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 pleasures many and noble. What greater pleasure could be conceived than reconciliation to God and pardon of the many sins of a past life? What delight should exceed the trampling idolatry under foot, the expulsion of demons, acts of healing, a life unto God? These were the pleasures and spectacles of Christians, holy, perpetual, and free. In the Christian circus they might behold immodesty hurled down by chastity, perfidy slain by fidelity, cruelty bruised by mercy, wantonness overcome by modesty! These were the contests in which to gain the Christian crown. "or do you wish to see the blood shed? Behold Christ's!" Then Tertullian closes his eyes to the spectacles of earth. There looms before him (c. xxx.) the spectacle close at hand of the Lord coming in His glory and triumph. He depicts angels exulting, saints rising from the dead, the kingdom of the just and the city of the New Jerusalem, the hell of the persecutor and scoffer; and there were spectacles even more glorious still. Man could not conceive them; but they were nobler than those of the circus, the amphitheatre, or the racecourse.

De Cultu Feminarum, i. and ii.—The luxury and extravagance of the women of the time is matter of notoriety. Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria do not express one whit more strongly than Seneca their ambition, cruelty, and licentiousness. Therefore, when women became Christians, and matronly and wifely virtues or virgin purity and modesty characterized them, it extorted the admiration of some and the impatient scorn of others. But luxury began to creep in and overrule the daughters of the church. Tertullian saw it, and the above works were among other efforts to recall Christian women to the Christian life.

De Idololatria is a protest against serving two masters—Christianity and heathenism. Many Christians had in adult age come over to Christianity from heathenism, and many Christian craftsmen gained their living by distinctly heathen trades, and would not or could not see that they were wrong. Many "servants of God" had official or professional engagements which brought them perpetually in contact with heathen customs, legal forms, sacrificial acts, and social courtesies. They drew sophistical distinctions between what they might write but not speak, or the image they might make but not worship. To Tertullian such contact and collusion, and therefore such professions and trades, were radically wrong. Heathenism in all its shapes was idolatry. Two professions connected with idolatry were especially obnoxious to him, (a) the astrologer (c. ix.), arguing that "astrology was the science of the stars which affirmed the Advent of Christ"; (b) the schoolmaster (ludimagister) and other professors of letters (c. x.), who had to teach the names, genealogies, honours of heathen gods, and keep their festivals from which they derived their income. On festival-days, in honour of emperors, victories, and the like, the doors of Christians were more decorated with lamps and laurels than those of the heathen (cf. Apol. c. xxxv.), men quoting Christ's command; "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" (Matt. xxii. 21). Private and social festivals stood on a different footing (c. xvi.), e.g. the natural ceremonies connected with the assumption of the toga virilis, espousals, nuptials, and the naming of children. It was a more important question (c. xvii.) what was to be the line of slaves or children who were believers, of officials in attendance upon their lords, patrons, or the chief magistrates when sacrificing? Tertullian answers all such questions in detail. From idolatry in act Tertullian passes to idolatry in word (c. xx.), forbidding ejaculations such as "By Hercules!" "By the god of truth" (Medius-fidius, see Andrews's Lex. s.n. Fidius). Lastly a yet subtler form of idolatry is considered (c. xxiii.). Christians borrowed money from the heathen, and by giving bonds in security avoided taking an oath. "Scripsi sed nihil dixi. Non negavi, quia non juravi." Indignantly does Tertullian protest against such sophistry: faults committed in mind were faults in deed (Matt. v. 28).

De Patientia, one of the most spiritual of Tertullian's compositions, is a sermon preached to himself quite as much as to others. His experience as a priest had taught him the need of patience every time he confronted pettiness not less than pride, frivolity not less than idolatry.

Ad Uxorem, i. and ii.—Among the questions discussed in, and disturbing, the Christian church at Carthage was that of second marriages. These were evidently numerous. Tertullian gave his advice in a treatise in two books addressed to his wife, which he hoped might be profitable to her and to any other woman "belonging to God." He does not go here beyond the position taken by St. Paul. If he evidently considered celibacy the higher state, though himself married, he does not forbid marriage. But second marriages were different, and he argues strongly against them.

(2) Doctrinal Treatises.—Three positions laid down by Tertullian (de Praes. Haer. cc. xxi. xxxii. xxxvi.), (a) apostolic doctrine, (b) episcopal succession from the apostles, (c) the apostolic canon of Scripture, were rocks on which the church was then firmly fixed.

(a) His Regula Fidei (cf. de Praes. Haer. c. xiii.; de Virg. Vel. c. i.; adv. Prax. c. ii.) is the form given by Irenaeus (contr. Haer. 1 c. x.; cf. the two in Denzinger's Enchiridion, pp. 1, 2), expanded upon points which had come to the front during a lapse of about 30 years. But it had become something more than a mere regula; it had risen to a doctrina; and in the brotherhood of Carthage it was the contesseratio (cf. de Praes. Haer. cc. xx. xxxvi.) which reason and tradition united in approving. (b) The regula had come down to them through bishops "per successionem ab initio decurrentem" (cf. ib. c. xxxii.), and those bishops had received "cum successionem charisma veritatis certum" (Iren. iv. c. xxvi. 2). The former fact gave historical value to the regula, the latter dogmatic credibility. The unworthy life of many a successor of the apostles (cf. de Pudicitia, c. i.) did not annul the validity of the doctrine. For (c) it was supported by the Scriptures. In the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles (cf. de Praes. Haer. c. xxxvi.)