Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/966

 was aroused against Christians by the conduct of the soldier specified in the de Corona. In Carthage (c. iii.) the question was anxiously debated, "May Christians flee from persecution or not?" The clergy answered "Yes," and set an example (c. xi.), which they probably defended by Christ's words (Matt. x. 23), and by the practice of a Polycarp and others. A few years before (ad Uxor. i. c. iii.) Tertullian himself had conceded that flight was "better" where the Christian was likely to deny the faith through the agony of torture; but now he thought differently. Montanistic severity had laid its spell upon him. His work deals with the two modes by which the timid and doubtful sought to evade persecution: (a) flight (cc. i.–xi.), and (b) bribery (cc. xii.–end).

De Exhortatione Castitatis.—Some years had elapsed since Tertullian had written ad Uxorem, deprecating for women a second marriage. The death of a friend's wife gave him an opportunity of urging upon men a like continence; and he did so in language declaratory of views far more exaggerated.

De Virginibus Velandis.—The veiling of virgins was a burning question among Christians at Carthage; and partisans in Carthage took sides according as they argued from what St. Paul (I. Cor. xi.) had said or had left to be inferred. Did his term "women" include virgins? Christian married women appeared veiled everywhere, in the church as well as the marketplace; their veil was the mark of their status. The Christian virgin did one of three things: she went everywhere unveiled, or veiled in the streets but unveiled in the church, or everywhere veiled. Of these the first was the oldest and local custom—it was the mark of the virgin and the practice of the majority. But a strong minority had adopted the last of the three practices. This Tertullian approved (cf. de Orat. cc. xx.–xxii.).

(2) Doctrinal Works.—The majority of these were written when Tertullian had become a Montanist. They present more or less the catch-words of the sect, and refer to the Paraclete and the new prophecy, if the doctrines inculcated and defended are those of the church Catholic. To be a Montanist was not with Tertullian to be a seceder from the church in points of faith, though the church found it necessary for the sake of her unity in life and doctrine to count him and his outside her.

Adv. Hermogenem.—For the nature of the opinions of this heretical teacher and of Tertullian's treatise against him see.