Land. 623) to 604 (Ussher). He is said to have died at a very advanced age.
The chief authority for his Life is Vita S. Teliavi Episcopi a Magistro Galfrido Fratre Urbani Landavensis Ecclesiae Episcopi dicata, belonging to 12th cent., and printed, with trans. and notes, in Lib. Land. by Rees, 92 seq., 332 seq. For MS. and other authorities see Hardy, Desc. Cat. i. pt. i. 130–132, pt. ii. 897, app.; Haddan and Stubbs, Counc. i. 146, app. C. 159.
[J.G.]
Telesphorus (2), bp. of Rome, accounted the 7th from the apostles. According to Eusebius H. E. iv. 5) he succeeded Xystus in the 12th year of Hadrian (a.d. 128), and suffered martyrdom in the 11th year of his episcopate and the 1st of the reign of Antoninus Pius (iv. 10). Lipsius (Chron. der röm. Bischöf.) considers his earliest probable dates to have been 124 to 135 or 126 to 137 as the latest. If so, Eusebius erred in placing his martyrdom in the reign of Antoninus Pius instead of Hadrian. For the fact of his martyrdom he alleges the authority of Irenaeus; the assertion of the date is his own. Telesphorus is remarkable as being the only one of the early Roman bishops, afterwards accounted martyrs, who appears on the early authority of Irenaeus as such (Iren. Haer. iii.; cf. Eus. l.c.).
[J.B—Y.]
Tertullianus (1), Quintus Septimius Florens.
I. LIFE.—The earliest of the great Latin Fathers, their chief in fire and daring, and the first to create a technical Christian Latinity, is known almost entirely through his writings. It can only be conjectured that he was born between a.d. 150 and 160, and died between 220 and 240, with preference for the later dates. He was born at Carthage (Hieron. Catal. Script. Eccl. 53; cf. Tertull. Apol. c. ix.) of heathen parents (de Poen. c. i.; Apol. c. xviii. "de vestris sumus"), his father being a proconsular centurion (Hieron.). Tertullian received a good education (Apol. c. xiv.; adv. Prax. c. iii.). In after-life he recalled his school studies in Homer (ad Nat. i. c. x.); but poetry attracted him less than philosophy, history, science, and antiquarian lore. He spoke and composed in Greek, but his Greek writings are lost. He studied the systems of the philosophers if he mocked and hated the men (cf. de Anima, cc. i.–iii.). Possibly destined for state-official life, he was celebrated for his knowledge of Roman law (Eus. H. E. ii. 2), and the legal fence and juridical style of the advocate are observable throughout his apologetic and polemical writings.
He was probably attracted to Christianity by complex irresistible and converging forces: "Fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani" (Apol. c. xviii.). The constancy of the Christians in times of persecution staggered him. He knew men who began by denouncing such "obstinacy," and ended in embracing the belief which dictated it (Apol. c. l.; ad Scap. c. v.). Demons confessed the superiority of the new faith (Apol. c. xxiii.), and Tertullian, in common with his heathen and Christian contemporaries, was a profound believer in demons (cf. Réville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sèvéres, pp. 44, 46. 130 seq.). These facts led him to examine the faith which seemed to promise a foothold which no philosophical system furnished. It was illustrated by a life of holiness and humility—that of its Founder, the Just One—in contrast with which the life of the Cynic and the Stoic sickened him.
His conversion took place c. 192, in Carthage more probably than in Rome. Carthage was his home and usual dwelling-place (de Pallio, c. i.; Apol. c. ix.; Scorpiace, c. vi.; de Resur. Carnis, c. xlii.); Rome he had visited (de Cultu Femin. i. c. vii.), and he was well known there for his abilities (Eus. l.c.), but critics are by no means agreed whether he ever went there as a Christian (cf. Baron. Annal. Eccl. ii. 476, ed. Theiner). He was married but childless (cf. the two treatises ad Uxorem), and became a priest of the church. He probably exercised his presbyterate at Carthage and not at Rome.
In middle age (c. 119–203), says Jerome, Tertullian became a Montanist, his constitution and temperament predisposing him to a rigour opposed to the laxity prevalent at Rome, and so finding the austere doctrines and practices of Montanus perfectly congenial (Kaye, Account of the Writings of Tertullian,³ p. 34). He became the head of the Montanist party in Africa—a party which existed till the 5th cent. under the name of "Tertullianists."
II. TIMES.—The golden age of the empire died with Marcus Aurelius (161–180); the age of iron began with his son Commodus (180–193). The golden age of the church began with that iron age of the empire (Aubé, Les Chrétiens dans l’empire romain, a.d. 180–249, pp. iii, 495–498). Expiring polytheism and ancient philosophy were confronted by a new philosophy and a nascent faith.
From one quarter only of the empire was the comparative peacefulness noticeable elsewhere absent. In Africa persecution, sharp, short, fitful, and frequent, marked the reign of Septimius Severus and the most active period of Tertullian's life. It is stamped in letters of blood upon his pages.
The church in Africa has no historian before Tertullian, though its foundation is placed, with much probability, at the end of cent. i. or the beginning of cent. ii. By the end of cent. ii. the Christians in Roman Africa were to be counted by thousands (cf. Aubé, p. 152) if not by millions (cf. Apol. c. xxxvii.; ad Scapulam, cc. ii. v.). They were fully organized and had their bishops, priests, deacons, places of assembly, and cemeteries. Immunity from the wholesale decimation which had befallen, by imperial command (cf. Apol. c. v.), other Christian bodies of the East and West, allowed in Africa growth and development, accelerated by occasional suffering and martyrdom. But the tempest broke upon the African church at last.
Facts connected with the persecutions can be followed in those writings of Tertullian which all critics place between a.d. 197 and 212, from the ad Martyres to the ad Scapulam.
The tract ad Martyres depicts men and women in prison, visited and relieved by the brethren, exhorted to unity, and prepared by fasting and prayer for the death which should be a victory for the church. Vigellius Saturninus was the first proconsul to draw the sword against Christians (ad Scapulam, c. iii.), and his date is not apparently earlier than 198 (see Aubé, p. 191, etc.). The martyrology
