CHAPTER IX

THE SCHOOL OF CARTHAGE

The Christian thinkers connected with the Churches of Asia Minor formed the first group to which the name of a school can be given. Their chief literary works have already been noticed; their last outstanding representative was IRENAEUS, the disciple of POLYCARP, who had been one of the disciples of the apostle John.

During the two centuries that elapsed between the work of TERTULLIAN and the work of CASSIAN, the literary history of Christianity is the history of various schools of thought, each of which made its own contribution to the statement and the discussion of the Faith. "Minds trained in different intellectual surroundings, and swayed by different religious and ethical preconceptions naturally interpreted the facts of Christian experience and the tradition in various ways."1

The School of Carthage was a school of rigorous morality and practical religion. It regarded the Gospel as calling for a discipline of life that separated the Church from the world by an almost uncompromising aloofness. In literature the School has the special distinction of being the means whereby the Latin language, with all its riches of thought and style, was brought into the service of Christianity.

Until the middle of the second century, Greek was the language of the Church; but with the publication of the Apology entitled Octavius, 180-190, which was written by the converted Roman lawyer, MARCUS MINUCIUS FELIX, the new Faith began to make use of Latin.

1 A. F. Findlay, By-Ways in Early Christian Literature, Preface, p. v.

The Apology takes the form of a dialogue between Octavius, a Christian, and Caecilius, a pagan, who, however, at last declares himself overcome by the arguments of his opponent. MINUCIUS thus describes the occasion of the discussion:

when in the early morning we were going along the
shore towards the sea, that breathing the air might
gently refresh our lungs, and that the yielding sand
might sink down under our easy footsteps; Caecilius,
observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his
mouth, as is the custom of the superstitious common
people, and pressed a kiss on it with his lips.

But a greater than MARCUS MINUCIUS FELIX was needed
to recast the substance of Christian teaching in the mould
of the Latin mind. That was a task that called for a vig-
orous, creative personality, and such a personality was found
in QUINTUS SEPTIMUS FLOREUS TERTULLIAN, born a
pagan in Carthage, but converted to Christianity, 192. He
became a member of the "ill-fated Church of North Africa,
with its stern enthusiasm, its austere discipline, and its in-
tensely practical religion." He was "sufficiently master of the
Greek language to be able to write treatises in it," neverthe-
less he became the actual creator of a Christian Latinity; he
was the most prolific of all the Latin writers, the most orig-
inal and personal.

TERTULLIAN lives in his books; brilliant, rhetorical, onesided, full of paradoxes, ever speaking from his heart, "always sick with the fevers of impatience." He wrote his strong convictions under the impulse of fiery passion, and his messages burned themselves into the memory and speech of the Church.

You cannot surely forbid the Truth to reach your ears by the secret pathway of a noiseless book.

९

In the case of the gods

the sacredness is great

in proportion to the tribute they yield. . . . Majesty is made a source of gain. Religion goes about the taverns begging.

Whenever the soul comes to itself. . . . it speaks of God. . . . noble testimony of the soul, naturally Christian.

Unless I am utterly mistaken, there is nothing so old as the Truth.

If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is a famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is "The Christians to the lion.'

We conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued.

The oftener we are mown down, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is the seed.

All the known writings of TERTULLIAN are argumentative; they are weapons of war, designed for attack or defence. It is impossible to arrange them in the order of their production; they fall within the period, 195-218, but only two of them are approximately dated, and even the general division of them into orthodox and montanistic must be made without certainty.

Eight works belong, in all probability, to TERTULLIAN'S orthodox years, 195-202. These are the Letter to the Martyrs, 197, the Treatises on Repentance; Prayer; Baptism, and Patience, 197-199, the two Letters to his Wife, and the Prescription of Heretics, 199.

After he became a Montnaist in 202, he seems to have written thirteen books. Five editions of a work Against Marcion were issued between 200 and 207, the third edition being published in "the thirteenth year of Severus."

Then came the Soldier's Crown, Chastity, and Flight in Persecution, 202-203. Scorpions, the Veiling of Virgins, Monogamy, and Modesty followed, 203-204. After these The Body of Christ, and the Resurrection of the Flesh, were written some time before 207.

It is almost impossible to date his other works, some of which are of the highest value. They include The Soul, Against Praxeas, Fasting, Against Valentinus, To Scapula, Shows, Idolatry, the Dress of Women, the Apology, To the Nations, The Witness of the Soul, The Cloak, Against Hermogenes, and Against the Jews.

The titles of these works are on the whole clear indications of their contents. Their paramount interests reappear in many forms, but especially in connection with the social life of the age, the pagan religion, and the character, behaviour, and worship of the Christians.

The Prescription of Heretics, his imperishable work, marks an important step in ecclesiastical development by advocating a standard of faith whereby all Christian professors should be tried. TERTULLIAN states this rule of faith, claims that it was taught by Christ, and urges:

So long as its form exists in its proper order, you may seek and discuss as much as you please, and give full rein to your curiosity, in whatever seems to you to hang in doubt, or to be shrouded in obscurity although it is better for you to remain in ignorance, lest you should come to know what you ought not, because you have acquired the knowledge of what you ought to know. 'Thy faith,' He says, 'hath saved thee' not your skill in the Scriptures.

THASCIUS CAECILIUS CYPRIANUS CYPRIAN-200-258, carried the Carthaginian school a step farther towards its full development. A confessed disciple of TERTULLIAN whose works he read daily, he cultivated a purer style by