our requests^." So ibid. XIX. " Will not your fast day be all the more solemn, if you also stand at God's altar^ ? " In another passage ibid. XI. we have allusion to S. Matt. v. 23 f. " We must not go up to the altar of God, until we have reconciled any discord or cause of offence between our- selves and our brethren*." ^ Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit ecclesiae auctori- tas, et honor per ordinis consessum sanctificatus. 2 Nos sumus veri adoratores et veri sacerdotes, qui spiritu orantes spiritu sacrificamus orationem hostiam Dei propriam et accepta- bilem...Hanc de to to corde devotam, fide pastam, veritate curatam, innocentia integram, castitate mundam, agape coronatam cum pompa operum bonorum inter psalmos et hymnos deducere ad Dei altare debemus, omnia nobis a Deo impetraturam. 3 Nonne solemnior erit static tua, si et ad aram Dei steteris ? * Ne prius ascendamus ad altare Dei, quam si quid discordiae vel offensae cum fratribus contraxerimus resolvamus. 2—2 20 SOURCES OF INFORMATION (3) Writings. Tertullian is here the chief source of our information, and a more detailed account of him and his writings must be reserved till the next chapter. A fall list of his extant works will be found in the Appendix. CHAPTER III TERTULLIAN No one has ever ventured to class Tertullian among the " Saints " : in some respects his life was anything but saintly, and he ended it by becoming the vigorous opponent of the orthodox Church for which he had done so much. He would be the last to claim the title for himself: he is very conscious of his own shortcomings which he laments on several occasions. Nevertheless in my opinion he deserves to be called a Saint for his whole-hearted devotion to highest ideals, his uncom- promising demand for truth in all his enquiries, and his passionate love for the person of Christ; at all events, no one would refuse him his place as a Leader of thought and religious life. There can be no doubt that the Church at large and particularly the Western Church owes him a debt of gratitude which is quite inestimable: for to him, more than to most, is due the orderly logical position of Christian though t,and even the very language whereby the statement of that position is rendered possible. I hope to make this claim good by what 22 TERTULLIAN follows, and also to shew what an impetus the preaching of the Gospel and the spread of Christianity received at the end of the second century of our era from the vigorous personality, the burning zeal, and the remarkable abilities of this gifted man. Of the actual facts of his life, there is not much to say. His full name was Q. Septimius Florens Tertullianus, and he seems to have been the son of a "proconsular centurion" resident at Carthage^. We may assign the date of his birth to about the year / 160 A.D. and the city of his birth, Carthage, probably provided him with his early education. It was at Carthage that he spent most of his days, and it was there that he found the scene of his manifold activities. There can be no doubt that he passed part of his youth at Rome, where he must have studied law to some purpose : for though there is no evidence that he prac- tised as a jurisconsult, his knowledge of Roman law is minute and intimate, as appears again and again from his writings. In all probability he was bom a pagan, but he must 1^ have been converted to Christianity before 195 A.D. Not long after his conversion he published his famous Apologeticum, perhaps in the year 197, of which more presently. There is some reason to think that he 1 So S. Jerome, de vir. illus. 53. Bp Kaye explains the term •'Proconsular Centurion" as an "officer who was constantly in attendance of the Proconsul to receive his commands " (p. 6, n.). TERTULLIAN 23 was ordained priest in or about the year 200, and that by the year 213 he had joined the Montanists and was ranked as a heretic by the orthodox. After that, dates become very uncertain : Jerome speaks of his dying in extreme old age but we are unable to place his death more definitely than by saying that it occurred between 220 and 240. He was a prolific writer and his authentic works still extant number no fewer than 31 ^ some of which are of considerable length : but throughout these writings, historical allusions are singularly few, and we possess but scanty data for reconstructing the events of his life. Of that life however it is clear that the key- note was his constant struggle against what he felt to be wrong : he was a fighter by nature and by training, and he went straight at his point without fear of consequences or thought of style : his abilities, learning, and memory were prodigious : his versatility immense. But he lacked sense of proportion, and had no critical judgment to keep him straight in the midst of his polemics. With these few preliminary remarks, we may turn to the examination of his writings and attempt to reconstruct the man from what he says himself. But before doing so it will be well to say a word or two about the historical setting of his life. The Roman empire was already shewing symptoms 1 See Appendix. 24 TERTULLIAN of that decay which was ere long to culminate in due disaster. The emperors of the second century, able administrators, capable generals, to a large extent honest and true-hearted patriots, such as Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, had been succeeded in 180 by the son of the last named, Commodus, the worthless offspring of a worthy sire : on the last day of the year 192 poison had been admin- istered to him by his mistress Marcia, but as it failed to act he had been strangled by a professional wrestler. After that follows a period of stress and turmoil from which the African soldier known to us as Septimius Severus eventually emerges and makes good his title to be emperor. His rivals Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Niger, and Albinus one after another disappear, the first two murdered, the two others defeated in battle. Septimius Severus, who was born in Leptis in North Africa, is an emperor of special interest to us, as he spent the last four years of his life in Britain and died at York Feb. 4, 211. He left the empire to his sons Caracalla and Geta, and in the following year the elder, Caracalla, murdered his brother Geta in the arms of his mother Julia Domna, who was herself wounded by her own son in attempting to save his brother. Caracalla was him- self assassinated in 217. Commodus had given his subjects so much to occupy their attention by his extravagances and eccentrici- ties that they had not paid much attention to the TERTULLIAN 25 Christians while he lived. But Severus' edict of 202^ forbidding both Jews and Christians to proselytize gave those who hated Christianity in the provinces an excuse for interference, and persecution became a conspicuous feature in the daily experience of Christians in North Africa. Traces of these turbulent times are very evident throughout Tertullian's writings, and his strenuous life and character fit in well with his surroundings. Carthage the scene of his birth and life-work was of course one of the most important towns on the southern seaboard of the Mediterranean, and in the earlier days had been a formidable rival of Rome her- self as mistress of the world. Even to-day its modern representative Tunis under French protection and guidance is a place of considerable importance, and may be increasingly so as time goes on, strategically, commercially, and imperially. In Tertullian's day it was the seat of the Roman government of North Africa, and by the strength of its position, the variety of its trade interests, and the attractiveness of its sunny climate, drew to itself a vast population, not only Phoenician — Carthage according to tradition was founded , fi-om T3rre and Sidon — not only indigenous Berbers, 1 Recorded by Spartian, who wrote under Diocletian nearly 100 years later. Vita Severi, xvii. In itinere Palaestinis plurima jura fundavit. Judaeos fieri sub gravi poena vetuit: idem etiam de Christianis sanxit. 26 TERTULLIAN Numidians and Moors from Africa itself, bub also inhabitants of all parts of the Mediterranean, a veritable congeries of manifold languages and nation- alities. By the time of Tertullian Christianity had become a very important factor in the life of the Province of North Africa. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, writing in 256 {Ep. LXXiii.) speaks of the presence of no I fewer than 71 bishops from proconsular Africa and Numidia gathered at the first council of Carthage about 220 A.D. and in the same letter he mentions that 84 bishops had been present at a synod held the previous year, A.D. 255. Tertullian's own words on the subject may be rhetorical, but there must be a sub- stratum of truth : he says " (The Romans) loudly declare that their state is beset, that Christians meet them everywhere, in the country, in the walled villages, in * the islands: they lament, as though it were to their own loss, that both sexes, all ages and conditions of men, even all ranks, are crossing over to this name^'* Again, " We are but of yesterday, and we have filled all that belongs to you, your cities, your islands, your villages, your borough towns, your councils, even your camps, your tribes, decuries, palace, senate, forum. We ^ Obsessam vociferantur civitatem ; in agris, in castellis, in insulis Christianos: omnem sexum, aetatem, condicionem etiam dignitatem transgredi ad hoc nomen quasi detrimento moerent. Apol. I. TERTULLIAN 27 have only left you your temples. We can count your armies : (the Christians) of a single province will be found to be more numerous ^" Again, he speaks of the Christians as " So vast a multitude, almost the majority in each state V' and once more, he says, "There is no race to-day which is not Christian^." The Gospel had even penetrated the wilds of Britain, "inaccessible to the Romans, but subdued by Christ*." And there are several other passages to the same effect^. How Christianity found its way to Carthage originally must remain uncertain^. Some think that? it came by way of Rome, "all roads lead to Rome," but many prefer to regard its source as Eastern, and consider that the undoubted presence of vast numbers of Jews in the district gives strength to the view that the Gospel reached North Africa straight^ from Judaea. However that may be, we find the Christian com- munity very numerous at Carthage towards the end ^ Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa, tribus, decurias, pala- tium, senatum, forum : sola vobis reliquimus templa. Possumus dinumerare exercitus vestros ; unius provinciae plures erunt. Apol. XXXVII. ^ Tanta hominum multitude, pars paene major civitatis cujusque. ad Scap. II. ^ Non ulla gens non Christiana, ad Natt. i. viii. * Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita. adv. Jud. VII. ^ See Bindley's Apol. xxxvii. note. * See above, ch. ii. in. 28 TERTULLIAN of the second century, when Tertullian began his writings. The passages quoted above from the Apo- logy were almost certainly written in the year 197, perhaps not long after Tertullian's conversion to Christianity. The treatise itself is possibly the earliest of his writings — it may have been preceded by the ad Nationes and ad Martyras — and was written in Latin. And here we may pause to emphasize the importance of that fact, and to assign to Tertullian the credit of inventing and perfecting a phraseology in that language for the purposes of controversy which has survived ever since, and has been the foundation of all subsequent developments of ecclesiastical style. Until Tertullian the only language available had been Greek: even at Rome in the first century, S. Paul must have addressed the Church in that language : all his letters were written in Greek : Greek in fact was the lingua franca for all the civilized world, and the only recognized medium of communication. Tertullian is the first author in the Christian Church of any eminence^ who wrote in Latin, and he had to invent many new terms and to employ novel methods of expression in order to convey to his readers the new thoughts and ideas with which his own mind was 1 Of Victor, who was Pope of Rome 189—198 or 199, also a native of North Africa, who wrote some works in Latin, according to S. Jerome, see lower, chapter v. p. 125. These have all perished. The four Latin letters ascribed to him, one of which is addressed ad Africanos, are undoubtedly apocryphal. Of. Monceaux, p. 54 n. TERTULLIAN 29 SO fully charged. The style he employs is compressed in the extreme, often crabbed and even uncouth : but there is no doubt that it is forceful and effective. The Apology was called forth by the general attitude of the heathen populace at Carthage towards Chris- tians ; it is no meek defence of the Christian position, but a vigorous onslaught into the very heart of heathen- dom. Tertullian carries the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance. Hear for instance the vehemence of his invective against idols : " As to your gods, I see merely the names of some old dead folk, and I hear fables about them, and I recognize sacred rites founded on those fables : and as to the idols themselves, I gather nothing else than this ; that they are materials akin to the vessels and utensils in common use, or even that they are made of those very same vessels and utensils, as though they could change their destination by being consecrated, transformed by the license accorded to skilled workmanship, and that too in the most out- rageous and sacrilegious way in the very act of their transformation ; the result is that we who are punished on account of those very gods, can more than other people actually derive consolation in our punishment from the fact that they themselves also suffer in just the same way, in order that they may come into existence at all\" 1 Quantum igitur de Diis vestris, nomina solummodo video quo- rundam veterum mortuorum, et fabulas audio, et sacra de fabulis recognosco ; quantum autem de simulacris ipsis, nihil aliud depre- 30 TERTULLIAN Again, he contrasts the true love among Christians with its spurious counterfeit to be found among the heathen : " But even the working of so great a love as ours merely brands us with a bad mark in the eyes of some of them. See, they say, how these Christians love one another: yes, for they themselves only hate one another : See how ready they are to die for each other : yes, for they themselves will be found more ready to kill each other. Further, we recognize one another by the common name of Brethren ; for this they defame us, for no other reason I suppose than because amongst them- selves there is no name of kinship but what is a sham and affectation \" He protests vigorously against the readiness to con- demn Christians unheard, and says they are so far from deserving punishment that they ought to be thanked publicly as the most law-abiding, peaceable, and entirely praiseworthy part of the population. The most ridiculous charges, he cries, are brought hendo, quain materias sorores esse vasculorum instrumentorumque communium, vel ex iisdem vasculis et instrumentis quasi fatum consecratione mutantes, licentia artis transfigurante, et quidem con- tumeliosissime et in ipso opere sacrilege, ut re vera nobis maxime, qui propter deos ipsos plectimur, solatium poenarum esse possit, quod eadem et ipsi patiuntur, ut fiant. Apol. xii. 1 Sed ejusmodi vel maxime dilectionis operatio notam nobis inurit penes quosdam. Vide, inquiunt, ut invicem se diligant ; qui enim invicem oderunt : et ut pro alterutro mori sint parati ; qui enim ad occidendum alterutrum paratiores erunt. Sed et quod fratrum appellatione censemur, non alias, opinor, infamant quam quod apud ipsos omne sanguinis nomen de affectations simnlatum est. Apol, XXXIX. TERTULLIAN 31 against them. They are accused of Thyestean orgies, in which they eat the flesh of infant children, followed by nameless revels of bestiality and incest. Ought not men who themselves are guilty of such crimes in the rites of their heathen worship to blush before Christians who are incapable of like excesses^ ? In short he flings back into the teeth of his opponents far blacker taunts and charges than could possibly be sustained against innocent Christians : persecution he says is an illegality: not only are its victims free from blame, but the evils of paganism are blatant, vile, and known to all : they cannot be concealed or denied : and he goes on to prove that not only is its philosophy futile and helpless, but also the morality inculcated by Christianity is infinitely higher, and its spiritual influence over its votaries most remarkable. Is there not something essentially modern and familiar in this attitude of mind ? We sympathize with his vigorous outspokenness, his uncompromising straightforwardness, his unfearing denunciations of the lower and his appreciation of the higher ideal: his very combativeness appeals to our Anglo-Saxon instincts, and his fiery invectives still stir our sluggish northern blood, as they come to us across the ages: ^ No doubt this charge so freely brought against Christians, of eating infant flesh and so forth, had its origin in their mysterious allusions to the sacred rites of the Eucharist, the partaking of the Blessed Body and Blood of our Lord. 32 TERTULLIAN we have a fellow feeling with his manliness and recognize in him a Leader we could follow. Space allows the quotation of only one or two more instances of his manner and style : " Oh good presidents," he cries, " go on with your work, sure to be in far better favour with the people, if you sacrifice Christians for them. Torture, rack, condemn, grind us to powder: we raise no objection : for your injustice is the proof of our innocence. Therefore it is that God suffers us to suffer thus. Why, only the other day, when you condemned a Christian woman to the pander rather than the panther you acknowledged that a stain on chastity is considered among us a more awful thing than any punishment or any death. And yet all your cruelty, growing ever more and more refined, profits you not a whit : rather it is an attraction to our sect. The more often we are mown down by you, the more we grow in number : the blood of Christians is the seed (of the Church) All sins receive pardon in the act (of martyrdom). Hence it is that at the very moment of your pronouncing sentence against us, we give thanks : for as the Divine is the antithesis of the human, so when you condemn us, God acquits us^" 1 Sed hoc agite, boni Praesides, meliores multo apud populum, si illis Christianos immolaveritis. Cruciate, torquete, damnate, atterite nos : probatio est enim innocentiae nostrae iniquitas vestra. Ideo nos haec pati Deus patitur. Nam et proxime, ad lenonem, damnando Christianam potius quam ad leonem, coufessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos atrociorem omni poena et omni morte reputari. (U rt u O TERTULLIAN 33 With reference to the Resurrection of the Body, in a passage shortly before the last quotation from the Apology, Tertullian answers the objection : " How can matter which has been dissolved be made to appear again ? " by this defence " What were men before they came into existence ? Nothing, you say. What will they be when they cease to exist ? Nothing. Then why might they not come into being again by the will of Him who at first created them out of nothing^ ? " In his treatise about the public shows he discusses the question, Should Christians go to the theatre or amphitheatre ? and he answers it emphatically in the negative. Such performances were intimately associated with heathen rites and the worship of idols, and so he urged that the true Christian must have nothing to do with them. He once heard a Christian lover of the games defend his habit of attending them thus : The sun, Nee quicquam tamen proficit exquisitior quaeque crudelitas vestra : illecebra est magis sectae. Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis ; semen est sanguis Cbristianorum.., omnia enim huic operi delicta donantur. Inde est, quod ibidem sententiis vestris gratiaa agimus : ut est aemulatio divinae rei et humanae, cum damnamur a vobis, a Deo absolvimur. Apol. l. sub Jin. 1 Apol. xLviii. Considera temetipsum, o homo, et fidem rei invenies. Eecogita quid fueris antequam esses. Utique nihil. Meminisses, enim, si quid fuisses. Qui ergo nihil fueras priusquam esses, idem nihil factus cum esse desieris, cur non possis rursus esse de nihilo, Ejusdem Ipsius Auctoris voluntate, qui te voluit esse de nibilo ? Quid novi tibi eveniet ? Qui non eras, factus es ; Cum iterum non eris, fies, &c. Cf. for a similar argument adv. Hemiog. XX. —XXII. and xxxiv. On these passages see Kaye, p. 536. D. 3 34 TERTULLIAN he said, nay God Himself looks down from Heaven on the shows, and no contamination follows. Tertullian's retort is crushing : " Yes, and the sun casts his rays into the sewer and is not defiled."..." Nowhere and never can that be excused which God condemns. Nowhere and never is that lawful which always and everywhere is unlawful^." Later on, in the same treatise, he cries, " Oh may God keep from His own this great longmg for deadly pleasure ! It is to go from God's Church to the devil's, de caelo in caenum, from sky to sty. How can hands raised in prayer to God occupy themselves in clapping the actor ? How can the mouth, which repeats its Amen at the reception of the Eucharist, raise an approving shout for the gladiator, or cry dw al(ovo<; for any but God and Christ^?" The same uncompromising spirit appears in his treatise de Corona : the emperors Severus and Cara- calla in 202 had decreed a largess to their soldiery. ^ de Sped. xx. Novam proxime defensionem siiaviludii cujusdam audivi. Sol, inquit, immo etiam Ipse Deus de caelo spectat, nee contaminatur. Sane Sol et in cloacam radios suos defert, nee in- quinatur....Nusquam et nunquam excusatur quod Deus damnat. Nusquam et nunquam lieet quod semper et ubique non lieet. 2 de Sped. xxv. Avertat Deus a suis tantam voluptatip exitiosae cupiditatem. Quale est enim de ecclesia Dei in diaboli ecclesiam tendere? De caelo, quod aiunt, in caenum? lUas manus, qnas ad Deum extuleris, postraodum laudando histrionem fatigare? Ex ore, quo Amen in Sanctum protuleris, gladiatori testimonium reddere, citt' alQvos alii omnino dicere, nisi Deo et Christo? The translation is Prof. Fuller's, Did. Chr. Biogr. x.v. TertuUianus, p. 881. TERTULLIAN 35 This was to be received by them, each wearing the laurel garland, which implied acknowledgment of the emperor's divinity : this a soldier at Carthage, " more the soldier of Christ than of the empire," had re- fused to do, and proclaimed himself a Christian : he was flung into prison and awaited martyrdom. Ter- tullian furiously undertook his defence, and declared that it was impossible for Christians to serve the state as soldiers. Not only so ; he even forbids his fellow Christians to take part in ordinary social functions of the day, which can bear any trace whatever of condoning the sin of idolatry ; since such met them at every step, he was urging upon them a withdrawal from almost all amenities of social life as well as business pursuits. The ideal seemed unattainable, and it is not surprising that while Christians strongly felt this, the heathen bitterly resented the violence of the attack made upon their most cherished and familiar habits. The result was that to the ordinary citizen of the Empire the Chris- tian seemed an impossible person, a sour ill-conditioned fanatic, a veritable kill-joy, who would join in none of the amusements and relaxations which the conscience of the day considered innocent. It mattered not that the ideal of the Christian was much more right than that of the heathen: the consequence was that the lower orders cordially detested the Christians and rejoiced in their persecution and downfall^. Hence followed in 1 See below, p. 135. 3—2 36 TERTULLIAN various parts of the empire, and especially in N. AMca, much cruelty and ill usage. This is evident from many passages of Tertullian, and also from the pathetic story of S. Perpetua and S. Felicitas: of which see more below, p. 128 foil. Perhaps the best known instance of Tertullian's epigrammatic style is the oft-quoted passage from de Came Ghristi, v. "The Son of God was crucified: it shames us not, just because it is shameful. The Son of God died: it is credible, just because it is so absolutely absurd. He was buried and rose again : it is certain, just because it is impossible^" Enough perhaps has now been said to illustrate Tertullian's style and methods of controversy: let us turn once more to the man himself. Between the years 202 and 213 his views underwent a momentous change. His ardent nature had more and more fretted within the bonds of conventionality ; he felt that the claims of Christ had been weakened and watered down by the lax tone of society, and the absence of a high moral standard of life : he longed for more austerity, more zealous enthusiasm, a stricter and more literal obedience to Christ's commands. In this frame of mind, he was attracted by the teaching of Montanus and his followers. It is not clear whether Tertullian made acquaintance 1 Crucifixus est Dei Filing: non pudet, quia pudendum est. Et mortuus est Dei Filius: prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est. Et sepultus resurrexit : eertum est, quia impossibile est. TERTULLIAN 37 with Montanism at Rome or — as seems more probable — at Carthage. But the very extravagance of the ideal demanded for Christian conduct appealed irresistibly to the African, and by the year 213 he had thrown in his lot unreservedly with the Montanists. With the same fire and eloquence, the same caustic wit and biting sarcasm, with which in earlier days he had flung himself against the enemies of the Church, he now assailed the Church itself For instance in de Monogamia, which perhaps belongs to 217, he claims that the Paraclete reveals to those spiritually initiated much about marriage which was not clear in the letter of Holy Scripture, and characterizes second marriages as adulterous : in de Jejunio he heaps up charges of luxury and gluttony and immorality unhesitatingly and almost exultingly against Church ecclesiastics and laymen: they are so gross as almost to refute themselves by their exaggera- tion. As Professor Fuller in the Diet. Christ. Biogr. says, '* The Ascetic has become a Fanatic, and in his mad hatred besmirches and calumniates the Church he had once so tenderly loved." But it would profit little to dwell on this phase in his career. His very faults are the result and effect of his virtues : it is because he is so eagerly jealous to maintain the highest standard of Christian discipline and conduct that he cannot have patience with the easier level of every-day morality, and to his impatience, more than to any other quality, may be attributed the 38 TERTULLIAN want of balance in his judgment. He was keenly conscious of this himself; and there is deep pathos in his words at the opening of de Patientia when he admits that Patience is a virtue to which he can lay no claim : " Oh wretched man that I am," he cries, " ever consumed by the fires of Impatience^ !" The lack of this virtue has led him far from Christ and perhaps deprived him of the title to a saintly life. And yet how we should welcome among us more of his burning zeal for right, his fiery impatience of wrong. We long for the fearless outspokenness, the entire sincerity, the eloquent enthusiasm of a Tertullian, to rouse us from the fatal torpor which paralyses spiritual effort and hinders advance in holiness. Not without reason did Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage in the next generation — A.D. 250 — proclaim himself TertuUian's humble follower and ad- mirer : every day we are told, however much occupied he might be with distracting and harassing business, he never forgot to study the thoughts of his beloved Teacher. Ba magistrum, Give me the Master, he used to cry to his secretary I If Cyprian the statesman, the ad- 1 Miserrimus ego, semper aeger caloribus impatientiae ! 2 See Jerome, de viris illmtribtis, liii. Vidi ego quemdam Paulum Concordiae, quod oppidum Italiae est, senem, qui se Beati Cypriani, jam grandis aetatis, notarium, cum ipse admodum esset adolescens, Eomae vidisse diceret, referreque sibi solitum nunquam Cyprianum absque Tertulliani lectione unum diem praeteriisse, ac sibi crebro dicere Da magistrum, Tertullianum videlicet significans. TERTULLIAN 39 ministrator, the champion of sane and wise Christianity, could feel that he owed so much to Tertullian, is not our own debt equally marked ? Cyprian may well have seen him wandering about the streets of Carthage in extreme old age — Jerome says he lived " usque ad decrepitam aetatem" — and so may be almost termed a late con- temporary, who was able to estimate his worth from intimate knowledge. We too looking back across the ages may readily assign to him a foremost place among the Fathers of the Church. Before his sympathies with the extravagances of Montanism had warped his judg- ment, he had championed the cause of orthodoxy with irresistible force and skill. His tactics and method of stating his case are ingenious, and effective, as we should expect from the trained and subtle lawyer : his personalities, if sometimes lacking in taste, give life and point to his attack. He spares neither the living nor the dead : and so we find him not only the most vigorous but also the most witty and amusing of all theologians. But he is also among the most earnest and high- minded: before he embraced Montanism, his ideal of the order and discipline of the Church was eminently orthodox, and even spiritual. He regarded the religion of Jesus Christ as the true revelation of God : the religion of the heathen as the service of devils : he had not the same sympathy as the Alexandrian school of apologists, led by Justin Martyr, Clement, and Origen, 40 TERTULLIAN with the efforts of non-Christian systems to find God : with them Christianity was not so much the opponent, as the evolution of natural philosophy and of Judaism : to Tertullian "all history, all thought, all religion, previous to the advent of Christ, was abhorrent: paganism in every form stood absolutely condemned, as the rival effort of the opponent of God to enslave the human intellect and deter it from the knowledge of the truths" Not only so, but he insists again and again on the due observance of Church doctrine: he takes his stand on the Apostolic Creed : if that be admitted, he is prepared to consider sympathetically and with open mind wide speculations or theories. On the other hand he seems to lack due appreciation of the tenderness and love of Christ, which is a serious defect in his character: he has much more regard for Him as the Messiah and the Judge : and this aspect of the Person of our Lord colours his view of eschatology and Christ's second coming. But apart altogether from his particular estimate of Christianity and his personal character, all his writings, and especially those which may be classed as Montanistic, throw a flood of light on the condition of the Church in the second and early third centuries, and present to us a picture of how Christians in North Africa lived and thought and suffered for the faith; 1 Bindley, Apol. Intro, p. xix. TERTULLIAN 41 and for this we can never be sufficiently grateful. To him above all writers we owe the very existence of ecclesiastical Latin which was the chief medium of pro- claiming the Gospel in the West for at least 1300 years: and if some should question his right to be classed among the Saints, yet the great services he has rendered to Christianity, his manly sincerity, and the earnest in- tensity of his convictions, should go far to entitle him to such a position. CHAPTER IV THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA IN TERTULLIAN'S TIME § i. Church Government — The threefold order of Ministry — The position of the Laity. In a well-known passage of the Apology, Tertullian draws a picture of the regular gatherings of the Church, in order to convince the Magistrates whom he is addressing, that there is no ground for the charges, so freely brought against the Christians, of undesirable and immoral practices at their meetings. " We are a body," he says, " one in our common religious beliefs, in the unity {v. I. divine character) of our discipline, and in the bond of hope. We meet together in an assembly and congregation, in order that we may as it were form a regular body of troops for prayer, and lay siege to God in united supplication. This 'violence^ ' is indeed pleasing to God. We pray too for the emperors, and their ministers, and those in authority under them, for the condition of the world, for general peace, for the 1 Cf. S. Matt. xi. 12 '* The Kingdom of Heaven sufifereth violence, and the violent take it by force." THE CHURCH IN N. AFRICA IN TERTULLIAN'S TIME 43 delay of final judgment. We meet together for the public reading of the Holy Scriptures, in case the present condition of affairs demands any warning or consideration. In any case, we feed our faith on the Holy Words, we raise hope, we confirm confidence, we enforce discipline, by pressing home their precepts : at the same time also we exhort the faithful, we punish the guilty, and issue — if need be — the God-given sentence of excommunication. For judgment is de- livered with great weight — as with those who are sure that God's eye is upon them, and that their sentence is the gravest anticipation of future judgment — in the case of a man who has sinned in such a way as to be debarred from sharing in common prayer and the meetings of the community and all sacred rites. In all cases, the Presidents are elders of approved character, who have gained the office not by bribery but by general recognition : nor indeed can anything pertaining to God be associated with bribery. Moreover, if there be any kind of common fund, the collection is not made with money paid under a sense of obligation, as though religion could be bought : everyone puts by a small sum on a certain day every month, or when he likes, and if he likes, and if he can : for no one is obliged to do so : the contribution is voluntary. These are as it were the pledges of piety: for with them no payment is made for banquets, or drinking bouts, or disgraceful orgies, but for the sup- port and burial of the poor, for destitute and orphaned 44 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA boys and girls, for old men who cannot go out to work, for shipwrecked sailors, and any who, in the mines and islands or prisons, have to suffer for their confession, provided it be on account of God's religion \" 1 Corpus siimus de conscientia religionis et disciplinae unitate {v. I. divinitate) et spei foedere. Coimus in coetum et congregationem, ut ad Deum quasi manu facta precationibus ambiamus orantes : haec vis Deo grata est. Oramus etiam pro imperatoribus, pro ministris eorum et potestatibus, pro statu saeculi, pro rerum quiete, pro mora finis. Coimus ad litterarum divinarum commemorationem, si quid praesentium temporum qualitas aut praemonere cogit aut recognoscere. Certe fidem Sanctis vocibus pascimus, spem erigimus, fiduciam figimus, disciplinam praeceptorum nihilominus inculcationibus densamus : ibidem etiam exhortationes, castigationes, et censura divina : nam et judicatur magno cum pondere, ut apud certos de Dei conspectu, sum- mumque futuri judicii praejudicium est, si quis ita deliquerit ut a communicatione orationis et conventus et omnis sancti commercii relegetur. Praesident probati quique seniores, honorem istum non pretio sed testimonio adepti : neque enim pretio uUa res Dei constat. Etiam si quod arcae genus est, non de honoraria summa quasi redemp- tae religionis congregatur. Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua die, vel cum velit, et si modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit ; nam nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert. Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt. Nam inde non epulis nee potaculis nee ingratiis voratrinis dispensatur, sed egenis alendis humandisque, et pueris ac puellis re ac parentibus destitutis, jamque domesticis senibus, item naufragis, et si qui in metallis, et si qui in insulis vel in custodiis, dumtaxat ex causa Dei sectae, alumni confessionis suae fiunt. Apol. xxxix. The familiar description by Justin Martyr {ApoL lxvii.) of the Christian Sunday service aptly illustrates this passage : it belongs to a date earlier by some 40 years and is quoted in full by Oehler ad loc, "on the day of the week called Sunday, all who live in the cities or country round gather together at the same place, and the memorials of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read aloud as long as there is time ; then when the reader ceases, the President by word of mouth IN tertullian's time 45 In this passage Tertullian does not enter into the details of Church government, as he is addressing a heathen audience : but the " Presidents " of whom he speaks must include both Bishops and Priests. This is evident from several passages : e.g. " We receive (the elements in the Eucharist) from the hand of no one but the Presidents \" This would mean primarily the Bishop, who presided at the Holy Eucharist: but in his absence the Presbyter would officiate. The same is implied in ad ux. I. vii. when compared with 1 Tim. iii. 2 and Tit. i. 6. " The discipline of the Church and the directions of the Apostle, which forbid those who have married twice to be Presidents, sufficiently shew what a loss to the Faith and what an obstacle to holiness makes his exhortation and appeal to all to imitate so good a pattern. Then we rise all together and pray : and as I said before, when we have finished our prayers, there is an oblation of bread, and wine and water. Then the President offers prayers and thanksgivings alike, to the best of his ability, and the people answer * Amen ' : and the Eucharistic offerings are distributed and received by all present, and sent to those who are absent by the hand of the Deacons." ^ Nee de aliorura manu quam Praesidentium sumimus. de Cor. III. In another passage he laments that sometimes these Presidents are engaged in the trade of the manufacture of idols : it is not enough (he says) that idol-makers defile the body of the Lord by receiving it into their contaminated hands : idol- makers are actually admitted into Holy Orders. Parum sit, si ab aliis manibus accipiant quod contaminant, sed etiam ipsae tradunt aliis quod contaminaverunt, Adleguntur in ordinem ecclesiasticum artifices idolorum. Pro scelus ! Semel Judaei Christo manus intulerunt, isti quotidie corpus Ejus lacessunt. de Idol. vii. 46 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA second marriages are^" In a later passage written from the extreme Montanist point of view, he implies that the Orthodox Church {Psychici) limit the "double honour" to be paid (according to 1 Tim. v. 17 to oi KoXm irpoearwre^ irpea^vrepoL) to Priests and Bishops, whereas it is due to " the brethren as well as to those set over them I" This "double honour" he seems strangely to interpret as meaning a double portion of food. We find the three orders of Bishops, Priests and Deacons specifically named more than once : e.g. in defaga in persecutione, xi. he pleads for courage on the part of Church leaders, and says, " When even the leaders of the Church, that is even the Deacons, Presbyters and Bishops, take to flight, how will the Laity be able to understand the meaning of the saying, Flee ye from state to state ? So when generals flee, &c.^" In discussing by whose hands Baptism may be administered, he says, " The chief Priest who is the Bishop has the right of administering (Baptism). Then the Presbyters and Deacons, not however without 1 Quantum detrahant Fidei, quantum obstrepant sanctitati nuptiae secundae, disciplina ecclesiae et praescriptio Apostoli declarat, quum digamos non sinit praesidere. 2 Ad elogium gulae tuae pertinet, quod duplex apud te praesidenti- bus honor binis partibus deputatur, cum apostolus duplicem honorem dederit, ut et fratribus et praepositis. dejejun. adv. Psych, xvii. * Cum ipsi auctores, id est Diaconi et Presbyter! et Episcopi fugiunt, quomodo laicus intelligere poterit qua ratione dictum, Fugite de civitate in civitatem ? Itaque cum duces fugiunt, &o. IN tertullian's time 47 authority from the Bishop, for the honour of the Church : if that be ensured, peace is ensured : on other occasions also Lay folk possess the rights" The same distinction is made in the passage where he speaks of the dangers of indiscipline among heretics: "And so to-day one man is Bishop, to-morrow another: to-day he is Deacon, who to-morrow is Reader : to-day he is Presbyter who to-morrow is a Layman : for to the Laity also they assign priestly functions I" From these words it follows that the orthodox Church recognized a clear distinction between Clergy and Laity. Ter- tuUian even states that different seats were assigned to them in the places where they assembled for divine worship. " The authority of the Church has ordained a difference between those in Holy Orders and the Laity ; and respect is paid to their sacred office by the special seats of the clergy^" The same fact appears from his dividing Christians into two classes, those with a lower and those with a higher place : every servant 1 Dandi quidem habet jus summus sacerdos, qui est Episcopus : dehinc Presbyteri et Diaconi, non tamen sine Episcopi auctoritate, propter ecclesiae honorem, quo salvo salva pax est. Alioquiu etiam Laicis jus est : &c, de Baptismo^ xvii. — on this point see lower, the section on Baptism, p. 61 foil. 2 Itaque alius hodie Episcopus, eras alius: hodie Diaconus qui eras Lector : hodie Presbyter qui eras Laicus : nam et Laicis sacerdotalia munera injungunt. de Praescr. Haeret. xli. 3 Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit ecclesiae auctoritas, et honor per ordinis consessum sanctificatus. de Exhort. Castit. VII. See above, pp. 18, 19. 48 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA of God, he says, should try to rise from one to the other by enduring persecution ; and in the next sentence he mentions " Deacons, Priests and Bishops \" In another passage, he distinctly calls the ordained Clergy — Bishops, Priests and Deacons — majores as contrasted with the Laity 2. Later on in the passage from de Exhort. Cast. vii» just quoted, he argues thus : " As a general rule, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist can only be administered by the ordained clergy : in cases of necessity, where no clergy are available, a Layman may officiate : inasmuch therefore as a Priest is not allowed to contract a second marriage — if he does, he is ipso facto deprived of his priestly functions — a Layman also should avoid taking a second wife, in order that he may be free to administer the Sacraments should necessity arise ^." 1 Hoc sentire et facere omnem servum Dei oportet, etiam minoris loci, ut majoris fieri possit, si quem gradum in persecutionis toler- antia ascendent, de fuga in persec. xi. followed by the quotation given above. - Quanto magis Laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incum- bit, cum ea majoribus competant. de Bapt. xvii. ^ Ubi ecclesiastici Ordinis non est consessus, et offers {i.e. celebrate the Eucharist) et tinguis {i.e. baptize) et sacerdos estibi solus... igitur si habes jus sacerdotis in temetipso ubi necesse est, habeas oportet etiam disciplinam sacerdotis, ubi necesse sit habere jus sacerdotis. Digamus tinguis? Digamus offers? Quanto magis laico digamo capitale est agere pro sacerdote, quum ipsi sacerdoti digamo facto auferatur agere sacerdotem I...Noli denique digamus deprehendi, et non committis in necessitatem administrandi quod non licet digamo, de Exh. Cast. vii. IN TERTULLIANS TIME 49 Enough has been said to shew that Tertullian — though as a Montanist he receded later from the position — asserts that the orthodox Church clearly recognized the distinction between Clergy and I^aity. But he is not so clear as to the distinction in pre- rogatives and position between the Bishop and the Presbyter. His Montanistic sympathies seem to have asserted themselves early, and for him tended even- tually to merge the one office into the other. Never- theless, it is clear throughout that the Bishop is the supreme officer, and the source of highest authority. In a passage in de Praescr. Haer. he traces the origin of the Church back to the preaching of the twelve Apostles (Matthias taking the place of the traitor Judas) first in Judaea, and then through all the world. He will not acknowledge the authority of a Church which cannot prove its Apostolic origin^ ; and it is not too much to say that he thereby accepts the doctrine of Apostolic succession in the persons of those who presided over the various Churches, i.e. the Bishops, who were appointed one after the other in succession to the Apostles them- selves, the original founders of the Churches ^ 1 Cf. de Virg. vel. ii. Eas ego ecclesias proposui quas et ipsi Apostoli vel Apostolici viri condiderunt. 2 Apostoli... primo per Judaeam contestata fide in Jesum Christum et ecclesiis institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti eandem doctrinam ejusdem fidei nationibus promulgaverunt. Et perinde ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, a quibus traducem fidei et semina doctrinae ceterae exinde ecclesiae mutuatae sunt, et cotidie mutuantur, ut ecclesiae fiant, ac per hoc et ipsae apostolicae deputa- buntur ut suboles apostolicarum ecclesiarum. de Praescr, Haer. xx. D. 4 50 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA The same is implied in a later passage of the same Tract, where Tertullian challenges heretics to produce such claim for authority as can be shewn for instance by the Churches of Smyrna and Rome. "Let them shew/' he says, " the origin of their Churches ; let them trace the order of their Bishops, following one another in succession from the very first in such a way as to prove that their first Bishop had for his teacher and predecessor one of the Apostles or some Apostolic man who always continued faithful to Apostolic teaching. For it is in this way that the Apostolic Churches shew their origin, just as the Church of the people of Smyrna goes back to Polycarp who was placed there by John, and that of the Romans in the same way to Clement who was ordained by Peter\" Herein rests the claim for the unity of the Church : the various Churches, provided they be Apostolic, are all branches of the true Church, equal in rank and authority, and independent of one another; and al- though they severally may fall into error^ yet taken together the unity of the whole Church is not impaired. 1 Edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarnm, evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum, ita per successionem ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis vel apostolicis viris, qui tamen cum apostolis perseveravit, habuerit auctorem et antecessorem. Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos deferunt, sicut Smymaeorum ecclesia Polycarpum ab Joanne collocatum refert, sicut Romanorum Clementem a Petro ordinatum itidem. de Praescr. Haer. xxxii. 2 This is explicitly stated in de Praescr. Haer. xxvii. IN tertullian's time 51 So Tertullian expressly asserts : " We and they (i,e. Apostolic Churches with customs differing from our own) have one Faith, one God, the same Christ, the same Hope, the same rites of Baptism: once for all I would say, we are one Church ^" And again, " Though the Churches be so many and so important, yet all are one : they are the first Church founded by the Apostles, from which all the rest come I" Although from the words of S. Cyprian^ we may conclude that there were synods or councils of the Church in North Africa, soon after, if not actually during Tertullian's time, he himself does not give us any clear information on the matter. In one passage he speaks of " councils of all the Churches, by means of which matters of the highest importance are dis- cussed in common, and themselves are representative of all who bear the name of Christ and are held in highest respect," but he refers to them only in con- nexion with certain places where the Greek language is spoken ^ In another passage he implies that councils 1 Una nobis et illis Fides, unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem spes, eadem lavacri sacramenta ; semel dixerim, Una ecclesia sumus. de Virg. vel. ii. 2 Tot ac tantae ecclesiae una §st ilia ab Apostolis prima, ex qua omnes. de Praescr. Haer. xx. * See above, p. 26. * Aguntur praeterea per Graecias ilia certis in locis concilia ex universis ecclesiis per quae et altiora quaeque in commune tractan- tur, et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna veneratione celebratur. de jejun. adv. Psych, xiii. 4—2 52 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA had much to do with settling the Canon of Scripture, for he says that the Shepherd of Hernias was counted among apocryphal and false books even by councils of the orthodox Church^ But he nowhere speaks expressly of synods of the Church in North Africa. Of the many African Bishops who must have been Tertullian's contemporaries, the names of only two survive : viz. Optatus, who is named in the Passion of S. Perpetual and Agrippinus, who is mentioned by S. Cyprian as presiding over a council of the African Church about the rebaptism of heretics " very many years before his time^" This passage may — and probably does — imply that there were councils of North African Bishops during Tertullian's lifetime, though he does not say so himself It is perhaps worth notice that the title Papa is used in the Passion of S. Perpetua of the Bishop, and is also applied by Tertullian to the Bishop of Rome, Pope Callistus, of whom he speaks ironically as "the good shepherd and blessed Pope^" 1 Sed cederem tibi, si Scriptura Pastoris, quae sola moechos amat, divino instrumento meruisset incidi, si non ab omni concilio ecclesi- arum, etiam vestrarum, inter apocrypha et falsa judicaretur. de Pudic. X. 2 gee p. 133. 3 Cypr. Ep. Lxxiii. 3. Apud nos autem non mora et repentina res est ut baptizandos censeamus eos qui ab haereticis ad ecclesiam veniunt : quando anni sint jam multi et longa aetas ex quo sub Agrippino convenientes in unum episcopi plurimi hoc statuerint. * Bonus Pastor et benedictus Papa, de Pudic. xiii. : but Miinter^ followed by Oehler, refers this to the Bishop of Carthage. IN TERTULLIANS TIME 53 Besides the ordinary Clergy, Bishops, Priests and Dea- cons, Tertullian recognizes also an order of "Readers^" and of " Widows^ " : but he does not specifically name the order of Deaconesses. As to the Laity, in one passage he sums them all up under the term " Learners " or " Disciples'. " " If there be no Bishop, or Priests, or Deacons, ordinary Disciples are sent for," i.e. to administer Baptism. To them different titles are given according to their progress or position in the Faith : before Baptism, they are catechumeni, audientes, auditores, novitioli*; after Baptism they are ranked as Fratres, " Brethren," Fideles, " the Faithful," Confessors, Martyrs : titles ap- plicable also on occasion even before Baptism^. He finds fault with heretics for making no distinction between those under instruction and the duly baptized members of the Church ^ In the actual direction of Church government the 1 de Praescr. Haeret. xli. quoted above, p. 47. 2 de virg. vel. ix., de monog. xvi. and de Exh. Cast. xii. and other passages. 3 Nisi Episcopus jam aut Presbyteri aut Diaconi, vocantur dis- centes. de Bapt. xvii. On this passage see below, § ii. p. 61. 4 de Paen. vi. an alius est intinctis Christus, alius audientibus ? ...audientes optare intinctionem, non praesumere oportet, (fee. 5 This appears from a passage in de Cor. ii. Neminem dico Fidelium coronam capite nosse alias extra tempus temptationis ejusmodi : omnes ita observant, a catechumenis usque ad confessores et martyres. ^ Quis catechumenus, quis Fidelis incertum est... ante sunt per- fecti catechumeni quam edocti. de Praescr. Haer. xli. 54 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA Laity had no small share. As soon as they were bap- tized they had a voice in all that concerned the welfare of the community, and they retained this unless they were excommunicated, or relegated to the ranks of Penitents, owing to gross sin or breach of discipline. They had the right of assisting in the choice of all their clergy, even of the Bishop. By the time of S. Cyprian this intervention of the Laity in Church politics and government had become constant, and even led to some difficulties: a fact which may be inferred also from the words of Tertullian already alluded to, in de Bapt. xvii., where he is saying that Baptism may be administered by Laymen, but only in cases of necessity. " But inasmuch as these privileges — of administering the Sacraments, &;c. — belong to their superiors, all the more is the duty of modesty and self- control incumbent on the Laity, so as to prevent their arrogating to themselves duties belonging to the Bishop. It is jealousy of the episcopate which is the fruitful source — the mother — of schisms ^" § ii. Baptism. In his treatise de Baptismo, Tertullian emphasizes the paramount necessity of Baptism by water from the 1 Sed quanto magis Laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incumbit, cum ea majoribus competant, ne sibi adsumant dicatum episcopi officium. Episcopatus aemulatio schismatum mater est. IN TERTULLIANS TIME 55 quaint conceit that " we, the little fishes of Jesus Christ our IX©T£\ are born in the water and can only live by remaining in it : and so that most mon- strous (viper of the Caian heresy p. . .knew very well that it kills the little fishes by taking them away from the water^." In the same treatise, all details of this Sacrament are described at length. He begins by a few remarks on the simplicity of the rite as contrasted with the eternity of its results. " There is nothing which hardens men's hearts so much as the simplicity of God's work- ing as actually seen when compared with the magnificent splendour of its results : take the case of Baptism : in all simpleness, without any pomp or show, indeed without any outlay at all, a man is plunged into water and with the addition of a few words he is baptized : he comes up again no whit cleaner or very little, and yet is the possessor of Eternal Life : this seems a thing incredible to some.... Shame on your incredulity which denies to God His own attributes of simplicity and power. What, you say, is it not a marvellous thing that Death should be destroyed by a bath ? Nay, it becomes all the more ^ sc. ^Trjaovs Xpiarbs Qeov Tibs ^wr-qp. *** The reading is uncertain : cf. Lupton's Edition of the de Bapt. p. xiv. 3 Nos pisciculi secundum IX0TN nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur, nee aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus. Itaque ilia monstrosissima (de Gaiana heresi Vipera)...optime norat pisciculos necare de aqua auferens. de Baptismo, i. 56 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA worthy of belief, if just because it is marvellous it is therefore not believed \" The formal renunciation of the Devil and all his works is not expressly mentioned in this passage, because it did not form part of the actual rite but preceded it, as will appear directly. The pauca verba of the officiating minister is obviously the form of Baptism into the Threefold name, in accordance with the commands of Christ (Matt, xxviii. 19). That this is the case is shewn by a later passage in this same treatise, where, after likening the angel of Baptism to the angel who stirred the water in the pool of Bethesda^ — owing to the fact that the latter healed men's bodies, while the former heals men's souls — he goes on to compare the rite of Baptism, as the preparation for the gift of the Holy Spirit, to S. John Baptist the forerunner of Christ : and incidentally takes it for granted that Baptism is in the name of the Trinity: "John went before the Lord, to prepare His ways. So also the angel 1 de Bapt. ii. Nihil adeo est quod obduret mentes hominum quam simplicitas divinorum operum quae in actu videntur, et magni- ficentia quae in effectu repromittitur : ut hinc quoque, quoniam tanta simplicitate, sine pompa, sine apparatu novo aliquo, denique sine sumptu homo in aqua demissus et inter pauca verba tinctus non multo vel nihilo mundior resurgit, eo incredibilis existimetur conse- cutio aeternitatis Pro misera ineredulitas, quae denegas Deo proprietates suas, simplicitatem et potestatem ! Quid ergo ? Nonne mirandum et lavacro dilui mortem ? Atquin eo magis credendum, si quia mirandum est, idcirco non creditur. Observe that in this passage and also in that next quoted we have the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration explicitly asserted. 2 Joh. v. 2, 4 ; he calls it piscina Bethsaida. {de Bapt. v.) IN tertullian's time 67 who presides over the rite of Baptism makes straight the ways for the on-coming Holy Spirit by the washing away of sins, which Faith gains by being signed (with the cross) in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirits" Then follows the rite of unction : " On leaving the font," he says, "we are anointed with the Holy Oil, according to the ancient custom," sc. of the Jews^ After this comes — a sequence which is still observed in the Greek Church — the rite of Confirmation by the laying on of hands. " Then follows the laying on of hands, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit by way of benediction ^" Thus the order of the actual service in the rite of Baptism was (1) the immersion, (2) unction, (3) the signing of the Cross, (4) the laying on of hands, and apparently, (5) the reception of the Holy Communion as is summarized in de Resur. Car. viii.'* Tertullian ^ de Bapt. vi. Joannes ante praecursor Domini fuit, praeparans vias Ejus. Ita et angelus baptismi arbiter superventuro Spiritui Sancto vias dirigit ablutione delictorum, quam fides impetrat obsig- nata in Patre et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Cf. adv. Prax. xxvi. ** Not once but thrice are we baptized, into the name of Each Person (of the Blessed Trinity) separately." Nam nee semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tingimur. 2 Exinde egressi de lavacro perungimur benedicta unctione de pristina disciplina, qua ungi oleo de cornu in sacerdotio solebant. ihid. VII. ^ ihid. VIII. Dehinc manus imponitur, per benedictionem advo- cans et invitans Spiritum Sanctum. "* Caro abluitur, ut anima emaculetur; caro ungitur, ut anima 58 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA also in another passage sums up the spiritual results of Baptism under four heads, viz. Forgiveness of Sins, Deliverance from Death, Regeneration, the Gift of the Holy Spirits Tertullian on the whole advises against infant Baptism. " It is better to delay baptism, especially in the case of infants. Why run the risk of unfaithful sponsors 2 ? Why should the innocent age of child- hood be in a hurry to obtain forgiveness of sins ^ ? " The rite is summarily described in de Corona, ill. where he is insisting on the force of custom and tra- dition as complementary to the authority of Holy Scripture. " Those of us who are to be baptized, at the same time but a little while beforehand, under the direction of the President, in church {i.e. in the place of assembly^) publicly renounce the Devil and his pomp and his angels. Then we are immersed thrice consecretur ; caro signatur, ut et anima muniatur ; caro manus impositione adumbratur, ut et anima spiritu illuminetur : caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo saginetur. ^ adv. Marc. i. xxviii. Remissio delictorum — absolutio mortis — regeneratio hominis — consecutio Spiritus Sancti. 2 In de Bapt. vi. Tertullian implies that the number of spon- sors at Baptism is three. Cum sub tribus et testatio fidei et sponsio salutis pignerentur, &c. ^ de Baptismo, xviil ...Cunctatio baptismi utilior est, praecipue tamen circa parvulos. Quid enim necesse (si non tam necesse est) sponsores etiam periculo ingeri, qui et ipsi per mortalitatem destituere promissiones suas possunt et proventu malae indolis falli?...Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum ? 4 de Bap. xiii. Ipsum curiae nomen ecclesia est Christi. IN tertullian's time 59 with a somewhat fuller formula than that laid down in the Gospel by our Lord. Then we partake of a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day for a whole week refrain from our daily bath\" The formal renunciation of the Devil and all his works was made before the actual rite of Baptism, as appears from the following passage : " On entering the water we profess the Christian Faith according to the words of His own Law, we publicly declare with our .own lips that we renounce the Devil and his pomp and his angels^" This seems to have been done twice, first during the previous preparation of the catechumen, and secondly, just before the actual service: "We... have twice renounced idols," he says^. The passage in de Cor. ill. is markedly in accord- ance with the Canons of Hippolytus xxix. 102 seq.*, which give us, as many think, the ritual of the order of ^ Ut a baptismate ingrediar — aquam adituri ibidem, sed et aliquanto prius, in ecclesia sub antistitis manu contestamur nos renuntiare diabolo et pompae et angelis ejus. Dehinc ter mergitamur amplius aliquid respondentes quam Dominus in Evangelio determinavit. Inde suscepti lactis et mellis concordiam praegustamus exque ea die lavacro quotidiano per totam hebdomadem abstinemus. 2 Cum aquam ingressi Christianam fidem in legis suae verba profi- temur, renuntiasse nos diabolo et pompae et angelis ejus ore nostro contestamur. de Sped. iv. So also ib. xiii., xxiv. 3 Nobis, qui bis idolis renuntiavimus. de Sped. xiii. In a later passage of the same treatise we read " The pomp of the Devil, which we abjure in our baptism." Pompa Diaboli, adversus quam in signaculo lidei ejeramus. de Sped. xxiv. * See d'Al^s, p. 335. 60 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA Baptism as practised in the Church of Rome about the year 200 A.D. There, the preliminary is the examination of the candidate and his confession, followed by his public renunciation of the Devil and all his works, and his declaration of faith in the Trinity; thereafter he receives the triple immersion, and partakes of milk and honey, food symbolical of the life renewed in Christ. There is no ground for supposing, as some have inferred from de Pud. ix.^, that the bestowal of a ring formed part of the ceremony of Baptism. In that passage Tertullian is commenting on the parable of the Prodigal Son, and in interpreting Luc. xv. 22, he remarks that the ring which the Father bids the servant put on his son's finger is " the mark of Baptism," or answers to Baptism : not that it was used in Baptism as a general rule. No trace of such a custom is to be found elsewhere. Tertullian is clear that Baptism by Heretics is invalid and cannot be recognized : it does not exist, and so it is not a thing which can be received^ He goes on to say that he has dealt with this subject more fully in a Greek treatise, no longer extant. His disciple 1 Anulum — signaculum lavacri : and again, anulum quoque accepit tunc primum, quo fidei pactionem interrogatus obsignat. 2 Nee baptismus unus, quia non idem ; quem cum rite non habeant, sine dubio non habent, nee capit numerari quod non habetur : Ita nee possunt aceipere, quia non habent. de Bapt. xv. IN tertullian's time 61 and admirer S. Cyprian speaks even more unreservedly : " We say that those who come to us from heretical churches are not rebaptized by us, but baptized : for indeed they cannot as heretics receive something (by baptism) where nothing exists \" Tertullian makes the same statement in what is perhaps his latest treatise, from the Montanistic point of view : " a heretic," he says, " is regarded by us in the same category as a heathen man, yes and something more than a heathen : he is admitted into the Church by the Baptism of Truth, so receiving purification under both heads," i.e. both as a heretic and a heathen ^ Baptism in case of need is to be administered by any member of the Church. " Otherwise (i.e. apart from the authority of the Bishop), even the laity have the right (of baptizing). For what is received equally (by all) can be given equally (by all). If no Bishops or Priests or Deacons are available, Disciples (i.e. Laymen) are summoned (i.e. to baptize^). The word of the Lord ought not to be hidden from anyone. So Baptism too, 1 No8 autem dicimus eos qui inde veniunt non rebaptizari apud nos, sed baptizari. Neque enim accipiunt illic aliquid ubi nihil est : quoted by Oehler (from Eigault) ad loc. 2 Apud nos, ut Ethnico par, immo et super Ethnicum, Haereticus etiam per baptisma veritatis utroque nomine purgatus admittitur. de Pudic. xix. 3 Bishop Kaye p. 420 reads vocarentur and gives a different expla- nation to these words. Waterland reads vocantur dicentes. Lupton reads vocantur discentes, but his rendering of the words seems to me improbable. 62 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA equally divine property, can be administered by all^"; i.e. "the Word and Sacraments, since they equally belong to God, are equally free to all." But, he goes on, With what care and circumspection should this assumption of office be exercised I "Since the duty of administering the sacraments belongs to their superiors, how much more incumbent on the Laity is the discipline of modesty and moderation, so as to prevent their taking upon themselves the con- secrated office of Bishop ! Jealousy of the episcopate is the mother of schisms. All things are lawful, said the most holy Apostle, but not all things are expedients Let it suffice, that is to say, for you to exercise the functions (of Bishop) in cases of necessity, if ever conditions of place or time or person compel you to do so, but not otherwise ^" 1 de Bapt. xvii. Alioquin etiam laicis jus est. Quod enim ex aequo accipitur, ex aequo dari potest. Nisi episcopi jam aut Presby- teri autDiaconi, vocantur Discentes. Domini sermo non debet abscondi ab uUo. Proinde et baptismus, aeque Dei census, ab omnibus exerceri potest. Lupton in his edition of the de Baptismo (Camb. Patristic Texts, 1908) translates aeque Dei census = "which is equally derived from God." 2 Already quoted above, see eh. iv. § i. sub Jin. p. 64. 3 1 Cor. vi. 12 : x. 23. * ibid. xvii. Sed quanto magis laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incumbit, cum ea majoribus competant, ne sibi adsumant dicatum episcopi officium ! episcopatus aemulatio schismatum mater est. Omnia licere dixit sanctissimus Apostolus, sed non omnia expedire. Sufficiat scilicet in necessitatibus ut utaris, sicubi aut loci aut temporis aut personae conditio compellit. IN tertullian's time 63 The statement " Baptism may be administered by all ^ " would seem to include women : but this is strongly deprecated in the ensuing words of this chap- ter ; nor will Tertullian allow any weight to the apocryphal "Acts of Paul and Thecla," which defend the custom : If women are not allowed even to speak in the churches^ how much less to baptize ? The same parallel is made in de Virg. Vel. ix. "It is not permitted unto women to speak in church, and so neither to teach, nor to baptize, nor to celebrate the Eucharist, nor to claim for themselves the performance of any of man's duties, far less sacerdotal functions^." It is brought as a reproach against women belonging to heretical sects that they even venture to baptize : " The very women of Heretics, how wanton they are ! for they dare to teach... perhaps even to baptized" The doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration is clearly enunciated at the beginning of the treatise de Bap- tismo I., " Happy is the Sacrament of Baptism : for by the washing away of the sins of our former blindness we are set free for Life Eternals" 1 ibid. Baptismus ab omnibus exerceri potest. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 34. ■^ Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui, sed nee docere nee tingere nee offerre, nee ullius virilis muneris, nedum sacerdotalis officii, sortem sibi vindicare. * Ipsae mulieres haereticae quam procaces ! quaeaudeant docere... forsitan et tingere. de Praescr. Haeret. xli. 5 Felix sacramentum aquae nostrae, quia ablutis delictis pristinae caecitatis in vitam aeternam liberamur. Cf. also p. 56 n. 64 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA This belief naturally led many to postpone their Baptism till they were at the point of death, so as to enter into the presence of God clean and white: but the practice receives no countenance from Tertullian. He would have Catechumens baptized on reaching years of discretion, after careful preparation and ex- amination : and then, being in a state of grace, they must sin no more^ His three treatises on Baptism, on the Lord's Prayer, and on Penitence, were evidently composed primarily for the use of Catechumens, and belong to the years 200 — 206, before the severity of Montanism had completely warped his judgment. In de Bapt. xix. he names Good Friday as the most suitable day for Baptism, " when also the Passion of the Lord into which we are baptized was fulfilled I" In support of this practice he quaintly reminds us that when Christ sent forward His Dis- ciples to make preparations for His Last Supper, He said, "You will meet a man bearing a pitcher of waterV* " From Easter to Pentecost," he goes on to say, " is the happiest interval for the administration of Baptism, during which not only was the Lord's Resurrection their constant theme among the Disciples, but also ^ See below, § vi. on Penance, p. SS foil. 2 Diem baptismo sollemniorem Pascha praestat, cum et Passio Domini in qua tingimur adimpleta est. Cf. Rom. vi. 3, 4 — see the Bp of Salisbury, Ministry of Grace, p. 355. 8 Mk xiv. 3. IN tertullian's time 66 there was the consecration of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of the Lord's coming was set forth, because at that moment when He was received into heaven the angels said to the Apostles^ that He should so come in like manner as He ascended into Heaven, that is to say on the Day of Pentecost ^" " But," he after all concludes, " every day is the Lord's, every hour, every time is suitable for baptism : if there is an advantage by way of solemnity, there is no difference so far as grace is concerned ^" Before Baptism must come earnest prayer, fasting, vigils, and confession ^ So "we set up bulwarks against ensuing temptations^." He reminds his Catechumens that the Lord Himself had to go straight from his Baptism to His 40 days' fast and to be tempted by the Devil, shewing us that man does not " live by the Bread 1 Acts i. 11. Tertullian therefore interprets this passage as re- ferring to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, rather than to Christ's second coming to judge the world. 2 Exinde Pentecoste ordinandis lavacris laetissimum spatium est, quo et Domini resurrectio inter discipulos frequentata est, et gratia Spiritus Sancti dedicata, et spes adventus Domini subostensa, quod tunc in caelos recuperato Eo angeli ad apostolos dixerunt sic venturum, quemadmodum et in caelos conscendit, utique in Pentecoste. 3 ibid. Ceterum omnis dies Domini est, omnis hora, omne tempus habile baptismo : si de sollemnitate interest, de gratia nihil refert. * de Bapt. xx. Ingressuros baptismum orationibus crebris, jejuniig et geniculationibus et pervigiliis orare oportet et cum confessione omnium retro delictorum. ^ ibid. Subsecuturis tentationibus munimenta praestruimus. 66 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA of God but by the Word of God^" and he concludes with this touching and eloquent address to those whom he has been preparing for baptism : "Therefore, Blessed (children), for whom the grace of God is waiting, when ye come up out of that most holy font of the New Birth, and for the first time in the house of your mother — the Church — in company with your brethren stretch out open hands in prayer, ask from your Father, ask from the Lord, peculiar gifts of grace ; ask that special marks of Divine Favour may be distributed among you. Ask and ye shall receive. He says^ Ye indeed have sought, and ye have found : ye have knocked and it has been opened unto you. This only I beg, that when ye are asking, ye do not forget to pray also for Tertullian the sinner^" § iii. The Agape or Love Feast. In Apostolic times this seems to have been inti- mately connected with the Eucharist, and to have occasioned S. Paul's rebuke in 1 Cor. xi. 17 foil, by 1 Ostendit non pane vivere hominem Dei sed Dei verbo. 2 Matt. vii. 7. ^ de Bapt. xx. Jin. Igitur, Benedicti, quos gratia Dei expectat, cum de illo sanctissimo lavacro novi natalis ascenditis, et primas manus apud matrem cum fratribus aperitis, petite de Patre, petite de Domino peculia gratiae, distributiones charismatum subjacere. Petite et accipietis, inquit. Quaesistis enim, et invenistis : pulsastis, et aper- tum est vobis. Tantum oro, ut, cum petitis, etiam Tertulliani peccatoris memineritis. IN tertullian's time 67 reason of excesses in eating and drinking. By the time of Pliny's letter to Trajan the two were sepa- rated, the Agape taking place in the evening, the celebration of the Eucharist in early morning \ This was also the case in North Africa in A.D. 200 as we see from the passage in de Corona iii., where Tertullian is giving instances of customs of the Church due to tradition and not to the direct command of Christ. " The Sacrament of the Eucharist," he says, " was instituted by our Lord at the time of food, and for general re- ception : but we receive it also at our gatherings before daybreak, and only from the hand of the presiding officers^." We find in Apolog. xxxix. fin. a more elaborate account of the Agape. Here we read that there is no ostentation or extravagance, no gluttony or drunken- ness, but the surplus contributions are used for the benefit of the poor. " Our supper from its very name shews a reason for itself: it is called by the Greek word for Love : however much it costs, it is gain to incur the cost in the name of Religion, since we assist all kinds of needy folk with comforts from it.... In God's sight, care for His poor is of greater value (than the feasts of the heathen) ^" The banquet begins with 1 Plin. Epist. X. 96 ; cf. Lightfoot, Ignatius, i. 19 f. 2 Eucharistiae sacramentum, et in tempore victus et omnibus man- datum a Domino, etiam antelucanis coetibus nee de aliorum manu quam praesidentium sumimus. 3 Coena nostra de nomine rationem sui ostendit : Id vocatur quod 6—2 68 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA prayer, which is continued at intervals during the night : eating, drinking, conversation are all conducted as in the immediate presence of God\ Hands are then washed 2, lights are brought in^ and then Psalms and Hymns are sung to God, either from the Holy Scriptures or as each receives the word : and so general conversa- tion ends the meeting, which breaks up so quietly and in such orderly fashion that you would suppose the guests had been not at a feast but at a religious serviced Both in this passage {Ap. xxxix.) and also in dd Martyras ii. mention is made of special doles sent from the Agapai to Christians in prison. Dilectio penes Graecos: quantiscumque sumptibus constet, lucrum est pietatis nomine facere sumptum, si quidem inopes quosque refrigerio isto juvamus... penes Deum major est contemplatio medio- crium. ^ Cf. the Quakers' Grace before meals " Lord Jesus, be thou our 2 It must be remembered that the ancients, like people in the East to-day, used no forks. 3 Shewing that the Agape was held in late afternoon or evening. * Non prius discumbitur quam oratio ad Deum praegustetur. Editur quantum esurientes capiunt, bibitur quantum pudicis utile est. Ita saturantur ut qui meminerint etiam per noctem adorandum Deum sibi esse : ita fabulantur ut qui sciant Dominum audire. Post aquam manualem et lumina, ut quisque de scripturis Sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest, provocatur in medium Deo canere. Hinc pro- batur quomodo biberit. Aeque oratio convivium dirimit. Inde dis- ceditur non in catervas caesionium, nee in classes discursationum, nee in eruptiones lasciviarum, sed ad eandem curam modestiae et pudicitiae, ut qui non tarn coenam caenaverint quam disciplinam. IN tertullian's time 69 " Let us compare the actual mode of life in the world and in prison, to see whether the spirit does not gain more in prison than the flesh loses. Nay, indeed, whatever is right, the flesh does not lose, owing to the care of the Church and the Love — the Agape — of the Brethren \" Hence we may conclude that at Carthage in the days of Tertullian, the Agape of the Christians was closely connected with the distribution of charity. Monceaux indeed goes so far as to assert that the whole organization of Christianity resulted in its being " a vast mutual aid society ^" The same fact is apparent from the Acts of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas xvii. On the other hand Tertullian the Montanist has much fault to find with the excesses for which these Love-Feasts offered opportunity. He even repeats the vile charges of the Heathen, such as we find detailed in Caecilius' speech in the Octavius of Minucius Felix (see below, p. 177, in ch. viii.), charges which Tertullian himself had repelled with much indignation in his 1 ad Mart. ii. Ipsam interim conversationem saeculi et carceris comparemus, si non plus in carcere spiritus acquirit, quam caro amittit. Immo et quae justa sunt caro non amittit per curam ecclesiae et agapen fratrum. — It is of course an open question whether the word Agape here refers to the Love-Feast or, generally, to the love of the Brethren. ^ p. 21. La charite et la solidarite faisaient alors da Ghristianisme une vaste society de secours mutuels. 70 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA earlier days^ (see Apol. Vll., viii., quoted below, §iv., pp. 72, 73). But in Cyprian's time, a generation later, we find that the cause for such complaints had died out. § iv. The Eucharist The central service of Christ's Religion is of course frequently mentioned. Tertullian has varying names for it : It is " an act of thanksgivingV' " the solemn rites of the Lord^" the " supper of God^" the " banquet of the Lord^" the "banquet of God«." In de Orat xix. where he is discussing the question, Is a Fast broken by receiving Holy Communion ? he calls the Eucharist the " Prayers of the sacrifices " ; and he says, " With regard to regular Fast days (Wed- nesdays and Fridays), most think that there ought to be no attendance at the Prayers of the sacrifices, on the ground that the fast must cease with the reception of the Lord's Body. Does the Eucharist then end an act of obedience owed to God, or does it put you more 1 Apud te agape in caccabis fervet, fides in culinis calet, spes in ferculis jacet. Sed majoris est agape, quia per hunc adulescentes tui cum sororibus dormiunt. Appendices scilicet gulae lascivia atque luxuria est. de Jejunio xvii. 2 adv. Marc. i. 23. Super panem... Deo gratiarum actionibus fungi- tur. ^ Dominica soUemnia celebramus. de Fuga xiv. ; so de Anima ix. post transacta sollemnia. * de Sped. xiii. Caena Dei. ' Convivium Dominicum. ad Ux. ii., iv. 8 Convivium Dei. ad Ux. ii., vm. IN tertullian's time 71 in His debt ? Will not your * station ' — your day of fasting — be all the more solemn if you have also stood at the altar of God ? By the reception and reservation of the Lord's Body both points are secured, your sharing in the sacrifice and the observance of your duty (of fasting!)." The last extract gives us the familiar term " Euchar- ist," and speaks of it as "a sacrifice at the altar of God." It is to be noticed also that communicants were allowed to take the consecrated Bread home with them for private consumption at this period, a practice which was forbidden by councils at a later time. The same fact appears, ad Uxorem ii., v., in the passage where Tertullian is urging the many difficulties besetting the Christian wife of a heathen husband. " How will you escape his notice when you get up during the night to pray ? Will you not seem to him to be busy about some magic rites ? Will your husband not know what it is you eat secretly before other food ? If he knows that it is bread, does he not believe that it is what it is generally said to be ? " {viz. bread soaked in infant's blood, or similar abominations 2). ! De stationum diebus non putant pleriqiie sacrificiorum orationi- bu8 interveniendum, quod static solvenda sit accepto corpore Domini. Ergo devotum Deo obsequium eucharistia resolvit, an magis Deo obligat ? Nonne sollemnior erit static tua, si ad aram Dei steteris ? accepto corpore Domini et reservato utrumque salvum est, et partici- patio sacrificii et executio officii. 2 Latebisne tu cum... per noctem exurgis oratum, et non magiae aliquid videberis operari ? non sciet maritus quid secreto ante omnem cibum gustes ? et si sciverit panem, non ilium credit esse qui dicitur ? 72 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA The reception of the Eucharist before daybreak has been already alluded to\ The well-known passage from Pliny's letter to Trajan is quoted in the Apology, where we read that " with regard to the sacraments of the Christians he had found out nothing further than this — that they meet together before daybreak for the purpose of singing hymns to Christ and God," or, following another reading, " to Christ as God 2." The custom of celebrating the Eucharist in the early morning of the first day of the week was probably due to two causes : (1) That it might be a weekly memorial of the Lord's Resurrection (cf Matt, xxviii. 1, o'^e he aap^drcav, tj} e7ri(j>(0(TK0V(7r) eh filav cra^^drcov: Mc. xvi. 2, \iap TTpcol rfj /j,ta tmv aa^^droyv . . .dvarei' \avro<; rov rjXiov. Lc. xxiv. 1, rfj he fjuca tgov (rafiffdreov opdpov /Sadeco^ : Joh. xx. 1, rfj 8e fxia toov aa^^drcou ...irpoji aKOTia<; ert ovarj^) and (2) to avoid exciting undue attention and public notice. But the very secrecy of their service, to which only the initiated were admitted, roused suspicion, and very soon evil stories were circulated as to what took place. Eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His Blood, which the Christians said they met to do, lent itself to gross and malignant misinterpretation. They were accused of slaying infants, soaking bread in their blood, and eating the horrid food ; after the Thyestean banquet followed ^ See above, § iii. p. 67. de Corona, iii. there quoted. 2 Nihil aliud se de sacramentis eorum comperisse quam ooetus antelucanos ad canendum Christo et {v.l. ut) Deo. Apol. 11. IN tertulltan's time 73 darkness, a dog being tied to the lamp and over- turning it in his attempts to reach scraps offered to him; and then came incest and nameless horrors \ Needless to say, Tertullian enters the most vehe- ment protest against these unjustifiable and baseless charges ; nevertheless, at a later date he does not scruple as a Montanist to hurl the same horrid accusa- tions against the Catholics^. In his enumeration of heretical practices, Tertullian implies that, in the orthodox Church, Catechumens are not admitted to the sacred mysteries. In speaking of the customs of heretics he says, " It is quite uncertain who is a Catechumen (i.e. under instruction), who a believer : they come together to the service, they listen together as a congregation, they pray together, even Gentiles if they happen to come in; they will toss what is holy to the dogs, and pearls — though not real pearls — before swine ^" 1 Apol. VIII. " In fans tibi necessarius adhuc tener, qui nesciat mortem, qui sub cultro tuo rideat : item panis, quo sanguinis virulen- tiam colligas : praeterea candelabra et lucernae et canes aliqui et offulae, quae illos ad eversionem luminum extendant: ante omnia cum matre et sorore tua venire debebis." The same vile accusations are enumerated in even greater detail in the Octavius of Min. Felix. IX. See below, chap. viii. p. 177. 2 See above, § iii. sub Jin. ^ de Praescr. Haer. xli. Quis catechumenus, quis fidelis, incertum est : pariter adeunt, pariter audiunt, pariter orant, etiam Ethnici, si superveniunt : sanctum canibus et porcis margaritas, licet non veras, jactabunt. 74 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA But, for the earnest Christian, these services take the place of games and other excitements which were so attractive to the heathen. " The pleasures, the spectacles, of Christians are holy, unceasing, without charge. By them interpret your games of the circus, in them see the courses run by the world, count the lapse of time and space, look forward to the goal of the end of all things, defend the gatherings of the churches, rouse yourself at God's signal, awake at the angel's trump, glory in the palms of martyrdom.... Do you want also blood ? you have Christ's ^" In his treatise on the Lord's Prayer, Tertullian, as Cyprian does later^ refers the fifth clause to the daily Eucharist. " Give us to-day our daily bread " he says " has a spiritual meaning : for Christ is our life, and bread is our life (or v. I. the bread of life). I am. He says ( Joh. vi. 35) the Bread of Life : and a little earlier (v. 33) the Bread is the Word of the living God, which came down from Heaven. Then because His Body also is reckoned 1 Hae voluptates haec spectacula christianorum sancta, perpetua, gratuita. In his tibi circenses ludos interpretare, cursus saeculi intuere, tempora labentia, spatia, dinumera, metas consummationis expecta, societates ecclesiarum defende, ad signum Dei suscitare, ad tubam angeli erigere, ad Martyrii palmas gloriare....Vis autem et sanguinis aliquid ? Habes Christi. de Spectaculis, xxix. 2 de Orat. Dominica, xviii. Hunc autem panem dari nobis quotidie postulamus, ne qui in Christo sumus, et eucharistiam quotidie ad cibum salutis accipimus, intercedente aliquo graviore delicto, dum abstenti et non communicantes a caelesti pane prohibemur, a Christi corpore separemur. IN tertullian's time 75 as being in the Bread, This is my Body, He says. And so by asking for daily bread we pray that we may ever abide in Christ, never separated from his Body\" In the same treatise {de Orat. ill.) some have seen in TertuUian s reference to the angels' never ceasing song of Praise " Holy, Holy, Holy," an allusion to the " Ter Sanctus" in the Eucharistic service: but it perhaps refers only to Is. vi. 3 and Apoc. iv. 8\ That Bread and Wine are the elements essential to the Eucharist is clear from several passages : in adv. Marc, III. 19 TertuUian quotes a curious variant of both Ps. xcvi. 10 and Jerem. xi. 19 to press this pointy 1 de Oratione, vi. "Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie'* spiritaliter potius intelligamus, Christus enim panis noster est, quia vita Christus et vita panis (v.l. vitae panis). Ego sum, inquit, panis vitae; et pauUo supra, panis est sermo Dei vivi, qui descendit de caelis. (N.B. Vulg. Panis enim Dei est qui descendit, &c.) Turn quod et corpus ejus in pane censetur : Hoc est corpus meum. Itaque petendo panem quotidianum perpetuitatem postulamus in Christo et individui- tatem a corpore ejus. 2 Cui ilia angelorum circumstantia non cessant dicere, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. Proinde igitur et nos angelorum, si meruerimus, candidati, jam hinc caelestem illam in Deum vocem et officium futurae claritatis ediscimus. ^ The two passages run in lxx. thus : Ps. xcvi. (xcv.) 10, eiware ip Tois ^dveffiv, 6 K^pios i^a(rL\ev(T€, &c. : and Jer. xi. 19, Seure kuI ifi^d- Xw/tev ^iXov els rbv Aprov avTov, koL ^KTpL\}/wix€v avrhv, &c. and in TertuUian I.e. Dominus regnavit a ligno : and (here in agreement with the Vulgate), Venite, mittamus lignum in panem ejus, utique in corpus. Sic enim Deus in evangelio quoque vestro {sc. Marcionis and his party) revelavit, panem corpus suum appellans, ut et hinc jam eum intellegas corpori sui (? suo) figuram panis dedisse cujus retro corpus in panem prophetes figuravit, ipso Domino hoc sacramentum postea interpre- 76 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA Water is insufficient,as Cyprian says (Epist. LXiii. IfolL), unless mixed with wine : water is for baptism, not for sacrifice. As will be noticed below \ a branch of the Montanists used cheese at the Eucharist, and were known as Artoturitae. The elements themselves were treated with the utmost reverence, as is clear from de Corona iii. " If any drop from the chalice or crumb of consecrated bread fall bo the ground, it is a cause of great anxiety to us2." Part of the ceremony at the Eucharistip service was the Kiss of Peace, the seal and sign of public prayer ^ This pious observance some would omit, partly as savouring of ostentation, partly as being incompatible with days of fasting. Tertullian protests vigorously : " what prayer is complete," he asks, " if divorced from the Holy Kiss ? who when offering service to the Lord is taturo. — The same passage occurs also adv. Marc. iv. 40, Adversus me cogitaverunt cogitatum, dicentes, Venite, conjiciamus lignum in panem ejus, scilicet crucem in corpus ejus (cf. also adv. Jud. x.). — And later, with reference to wine, Ut autem et sanguinis veterem figuram in vino recognoscas, aderit Esaias (Ixiii. 1 sq.) &c. 1 See below, ch. v. § ii. p. 136. ^ Calicis aut panis etiam nostri aliquid decuti in terram anxie patimur.— An apt parallel is quoted by Oehler ad loc. from S. Augustine, ap. Gratian. i. 1. "Quanta sollicitudine observamus, quando nobis corpus Christi ministratur, ut nihil ex ipso de nostris manibus in terram cadat." ^ Habita oratione cum fratribu8,..osculum pacis, quod est signa- culum orationis. de Oratione, xviii. IN tertullian's time 77 hindered by Peace ? what sacrifice at the altar is there from which one retires without The Peace ? whatever be the prayer, will it not be made more acceptable by our observing the command that we are * not to ap- pear unto men to fast ' ? (Matt. vi. 16). For we make it evident that we are fasting by our refusing the Kiss of Peace. You may abstain at home, where it is impossible to conceal the fact that you are fasting: but in public it is different: except on Good Friday when the fast is general and universal : then we act rightly in omitting the Kiss of Peace : for we have no reason to conceal what all are doing \" The custom is also alluded to in the passage already quoted {ad Uxor. ii. 4) where Tertullian asks. How will a pagan husband approve his wife exchanging kisses with other men'^ ? Litanies and public intercessions seem to have formed an important part of the Eucharistic service, which is called the "Crown of Prayer" in de Orat xxviii. while prayer is the spiritual sacrifice offered by God's ^ de Orat. I.e. Quae oratio cum divortio sancti osculi Integra? quern Domino officium facientem impedit pax? quale sacrificium est a quo sine pace receditur? quaecumque oratio {v.l. operatic) sit, non erit potior praecepti observatione quo jubemur jejunia nostra celarej? Jam enim de abstinentia osculi agnoscimur jejunante8...sic et die Paschae, quo communis et quasi publica jejunii religio est, merito deponimus oscula, nihil curantes de occultando quod cum omnibus faciamus. 2 Quis in carcerem ad osculanda vincula martyris reptare patietur? Jam vero alicui fratrum ad osculum convenire ? 78 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA true priests to Him as a victim appropriate and acceptable \ The same fact may be inferred from the well- known passage about intercession for the Emperor in Apol. XXX. XXXI. Tertullian's teaching about the sacrificial nature of the Holy Eucharist is clear. He speaks of the " altar " (ara, altare) which was no doubt the " mensa " or table marking the grave of some martyr or other departed saint, e.g. "Will not your 'statio,' — your day of fasting — be more solemn, if you also stand at God's altar^?" And in a passage in which he is calling attention to the teaching to be drawn from the two scape-goats (Lev. xvi. 5 f ), after reminding his readers that the one was mocked, cursed, spitted upon, torn, and wounded, and driven by the people to destruction outside of the camp, he goes on to say, "The other, offered as a sacrifice for sin, and handed over to be eaten by the Priests of the Temple only, gave marked proofs of the second type, whereby, after the expiation of all sins, the Priests of the spiritual Temple, i.e. of the Church, might enjoy, if I may say so, the very flesh of the grace of the Lord. Of this those who partake not are excluded from Salvation ^" 1 The passage is quoted in full above, see p. 19, n. 2. 2 Nonne solemnior erit static tua, si et ad aram Dei steteris ? de Orat. XIX. 3 Alter vero, pro delictis oblatus et sacerdotibus tantum templi in pabulum datus, secundae repraesentationis argumenta signabat, qua IN tertullian's time 79 From the passages already quoted we may infer the order of the service of the Eucharist as celebrated at Carthage in Tertullian's time. Apol. xxxix. * describes the gathering of the faithful in the early morning, the prayers, the reading from Holy Scripture, the sermon, the issuing of disciplinary or penitential notices, the collection of Alms: from other passages we infer the withdrawal at this point of Catechumens and non- communicants : then follows the Kiss of Peace, the consecration of the bread and wine by the bishop, or a priest commissioned by him, in a chalice richly decorated 2, and the distribution of the elements by the deacons. The ceremony is concluded by prayers, and the singing of psalms ^ delictis omnibus expiatis sacerdotes templi spiritalis, id est ecclesiae, Dominicae gratiae quasi visceratione quadam fruerentur, jejunantibus ceteris a salute, adv. Jud. xiv. 1 See above, § i. in. 2 Tertullian speaks of chalices of the orthodox church ornamented with the figure of the Good Shepherd : de Pudic. vii, Procedant ipsae picturae calicum vestrorum, and again ibid. c. x. Pastor quem in calice depingis. 3 Reference may here be made to an exhaustive paper on *' Eucharistic Belief in the Second and Third Centuries" by Pro- fessor Swete, published in Journ. Theol. Stud, for Jan. 1902 (Vol. iii. p. 161 foil.). 80 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA § V. Prayer. a. The Treatise de Oratione. There is good reason for thinking that Tertullian was ordained priest about the year 200 A.D. and that his three treatises on Baptism, Prayer, and Penitence, were written soon after that date, with a special view to the priestly instruction of his Catechumens. The first of the three has been already dealt with in § ii. of this chapter : the third will be found lower, § vi. We may now briefly examine what he has to say about Prayer. " Prayer is the only means of conquering God," says Tertullian i; and its claims upon the Christian are constant and peremptory. " Prayer is the bulwark of our Faith, our arms of offence and defence against a foe who is watching us from all sides. Therefore let us never march without our arms^" He takes the Lord's Prayer as the basis of his Homily, discusses it clause by clause, and sees in it "not only the special characteristics of prayer, such as worship of God and petitions from man, but also almost the whole of the * Word of the Lord,' and a complete reminder of discipline; so that really in the Lord's Prayer we find a compendium of the whole gospeP." 1 de Orat. xxix. Sola est oratio quae Deum vincit. 2 ibid. Oratio mur us est Fidei, arma et tela nostra adversus hostem^ qui nos undique observat. Itaque nunquam inermes incedamus. 3 Neque enim propria tantum orationis officia complexa est, vel venerationem Dei aut hominis petitionem, sed omnem paene Sermo- IN tertullian's time 81 He summarizes its contents thus : " What an im- mense number of points are included within the short compass of these few words: utterances of prophets, evangelists, apostles; words of the Lord, parables, warnings, commands ; what a number of duties are at once expressed ! God's glory in * the Father,' evidence of the Faith in ' the Name,' the sacrifice of obedience in ' the Will,' the assurance of hope in ' the Kingdom,' prayer for life in 'the Bread,' confession of debts in the petition for forgiveness, anxiety about temptations in the prayer for aid\" He then goes on to discuss the true value of prayer, which is a spiritual exercise, and depends for its worth on the mind and right intention of the suppliant, rather than upon outward ritual acts ; on his fi:-eedom from anger 2 rather than upon the cleanliness of his hands ^ or the stripping himself of his coat*, or his sitting down for prayer ^ and so forth. nem Domini, omnem commemorationera disciplinae, ut revera in oratione breviarium totius evangelii comprehendatur. ihid. i. 1 Compendiis pauculorum verborum quot attinguntur edicta pro- phetarum, evangeliorum, apostolorum, sermones Domini, parabolae, exempla, praeeepta ! Quot simul expunguntur officia ! Dei Honor in Patre, Fidei testimonium in Nomine, oblatio obsequii in Voluntate, commemoratio spei in Eegno, petitio vitae in Pane, exomologesis debitorum in Deprecatione, sollicitudo temptationum in Postulatione Tutelae. ihid. ix. 2 ibid. XI. ^ ihid. XIII. * Est quorundam expositis paenulis orationem facere. ihid. xvi. ^ ihid. XVI. D. 6 82 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA Incidentally, he gives us much information as to observances of the orthodox Church in prayer, some of which are noticed below. Besides regular morning and evening prayer, which he takes for granted S he would have the third, sixth, and ninth hours every day sanctified by prayer; also that grace before meat should not be omitted, nor prayer forgotten before going to the daily bath-. He concludes his treatise with what to some may seem a fanciful utterance, but surely it is a burst of genuine eloquence. "Even angels pray, all of them; all creatures pray: cattle and wild beasts pray and bend their knees; when they come forth from their stalls, or caves, they look up to heaven with eager eyes, snorting and breathing deep as their custom is. Nay, even the birds as they rise from their nest, soar skyward, and open their wings as men their hands, in the shape of a cross, and utter something which surely seems like Prayer. What more can I say about the duty of Prayer ? just this : The Lord Himself prayed, to whom be assigned Honour and Worth for ever and everK 1 Legitimis orationibus, quae sine ulla admonitione debentur ingressu lucis et noctis. ibid. xxv. 2 Cibum non prius sumere, et lavacrum non prius adire quam interposita oratione fideles decet. ibid. xxv. 3 Grant etiam angeli omnes ; orat omnia creatura ; orant pecudea et ferae et genua declinant, et egredientes de stabulia ao speluncis ad caelum non otioso ore suapiciunt, vibrantea spiritum auo more. Sed IN tertullian's time 83 b. Turning to the East in prayer. In the parallel passages Apol. xvi. and ad Nationes i. 13, we find that in N. Africa as elsewhere in Christendom^ it was generally customary to turn to the East in prayer, as the source of light, and symbolic of Christ the Sun of Righteousness. This custom led to a charge against the Christians of worshipping the sun, a charge confirmed by the fact that the first day of the week, the day of the sun, was especially devoted by the Church to joy and gladness ^ Tertullian treats this charge with the same scorn he pours on the accusation that the Christians' God is an ass or an ass's head {Ap. I.e.). c. Attitude in Prayer. To pray kneeling was associated with humiliation, penance, and fasting : and so we find that during the joyous season between Easter and Whitsuntide, not only were the regular fasts — on Wednesdays and Fridays — not observed, but also prayers were said standing. et aves nido exurgentes eriguntur ad caelum, et alarum crucem pro manibus expandunt, et dicunt aliquid quod oratio videatur. Quid ergo amplius de officio orationis ? Etiam ipse Dominus oravit, cui sit honor et virtus in secula seculorum. ibid. xxix. Jin. ^ Cf. Apost. Constitutions, ii. 57 ; Aug. de Serm. Bom. ii. 5 ; Bing- ham, Eccl. Ant. XIII. 8, 15. 2 ad Nat. I.e. alii...8olem Christianum Deum aestimant, quod innotuerit ad orientis partem facere nos precationem, vel die solis laetitiam curare. 6—2 84 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA The same difference in the attitude of those praying was also made on Sundays, and Tertullian speaks of " some few " who abstained from kneeling on Saturdays also, the Jewish Sabbath. '' As to kneeling in Prayer different customs are permissible. There are some few who do not kneel on the Sabbath (Saturday).... We, however, as we have been taught, on the day of the Lord's Resurrection only, ought to be free not merely from the humiliation of kneeling, but also from all that entails anxiety and all serious duties, putting off even our business, for fear we should give place to the Devil. The same also applies to the interval between Easter and Whitsuntide, which we mark with the like solemn exultation \" So, " on the Lord's Day we consider it wrong to fast, or to pray on our knees. We enjoy this same liberty from the day of the Passover right on to Pentecost I" On the other hand, kneeling is customary at other times, at early morning prayers, on fast days, and "station days^," &c. 1 De genu quoque ponendo varietatem observationis patitur oratia per pauculos quosdam qui Sabbato abstinent genibu8...nos vero, sicut accepimus, solo die Dominicae Resurrectionis non ab isto tantum, sed omni anxietatis habitu et ofi&cio cavere debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quern diabolo locum demus. Tantundem et spatio Pente- costes, quod eadem exultationis solemnitate dispungimus. de OraU XXIII. 2 Die Dominico jejunium nefas ducimus, vel de geniculis adorare. Eadem immunitate a die Paschae in Pentecosten usque gaudemus. de Cor. in. Gf. below p. 94 n. 3 Ceterum omni die quis dubitet prosternere se Deo vel prima IN tertullian's time 85 TertuUian often alludes to the outstretched arms and opened hands of the suppliant, which, as he reminds us, take the form of a cross, e.g. " We not only raise our hands (in prayer) but also open them wide, both when we celebrate the Lord's Passion and when in prayer we make confession to Christ \" Again, " If you set up a man with outstretched hands, you at once make the shape of a crossl" So, "We Christians pray, looking up to heaven, with hands expanded because they are free from guilt, with head bared, because we have no cause for shame ^." Horace's Caelo supinas si tuleris manus nascente luna, rustica Phidyle, &c. {Gar. iii. 23. 1) will of course occur to everybody. But TertuUian is careful to add that these out- stretched hands must be raised modestly and humbly, not too high nor with arrogance : nor must the face be too bold. We must take warning from the diverse attitudes of the Pharisee and the Publican, if we wish saltern oratione qua lucem iugredimur? Jejuniis autem et stationibus nulla oratio sine genu et reliquo humilitatis more celebranda est. de Oral. XXIII. 1 Nos vero non attollimus tantum, sed etiam expandimus, et de Dominica Passione modulati et orantes confitemur Christo. de Orat. XIV. 2 Si statueris hominem manibus expansis, imaginem crucis feceris. ad Nat. i. 12. ^ Illuc suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis, quia innocuis, capite nudo, quia non erubescimus...oramus. Apol. xxk. Oehler ad loc. quotes Prudentius in Martyrio Fructuosi {Peristeph. vi. 103 seq.). Palmas in morem crucis ad Patrem levandas. 86 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA to adopt that which will be the more well pleasing to God\ d. Prayers for the Dead. This custom so natural to the instincts of the human heart was universally recognized in the Church of North Africa. Not to mention the touching passages in the Acts of S. Perpetua and S. Felicitas^ — Perpetua's confident prayer from prison for her dead brother, and her comfort in its answer — we find such expressions as these in Tertullian's writings : — "The wife intercedes for the soul of her (dead husband), and prays for refreshment for him in the meantime, and in the first resurrection to be reunited to him : on the anniversaries of his death she offers the Eucharist that he may enjoy rest^" In arguing against second marriages he says, " Nor indeed will you be able to hate your former wife, for whom you preserve an even more scrupulous affection 1 Atqui cum modestia et humilitate adorantes magis commeuda- mus Deo pieces nostras, ne ipsis quidem manibus sublimius elatis, sed temperate ac probe elatis, ne vultu quidem in audaciam erecto. Nam ille publicanus, qui non tantum prece, sed et vultu humiliatus atque dejectus orabat, justificatior Pharisaeo procacissimo discessit. de Orat. xvii. 2 See Acta vii. dealt with elsewhere: see pp. 131, 135. 3 de Monogamia, x. Pro anima eius (sc. defuncti mariti) orat, et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei, et in prima resurrectione con- sortium, et offert annuis diebus dormitionis ejus. IN tertullian's time 87 (than you had for her while living), as for one already received into the presence of the Lord ; for whose spirit you offer intercession, for whom you render yearly oblations \" Again, in his list of customs sanctioned by tradition not directly ordered in Holy Scripture, he says, " We make oblations for the Dead, for their birth into life every year on the day of their deaths" Professor Swete in an exhaustive article on the subject of Prayer for the Dead in the first four centuries ^ calls attention to the fact that the " Church in North Africa was the first community, so far as we know, which offered the Eucharist for the benefit of the departed." This may have been due in the first instance to Montanistic influences, but it soon became general at Carthage : and in the next generation there is constant allusion to the practice in the writings of Cyprian ^ 1 de Exhortatione Castitatis, xi. Neque enim pristinam poteris odisse, cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem, ut jam receptae apud Dominum, pro cujus spiritu postulas, pro qua oblationes annuas reddis. 2 de Corona, iii. Oblationes pro defunctis, pro nataliciis annua die facimus. 3 Joiim. Theol. Stud. Vol. viii. No. 32 for July 1907 ; cf. also Vol. III. p. 167. 4 See Monceaux, p. 69. 88 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA § vi. Penance and the Forgiveness of Sins. The whole question of Penitential Discipline in the first three centuries has been very fully treated by Professor Swete in the Journal of Theological Studies, April 1903, and he has left but little to say on this subject so far as the Church in North Africa is concerned. Tertullian's authorship of the treatise de Paenitentia has been questioned, but without sufficient grounds. In it he recognizes that by Baptism plenary remission of sins is secured \ " Baptism is the sign and seal of our Faith in Jesus Christ, that we are living in the Spirit and not according to the flesh : that being so, we are baptized not in order that we may sin no more, but because we have ceased to sin, for we are already cleansed in heart." On the other hand if a Christian after Baptism does commit sin, what can be done ? Tertullian replies that a door of repentance is open to him once and only once after public confession duly made (Exomologesis). The degradation of this public humiliation must be faced or there can be no reconciliation, no forgiveness. It is the only hope of salvation as is the plank to the shipwrecked sailor^. ^ de Paen. vi. Lavacrum illud obsignatio est fidei, quae fides a paenitentiae fide incipitur et commendatur. Non ideo abluimur ut delinquere desinamus, sed quia desiimus, quoniam jam corde loti sumus. 2 ibid. VII. Deus clausa jam ignoscentiae janua et instinctionis sera obstructa aliquid adhuo permisit patere. CoUocavit in vestibule IN tertullian's time 89 Tertullian gives a full definition and description of Exomologeds — Public Confession — in the following words : "As to dress and food, the Penitent is bidden to lie in sack-cloth and ashes, to cover his body with filth, to prostrate his mind with grief, to make full and sorrowful compensation for his wrongdoing; he must be content for the future with the plainest food and drink \ not of course on account of appetite but for the sake of his soul ; he must assist his prayers by frequent fasts, groan, weep, and howl day and night to the Lord his God, fling himself down before the Presbyters, embrace the knees of those Beloved of God (the Martyrs and Confessors), and entreat all the Brethren to use their intercessions on his behalf. Such is the rite of Exomologeds the object of which is to ensure penance, and from fear of future danger to honour the Lord now : by itself pronouncing against the sinner, it takes the place of God's indignation, and by temporary affliction it anticipates — I will not say frustrates — the punishment of Eternity^." paenitentiam secundam, quae pulsantibus patefaciat, sed jam semel, quia, jam secundo : sed amplius nunquam, quia proxime frustra. ibid. IX. Exomologesis...qua delictum Domino nostrum confitemur... quatenus satisfactio confessione di8ponitur...prosternendi et humilifi- candi hominis disciplina est. ibid. iv. Paenitentia vita est... earn tu peccator ita amplexare ut naufragus alicujus tabulae fidem. 1 i.e. bread and water : cf. de Patten, xin. where he is also describing the course of Exomologesis, Sordes cum angustia victua Domino libat, contenta simplici pabulo puroque aquae potu. 2 De ipso quoque habitu atque victu mandat sacco et cineri incubare, corpus sordibus obscurare, animum maeroribus dejicere, ilia 90 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA Strict as this discipline was,Tertullian adopts an even severer line as Montanist. In his treatise de Pudicitia, which is a violent protest against the action of Pope Callistus in issuing an edict "I remit, after penance done, the sins of adultery and fornication \" Tertullian upholds Montanistic severity as against the leniency towards penitents favoured by the party then in power at Rome. In particular he finds fault with the Shepherd of Hermas^, who in Tertullian's opinion had not been sufficiently severe towards penitents after sins of impurity ^ He protests also against Callistus' claim to have the right of remitting sins by his office of Bishop, in the case of all sins, after Baptism, though he concedes this right in the case of more venial offences^. quae peccavit tristi tractatione mutare, ceterura pastum et potum pura nosse, non ventris scilicet sed animae causa, plerumque vero jejuniis preces alere, ingemiscere, lacrimari, et mugire dies noctesque ad Dominum Deum tuum, Presbyteris advolvi et caris Dei adgenicu- lari, omnibus fratribus legationes deprecationis suae injungere. Haec omnia exomologesis, ut paenitentiam commendet, ut de periculi timore Dominum honoret, ut in peccatorem ipsa pronuntians pro Dei indignatione fungatur, et temporali afflictatione aeterna supplicia, non dicam frustretur, sed expungat. de Paen. ix. 1 Ego et moechiae et fornicationis delicta paenitentia functis dimitto. de Pud. i. 2 ibid. X. Scriptura Pastoris quae sola moechos amat ; and again XX. Receptior apud ecclesias epistola Barnabae illo apocrypho Pastore moechorum. 3 Professor Bigg in his Ongins of Christianity, p. 73, shares to the full Tertullian's disapproval of this writer. ^ Salva ilia paenitentiae specie post fidem, quae aut levioribus delictis veniam ab episcopo consequi poterit, aut majoribus et inre- missibilibus a Deo solo, de Pudic. xviii.^n. IN tertullian's time 91 There is a marked change of view between Tertullian the orthodox priest and Tertullian the Montanist. He wrote the de Paenitentia while still catholic, and considered then that all sins after Baptism could find forgiveness at least once (as shewn above): in adv. Marc. IV. 9, he enumerates the seven deadly sins " Idolatry, Blasphemy, Murder, Adultery, Fornication, False Witness, Frauds" the list being evidently based on S. Matt. xv. 19, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- teries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies^" He gives no hint that any of these were outside the possibility of pardon by the Church. But by the time he wrote the de Pudicitia, he had learnt — mindful no doubt of the distinction drawn in 1 John v. 16, be- tween " sins unto death " and " sins not unto death '* — to place certain sins outside of the pale of forgiveness altogether. Some, he says, will be remissible, others not : just as no one doubts that some deserve scourging, others damnation ^ In the latter class are mainly three, idolatry, uncleanness, murder. But these extreme views did not commend themselves to the orthodox Church at large, and by degrees the weakness ^ Septem maculis capitalium delictorum...idolatria, blasphemia, homicidio, adulterio, stupro, falso testimonio, fraude. 2 Cf. 1 Cor. V. 11. ^ de Pud. n. Alia erunt remissibilia, alia irremissibilia : secundum quod nemini dubium est alia castigationem mereri, alia damnationem. 92 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA of human nature enforced the recognition of a laxer discipline. It is clear then that the ritual of Exomologesis or Public Confession was rigidly exacted before a Penitent could be reconciled, after sin, to the conscience of the community. But it is worth noticing that all this penance was undergone publicly : there is no trace in North Africa, in Tertullian's days, of the practice of Auricular Confession and private Absolution. § vii. Liturgy. We have practically no trace left of the form of service used in the North African Church, but the references to it are frequent, especially in the writings of Tertullian. It is very important as being the most ancient Latin Liturgy, for even in A.D. 200 the Church in Rome was still speaking Greek, and its public ser- vices and literature belonged to that language and not to Latin. At first of course neither at Carthage nor at Rome nor elsewhere was there any " Christian year " properly so called: the Ecclesiastical Calendar was built up round the weekly memorial of Christ's Resurrection, the Eucharist celebrated at dawn on the first day of each week : prominence was naturally assigned to the Festival^ of Festivals, Easter Day, and the recognition of that great Feast, aided by the Festivals of Martyrs — IN tertullian's time 98 i.e. the annual celebrations of their death — by degrees reached the full observance of the Christian year. By Tertullian's time the observance of the Jewish Sabbath by Christians had been completely abandoned in North Africa and probably elsewhere \ Not that the Sabbath was not a Divine institution, but that it had served its time, and its place was now taken by the Christian Sunday, the Lord's Day 2, as Tertullian calls it I.e. and again a little later, " The Gentiles have their festival day once a year in each case, for you it comes once a week^" He discusses the whole question of Sabbath obser- vance in adv. Marc. iv. 12, where he argues from the episode of the healing of the withered hand on the Sabbath (Lc. vi. 1 — 11) that Christ as Lord of the Sabbath came not to destroy but to fulfil: he en- lightened the Mosaic law of Sabbath observance by a higher law, that it is lawful to do good on the sabbath days, a principle which was recognized even in Mosaic times by carrying the ark of the Covenant round the walls of Jericho for seven days, including at least one Sabbath day^ and so the way is prepared for the trans- ^ de Idol. XIV. Nobis quibus sabbata extranea sunt. 2 Dominicus dies. 3 Ethnicis semel annuus dies quisque festus est, tibi octavo quoque die. de Idol. xiv. ^ Per Jesum {i.e. Joshua) tunc quoque concussum est Sabbatum, ut et hoc in Christum renuntiaretur. Cf. adv. Jud. iv. It is curious that this passage seems to be quoted as referring to Christ and not to Joshua by both Leclercq {Afrique Chretienne i. p. 66) and Cabrol {Diet, d^ Archeologie chretienne, s.v. Africa). 94 THE CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA ference of the observance of the seventh to the first day in each week. The letter passes, but the spirit lives : and one seventh of our time remains dedicated to God. The " Lord's Day " was festal : on it fasting was forbidden and also to pray on bended knee : the same custom applied to all the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost \ The week clusters round the Sunday ; and Wednes- days and Fridays are Dies Stationum, i.e. days of special fasting and prayer I The metaphor statio comes from the military term for what we should call "sentry duty^" but while the fast was not prolonged by the Church beyond the ninth hour (c£ Didache), the Montanists had no such limits The special hours of ^ de Corona, iii. and de Orat. xxiii. both quoted above § ii. p. 84. Gf. also ibid. xi. Jam et stationes {i. e. fixed hours for prayer and fast- ing) aut aHis magis faciet (sc. miles) quam Christo, aut et Dominico die, quando nee Christo ? Oehler quotes several passages illustrative of this custom {de Gar, iii.) notably a fragment of Irenaeus, h rg KvpiaKTi fir] Kklveiv y6vv