Page:Princeton Theological Review, Volume 3, Number 4 (1905).djvu/5



T is exceedingly impressive to see Christian Latin literature Athena-like spring at once into being fully armed in the person of an eminently representative man, in whom seem summed up the promise and potency of all that it was yet to be. This is what occurred in Tertullian, whose advent and career provide a remarkable illustration of the providential provision of the right man for the right place. Seldom has one been called to a great work who was better fitted for it by disposition and talents as well as by long and strenuous preparation. Ardent in temperament, endowed with an intelligence as subtle and original as it was aggressive and audacious, he added to his natural gifts a profound erudition, which far from impeding only gave weight to the movements of his alert and robust mind. A jurist of note, he had joined to the study of law not only that of letters, but also that of medicine; born and brought up in the camp he had imbibed from infancy no little knowledge of the military art; and his insatiable curiosity had carried him into the depths of every form of learning accessible to his time and circumstances, not even excepting the occult literature of the day. When he gave himself in his mature manhood to the service of Christianity, he brought in his hands all the spoils of antique culture, smelted into a molten mass by an almost incredible passion.

The moment when he appeared on the scene was one well