OF THE

THE

APOLOGY OF

TERTULLIAN,

INTENDED AS AN

FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ^ OF THK 'T^P^

UNIVERSITY

CAMBRIDGE :

AND SOLD BY

It was through a series of designs successively adopted and abandoned that I arrived at the idea of the short work which I here lay before the public, and although I shall not detain the reader with a history of discarded projects, yet I must request his attention through a few pages to an explanation of that which has been persevered in, in order that I may anticipate any charge of omission by declaring at the outset the character of the undertaking. The attention which has of late been drawn to the writings of the Fathers is matter of notoriety to every person of ordinary information, and various methods have been employed to place their sentiments and doctrines within reach of all who were likely to benefit by the knowledge. A very competent society in the sister University, has consulted the habits of two classes of readers by publishing an accurate text and a faithful translation of the several authors in question, and amongst ourselves, the resident members have not only been instructed on the subject by the authority of public lectures, but they have received a stimulus to private exertion, and there will probably be many who will carry into country retirement the advice of their

CHAP, teacher^, and after his suggestion, apply themselves to

the pursuit of that satisfactory knowledge, which nothing

but individual toil and patient study can secure. But neither a translation nor a text of the patristic writings is sufficient for the wants of the ordinary student. Of the first it need only be said, that all the well-known objections to versions even the most laboured and careful, apply with double force to the writings of the Fathers, which less than any remains of antiquity will bear to be transferred into a strange language; and as to the second; the confession of the committee themselves with respect to the author, whose works we are about to enter upon, will shew how much more remains to be done before the bare text of an African presbyter can be made available for reference or research. Nor is there any thing strange in the fact, that so much difficulty should be experienced in decyphering the Latin Fathers. It is quite impossible that the authors, whose age, or country, or contents make them serviceable to the illustration of TertuUian or Cyprian, should enter into the system of our classical studies or examinations; of those who devote themselves afterwards to the prosecution and advancement of their early labours, many prefer science to learning, and even to those who choose the latter, there is naturally more attraction in early Greek, than in late Latin. This subdivision of scholars leaves a very small number who can bring the requisite aid to the critical perusal of the Fathers, or who can master their style without very considerable trouble and delay; while with the less proficient class of students, who have no other preparatory information than that furnished by a respectable classical degree, or a good school education, and who, with an interval perhaps of three years from the one, and six from the other, commence the ^ Introductory Lecture of the Lady Margaret Professor, pp. 13 — 15.

study of these writers, the perplexities are so great as -CHAP.

to be almost effectually discouraging. Yet to these originals we must be sent, for it will hardly be said, that in this single department of learning we are to acquiesce in the information of others when we have the power of satisfying ourselves. And especially at this period, when a wider scheme of theological study is about to be put in operation, which embraces in some degree, and to a certain extent, the early patristic remains, it seems not inopportune to call attention to the language of those writers whose historical, and whose doctrinal information have been so earnestly insisted on, and so lucidly extracted, and to apply to this branch also of literature, that critical exactness and accuracy which has always so peculiarly characterised the classical scholarship of our University. It is this object which I have proposed to myself in the following pages; and in pursuing it, I have neglected many other points, not because they were not eminently important, but because they have been urged and investigated elsewhere. I have seldom drawn notice to any record, however remarkable, or to any narrative, however equivocal, as all this has been done by one^ who has left little to be gleaned on this head from this particular writer, and to whose works I have contented myself with briefly referring. I have even passed over, or very sparingly illustrated, the numerous allusions to customs of antiquity and intricacies of mythology which this author supplies, for these will be readily recognized, or easily discovered. I have confined myself (at least as far as is consistent with the ordinary completeness of an edition) to the literal explanation of the text, as that is an aid which is not given

CHAP, elsewhere, and which I hope may be found supplementary

! — to the more important efforts of others. This is the

key too, which will give access afterwards to whatever treasures are needed. I may here add the reasons which induced me to select for my operations this writer, and this especial treatise.

TertuUian is not only one of the most renowned, but he is the earliest of all the Latin Fathers, and this priority of date is of even more than usual consequence from the influence which his singular powers exerted on his successors, and which perpetuated certain characteristics through the writers of the African church for many years after him. His works too are the most important, excepting those of S. Augustine, both as regards the period at which they were written, and the mass of various information which they convey. Moreover, they are incomparably the most difficult, they shew the student the worst at once, and tell him what he has to expect; at the very outset he meets all the peculiarities of a declining language, of provincial, theological and polemical Latin, and he can, at all events, console himself with the reflection that he will not be much perplexed with any other pages after mastering these. It may be observed, though, that TertuUian has a double style, one for each of two distinct species of composition — his controversial, and his ethical, or apologetic tracts; and the first of these forms of itself a separate study, and a serious one too. Not only has his method of argument to be traced, his fidelity to be tested, and the worth of his witnesses to be weighed — which indeed are requisite preparations in most other cases — but his very language and its structure assume a new and peculiar character; strange words are compounded to express strange and mystical things, till at length the Latin tongue seems to fail absolutely in finding terms for the metaphysics or cos-

CHAP, mogony of Marcion or Valentinus — ordinary words are I.

stamped with a new superscription, and made- current in dialectical negotiations with a certain value, which may indeed be preserved throughout, but which is received nowhere else — grammatical and logical subtleties are urged in the phraseology of the schools, and the figures of rhetoric are so pressed into service, irony especially, that it is exceedingly unsafe to acquiesce at once in what may appear the plain and literal acceptation of a sentence. And all this is superadded to the original impracticability of a style, which no one has ever studied without registering his protest against it. I was led by these circumstances to take one of the apologetic treatises as a subject for my attempts, as it was obviously advisable to investigate the natural sentiments and ordinary style of a writer before entering on any adventitious aggravations of character which circumstances might have induced; there is quite enough to engage us in Tertullian, considered as an African of the age of Severus, without at once introducing him also as a theologian, a schismatic, and a controversialist. I hope for a future opportunity of illustrating his tracts of this more obscure class, for they are vastly important both in extent and information, but at present, the Apology offered the best field for my own efforts, and the least disagreeable prospect to the reader. On the general utility of these Apologies, I shall offer a few remarks in a subsequent part of this introduction, and I am now speaking only of the comparative advantages which this one possesses over the other productions of its author. It is extremely interesting, not only as a glowing picture of the church and her fortunes at the commencement of the third century, but even in the lower light of an eloquent and powerful composition; it carries us irresistibly with it, and would do so if instead of

CHAP, defending the Christians, it were pleading the cause of "Scythians or Hindoos, and it is singularly free from the peculiar asperities and difficulties which have been alluded to above: it cannot be useless, for it is a piece of authentic history; it cannot be injurious, for it recommends nothing but justice; it cannot be offensive, for it deprecates nothing but cruelty; it advances no doctrine, it urges no discipline, it attacks no sect but Pagans, and inveighs against no characters but persecutors and murderers. It is no theological work, though written by a Christian and a presbyter; we may consider it as a valuable narrative composed in a most vigorous spirit, evidently by an eye witness and an actor in the scenes it describes, abounding with rich information and leaving indirectly a clearer and less questionable record of the state of things, than a direct history could have done. In one chapter only (the twenty-first) is there any approach to theological language or style; the rest is like any ethnical composition of the age, and capable of illustration in precisely the same manner, while at the same time it affords such copious exemplification of Tertullian'*s ordinary habits of thought and expresssion that no other single tract could serve better to introduce the rest.

It is to this work that I have applied such ability as I possess, with the simple object, it may be repeated, of rendering assistance to the student of patristic Latinity, and of recommending that accurate examination of language in the case of the Fathers which we never lose sight of in other cases, and which we know to be the only safe foundation on which a store of knowledge can be raised. In prosecuting this design I have first observed the fundamental rule of criticism, that every author is his own best interpreter, and T have illustrated any peculiar idiom pretty freely from the rest of

this writer's remains, especially from those ethical and CIIAP.

other tracts which form this particular division of

his works. I have then compared the authors of the nearest age, the same country, and the like profession, especially Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, and a circumstance which would otherwise increase nothing but the tedium of their perusal, has made these latter writers remarkably interesting and serviceable to this purpose. They all to a greater or less extent exerted themselves as the apologists of their fellow Christians; and as the absurdities of ancient polytheism, the passions of the dominant, and the sufferings of the persecuted, party continued from reign to reign with little mitigation or change, so the arguments of their defenders could not be expected materially to differ; the consequence is, that we find not only the pleas of TertuUian taken as the theme or burden of subsequent pieces, but even his language paraphrased and explained, and an obscure hint, a dark allusion, or an extraordinary idiom, amplified by the irregular redundance of Arnobius, or illustrated by the open translation of Minutius Felix. But T have not stopped here; when the language only is the subject of investigation, the works of any contemporary and fellow-countryman, however different may be his profession and his character are valuable in the extreme, and second only to those who unite to such recommendations the additional qualifications of similar aims and views; nor are we so well acquainted with African literature of the second and third centuries, that we can dispense with all aid from the writings of one who in the first of those periods was the greatest and the most celebrated of its profane and luxurious representatives. From the writings of Apuleius, to whom I am here alluding, we may collect the most important information concerning Carthage and the provinces; we learn the domestic habits

and festivals of the deities which he exposes, and are introduced to the dark practices and magical arts to which he so frequently refers. And though it will be readily perceived how much even the knowledge of these circumstances is calculated to illustrate peculiarities of phraseology, yet still more apposite aid can be procured from the remains I speak of. Not only are all these communications conveyed in the same provincial dialect, and what is more, by a writer of similar education and analogous literary taste, but we have actually a counterpart composition, an apology of Apuleius, as well as of TertuUian, written indeed in a widely different spirit, pleading for private acquittal instead of pubhc justice, refuting dirty scandal, instead of popular calumnies, savouring vastly more of ingenuity than innocence, but still written by an eloquent African, spoken before a Roman pro-consul in a Carthaginian court, addressed to the same ears to which the Christians pleaded, and possibly to many who might afterwards have read the apology of TertuUian. The very difference of these two productions is interesting and instructive, and while seizing a parallel idiom or a corresponding term it is edifying to contrast the confident complacency of an absolute rhetorician, with the serious and passionate tone of a man pleading for his life and for the truth. I have availed myself much and often of this author's aid on points of verbal criticism. In order too, that the peculiarities of the language which we are considering might be more exactly apprehended, I have frequently quoted the earlier or the intermediate Latin writers, either for an identical or an analogous expression, so that the transition sense of a word might be occasionally shewn, and the various changes exhibited which it experienced

in its passage from Rome to Carthage, from Cicero to CHAP.

TertuUian. I have been less sparing in my illustrations - than I perhaps otherwise might have been, because my object was as much an introduction to the ordinary style of the Latin Fathers, and a general recommendation to accuracy in their perusal, as an explanation or, commentary on this particular treatise, which indeed I only took because I thought that general assistance would be best given through the medium of a particular example, and because, as I before stated, this appeared to me especially eligible for the purpose. To carry out this plan a little further I have added a chapter on the Latinity of the African Fathers, in which I have briefly adverted to the characteristics of the class, and touched upon the distinctive properties of each individual, and I hope that this in conjunction with the notes at the foot of the text will enable the student to proceed with a little more ease through one portion of Tertullian's works, and through most of the remains of the other writers. I have observed, that in confining myself particularly to the verbal difficulties of the text, I have omitted the usual notices of mythological allusions, or doctrinal implications, but I have occasionally given a paraphrase of an intricate passage, or pointed out, to the best of my judgment, the thread of the argument where it appeared to be obscure, and I have thrown into a third chapter of this preface some remarks on the Apologetic writings of the early Christians, which include a special examination of the divisions, the arguments, and the spirit, of the present tract. Most readers will probably be aware that TertuUian composed two books ad Nationes for the same purpose as the Apology, and which correspond so closely with it that they must be either a rough draught of it, or an imperfect copy; these of course are peculiarly valuable in

CHAP.

J. the assistance which I noticed as suppHed from other apologists, and I have placed marginal references to the coiTesponding passages both in these and in the Apology of Justin Martyr, that they may be thus compared. I believe I have only one more remark to add respecting the notes. Dr Ashton, Master of this college through the first half of the last century, bequeathed to the library several volumes enriched with his MS. notes, and amongst them the Leyden edition of this treatise by Havercamp, 1718. These notes are principally occupied in refuting and exposing the views of Havercamp (which indeed was no difficult matter) but they shew very good scholarship and clear perception of the author's true meaning. A few of these annotations by the permission of the college, I have selected; they are given in the original Latin of the Master, enclosed within brackets and distinguished by the initial A at the foot. The text has been taken mainly from the small Leipsic edition of 1841, by Leopold, with some few emendations of other editors; I have made no alteration or addition myself.

The whole of the sheets containing the text and notes had passed through the press, when the English translation of this Apology appeared amongst the periodical volumes of the Anglo-Catholic Society; I have not yet had time to read it, but if it should prove that any of my interpretations of disputed passages coincide with the translator s views, I shall be very of the sanction and support of such publications.

CHAPTER II.

It was my belief, when I commenced investigating chap.

this subject, that I should be able to collect certain cha

racteristics from the language of these writers, peculiar to them as a class, but common to all of them amongst themselves, and that, by carefully comparing the dialects of other authors of the same country, such as Apuleius and Macrobius, I might approximate to a general illustration of African Latinity. But, the further I advanced, the less practicable appeared the completion of any such scheme, and the fewer points of character could I finally select which fulfilled the conditions mentioned above, the greater number of them appearing always, when strictly examined, to be either common to writers of other schools, or not common to all writers of this. I cannot therefore offer to the reader such systematic aid as I had hoped in his prosecution of the studies in question, but he may possibly derive advantage from the observations which I made during my researches, and I therefore subjoin some of them, though in a form unconnected and incomplete.

The first point to which our consideration is naturally directed in such enquiries as these, is the influence which the vernacular language of an author's native country may have exerted on the language in which he writes, and if we happen to be acquainted with both of these, we have little difficulty in tracing the operations of the former. The Syro-Chaldaisms of the New Testament Greek, are nearly as perceptible and intelligible

CHAP, as the Hebraized Latinity of the Vulgate; we recognize

easily a Jewish author in one, and the closeness of a

literal translation in the other. But, in the present case, we know little or nothing of the ordinary dialects of Africa, and when its writers come before us, and we detect in their works any novelties or singularities of expression, our only ground for concluding them to be Africanisms^ must be either scholastic tradition, or the fact that we cannot account for them in any other way; and if, in their several remains any analogy be discoverable between. such singularities, this conclusion is of course strengthened.

But there are peculiarities of style, as well as of idiom, and these are not only more readily detected and compared, but more generally traceable to their causes. As early as the time of Juvenal, Africa was celebrated for its schools of rhetoric, and though they were probably not distinguished for their purity or elegance, yet it was a matter of notoriety, that the study and practice of eloquence met with greater encouragement in this province than at Rome\ Nor does it appear at all to have declined during the second or third centuries, for most of the ecclesiastical writers of these times, who were not Christians born, seem to have been members of this profession. TertulHan had most obviously more than an ordinary knowledge of its technicalities, Cyprian devoted his youth and much of his manhood to it'"^ ; Arnobius and Lactantius taught rhetoric for their living. We can conjecture pretty accurately what would be the result of such a state of things as this, when, with a declining language and a

* Juv. VII. 147. ° See Mr Evans in his life

corrupt age, the ordinary years of study were mono- CHAP, polized by the exercises of the schools. An overwhelming importance would be attached to such proprieties or beauties of speech as the fashion of the day had sanctioned, to the comparative exclusion of thought, or even truth, as objects of consideration. Apuleius says ^n one of his speeches, that he knows his audience will not pardon him a single mistake, or excuse a single solecism, or overlook a single mispronunciation^, and he exhibits in his own productions a most remarkable portrait of the character formed under this system, and a most complete picture of what was demanded by an African audience. His celebrated apology, the masterpiece of the day, the admiration of even Christian writers % is a deliberate display of all the arts, powers, and subtleties of rhetoric; truth, though repeatedly appealed to, is virtually put out of the question; the orator plays with the charges against him like a master of fence with a couple of raw antagonists, after rebutting an accusation he offers to acknowledge it, and clear himself on another ground, his opponents may take as many points as they like to make the game even, he has no objection to plead guilty, or not guilty, his final exculpation of himself will be just as successful in either case. We can be at no loss after reading the apology of Apuleius, to understand the meaning of TertuUian, when he says, Quis nos remncere audebit, non arte terborum^ sed eadem forma qua prohationem constituimus de veritate? It is not the least singular point about this extraordinary speech, that one of the charges against the speaker was his eloquence.

^ " Quis enim vestnim unum delirantibus oborientia, permisemihi solaecismum ignoverit? quis rit blatterare V Florid, i. 9. vel unam syllabam barbare pro- * S. Augustine, Ep. v. ad Marnuntiatam donaverit? quis incon- cell, and elsewhere, dita et vitiosa verba temere, quasi

CHAP. It is clear that the Christian writers, as a body,

notwithstanding their original education, fell short of

the standard which the polished taste of the provincial public had fixed upon, nay, it appears from Arnobius, that a crime no less heinous than that of using false concords had been laid at their doors, and so completely does this writer forget the grammarian in the apologist, that he does not hesitate to urge the revolutionary argument that all tenses and cases are equal, that genders are but conventionally, and not essentially, different, and that hcec paries and hie sella may be written with as much moral accuracy as liwc sella and hie paries'^. He opens his own treatise with the preface, that he has come to the determination of defending his cause pro captu ac mediocritate sermonis, and Lactantius, as will be observed in another place (c. iii.) remarks specially of Tertullian, and generally of all the apologists, that they failed in the elegance of speech requisite to recommend their works.

Yet they have undoubtedly one or two features common to the more successful candidates for popular admiration among their countrymen, and which are owing to the same influence of fashion on both. When a language, already advanced in its decline, is made the subject of fastidious study for the purposes which have been spoken of, its early monuments will be naturally resorted to as models, by men who are quite able to detect the faults of a later age; but other examples besides the present, shew us that this practice is likely both to be pursued in a wrong spirit and carried too

^ "Quid enim officii, o! quseso sermo natura est integer, vitiosus

conjunctione? " i. 34. " Quan- paries dicatur," &c. ib. 35. quam (si verum spectes) nullus

far. It is pursued in a wrong spirit when men, in- chap.

stead of imitating chasteness of description, or vigour

of thought, or severity of style, from the early writers, content themselves with borrowing isolated words, often without preserving even the regimen; and it is carried too far when antiquity alone is made a sufficient recommendation, for a language may be as barbarous in its origin as in its dechne. Both the passion and its excesses are fully exemplified in the writers before us, almost every page of them will supply specimens of archaisms of the most extraordinary nature, which the reader at first imagines must necessarily be the coinage of the writer, but which he perhaps will be able to trace clearly beyond the age of Ennius ^. This character runs through all the African writers, and is remarkably stamped on Apuleius, where its artificial nature may be readily seen. The celebrated novel of this author is composed in a most singular dialect; if it were not that it goes on so smoothly and equably from beginning to end, it would seem to be in a forced or feigned hand; it is not like any other prose, and yet it is not verse, but runs on in a kind of chant, like that said to be used by eastern story-tellers; almost every noun has an epithet, and frequently both are diminutives^;

^ This has more than once body of old Latinity is contained

myself been obliged to consult but somewhat equivocal experithe dictionaries for the meaning ment of amending his own text

of some strange and portentous with words taken from these auword which crossed me in my thors, and thus employing, as it

perusal of Tertullian's works, I were, an unattested copy to restore

have occasionally found that it a decayed original, had been used by Plautus." Eccl. ^ The constant use of these

Hist. p. 68. Gilbert Wakefield, forms might perhaps seem pein his edition of Lucretius, after culiar to African Latin, but,

^*j^^* the galliambics of Catullus, if printed in the shape

of prose, would give no bad idea of the rythm of

several passages in Apuleius. The same remarks apply, in rather a less degree, to his philosophical works, and in all these the most obsolete archaisms meet us at every step; but in the apology, and (of course) the Florida \ it is evident that he has considered it necessary to discard this fashion in a measure, and to use more the language of every day life. But even here obsolete words are very numerous. I have observed that this is a character which is common to all the writers in question, but it is not peculiar to them, it appears as strongly in Aulus Gellius (who certainly had the excuse of his subject) as in any of them, it seems the character not of the school or the country, but of the age. Another very striking feature in the African writers is their bombastic style, which has even been distinguished by the title of tumor Africanus^ and unquestionably it prevails to a greater or less degree, — least in Lactantius, greatest in Arnobius — throughout them all. But, like the archaisms, it is no peculiar note of an African; Ammianus exceeds all of them in luxuriance of style or inflated language ^ The difference between

a good deal (see p. 158) yet tius than to the almost insensible

Arnobius but seldom uses them, allusions of the others, which in-

^ The Florida are a collection timate not only their own perfect of striking passages from speeches acquaintance with the poetiy, but of Apuleius, a kind of Elegant Ex- a presumption of some such knowtracts, probably compiled by some ledge in those whom they adadmirer of the author, and now dressed. For instance, Minutius all that we possess of the original (c. 18) writes, " Quando unquam compositions. regni societas aut cum fide coepit,

* I would not omit to mention aut sine cruore discessit

the great familiarity which all Generi et soceri bella toto orbe

these writers display with the diffusa sunt et tarn magni imperii

Roman poets, and I allude less to duos fortuna non cepit," which is

the copious quotations of Lactan- a paraphrase of Lucan (i. 92, 109.)

these and other writers of Latin which appears to me CHAP, most idiomatic in character is not in words, nor in —

their government, but in the construction of sentences of which the involution is sometimes so intricate and strange, that it seems hardly possible to attribute it to any fanciful collocation of words, but we are compelled to refer it to some other influence, and, most probably, that of another tongue. I had, at one time, collected a few of these sentences to illustrate my remarks, but I found that I could make no arrangement or classification of them, and that I could give no general rule towards their quicker comprehension; and as their quotation would thus be only a simple, specimen of what the student will readily enough find for himself, I thought they would be uselessly inserted. There are of course many words and expressions occurring in the African Fathers which will be new to a beginner, but I know of no general formula by which these can be summarily explained; such as are most remarkable in the present treatise are arranged in the index to the volume, and if the corresponding notes be referred to, a short illustration will be found of each, with occasional observa^ tions on its usage and date. As I have quoted freely, too, from other authors of this character, some idea may be formed of their ordinary style and idiom, and

Nulla fides re^ni sociis, omnisque po- torical schools, and their phraset^ *^ ,. .^ ologv and ornaments were trans-

Impatiens consortis ent ^-^

ferred to the speeches of the day

populique potentis jn ^hich these florid decorations

Quas raare quae terras qiue totum possirtet. i c c t? • 'j.

Non cepit fortuna duos. enim Jam ab oratore etiam poeti- Lucan indeed seems to have been ^s decor/' says either Tacitus or a favourite author with them, and Quintihan, " non Attii aut Pa- Lucretius even more especially so. cuvii vetemo inquinatus, sed et The fact was that the poets ( Juv. Horatii et Virgilii et Lucani sa- 7) formed one of the principal ^^"^ prolatus." de Causs. Corr. branches of study in the rhe- ^^^' ^' 20.

CHAP. I cannot, at present, see any more compendious way of

arriving at the knowledge. I have drawn up, on the

opposite page, a short table of the writers whose works may be mutually brought to bear upon each other, in illustration either of language or subject; those whose names are mentioned in the first column are of course most closely connected; in the second, Apuleius will be found to supply very numerous parallelisms, and Ulpianus and Paulus will be serviceable in explaining that large class of words, in these authors, of forensic origin.

I have but a few words to add on the pecuharities of each individual. Tertullian makes frequent use of metaphors, which are drawn very often indeed from legal and from military sources, his probable profession explaining the first circumstance, and his father's the second; he is extremely fond of an antithetical play upon words, for the sole sake of which the sentence appears sometimes constructed and inserted; several instances will be found in this treatise e.g. (p. 11), ut nolint scire pro certo^ quod se nescire pro certo sciunt. (p. 170), ad lenonem poiius quam ad leonem damnando. (p. 17), merito damnantur licet damnent^ &c. His passion for paradox has been often remarked; probably most readers will recollect hearing of his celebrated argument certum est quia impossihile, — and these facts should be the more steadily kept sight of, that they influence not only his assertions but his language. I feel convinced that some of TertuUian's extraordinary expressions are to be properly explained by reference to other clauses of the sentence, and that a word though somewhat inappropriate was used because it formed an exact antithesis to another. But the most perplexing and perilous habit of Tertullian is, as I have before hinted, his ironi/. In the midst of the most serious argument, on the most serious subject, without the warning of a word he slides

ON THE LATIN [TY OF THE AFRICAN FATHERS.

>

%

CHAP. 11.

a

§

CHAP, into the gravest imaginable irony, and again returns to his direct course so unexpectedly, and after such various intervals, that nothing but the most habitual conversation with his writings can enable us to detect him. I have noticed (p. 121) one instance in which even Mosheim was strangely misled, and I have pointed out in the notes the. examples of this singular practice as they occurred. The young student of Tertullian can never be too much on his guard on this point.

While speaking of Tertullian'*s style, there is one singular circumstance to which I may allude. That Semler surmised and endeavoured to prove that the whole of Tertullian"*s works were spurious, and the production of a joint-stock establishment at Rome, is probably known to many through Bishop Kaye's refutation of the argument. (Eccl. Hist. p. 69, sqq.) But, apart from all such reasoning, I am at a loss to conceive how such an idea could ever have been entertained by any one who had been accustomed to compare the genuine and counterfeit writings of antiquity. Not to mention the earnestness, the reality, of TertuUian's works, could any rhetorician possibly have devised such a style as this? or could he have preserved it throughout? or could any body else successfully have imitated it? It is actually impossible.

There is nothing very peculiar about the language of Cyprian ; neither his mind nor his style had the deeplycut features of Tertullian; he was thought eloquent in his day, too eloquent indeed, by the heathen, for a subject so insignificant as religion ^ ; his sentences (comparatively) run fluently and smoothly, and he often explains some sententious dictum of Tertullian by a lucid para-

* " A doctis hujus sseculi, qui- gans ingenium, et melioribus rebus forte scripta ejus innotuerunt, bus aptum, ad aniles fabulas conderideri solet .... qujisi qui ele- tulissct." Lactant. D. I. v. i.

phrase. Amobius has some resemblance to Apuleius, CHAP his descriptions are of the most astonishing luxuriance, -

they wander through page after page with all kinds of rhetorical embellishments; he has very frequent examples of that involution of construction mentioned above, but the general arrangement of his sentences and periods is remarkably constant, so that after an attentive perusal of a few chapters the reader may know exactly where to expect the epithets and the verbs, and precisely anticipate the rythm and the cadence. Lactantius is by far the most free from the general faults of this age, and by almost as much the most uninteresting of its writers. His style, on which he so prides himself, and which others have given him so much credit for, is the most disagreeable of all styles, a spiritless imitation of Ciceronian Latin, the weakness of wliich is particularly apparent after the perusal of TertuUian. It happens that there are several passages' in these two authors so parallel in substance that they can be most advantageously compared, and the student will thus easily learn how little an affectation of conventional elegancies will compensate for a total absence of vividness or vigour. If Cicero must needs be the sole and exclusive exemplar for modern composition, it is strange that his Orations at least awe not sometimes resorted to, instead of those philosophical treatises the style of which was never intended to convey any sentiment more forcible than a gentlemanly deference to a friend's opinion, or a polite dissent from a self-evident absurdity. Many scholars have stood up in defence of TertuUian's arguments, but all, except Gilbert Wakefield, have joined in decrying his Latinity as preeminently vicious. I can only say that whatever may be its obscurities and deformities on a first acquaintance, few readers after becoming well ^ See note on c. 50.

CHAP, habituated to its peculiarities will quit it for more

-polished compositions of the same date without experiencing something unpleasant in the change, and something agreeable in the return to it ; some chapters of this treatise even in point of structure and mechanism are equal to any thing in ancient Latin, and it seems really difficult to imagine that they were not actually spoken, or at all events written for oral delivery. Some allowance too must be made for the subjects on which he is frequently employed. If Lucretius with all his advantages was compelled to excuse his phraseology by the rudeness of his theme, we may surely supply the same apology to Tertullian ; Valentinus was at least as intractable as Anaxagoras, and the oy^oa^ as unmanageable a material as the o^oiojULepeia- At all events I hope that not every student will agree in the denunciations which a very favourite writer has thus heaped on this unfortunate African.

'' Truly Roman rudeness and insolence which not " even the power of Christian grace could thoroughly " tame (so innately savage was the nature of this beast " of prophecy) address us in the provincial roughness of " an obscure and difficult language. From the natural " heartlessness and treacherous reserve of its speakers " the Latin delights in a vague phraseology and oblique *' construction which hints rather than expresses, and ** reminds us that the language of the robbers of the " world was no unfit vehicle also for the sentiments of " the crafty tyrants of the church ^"

To trace in an unfavoured language the faults of an hundred generations, to visit on a solitary supine or a double dative the rapacity of a host of Caesars and the presumptions of a line of Popes, is surely as relentless an attack as any which Mr Evans himself has ^ Theol. Lib. xiv. p. 358.

and temperance of the Greeks. Even admitting the essential morality of the Ionic tongue, we may pause before conceding to the countrymen of Alcibiades the praise of continence or honesty. Few writers know better than Mr Evans what portraits might be drawn of Athenian philosophers, Athenian statesmen, or Athenian citizens; if they did not rob the world it was only because they could not, if they could have bound the strong man they would speedily have spoiled his goods; with all the propensity to plunder, they wanted the steadiness to subdue. But especially must I differ from any opinion that Latin is not a fitting language for theological or ecclesiastical purposes; this is not a point for logical argument, but a question involving a variety of indefinite considerations; very possibly TToXiyyeveaia may to many appear a harmonious, and regeneratio a barbarous, term, but the man must be strangely biassed by some previous influence who can read or hear without something more than admiration the magnificent Latin of the antient Liturgies.

CHAP. The ancient apologists for Christianity have been

divided into two classes, the first, of advocates who were

pleading their cause in times of persecution before emperors or provincial governors; and the second, of didactic and voluntary expositors of their creed and practice. But on closer examination it will appear, that the two divisions are intimately connected, and that the first, though composed of writers who certainly had no idea of offering what, in the present day, would be called evidences of Christianity, are nevertheless as available for such testimony as the other class, whose aim was more avowedly the conversion of their fellow men. An instance of this may be seen in the process by which Grotius has proved the truth of the Christian religion; and as I ^may take occasion to compare his scheme of evidence, as well as Paley's, with the earlier writers now under consideration, I will here sketch his general argument in as few words as possible, that I may refer to it presently, if occasion should require. Of his six books, the first, through the media of certain proofs with which we are not here concerned, establishes the proposition that there must be a vera religio somewhere; the second considers the claim of Christianity to this title, the third examines the genuineness of Holy Scripture, and the rest are devoted to the refutation of Paganism, Judaism, and Mahometanism. His steps in the second book are these; he shews that

ON THE APOLOGETIC WRITINGS, &G. XXV

the life and crucifixion of our Lord, as facts, cannot chap.

be denied by any one, and also that after his death '—

he was worshipped etiam viris sapientihus^ and that for this the only assignable cause is to be found in the divine miracles which they had carefully examined and approved'. This chapter contains the cardinal point of Grotius"* proof, and differs in this from Paley's, that, whereas both advocates make the miracles decisive of the question, the latter draws his evidence from the sufiferings of the first martyrs, while the former rests on the circumstances of the conversion of the early Fathers. But if the corroboration of certain facts is to be sought in the conversion of certain persons, it will be seen at once of what singular importance are the writings of these persons, which serve almost as autobiographies, and which shew the evidence to which they yielded, when they detail its nature, and urge its examination on others^. And this is one very interesting and instructive light in which the early apologists may be viewed. My present intention however is merely to compensate in some degree, for the strictness with which, in this edition, I have confined myself to philo-

* De Verit. ii. 4. " Fuerunt menti negotio decet, comperisautera semper, inter cultores sent veram et firmis testibus sub-

Christi, plurimi et judicio prae- nixam fuisse famam, quae de

Sergius Cypri praeses, Dionysius is not to our purpose, but Gro-

Areopagita, Polycai-pus, Justinus, tins employs it in proving the

Irseneus, Athenagoras, Origenes, resurrection, and drawing thence

drinus, ac porro alii, qui tales shewing the ethical excellency

cum essent, cur homini igno- of Christianity, miniosa morte affecto se cultores ^ Such writings are the Apoaddixerint, nulla potest logy here edited, the Ao7o<? irpocaussa reddi praeter banc unam, -rpe-rrriKo^ ofClement, the trapalquod diUgenti inquisitione, qualis ^^^,, ^f jug^jn, and the Apoloviros prudentes in maximi mo- ^.ies anterior to TertuUian,

^?ii^' logical and grammatical points, and to offer the young

student a little insight into some of the apologetic writings

with which he is perhaps unacquainted, as well as to give a general idea of the scheme and character of that particular apology which I have taken as a subject for illustration. I am compelled to take somewhat narrow limits, and I have therefore preferred keeping to the same authors who have been reviewed for another purpose in the previous section, which I do the more readily, that theii* writings happen all to bear, more or less, on this subject, and that in them are included three of the names most celebrated in this species of composition. Two writers only of any especial note will be thus excluded, Origen and St Augustine, the former of whom, from the nature of his work, cannot be compared exactly with those lately spoken of, and the latter I have reserved for a separate examination as regards both his matter and his language; the apologists anterior to TertuUian may be considered, for all practical purposes, as fairly represented in him. The first column of the table given in the last section will shew the respective dates of the apologists (for such they may all be termed) whose essays are now to be considered, and it will be there seen that the third century, within a very few years, includes them all. They comprise specimens of both of the divisions above mentioned, and even if no more profitable information were to be gained from their perusal, it would be both curious and interesting to trace the tone, varying with the times, from the abrupt and passionate entreaty for justice and toleration, through the argumentative expositions betokening comparative security, to the final protest against the pitiable relics of paganism.

The apologists of Christianity, from the very essence of the religion they taught, were compelled to attack the

superstitions, whose dominions they might perhaps quietly CHAP, have been permitted to share ; and to assert, with some,

that they were more undeniably successful in defeating their adversaries than in defending themselves, is but to detect an example of a truism. No controversy has ever taken place, either concerning science or metaphysics, matters of fact, or matters of opinion, which would not supply occasion for similar remarks, and if they who urged them in the present case had been met with their own argument, and requested to state their creed instead of their objections, they would probably have added another illustration to the rule. As Lactantius^ said of the old philosophers, gladiuni habent, scutum non liabent. But it does not very clearly appear how any wit or zeal could be called "superfluous'^," which was directed against extravagancies actually prevailing and openly defended, and against a polytheism of which the absurdities were disguised and relieved by antiquity and associations. Nevertheless — though it is not very prudent in us at this distance of time and with such insufficient knowledge of the circumstances to pronounce an opinion — we must yet admit that in certain respects the apologies of either class seem less calculated to effect their purposes than we might have expected from the strength of their cause; and indeed we may withhold our private judgment and cite one of the writers themselves to confirm the fact and offer his explanation of it. Lactantius in a remarkable passage^, informs us that those

^ Inst. Div. III. 4. hber cui Octavio titulus est de-

° Gibbon, c. xv. ad extr. clarat quam idoneus veritatis as-

^ Inst. Div. V. 1, 2. " Si qui sertor esse potuisset si se to turn

inter caussidicos loci fuit. Hujus minus comptus et multum ob-

CHAP, of the learned men who embraced the Gospel were unequal to its defence, that they neither ha;d attractiveness, nor keenness, nor sarcasm sufficient for the times, and that in consequence of this failure the doctrines of Christianity remained unknown to those who required polished language and philosophical argument, while its opponents kept undisputed possession of the field of rhetoric. I merely cite this at present for the facts recorded in it; — the consideration due to the writer's opinion, and the value of his attempt to supply the presumed desideratum, will be discussed afterwards in their proper place.

The adversaries to whom the apologetic writings would be chiefly addressed, may be divided into three principal classes; the Pagans, who supported, either from upright or interested motives the old religion, such as Symmachus, whose Apology for Paganism will be presently noticed; the philosophers who eitlier ridiculed or allegorized it, and the Jews. In the first class was to be found that vast multitude of converts which was to fulfil the prophecies of Scripture, and with these, if sincerely disposed to religious views, the dissection of their mythology and the representation of their deities in a true light would be specially efficacious. In the second was a far smaller, but far more dangerous body of opponents, whose tenets indeed were much at variance with each other, some receding directly from Christianity, some making a kind of approximation to its doctrines, but all nearly equally pernicious. The Epicurean was the most intractable of all. Arnobius, though the keenest (in my opinion) of the apologists, and certainly in some respects most apscurus. Ergo ne hie quidem satis neque vim persuatlendi neque

posite to tlie popular arguments of modem times, avows ^^^'

at the outset of his work that he caimot enter into

any controversy with those who deny or doubt the existence of a Creator', and even Lactantius with all his complacency towards his own philosophical and argumentative powers leaves to its own merits the protest of the Epicurean against the postulate from which he takes his start^. There was no competing with an adversary who could stand on no common ground with the believer in any religion whatever. It is said that Celsus concealed his adherence to this sect, and as upon the whole it seems most probable that he was really one of its followers, he might perhaps wish to disguise a fact which would thus raise an antecedent prejudice against any objections he might urge. The Platonist was the nearest in character to Christianity and perhaps the best disposed to receive its creed, but one staggering obstacle more insuperable in his case even than in that of the others^, would check his kindly feelings, and the Neo- Platonics shewed soon that the sensible approximation of Platonism to Christianity was not a circumstance in which the latter could rejoice. It may be very true, as stated by Origen, that the tenets of the philosophers were but little known and scantily influential on the mass of society compared with the precepts of the gospel, and independently of any testimony we should be at no loss for arguments to shew that such a state of things was extremely probable; — but this is quite consistent with their serious and effective hostility. The schools of philosophy were like fortresses in an open countr}% which cannot actually hinder the march of an invading

M. 16. " cum quibus hoc genus," &c. tempore nullum nobis omnino ^ D. 1. 1. 2.

super tali erit obstinatione certa- ' See Neander. Ch. Hist. i. p.

men Semio cum his nobis 165, Mr Rose's translation.

CHAP, army, but which no skilful general will leave in his rear without storming or masking. They offered to the vacillating mind, some an adumbration, some a refutation, of the Christian doctrines, and in several cases they would recall the unstable and half-confirmed convert, especially if his education and acquirements chanced to be a little superior ^ Against such opponents the simplest course was to exhibit their mutual discord and to leave them to the result of civil war; and as the premises of each individual scheme consisted generally in the contemptuous rejection of every other, there was little difficulty in drawing a conclusion fatal to them all^. The third class mentioned was that of the Jews, and their affinity to the new sect seems to have regulated the virulence of their enmity, from a complication of motives which it is very easy to imagine; TertuUian in characterizing the various enemies of the Truth ^ mentions in very expressive terms proprii ex wmulatione Judw% and some influence so repulsive seems to have existed, that even conversion did not always effect a permanent change, as we may collect from the history of the secession to Pella, and the casual remark of Justin Martyr \ that the converts from Judaism were not only less numerous than those from Paganism, but less sincere. All these classes joined eagerly in persecuting the Christians; the Pagans, as the executive, i>o A^-mC being instigated by the example of the Jews and the

^-^^-C \ writings of the philosophers, for it is worth remarking, ^ that the most celebrated attacks on Christianity were published during the very worst of the persecutions. The

^ D. I. V. 1. Nutant enim sparti illi poetanim, sic se invicem plurimi, et maxime qui littera- jugulant iit nemo ex omnibus rerum aliquid attigerunt. stet.

^ Ibid. III. 4. pereunt igitur ' c. vii. p. 24.

universi hoc modo, et tanquam * Apol. i. c. 68.

Roman governor might belong either to the first or GHAP.

second division, as chance determined, or very probably might partake of the character of both. To some one of these parties or individuals were the arguments addressed which are contained in the apologetic writings, and with such reference must we consider them when we are venturing an opinion on their applicability or power. It is true that the exposure of an incredible theology or impure ceremonial might indeed have been superfluous when offered to an Epicurean who had been long ridiculing all of them in secret, but they were efficacious with another class, to whom they were peculiarly directed; and in hke manner though a Pagan might be expected to undervalue an argument from prophecies which he neither knew nor credited, yet with a Jew this was almost the only open course of proceeding, as TertuUian clearly shews when he states^ that the most desperate struggle between the Jews and Christians was on this very point, as each party cited the same evidence of prophecy in support of their cause. It is therefore an unfair though an easy method of depreciating these writers, to test the value of their arguments by a reference to the sentiments of parties to whom they were not addressed; some treatises too would naturally contain an admixture of the several pleas to meet the probability of a promiscuous audience; and if any essay even with these allowances should still appear inapt or injudicious, we may recollect how singularly liable is every writer to be unconsciously influenced as well by his own feelings as those presumed in his readers, and to display the particular facts and urge the peculiar arguments which had the greatest weight with himself. There is one more remark which at this period I wish to make. In considering any supernatural events

' C. XXI.

^^AP. there are two points to which the attention may be

-directed; the evidence of testimony and the evidence of

argument; the first through the medium of those rules which guide us in every transaction of Hfe, and by which the society of the human race is preserved, estabhshes certain occurrences as matters of fact; the second is concerned in proving the same proposition by reference to their probabiHty, their analogy to other occurrences, their object, their utility, and a variety of circumstances of the like nature; one asserts the truth, the other the reasonableness, of a scheme. Both these may of course be united, and directed to the same end; a well-constituted mind will admit the sufficiency of the first proof and acquiesce in its consequences, but with others no conceivable completeness of the evidence of testimony is allowed to prevail against a presumed deficiency in the evidence of argument, an evidence always indefinite, and varying in each individual case as to the fulness and character requisite to secure its acceptance, so that an exclusive appeal to it amounts to little more than an unlimited claim to private judgment in every imaginable cause. This point will be found discussed at some length and with considerable acuteness in Cicero's very interesting treatise De Dimnatione^ where the testimonies for that particular kind of supernatural interference are alleged in the first book, and the arguments against it produced in the second; the two following sentences will give the reader the pith of each, and some inference may be drawn as to the probable opinions of an educated heathen on this subject.

We shall presently see the different views taken by the apologists of this subject amongst others, and our end will be best answered by examining first the apology of Tertullian, so that by using this as a criterion to which the others may be applied, we shall the more easily detect their mutual difference or agreement on any considerable points, and observe better the ends which they respectively proposed to themselves, and the means they employed to accomplish them.

Tertullian''s treatise is generally divided into fifty chapters as I have given it, and to these I shall make reference. The opening (c. 1 — 7) is entirely devoted to proving that the authorities ought really to hear what the Christians had to say for themselves, and after some very characteristic reasoning on this point the writer is naturally compelled to retort those peculiarly infamous charges which would, if true, have almost justified the conduct of the heathen (7 — 10). He then (c. 10) states two of the chief accusations brought against the Christians, viz. first, that they refused to worship the gods, and secondly, that they did not offer sacrifice for the emperor. The former of these is discussed, with some incidental digressions, through eighteen chapters (10 — 27), and the latter through eight (28 — 37) ; some minor objections to Christian practice are then refuted (37 — 45), and the peroration (45- — 50) is occupied by contrasting with the merits and persecutions of the Christians the deserts and the treatment of the several philosophical schools. It must be obvious from the first sight of this synopsis that the Apology was not written with any direct intention or idea of making converts, or of proving the truth of the Christian religion. The

CHAP, case to be shewn is quid sit liquido in caussa Christianorum; the end to be gained is ne ignorata damnetur. TertuUian endeavours to prove not that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, or that the Evangelists left a true and harmonious narrative, but that infanticide and incest were not crimes of the Christians, that their assemblies were not seditious, and that their habits were neither hurtful to society, nor vicious in themselves. It is difficult to make always due allowance for the bitter irony and passionate language of this writer, but we can scarcely be wrong in inferring from his pleading that at this precise period the misery of the Christians must have reached its height. He seems scarcely to hope for their acquittal, or to think of bargaining for it, but confines his petition to a request that they may be heard before they are condemned, and tried in some cases before they are executed; and after shewing at length not merely the negative but the positive virtues of Christian habits, his demand is only that they should not be treated with any thing more severe than ridicule. I observed however above, that, in the discussion of the first charge brought against his brethren, TertulHan had introduced some incidental digressions, but though the chapters alluded to (17 — 23 inclusively) may be made in strictness perhaps to bear that term, since the defence might have continuously proceeded through all its main points without them, yet they are the most seriously important of any in the treatise. They detail the nature and attributes of the Creator, the mission of the Prophets, the character of the Scriptures, and the liistory of Our Lord, forming what TertuUian calls demonstrationem religionis nostrce (16 extr.)

This therefore is evidently the portion of the Apology to which we must turn for any approximation to evidences of Christianity, though even this will only indirectly and

unavoidably assume such a character. It was not intended ^^,^^-

for any such object, but it would very probably attract —

attention to the real principles of the sect, and induce a curious heathen inquirere et intelUgere et credere^ — a process frequently alluded to by Tertullian in these very words, and which implies an examination of other sufficient and accessible evidence beyond any contained in the document recommending such a course of research. Still. this episodical relic is extremely valuable, and even when confined to simple affirmations it has all that weight which a luminous and straight-forward statement invariably carries with it. It is introduced naturally by the expediency of shewing what Christianity is^ after proving what it was not. The writer commences (c. 17) with an attempt to delineate the attributes of that God whom the Christians worshipped, and he adduces the very remarkable testimonj^ of the souH to prove the universal recognition of this truth. He then states (c. 18) that the will of this Being has always from the first (a ^nmordio) been communicated to man through Prophets divinely inspired, and that their precepts {wees eorum) together with a record of their miraculous credentials were committed to authentic narratives, and he shews the accessibility of these narratives by a circumstantial detail of the translation of the LXX. He has thus arrived at the Scriptures, (the Old Testament), and he is of course compelled to offer some evidence for their authority. On this point his first argument is a remarkable one, drawn from their antiquity/, in which he shews that no historical or literary remains of any ancient kingdom will bear any comparison with the Volume in question; and after interposing a few confirmatory remarks, he points out a method by which the fact may be systematically proved. I have termed this argument a remarkable ^ See Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, p. 176, sqq.

CHAP, one, and it is so, especially as elaborated by Tertullian,

but it proceeds on a principle repeatedly advanced by him as fundamental and unassailable — quod prim est semen sit necesse est. He not only urges it upon the heathen, but he employs it against heretics, and confutes alike by it the corruptions of a Gnostic, and the arrogance of a Platonist. Moreover it was peculiarly an argumentum ud hominem^ and the apologist remarks very pertinently on introducing it, apud ws quoque re- Ugionis est instar fidem de t&mporihus asserere. It was not merely that a more ancient scheme was regarded as the creditor of its modern representative, but antiquity, in the abstract, was contemplated by the Pagans with veneration and awe, and gave to any rite or relic a sacredness which no reader of the Roman Annals would be at any loss to exemplify. When Tacitus says of the rites of Palestine antiquitate defenduntiir^ he probably embodies the general opinion on the subject, which indeed has not vanished with the empires of old, nor is it confined to any age or nation: it is a sentiment providentially implanted in the human breast, appearing more or less conspicuous in each individual or people, in proportion to their loyalty and steadiness, and perhaps intended as an antagonist principle to some of the most seductive temptations with which the armoury of Satan is furnished. The reader, however, will observe that Tertullian is not attempting to shew, like biblical critics of the present day, that the books of the prophets were actually written by the persons whose names they respectively bear, as it would be of no use to combat an objection which none of his adversaries were likely to bring, he merely asserts that these writings are ancient both positively and comparatively, and entitled to appropriate respect; he shews their authority, not their truth, to which he passes (p. 65) in another argument which he

handles with peculiar eloquence (c. 20) ; he appeals to CHAP.

the internal^ evidence of the Scriptures as a proof of their - divinity, and cites the evident and daily fulfilment of prophecy, as a reason for expecting the verification of what yet remained unfulfilled ^ TertuUian is the only 2;52iS54-^9l2gkL-W^.9„l^?s thus taken his stand on the Scriptures, and ids. position at this point of his argument is as follows: "The God whom we worship is a Being >vhom you involuntarily recognize. His will has been (Jeclared to man by Prophets, and is contained in a volume of demonstrable antiquity, and self evident truth."^ It it remarkable that TertuUian no where in this treatise quotes Scripture, and that he very sparingly uses scriptural expressions. Up to this point, then, (from c. 17) the defence has been little more than an apology for Judaism, as its author acknowledges (c. 21) and he proceeds to state, that, lest it should be supposed that Christianity unworthily sheltered its tenets under a recognized religion whose authority it claimed, but whose ceremonies it discarded, he was prepared to insist briefly on 1jia..chaxactenstjc tenet of the new sect, the Divinity

^ I have inserted in my text, dence are carried on completely

(p. 63) enclosed within brackets, from omnes itaque substantias

a fragment which has been sup- through the remainder of that

posed by some editors to have chapter and the chapter (20) next

originally formed an integral part ensuing, and that in fact the inof this chapter; but such I do serted paragraph is nothing but

not think to be the case, though an anticipation of these two pleas,

I have little doubt about its being which makes the original text

the reader will refer to the page inclined to believe either that it

mentioned above, (p. 63), and formed part of a second edition of

proceed from the last words be- the Apology, which we have other

fore the brackets de temp, asserere reasons for concluding was pubto the first words after the final lished, or that it is a fragment of

bracket, p. 66, (which is acci- some treatise analogous to that

dentally omitted at vestri), he ad Nationes, if not of that treatise

will see that the arguments both itself, from antiquity and internal evi-

CHAP, of Christ (de Ckristo ut Deo). In pursuance of this

— object, he details the nature (substantia) and birth of

Our Saviour with some minuteness of circumstance, (pp. 74, 75), and then shews quomodo Christus prohetur^ (p. 76). His evidence to this point, consists in a recapitulation of the general expectations of His advent prevalent amongst both Jews and Gentiles, in a brief but pregnant allusion to His miracles, and in a statement of the verification of prophecies in His person, of the preternatural darkness at the Crucifixion \ and of the facts of the Resurrection. No mention is made of any Gospel or Evangelist, the facts are stated as generally known and no where questioned, and the attention is simply drawn to their character which might have been hitherto unobserved, or inferences from them which might hitherto not have been deduced. The argument from prophecy is extremely well managed, that from the miracles is only indirectly brought, though TertuUian after adverting to them adds, ostendens se esse \oyov Dei, &c.

In this last quoted page it is asserted that the Jews 7!^umUi/ concluded (sequehatur uti cestimarent) that our Lord was a magician; the meaning of the expression being that such was the only alternative left to those who saw His works, and denied His Divinity. Now this is all the notice which TertuUian here takes of the subject; but the point is so important and will be so remarkably insisted on by others who are presently to pass

^ Some notice has been taken word, (see e. g. Juv. ii., and relain my note (p. 78) of the reading turn in literas, Aniob. iv. 14), and

arcanis instead of archivis in this as such far moi-e applicable to

passage. I may here add another archivis than arcanis; the literal

argument for the latter reading. translation of hahetis relatum in

The participle relatum is not like archivis vestris, is " you have it

our derivative, nor is it equiva- registered in your public doculent to wa^ra^t^m, but is a technical ments."

in review before us, that I shall draw the reader's par- CHAP.

ticular attention to it by a little further consideration L-

The most singular difference between ancient and modern scepticism, and consequently between ancient and modem apologists, is in their respective views of the miracles. The generation which witnessed these doings, and the generations which immediately succeeded, never expressed the slightest doubt as to the fact of their occurrence; %ey might explain away the prodigy by attributing it to magic, or they might invalidate its influence by setting up rival claims, but no ancient opponent of Christianity, as far as my reading and memory enable me to speak, ever thought of asserting that the historical testimony to^ the miracles was either insufficient or inconclusive. Even Hierocles himself, as we are expressly, though incidentally, told by Lactantius^, acknowledged this much; and accordingly we find that contemporary apologists are occupied in proving that the miracles were not magical, and that the claims of ApoUonius or Apuleius to similar powers are totally unfounded. But modern scepticism takes other ground, and declares not only that the existing evidence for the miracles is insufficient, but that no conceivable addition to it could make it effectual, and therefore our apologists also change the ancient position, and have now to prove facts which for centuries after their occurrence no one ever doubted, and the completeness of evidence which no man on any other subject would think of questioning. Grotius, I think, is the last of the apologists who devotes a chapter to refuting the charge of magic. Eye witnesses saw the works, but doubted the agency: we deny the facts, and dismiss the cause.

^ " Idem tamen quum facta nee tamen negaret, voluit/* &c. ejus(Christi)mirabiliadestrueret, D. I. v. 3.

CHAP, it only has been tendered, and the remaining moiety

is of a character so peculiar that it is difficult to treat

it in any satisfactory manner. The steps are simply these: The writer first (c. 22) asserts the existence, and describes the quahties, of spiritual beings called dcemons; he then endeavours (c. 23) to shew their identity with the deities of the heathen mythology, and finally affirms that a Christian can summon these spirits from the bodies of persons possessed, and compel them to admit openly their own deeds and character, and acknowledge the power and the divinity of Christ. I shall content myself here with directing the reader''s attention to what appear to me the remarkable points of the case. And first, it is to be specially observed that the apologist does not use this argument incidentally, nor eoG abundantly but he makes it his grand proof, and evidently conceives that, though his other reasoning may possibly be got over, this plea will be quite insuperable. In summing up he makes two divisions of his defence, one of which is entirely monopolized by this argument: and this he does twice, (p. 97) demonstravi. . . non modo disputationihus nee argumentationibus, sed ipsorum etiam testimoniis quos deos creditis, ut nihil jam ad hanc caussam sit retractandum; and (p. 149), ostendimus totum statum nostrum^ et quihus modis prohare possimus sicut ostendimus^ ex fide scilicet et antiquitate dimnarwn litterarum^ item ex confessione spiritualiwrn potestatum. Next, I advert to the singular decision and boldness with which he challenges the trial {edatur hie aliquis, &c. p. 88), a trial easily made, and involving a certain final issue, as he says himself (quid hac probatione fidelius^ p. 89), and further, particularly to the strange and undesigned testimony conveyed in the argument (p. 127), Quis autem vos, &c. Lastly, I would recall.to the reader Tertullian's character; credulous he might be, but that

is scarcely to the point, as the appeal is to the senses CHAP.

of others; cowardly he was not, as this Apology proves;

and how little he was likely to bend either a sentence or a fact to propitiate his judge, may [be readily collected from the tone in which he tenders to the ma- ^trate this very proposal to convict his gods of devilry and himself of folly. Of course it will be seen here that I am not speaking of the disquisitions on spiritual natures, &c. which are given in c. 22, there the writer is stating only opinions^ not facts.

I have examined these episodical chapters the more fully, that they exclusively contain that particular kind of apologetic evidence which I am considering in this section; the remainder of the treatise is devoted to a defence of the individual or congregational practices of the Christians, and shews most clearly that main object of the composition which I have before alluded to. One or two points I wish to notice. The history of the Roman empire during the first few centuries of Christianity will secure easy credence to the narratives of those calamities which are described as then falling with overwhelming weight on the human race. With such a government, and such a succession to the throne, with legions of such a class, and national character at such a stage of decay, with civil wars almost perpetual, and barbarian irruptions gradually more threating, we need be at no loss to account for ruined cities and devastated territories, for pestilence, for famine or for blood, and the coincidence of the more awful and destructive phenomena of nature would be readily connected in the minds of the sufferers with the terrors of human infliction. But as early as the close of the second century these events had been all laid to the charge of the Christians, who were said to have provoked the jmcient gods to this exhibition of their reality and wrath.

xlii

CHAP. We cannot be greatly surprised at the rise of such an

opinion, nor more so at its extensive prevalence, for all

history teaches us how easily a suffering populace may be led to visit its miseries and its woes on the heads of any imaginary offenders; a man smarting under pain will not weigh too closely the evidence promising to detect his enemy, nor demur much at the proffered means of vengeance and relief; and thus age after age the cry was repeated which had been found so serviceable, — TertuUian in the second century, Cyprian in the third, Arnobius in the fourth, Augustine in the fifth, shew all by their successive refutation the successive occurrences of the charge, indeed the Apology of Minutius is the only one I believe which does not allude to the accusation. Tertullian indirectly adverts to the calamities of the times in e. 20, and meets the attack of the heathen directly in c. 40. His reasoning is natural and good, he points to the notorious occurrence of the like or worse misfortunes before the name of Christian was heard of, and urges the wickedness of the human race, which was always meriting such scourges. Connected with this was the claim which the Romans set up to singular and eminent piety as the foundation of their early rise and subsequent dominion, since it gave proof by analogy to the other assertion, that impiety and innovation were the causes of their declining power. To this subject Tertullian devotes a little attention (c. 25), but he handles it with more sophistry and less clearness than usual, as I have remarked in the notes.

Looking at this Apology as a whole, I cannot but consider it as incomparably excelling every similar composition of the times. Of its language I have spoken in the preceding section; its arrangement is remarkably good, the topics being so disposed that the reasoning is nearly continuous, and the propositions as they are

xliii

established are made subservient to the proofs of others: CHAP.

as for example, — the charge of refusing sacrifice for L_

Caesar is refuted in the twenty-ninth chapter, by means of the conclusions arrived at in the twelfth and twentysecond, that the gods were powerless except as daemons, and consequently no fit subjects for worship at all. The arguments are astonishingly clear, and if contemplated quoad homines and quoad causam^ can hardly fail to command our assent; while most especial care has been taken not to weaken the case by appeals to authorities which the umpires did not recognize, nor to tempt the scoff's of the ignorant by an unseasonable want of reserve. And yet notwithstanding all this, it is little matter for wonder if it failed to a great extent in its object. Without receiving the great historian''s sarcastic surmise, that the apologies of the Christians probably seldom reached the circles for whose edification they were compiled, we can detect a single striking fact which in itself is sufl&cient to explain the difficulty. Tertullian is never content with refuting^ he invariably retorts. Even on the charges of infanticide and incest, he cannot be content with clearing himself, without a supplementary demonstration of the guilt of his accusers, and he pursues the same process on the indictments of impiety and^ treason. It cannot be denied that these retributive sallies are always vigorous and often successful, but that would only make matters worse; an acquittal might not be easily secured even from a disinterested Roman, but after Tertullian''s defence, the magistrate had no alternative between condemning the prisoner, or —taking his place. Yet the student will find few apologies which he can read without drawing comparisons very favourable to this.

The next treatise, in chronological order, is the Octavius of Minutius Felix, which will not require any lengthened

CHAP, remarks. It is in the attractive form of a dialogue, between Caecilius, a heathen of education and intelligence, and Octavius a Christian, and it contains one remarkable feature, viz., a bold exposition of the popular sentiments concerning Christianity, which is put into the openingspeech of Caecilius. It is not often that we find so plausible a statement of the altera pars^ and Gibbon'*s heart seems really to have been completely won by this conciliatory candour, — twice he mentions this portion of the tract with the epithets of " fair and elegant,"" " elegant and circumstantial,'" and more than twice in various parts of his history does he quote from its favoured paragraphs. The reply of Octavius, which extends considerably beyond the length of the attack, is strictly confined to its specified subjects, a fact which must never be lost sight of if we wish to appreciate the merit of the composition. The truth is that Christianity, as a scheme, is scarcely mentioned, far less defended. Caecilius judges of Christianity from what he has heard, and from what he saw on the surface of it, and he considers it in relation to the established rites of worship, and the existing habits of belief or disbelief. He insists particularly on the probability there is that truth is not discoverable at all, and infers the obligation thus imposed by prudence of acquiescing in things as they are, especially as under such regimen fortune and dominion had rewarded Roman piety: he ridicules the ideas of the future destruction of the world, and the resurrection of the body: and after commenting severely both on the real and the credited practices of the Christians, he concludes that they are throwing away all the tangible pleasures of this life, for the uncertain remunerations of another. It is to these statements that Octavius has to reply, which he does cleverly enough, and if some of his arguments appear borrowed, we must remember that it was scarcely

possible to avoid saying the same things on the same CHAP.

subject. He states very clearly the arguments for the L

unity of God and for the nullity of Paganism: he shews that the end of the world and the resurrection of the flesh are neither novel nor incredible tenets, and he defends the Christians successfully on the minor charges respecting their daily habits. It will be seen on a careful perusal of this treatise, that it is occupied in clearing away any antecedent objections to the cotisideration of Christianity; it shews the existence of a God, and offers proof of his unity, it demonstrates the folly of the existing religion, and removes the superficial objection to the new one, and its effect upon its readers or its audience, unless they could disprove its reasoning, must have been to convince them that there was a God to whom their worship was due, that they had not known him yet, and that, to say the least, there was no a priori evidence. that the teaching of the despised Christians would not supply the knowledge.

The apologetic writings of S. Cyprian are comprised in two short tracts, one addressed Ad Demetrianum^ and the other inscribed de Idolorum Vanitate; the former being an abrupt expostulation with a certain Demetrian on his shameful calumnies and persecution of the Christians. Cyprian commences with saying that he was specially urged to write by the old charge against his brethren of being the cause of all the calamities of the times, but his arguments are very different from Tertullian's. He urges that the world is near its end, that nature is effete, and that irregularities are consequently to be expected in all natural phenomena; and that moreover the heathen have deserved worse inflictions; the rest of the tract being mainly occupied with a repetition of the reasoning by which the glaring injustice of the persecutors is shewn. The tract de Idolorum Vanitate

xlvi

CHAP, is divided into three chapters, treating respectively of

the three heads (which are said to have been prefixed

by the author) Quod idola Dii non sint, Quod Deus unus sit, and Quod per Christum solus credentihus data sit; of these the two first propositions are proved by the same arguments and almost by the same words which occur in Minutius, and the last by an equally close transcript of Tertullian^ The only passage worth particular remark is the concluding paragraph, in which Cyprian states that the Christians are permitted to be tortured in order that the proofs of the truth may be more absolute {ne esset probatio minus solidd), and he calls bodily suffering the touchstone of truth (dolor veritatis testis), which is indeed the argument of Paley, except that the latter confines it to the case of eye-witnesses, and to matters of fact. It is hard to pronounce upon an apologetic writing without a thorough knowledge of the individuals to whom it was addressed, or the special occasion which called it forth, and perhaps either or both of these circumstances might account for what appear imperfections in these tracts; but such reasoning as is borrowed is certainly not improved, nor are the additions to it either vigorous or ingenious; in particular, the abundant quotations from scripture addressed to an adversary who neither admitted nor appreciated the authority appealed to, are singularly mistimed, a circumstance which was remarked many ages ago^.

We have now to proceed to a writer whose mind,

^ At the commencement of this sense, (as I have remarked

this chapter, in the enunciation in the notes of this volume), and

of the proposition. Quod vero having reference to the attributes,

Christus sit, I believe the words power and substance of the Being

are equivalent not to esse autem spoken of.

Christum, hnt to Quis sit Christus, ^ See Lactantius, D. I. v. 4;

or Quid vero Christus sit, this Hieron. Ep. 84. neuter being of frequent use in

xlvii

powers, position, and productions are singularly different, ^ j^^* and whose remains I think have been undeservedly ~

neglected even by the labourers in this particular field of enquiry.

The Disputationes of Arnobius consist of seven books udversus Gentes, containing as usual a defence of Christianity and an exposure of Paganism, and embodying most of the ordinary arguments on each of these topics, but supplying at the same time some important additions and exhibiting some most remarkable views. It appears from the little information we possess concerning this writer^, that he was a rhetorician teaching at Sikka in Africa, when his attention was first directed to Christianity; and it is related that when he applied for admission into the Church, his previous behaviour had left his character and intentions so suspicious that he wrote the treatise in question as a pledge of his sincerity. The internal evidence of the composition would certainly not run counter to such a tale; the author is clearly misinformed on many points, and uninformed on others, and displays very much such an apprehension of Christianity as might be expected in one whose knowledge wae collected simply from notorious facts, or perhaps from teaching like that in the Octavius. The first two books are devoted to the defence, and the remaining five to the attack; it is of course the former division with which we shall be principally here concerned.

The commencement alleges the calumnies against the Christians, before mentioned, as the principal cause of the Apology, and a few pages are allotted to their

*'* It is not a little singular that is generally believed that he

Lactantius in his notice of pre- studied rhetoric under him. Jeaceding or contemporary apologists lousy, amongst other reasons, has

(D. I. V. ].) omits all mention been assigned for this proceedwhatever of Arnobius, though it ing.

CHAP, refutation. This is cleverly though artificially conducted,

and exhibits from many points the utter absurdity of

the charge. The transition is easy from this argument to a general apology for the principles of the Christian faith, as far indeed as the writer either understood or was inclined to disclose them; he defends the worship of a man born^ (natum hominem) and crucified, by examples and precedents from their own religion, and shews that there can be no prima facie objection to Christianity even on that hypothetical ground. But he rapidly proceeds to disprove the simple humanity of Christ, and to prove his divinity ^ and his steps at this point are particularly worthy of notice. He appeals boldly and summarily to the miracles^ insisting minutely and strongly on

I. their character; that they were never noxious, but always salutary, and of a kind befitting their author*.

II. their numher; which, with their variety, precluded the possibility of misapprehension^.

IV. the circumstances of their performance; which was without any intermediate mechanism, and solely by a word^.

^ This is only for argument's rerum." ibid. " nos quidem in

sake. I. 19. " sed concedamus, illo secuti hsec sumus: opera ilia

interdum (i. e. interim, see notes) magnifica; potentissimasque virmanum vestris opinationibus dan- tutes/' ii. 9. " virtutes sub oculis

tes, unum fuisse Christum de no- positse et inauditailla vis rerum,"

bis," &c. See too c. 23. ib. 10.

^ Not in the special Christian * 4. " nihil nocens, aut nosense: he calls Christ, " interio- xium, sed opiferum, sed salutare, rum potentiarum Deus, rei maxi- sed auxiliaribus plenum bonis," mse caussa a summo Rege ad nos i. 25, missus." ib.23. ' ii. 10.

'^ "Nulla major est comproba- " i. 32; ii. 10.

After setting forth with excessive but characteristic diffuseness these several points, he meets the opinion of those who would ascribe the works to the exercise of magic, and alludes to the assertion that Christ learnt in Egypt those powerful arts by which such prodigies were performed. He asks whether any magician of any age or country had ever done such deeds as these; whether the exploits of sorcerers were not notoriously confined to certain well-known practices; whether they were not invariably achieved with certain aids of time, place, and instruments, and whether, if their performances instead of their promises were to be considered, any one could be named whose pretensions would bear the most distant comparison with the works of Christ^.

He next examines the claims of other gods to miraculous virtues, and after intimating that he could probably perplex his adversary by demanding authenticated examples of such works, he asserts that no cures were ever performed in the temples or at the shrines without the accompaniment of some medicine or regimen^, so that the effect (if any) might always be attributed to the medium^. He also adds that the cures were not complete, and that the seeds of the disease still remained^"; and that the miracles were tentative^ for that where there was one patient healed, thousands had

omnia ilia, quae fecit, nominis sui abstinere." lb. 27possibilitate fecisse," i. 25. ^ Ibid.

^ lb. 24. fecerit (deus iste) et emori vale-

" " cibum aliquem jusserunt tudinum caussam, et debilium

capi, aut qualitatis alicujus ebibi corpora ad suas remeare naturas."

mimim succos superponere in- Prop. ii. c. 1. d

CHAP, wasted their time and substance around the altars of

advantaged

From this he proceeds to an objection famihar indeed to modern ears, but seldom urged or argued in ancient times. " You will deny the facts ^'' he says, — ^ed non crsditis gesta Jicec! and he replies with the best appeal to historical evidence and universal testimony which an apologist could have made. He enlarges especially and repeatedly on the open and unlimited exhibition of the miracles^, points to their effects on eye witnesses^ remarks that these were mighty multitudes and almost entire nations*, who could not possibly have trusted any thing less than the irrefragable evidence of their senses, and that a refusal of their testimony involves virtually a charge of falsehood or stupidity against a whole generation, probably as sagacious, and naturally as incredulous, as ourselves^; he observes, too, that this history has been handed down through a body of men, who on 5-ny supposition but the truth of Christianity, must have voluntarily and gratuitously endured all temporal hardships and resigned all temporal comforts for the sake of propagating a lie^.

^ "Nonne alios scimiis malis et credenda posteris nobis baud

suos commortuos, cruciatibus alios exilibus cum approbationibus traconsenuisse morborum, pernicio- diderunt." 1. 32. sius alios sese habere caepisse, ^ " Gentes, populi, nationes,

unum aut alterum fortasse cura- temporis homines usque adeo

tos ostendere?" Ibid. 28. Com- fuisse vanos, mendaces, stolidos,

^ " Sed qui ea conspicati sunt pare Leslie's short way with the

fieri et sub oculis suis viderunt Deists, c. i. 2. 3. agi, testes optirai ccrtissimique ^ " Cumque possent vobiscum

and asks how the prevalence and extension of Christi

anity through all ranks and nations in spite of opposition and tyranny can be explained, if it is based upon falsehood^. This argument shews incidentally the different intentions with which this work and the Apology of Tertullian were composed; TertuUian uses it only as a dissuasive from cruelty, he was pleading merely for toleration; Arnobius turns it to a proof of his faith, he was shewing the credibility of the religion.

Towards the better consideration of th3 ca~e he offers a few remarks of general import. The Christians, as is well known, were attacked for their credulity. He points to the practical influence and use of faith in all the ordinary transactions of life^, and particularly enquires whether a believer in any school, or in no school, does not repose in some teacher or other a confidence equally impHcit, and far less reasonable than that of the Christian^. He shews the error of any antecedent objection to Christianity, observing that there should be rather a contrary inclination, to trust the bearer of such glad tidings and such salutary words, as Christ's ^° ; and adds, that if the divine promises could n-^t logically be proved to be true, it was because the future does not admit of demonstration, but that in a case of such doubtfulness as this, it would be only consonant wath sense and reason to choose the most probable alternative, and the one which offered the greatesii prospect and hope of

haberentur in nomine." Ibid. ^^ i. 38. ''Vel propter id so-

Compare Paley's first proposition, lum eum deberetis amplecti quod

^ Ibid. 33 ; ii. 4. Compare optabilia vobis sponderet et pros- Archbishop Whateley, Logic, p. pera, quod bonarum esset nuntius 248. rerum, quod ea prsedicaret quae

CHAP, benefit ^ ; especially since, if the faith were delusive and

! groundless, its embrace could at worst be productive of

no harm, whereas if true, its neglect would involve the loss of eternal happiness^.

In perusing this sketch of Arnobius, the reader has probably recognized many a familiar thought, and remarked how many arguments of modern apologists have been anticipated by this obscure and neglected writer; and his own memory will doubtless supply him with many more paralleHsms than I have pointed to in the notes; but even apart from this, I think the peculiar position and character of the author, invest his sentiments and his reasoning with very singular interest and value. Arnobius was not a Father of the Church, it is even questioned whether at the date of this composition he was formally admitted within its pale, he was certainly ignorant of many of its mysteries and doctrines; prophecy he makes no allusion to; there is barely evidence of his having read scripture, and quotations from it there are none^ ; but he was obviously a well-educated and intelligent heathen, more than usually learned and argumentative, and previously well affected to the ancient religion* ; his liberality and candour are remarkable, he admits the existence of inexplicable mysteries, and when pressed for explanation on points such as the origin of

ferat, quam omnino quod nul- 47.

las? " II. 3. ^ In II. 5, there is a reference

^ " In illo enim periculi nihil to 1 Cor. iii. 19. Sapientia enim

sum fiat et vacuum, in hoc dam- Deum ; but the writer introduces

aperiatur non fuisse mendacium." ^ i. 20. Ibid. "Vestris non est rationievil and others, acknowledges freely his ignorance and CHAP.

iii inability^; he was tolerant in his ideas and an advocate for free discussion^, and under these circumstances, and with such qualifications, he made the investigations and drew the conclusions which resulted in the work before us. If the credere quam scire is to be exploded as unbecoming the present stage of intellect and civilization, if the first teaching of the Church is to be the teaching her children that they ought to be taught, I cannot see a better system of evidences than thus to establish the divine origin of a scheme and thereby necessitate the acceptance of its details.

Closely following Arnobius in time, and in subject, but differing widely in his fashion of handling it comes his pupil Lactantius, an author whose writings may perhaps be less familiar than his name. His chief work, the Dimnce Institutiones, consists of seven books, of which the object is no less comprehensive and important than to demolish Paganism, prove Christianity, confute philosophy, establish the indissoluble connection between true wisdom and true religion, or rather, perhaps, their identity, and shew that both are to be sought and found only in the Catholic Church of Christ. The two first books expose the Pagan rites, and the third the hollowness of philosophy; the fourth contains the apologetic portion of the treatise, and the remainder completes the whole into such a system of Christian ethics as the writer could compose. As in other cases, our principal attention is directed to the apologetic chapters, which are

^ II. 29, 41, 42. Compare too pia dicta refellitote, redarguite,

his remarks on those who died reprobate. Nam intercipere scripbefore the advent of Christ. Ibid. ta, et publicatam velle lectionem

^ See a curious passage, iii. 5, fendere, sed veritatis testificatioconcluding with " erroris convin- nem timere." cite Ciceronem, temeraria et imliv

^m^' ^^^ incidentally added, but are an integral part of the -work. Lactantius commences* with the precept that an enquirer should first of all make himself thoroughly acquainted with the Jewish history, and especially with the Prophets, and the dates of their writings, inasmuch as their testimony will be necessarily employed in the subsequent proofs He then proceeds carefully through the circumstances of the Birth, Advent, Incarnation, Life, " Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord; and shews that all these are in exact accordance with the predictions concerning them, and this not with the scriptural prophecies only but with the Sibylline verses, and the prophecies of Hermes Trismegistus^. This is all which he adduces in the form of systematic evidence. He adverts to the miracles, but simply in their character as events of our Saviour's life, and insists mainly on the minute agreement of their details with the Sibylline predictions^ , from which fact also he draws his proof that they were not wrought by magic \ All this may appear unsatisfactory to our ideas, but many things should induce us to hesitate before we pronounce a decided opinion. The work itself is of a totally different nature from any which we have been considering. It is a kind of Book of Christiano-philosophical Institutes; it offers a system of cosmogony instead of the philosophical systems; a system of offices instead of the scholastic systems; thus withdrawing from the ancient sages their two subjects

^ Div. Inst. IV. 5. omnia qua? nobis annuntiata sunt

^ " Quorum testimoniis uti vaticinio Prophetarum. Fecit

** " Disce igitur, non solum facturum Christum Proplietse omidcirco a nobis Deum creditum nes uno spiritu prtedicassent.'"

Christum quia mirabilia fecit, sed Ibid. v. 3; Compare too iv. 15.

of speculation, and making referable to true religion all ^Hf ^"

the duties of life ; much on the principle which has lately

been defended with an ability and judgment so far superior.

There is one very remarkable feature in this case: Lactantius most clearly knew the precise nature of his task, and the best methods of achieving it; he discusses the writings of previous apologists^, and points out with great cleverness the points in which they failed; he remarks on the difference of their objects and his, observing that it is one thing to reply to simple accusations, and another to assert a whole body of doctrine^; he mentions the mistake of S. Cyprian in quoting scripture to unbelievers^, alludes to the harshness and obscurity of Tertullian^, and acknowledges and accounts for, generally, the inefficacy of his predecessor's attempts'*^. He saw the distinction between testimony '^ and argument in evidence^', and if he constantly, and to our ideas, unhappily, chooses and pursues the latter, we have the right, if we please, to suppose that he had good grounds for his selection. It is scarcely possible to conceive a greater contrast than he presents to Amobius; the one declining argument, acknowledging mystery, and asserting facts; the other substituting argumentation for every thing. liter magis^ says the former, xidetur irrisione esse dignissimus vohis, qui sibi sci-

® V. 1. means particularly Scripture, as

^ " Aliud est, accusantibiis res- in the passage cited above from

in negatione sola positum est, says, " non Scripturae testimoniis,

in quo necesse est doctrinse totius repellendus."

substantiam contineri." Ibid. 4. ^^ " Et quanquam apud bonos

^ Ibid. 1. testimonia sine argumentis, vel

^" Ibid. argumenta sine testimoniis," &c.

^^ By testimony though he iv. 22.

CHAP, entiam nullam tenehrosce rei alicujus assumit, an ille qui

retur se ex se apertissime scire id quod humanam transsiliat notionem, et quod sit cwcis ohscuritatibus involutum? The latter says, Falsa dicentem redarguere non potest nisi qui scierit ante quid sit mrum. Arnobius declines the question of the existence of evil; Lactantius says it is necessary to the formation of its contrary, good. And his reasoning is perpetually of such a kind, which his subject gave him endless opportunities of displaying or exposing. His application of quotations could scarcely be paralleled even in that fertile school of ingenuity, and sacred and profane are all confused together. Nevertheless, as I before remarked, a rhetorician and a scholar, with so correct an appreciation of his own object, and so clear a discernment of the faults of others in following it, may not be safely or speedily condemned by us, especially when that object was so excellent and the spirit of its pursuit so good. Even the weakest point about him, his appeals to Hermes and the Sibyl, may possibly be more defensible than we imagine; he evidently was Aware of the suspicions thrown on these verses ^, which he does not himself admit the justice of; they might too have been acknowledged by adversaries who denied other prophecies, and his fault is at all events no greater than would have been that of a philologist before the time of Bentley, who had proved a grammatical canon from the epistles of Phalaris.

I have here set this writer in the most favourable light in which he can be viewed, and offered the most partial explanation of his design and its prosecution. But there is another hypothesis which will as easily explain the singularities of his argument, and which will quickly suggest itself to his readers. He was a man of excessive vanity, with unhesitating confidence in his own ^ See ad fin. iv. 15.

powers, and a profound contempt for the performances CHAP.

of others. Instead of excusing his weakness, Hke his

brethren, he avows his intention of making truth more agreeable by his interesting eloquence*^, and asserts that by his writings not only will ancient adversaries be refuted, but future enemies deterred, and that no one after listening to Ms arguments, will be able to withhold his assent^. To presume that he was blinded by his conceit, would be less charitable, but perhaps not less reasonable, than to conclude he was guided by expedience.

The few years that elapsed between the treatises of Arnobius and Lactantius had sufficed to change most materially the relation in which Christianity stood to the State; the former writer sends forth from the midst of persecutions a work which calumnies drove him to publish, the latter dedicates his to imperial favour, and assumes the tone rather of one justifying an established, than pleading for a persecuted, system. But, in about half a century more, the change was complete, and Paganism appears pleading for the toleration it had so long denied. A composition of this date will complete the various specimens of apologetic writing which I promised at starting, and its brief examination will conclude a chapter which has been already extended beyond the limits proposed. In the year 384 the heathen senators

^ "Quae (caussa) licet possit runt uno semel impetu profligasine eloquentia defendi, ut est a rem. . . . ut et priores cum ommultis ssepe defensa; tamen clari- nibus suis scriptis perverterem,

tate ac nitore sermonis illus- et futuris omnem facultatem scritranda, et quodammodo disse- bendi aut respondendi amputarenda est, ut potentius in animos rem. Praebeant modo aures;

influat." D. I. i. praef. efficiam profecto, ut quicunque

CHAP, (both then and afterwards a numerous body) deputed

an eminent member of their assembly to petition the sovereign for the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the senate, and the orator accordingly, Symmachus, addressed a kind of memorial to the throne, which still remains to us under the usual title of Belatio SymmacJii. This singular relic, ostensibly a plea for the re-erection of an altar, is in fact a prayer for the toleration of the old religion; the writer assumes very deliberately the uncertainty of all schemes, and avers that peculiarity of belief is neither unnatural nor unsafe^ ; on the contrary, indeed, he thinks that such a division of credulity may possibly be desirable, and that as in the multitude of counsellors there is safety, so in the variety of creeds there may be truth. Uno itinere non potest permniri ad tarn grande secretum. He touches on the delicate point of a government contributing to a religion not its own, and asserts that such grants may be justifiably continued, if not commenced^ ; and that since the usefulness of a religion is the chief proof of its divinity^, that it is scarcely expedient to neglect those gods whose favour they had so long experienced. To this document S. Ambrose published a reply, which, though apologetic in

^ Relat. Symm. c. 8. " Suus what he gets from them. As

cuique mos, suus cuique ritus this very remarkable argument

est; varios custodes urbibus et is contained in a few words I

cultos mens divina distribuit." subjoin it entire. " Accedit utili-

2 Ibid. c. 16. " Quod a prin- tas, quae maxime homini Deos

cipio ( I would rather read in prin- asserit. Nam cum ratio omnis in

cipio) beneficium fuit, usu atque operto sit, undo rectius quam de

am." sunt nobis parentcs, qui sccuti

^ In other words, that a man's sunt feliciter suos." belief in the gods depends on

character, contains but one of the arguments of the chap.

ancient apologies ^ Symmachus had reproduced the im

perishable charge against the Christians of being the authors of all the calamities of iJie times, and specially of a recent famine. S. Ambrose refutes the accusatiwi by the usual obvious facts and reasoning. The rest of his book is devoted to the discussion of his adversary's points in detail. He does not protest absolutely against the toleration of Paganism, but he vehemently dissuades the Emperor from protecting it; he urges that the Christians never applied for state-grants, but would have always been content could they have escaped persecution, and even gloried in that^; he contrasts the seven vestals richly salaried, magnificently lodged, and pompously honoured, with the unobtrusive celibacy of whole congregations of Christians^, and compares generally the patience of the Christians under tortures and death, with the outcry of the Pagans under simple neglect.

After all, perhaps we have scarcely given due credit, or assigned sufficient influence, to the Christian apologists. The disparaging decisions of Lactantius may possibly be owing in a great measure to his own overweening selfconceit, or refer merely to the judgment of philosophical sophists ' ; certainly, if they are to be tested by his opinion of himself, they are of little value. We know that Christianity spread over the surface of the known

* Perhaps I may add that Am- bem pudoris," &c. I quote these

fact that the Romans were per- not such a genitive as glorirs in p.

petually altering their religious 65, (where see note) but is equirites, and should therefore be less valent to pudicarum. " Let them

outrageous at their total sup- look up, and see a whole tribe of

pression. virgins," &c. i. e. as opposed to

^ Ibid. c. 11. the seven vestals.

et corporis oculos, videant pie- says, " deridentur haec scripta."

IX ON THE APOLOGETIC WRITINGS, &C.

CHAP, world, and that apologies were written to promote its

diffusion; we may not be able to trace their insensible

operation or find recorded instances of their power, but it is at least not improbable that the steadfast endurance of a martyr whose blood was the seed of the Church, might have itself resulted from the patient and private study of such writings as these. Even their perpetual repetition argues an experience of some little previous success. At all events, the cause which they advocated was triumphant, and if we cannot discover how much of its prosperity they were mediately the authors of, that is no just or logical ground for refusing them any credit at all.

CAP. I.

I. Si non licet vobis, Komani imperii aiitistites\ in aperto et edito ipso fere vertice civitatis y^^ ^re prsesidentibus ad judicandum, palam dispicere et P^J^^^^^^^^j^^y ^ coram examinare, quid sit liquido in caussa Chris- and'IdSt

. ,. T. . T •• • • ofthetreataccidit, domesticis judiciis nimis operata sectae ment. hujus infestatio obstruit^ viaih defensioni: liceat veritati vel occulta via tacitarum litterarum ad

1. ^ Antistites. These are termed prcesides afterwards, c. 9, and 50. Licet in this sentence means little more than luhet, which I only mention because it has been referred to the compulsory injustice of the government, (c. 28, imposita est vobis necessitas cogendi), under the influence of daemoniacal agency.

^ Si ad hanc, &c. 1 think the construction of this rather intricate sentence is as follows: si auct. vestr. timet aut er. inq. in publico de just, diligentia, ad hanc solam speciem. Ad may thus mean either simply " with reference to," like nihil ad hanc caussam retractandum, c. 25 ; or it may be used after timet, like expavescere

ad lucem, c. 39; ad solitudinem, c. 37. pavere ad Christi mentionem, Arnob. i. 13. Species in Tertullian is used for " case" or " subject," as de Orat. c. 1, oportebat enim in hac quoque specie, &c. but it probably signifies here species criminis, as de Idol. c. 1, suam, speciem tenet unumquodque delictum. So that the sense will be, "If with regard to this charge only of all others, (i. e. Christianity), you are either ashamed or afraid to enquire publicly into the due administration of justice."

^ Obstruereviam. This phrase, like obstruere gradum, (de Virg. Vel. c. 15 ; de prses. Haer. c. 15), is equivalent to impedimento esse.

* Heb. XI. 18. S. Pet. i. 2. 11. '' Titiilus, i. q. elogium. A

The expression agere peregrinam brief specification of the charge

will be illustrated hereafter. or indictment, the proces-verbal;

^ Gestire is unusually con- both words occur frequently in

structed with a simple accusative. Tertullian. Suetonius relates that

" What does the law lose in this prisoners to execution, " nullius

i case, if," &c. deperire, as Lucret. inspecto elogio," and that Domitian

^ II. 29G. condemned a citizen to the beasts

S. Pauli agnovit ipse Festus. Acts vincit — ^both aggravates and con-

XXV. 16, A,'] alicujus conscientia— victs — revihcit, see ad Apul. Ap.

"of some privity to the crime." — 400.

collocamus caussam apud vos — " Vacante, i. e. non-existente

" we lodge this accusation against c. 18, ne notitia vacaret. c. 11, vayou," viz., of the injustice of your cat ex hac parte caussa. " If there

hatred, &c. is no knowledge of the deserts." —