the stronger; the example of the heathens, Lucretia and Mucius, Heraclitus and Peregrinus, Dido and the wife of Hasdrubal, would teach them to count their sufferings trifling if, by enduring them, they might obtain a heavenly glory and a divine reward. In their own day many persons of birth, rank, and age had met their death at the hands of the emperor. Should Christians hesitate to suffer as much in the cause of God?
Apologeticum.—This Apology—the greatest of his works—was a cry for bare justice.
(1) A heading to c. i., "Quod religio Christiana damnanda non sit, nisi qualis sit prius intelligatur," sums up its protest: The rulers of Carthage were persecuting and condemning a "sect" which forthcoming evidence proved unworthy of condemnation. Their conduct was the reverse of that enjoined by the emperor Trajan—that Christians were not to be sought out; but if brought before Pliny were to be punished. Tertullian reminds the rulers (c. v.) that the laws against Christians had been enforced only by emperors whose memory men had learnt to execrate: e.g. Nero and Domitian. Not such as these was Tiberius (cf. Eus. H. E. ii. 2), in whose day Christ came into the world (cf. c. vii.), and who had desired the senate to admit Him among the Roman deities. Marcus Aurelius was a protector. Not even Hadrian, Vespasian, Pius, nor Verus had put into force the laws against Christians. The men who were demanding this were daily and contemptuously infringing laws of all kinds. In proof he draws a sad picture of luxury and immorality. The good old laws had gone which encouraged in women modesty and sobriety.
(2) Chaps. vii.–ix. What were the charges against the Christians? "We are called miscreants"—and the evidence was only rumour! "Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum." It was, Tertullian retorts, the existence (secret or open) of evil practices among the heathen which explained their belief in similar deeds among Christians.
(3) Chaps. x.–xxvii. Tertullian faces the first of the two great charges, "sacrilege and treason." His "apology" as regards the former consists, briefly speaking, of (a) "demonstratio religionis eorum" (cc. x.–xvi. xxiv.–xxvii.) and of (b) "demonstratio religionis nostrae" (cc. xvii.–xxiii.), a most valuable evidential passage.
(a) You Christians, said the heathen, do not worship our gods: No, said Tertullian, and we won't, because we do not recognize them to be gods. They were nothing but men of long ago, whose merits should have plunged them into the depths of Tartarus. How much better would it have been if the deus deificus had waited and taken up to heaven in their place such men as Socrates, Aristides, Themistocles, and others. The images excite Tertullian's intense scorn, as "the homes of hawks and mice and spiders." Caustically does he describe the heathen treatment of their household gods. "You pledge them, sell them, change them. They wear out or get broken, and you turn your Saturn into a cooking-pot and your Minerva into a ladle! You put your national gods in a sale-catalogue; and the man who will sell you herbs in the herb-market will sell you gods at the Capitol. Or what could be more insulting than the company you give them? You worship Larentina, the prostitute, together with Juno or Ceres or Diana. You erect (at Rome) a statue to SIMON MAGUS and give him as inscription the title of sanctus deus (see Kaye's Tertull. p. 542, and Oehler's note here). You turn into a god a sodomite like Antinous" (see Kellner's note).
What then, it was asked, did Christians worship if not the gods? Tertullian answers, "Take in this first of all: they who are not worshippers of a lie are worshippers of truth." From this might be deduced the whole of the Christian religious belief. But before Tertullian proceeds to do this, he refutes some very false, but common, opinions about the Christians, e.g. the vulgar belief that the god of the Christians was an ass's head, that they worshipped the cross, or the sun. Lately a bestiarius (see Semler's and Kellner's notes) had exhibited a picture at Rome inscribed Deus Christianorum ονοκοιτης. The figure had the ears of an ass, one foot was hoofed, in his hand was a book, and he was dressed in a toga (see D. C. A. s.n. "Asinarii"). The name and the form only made us laugh, says Tertullian; and then he retorts: "But our opponents might well have worshipped such a biformed deity: for they have dog-headed and lion-headed gods, gods with horns, gods with wings, gods goat-limbed, fish-limbed, or serpent-limbed from the loins!"
(b) Tertullian turns from what Christianity was not to what it was, and the main lines of the evidences of Christianity in the 2nd cent. are still those of our own. These chapters (xvii.–xxiii.), so valuable in the history of religious belief, deserve the student's close attention. The eloquence, fervour, humility, and devoutness of the writer will be felt to be contagious. Irony and passion are comparatively absent. The section details (b₁) the nature and attributes of the Creator, (b₂) the mission of the prophets, men full of (inundati) the Holy Spirit, (b₃) the character of the Scriptures, and (b₄) the history of the Lord. Under b₃Tertullian notes two things. These Scriptures were marked, first, by that antiquity which his opponents rightly valued. The most ancient heathen writings were far less ancient than those of Moses, the contemporary of the Argive Inachus, and (as some thought) 500 years older than Homer. Nay, the very last prophet was coeval with the first of the (heathen) philosophers, lawgivers, and historians. "Quod prius est, semen sit necesse est." Secondly, the Scriptures were marked by majesty. "Divinas probamus (scripturas), si dubitatur antiquas." This internal evidence was a proof of their antiquity, while the external and daily fulfilment of prophecy was a reason for expecting the verification of what was not yet fulfilled.
b₄is in answer to the questions, Why did Jews and Christians differ? Did not these differences argue worship of different gods? Tertullian's reply (c. xxi.) is a history of the origin of the Christian sect and name, and an account of the Founder of Christianity, such as we have in the Gospels. His account is interspersed with most interesting statements,
