of evidence he affords nothing, except that from the circumstance of the four gospels having received the more particular countenance of the Alexandrine college, over which he presided, he and all other aspirants to university honours, and the ecclesiastical emoluments that would follow them, must be expected to pay all due deference to the books his university had chosen to patronize. TERTULLIAN, A. D. 200. Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, the last that can be read into the second century, and the very first of all the Latin Fathers, was, like the rest of them, originally a heathen, was afterwards a most zealous and orthodox Christian, and finally fell into heresy. He was made presbyter of the church of Carthage in Africa, of which he was a native, about A.D. 193, and died, as may be conjectured, about the year 220. As he had become tinctured with heresy, he lost the honour of his place in "the noble army of martyrs." The character of his style, as given by Lactantius, may be allowed by all." It is rugged, unpolished, and very obscure;" and yet, as Cave observes, it is lofty and masculine, and carries a kind of majestic eloquence with it, that gives a pleasant relish to the judicious and inquisitive reader. "There appears," says Lardner, "in his writings, fre quent tokens of true unaffected humility and modesty-virtues in which the primitive Christians were generally so very eminent." Of this assertion of Dr. Lardner, and, consequently, of the character of assertions likely to be made by the Doctor generally, where the honour of Christianity and of Christians was to be maintained, I leave the reader to judge from the annexed Specimen of St. Tertullian's true unaffected humility and modesty, m his discourse against the sin of going to the Theatre. "You are fond of spectacles: expect the greatest of all spectaclesthe last and eternal judgment of the universe! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied gods groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames, with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expres sion of their own sufferings; so many dancers,"* &c.-I hope the reader may think here is humility and modesty enough! Specimen of Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences of Christianity.t "I find no other means to prove myself to be impudent with success, and happily a fool, than by my contempt of shame; as, for instance,I maintain that the Son of God died: well, that is wholly credible because it is monstrously absurd.—I maintain that after having been buried, he rose again: and that I take to be absolutely true, because it was manifestly impossible."+ This language, not being protected by privilege of inspiration, is allowed to convey its full drift of absurdity to our awakened intelligence. It is safest to go to sleep and give god the glory, over the perfectly parallel rhapsodies of the inspired chief of sinners. Where Tertullian is intelligible, his testimony to the status rerum of Christianty up to his time, is highly important. And 'tis from his Apology, addressed to the Emperor and the Roman Senate in the year 198, which Dr. Lardner justly calls his master-piece, that we collect a testimony corroborative of that of Melito, of Origen himself, and of the highest degree of conjectural probability, in demonstration of the utter falsehood and romance of the whole proposition on which Paley *Supersunt alia spectacula, ille ultimus et perpetuus judicii dies, ille na tionibus insperatus ille derisus, cum tanta seculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates uno igne haurientur. Quæ tunc spectaculi latitudo? quid admirem! quid rideam! ubi gaudeam, ubi exultem, spectans tot et tantos reges, qui in cœlum secepti nunciabantur, in imis tenebris congemiscentes? item præsides persecutores Dominici nominis sævioribus quam ipsi flammis sævierunt liquescentes ? Quos sapientes philosophos coram discipulis suis una conflagrantibus erubescentes, etiam Poetas, non Rhadamanti nec ad Minois sed ad inopinati Christi tribunal palpitantes, &c.-Ita citat locum Paganus Obtrectator, p. 150. Sufficat lectori justo pro auctoritate.-R. T. + De Spectaculis, c. 30. "Syn So rendered and authenticated by the original text, quoted in my tagma," p. 106, my first publication from this prison; a work which those whose scandalous impostures and audacious slanders provoked, find it wisest to treat with contempt. The Christian war is always Parthian. Its tact is to throw out its calumnies, but never to allow the accused his privilege of defence. To read the vituperations that Christians heap on infidels, is an exercise of godly piety: to venture but to look on an infidel's vindication, is playing with edged tools.-None rail so loud, as they who rail in safety! * rests the stress of his Evidences of Christianity. So far is it from truth, that Christians were ever the victims of intolerance and persecution on the score of their profession of a pure and holy doctrine, that in addition to the testimony of the general sense and fairest scope of the greatest number of texts of Scripture itself, the truly respectable suffrage of Melito, bishop of Sardis, the express declaration of Origen, † that up to his time the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable, and above all, to the irresistible conviction of all the rational probabilities of the case, we now add THE TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN,‡ That the wisest of the Roman Emperors have been protectors of the Christians. "The Christian persecutors have been always men divested of justice, piety, and common shame, upon whose government you yourselves have put a brand, and rescinded their acts by restoring those whom they condemned. But of all the Emperors down to this present reign, who understood any thing of religion or humanity, name me one who ever persecuted the Christians. On the contrary, we show you the excellent M. Aurelius for our protector and patron, who, though he could not publicly set aside the penal laws, yet he did as well, he pubicly rendered them ineffectual in another way, by discouraging our accusers with the last punishments, viz. burning alive. "Does not the prisons sweat with your heathen criminals continually?-Do not the mines continually groan with the load of heathens?-Are not your wild beasts fattened with heathens ?—Now, among all these malefactors, there's not a Christian to be found for any crime but that of his name only, or if there be, we disown him for a Christian."S Timothy, iv. 8. Godliness is profitable, &c.-1 Peter iii. 13. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?-v. 16. That they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation.-Matthew v. That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. + Quoted in Gibbon, chap. 15. Reeve's Apologies of, &c. § This is an early specimen of primitive Quakerism, the policy of a sect of the most arrogant, most ignorant, fraudulent, intolerant, and inexorable men that ever adorned the gospel and disgraced humanity. In every thing the diametrical reverse of their professions. It may seem hard to say that there never was an honest man among them: but there never was a hard saying so like a true one. Such language we have seen Tertullian use, and such a spirit of annoyance and actual assault upon the rights and liberties of their Pagan fellow citizens, must occasionally have provoked the passions of any men who had no supernatural graces to subdue and coerce the sentiments of nature. The spitting in a magistrate's face-the interruption of Pagan worship, the total expulsion of their own children and brethren from all membership, relation, or succession of inheritance, in the families of which they were a part, upon their not conforming to the faith ;* and all such sort of conduct as persons who desired martyrdom and delighted in being ill used, would be likely to adopt, might be followed frequently by just, and sometimes by excessive retribution; but-" it is certain that we may appeal to the grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the Emperor or of the Senate, and to whose hands alone the jurisdiction of life and death was entrusted, benaved like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts of philosophy. In one word, the Pagan magistrates neither were, nor pretended to be, under the influence of supernatural motives, and there are no natural motives to incline any men to be cruel and inexorable. CHAPTER XLII. THE FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. ORIGEN, A. D. 230. It is only necessary to follow the isoteric or interior evidences of the Christian religion below the close of the second century, for the sake of bringing the reader acquainted with the two most distinguished persons that ever were concerned with it; Origen, its most distinguished priest, and Constantine, its most distinguished patron. Origen, was born in that great cradle and nursery of all superstition, Egypt, in the year * Quæque Ipse misserima, vidi Et quorum! Quis talia fando! + Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. 15. 184 or 185-that is, the fifth or sixth of the Emperor Commodus, and died in the sixty-ninth or seventieth year of his age, A.D. 253. Though Eusebius flatly denies the assertion of Porphyry, that Origen had been originally a heathen,-and was afterwards converted to Christianity, yet Origen is proud to vindicate to himself his imitation of his predecessor, Pantænus, in the study of profane learning. He had studied under that celebrated philosopher, Ammonius Saccas, who, in the second century had taught that "Christianity and Paganism, when rightly understood, differed in no essential points, but had a common origin, and really were one and the same religion, nothing but the schismatical trickery of fanatical adventurers, who sought to bring over the trade and profits of spiritualizing into their own hands, having introduced a distinction where in reality there was no difference." This was unquestionably the orthodox doctrine of the second century, and it so entirely quadrates with all the historical phenomena, that one cannot but hold it honourable both to Origen's head and heart, that he has owned his early proficiency in the Ammonian philosophy, under this, its illustrious master. Leonides, the father of Origen, is said to have suffered martyrdom, and to have been encouraged thereto by Origen (who was the oldest of his seven children) when not quite seventeen years of age: a fact, which if it were credible, would bear a very equivocal reading. In the sincerity of his devotion to the cause of Monkery-from which Christianity is unquestiouably derived," he was guilty of that rash act so well known," which he held to be his duty, as inculcated by Christ in the celebrated Matt. xix. 12. His conduct at least demonstrates the existence of the text, as of high and unquestionable antiquity in his time, and the sincere prostration of his mind to its constraining authority. : This argument, adroitly handled, would constitute one of the strongest evidences of Christianity and played off with the blustering airs of sanctification and parade of learning, which are generally called in to the aid of canonical sophistication, might much puzzle the Sciolist in these studies. The difficulty, however, is instantly dissipated upon collation of the character of the text itself, with the facts of history which this DIEGESIS supplies. 1. The text itself is unworthy of the character of rational and moral ixulcation which Christians generally challenge for the discourses of the divine master. 2. It goes not to the extent of an institution of the practice there spoken of. |