'o Frugi.
" Temeraria.
'= Laesis.
'3 Morabantur. We have taken this word as if from " mores-" (character). Tertullian often uses the participle "raoratus" in this sense.
'4 Et depropitiorum.
'SVoIutavit.
'* Compare 'J'/it: Apology, c. xxvi.
CHAP.
XVII.]
AD NATIONES.
^M mans, very much as if" the tribute of many nations were after its exaction amassed in one (vast) coffer. What He has determined con- ' We have treated this " tanquam " and its clause as something more than a mere simile. It is, in fact, an integral element of the supremacy which the entire sentence describes as conferred on the Romans by the Almighty.
cerning it, they know who are the nearest to Him.=' = That is, the Christians, who are well aware of God's pur- poses as declared in prophecy. St. Paul tells the Thessalonians what the order of the great events subsequent to the Roman power was to be: the destruction of that power was to be followed by the development and reiga of Antichrist; and thea the end of the world would come.
APPENDIX.
A FRAGMENT CONCERNING THE EXECRABLE GODS OF THE HEATHEN.
So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race, that they call their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as being their very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those (deities), then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names they know not. That they are daemons ' they under- stand: but they read histories of the old kings, and then, though they see that their charac- ter* was mortal, they honour them with a dei- fic name.
As.^:r him whom they call Jupiter, and think to be the highest god, when he was born the years (that had elapsed) from the founda- tion of the world i to him ^ were some three thousand. He is born in Greece, from Sat- urnus and Ops; and, for fear he should be killed by his father (or else, if it is lawful to say so, should be begotten ^ anew), is by the advice of his mother carried down into Crete, and reared in a cave of Ida; is concealed (from his father's search) by (the aid of) Cretans — born men!° — rattling their arms; sucks a she-goat's dugs; flays her; clothes himself in her hide; and (thus) uses his own nurse's hide, after killing her, to be sure, with his own hand! but he sewed thereon three golden tassels worth the price of an hundred oxen each, as their author Homer ^ relates, ' Daemons. Gr. SaC/jnov, which some hold to = 5or}/j.u)t/, " know- ing," " skilful," in which case it would come to be used of any superhuman intelligence; others, again, derive from Saiw, " to divide, distribute," in which case it would mean a distributor of destinies; which latter derivation and meaning Liddell and Scott incline to.
. = Actum: or " career."
3 Mundi.
4 i.e., till his time.
5 Parerctur. As the word seems to be used here with reference to his father, this, although not by any means a usual meaning, would seem to be the sense. [As in the equivalent Greek.]
6A Cretibus, horninibus natis. The force seems to be in the nbsurdity of supposing that, i.f;, there should be human beings (horninibus) born, (as Jupiter is said to have been " born,") already existing at the time of the " birth " of " the highest god; " ■xndly, that these should have had the power to do him so e.ssential service as to conceal him from the search of his own father, likewise a mighty deity, by the simple expedient of rattling their arms.
7 See Horn. 11. it. 446-9; but Homer says there were 100 such tassels.
if it is fair to believe it. This Jupiter, in adult age, waged war several years with his father; overcame him; made a parricidal raid on his home; violated his virgin sisters;* se- lected one of them in marriage; drave' his father by dint of arms. The remaining scenes, moreover, of that act have been recorded. Of other folks' wives, or else of violated vir- gins, he begat him sons; defiled freeborn boys; oppressed peoples lawlessly with des- potic and kingly sway. The father, whom they erringly suppose to have been tne origi- nal god, was ignorant that this (son of his) was lying concealed in Crete; the son, again, whom they believe the mightier god, knows not that the father whom himself had ban- ished is lurking in Italy. If he was in heaven, when would he not see what was doing in Italy? For the Italian land is " not in a corner."'" And yet, had he been a god, nothing ought to have escaped him. But that he whom the Italians call Saturnus did lurk there, is clearly evidenced on the face of it, from the fact that from his lurking " the Hesperian '- tongue is to this day called Latin, '^ as likewise their author Virgil relates.'* (Jupiter,) then, is said to have been born on earth, while (Saturnus his father) fears lest he be driven by him from his kingdom, and seeks to kill him as being his own rival, and knows not that he lias been stealthily carried oft", and is in hiding; and afterwards the son- god pursues his father, immortal seeks to slay immortal (is it credible? '5), and is disap- pointed by an interval of sea, and is ignorant 80ehler's "virgin/V" must mean "virginsj." 9 So Scott: "He drax'e my cows last Fastem's night." — Lay oy Last Minstrel.
" Latitatio.
i^i.e.. Western: here = Italian, as being west of Greece.
13 Latina.
'4 See Virg. JE.n. viii. 319-323: see also Ov. Fast. i. 234-238.
'5 Oehler does not mark this as a question. If we follow him, we may render, " this can find belief." Above, it seemed neces- sary to introduce the parenthetical words to make some sense. The Latin is throughout very clumsy and incoherent.
A FRAGMENT.
of (his quarry's) flight; and while all this is going on between two gods on earth, heaven is deserted. No one dispensed the rains, no one thundered, no one governed all this mass of world.' For they cannot even say that their action and wars took place in heaven; for all this was going on on Mount Olympus in Greece. Well, but heaven is not called Olympus, for heaven is heaven.
These, then, are the actions of theirs, which we will treat of first — nativity, lurking, ignorance, parricide, adulteries, obscenities — things committed not by a god, but by most impure and truculent human beings; beings who, had they been living in these days, would have lain under the impeachment of all laws — laws which are far more just and strict than their actions. " He drave his father by dint of arms." The Falcidian and Sem- pronian law would bind the parricide in a sack with beasts. " He violated his sisters." The Papinian law would punish the outrage with all penalties, limb by limb. " He in- vaded others' wedlock." The Julian law would visit its adulterous violator capitally. " He defiled freeborn boys." The Cornelian law would condemn the crime of transgressing the sexual bond with novel severities, sacri- legiously guilty as it is of a novel union. "^ This being is shown to have had no divinity either, for he was a human being; his father's flight escaped him. To this human being, of such a character, to so wicked a king, so obscene and so cruel, God's honour has been assigned by men. Now, to be sure, if on earth he were born and grew up through the ad- 1 Orbis.
1 Orbis.
2 Lex Cornelia transgress! foederis ammissum novis exemplis novi coitus sacrilegum damnaret. After consulting Dr. Holmes, I have rendered, but not without hesitation, as above. " Foedus" seems to have been technically used, especially in later Latin, of the marriage compact; but what "lex Cornelia" is meant I have sought vainly to discover, and whether " lex Cornelia transgressi foederis " ought not to go together I am not sure. For " a?«mis- sum" {=admissura) Migne'sed. reads" amissum," a very different word. For "sacrilegus" with a genitive, see de Res. Cam, c. xlii. med.
vancing stages of life's periods, and in it committed all these evils, and yet is no more in it,what is thought ^ (of him) but that he is dead? Or else does foolish error think wings were born him in his old age, whence to fly heavenward? Why, even this may possibly find credit among men bereft of sense,* if in- deed they beUeve, (as they do,) that he turned into a swan, to beget the Castors;5 an eagle, to contaminate Ganymede; a bull, to violate Europa; gold, to violate Danae; a horse, to be- get Pirithoiis; a goat, to beget Egyppa^ from a she-goat; a Satyr, to embrace Antiope. Beholding these adulteries, to which sinners are prone, they therefore easily believe that sanctions of misdeed and of every filthiness are borrowed from their feigned god. Do they perceive how void of amendment are the rest of his career's acts which can find credit, which are indeed true, and which, they say, he did without self-transformation? Of Semele, he begets Liber; ^ of Latona, Apollo and Diana; of Maia, Mercury; of Alcmena, Hercules. But the rest of his corruptions, which they themselves confess, I am unwill- ing to record, lest turpitude, once buried, be again called to men's ears. But of these few (offsprings of his) I have made mention; offsprings whom in their error they believe to be themselves, too, gods — born, to wit, of an in- cestuous father; adulterous births, suppositi- tious births. And the living,^ eternal God, of sempiternal divinity, prescient of futurity, immeasurable,' they have dissipated (into nothing, by associating Him) with crimes so unspeakable.
3 Quid putatur (Oehler) putatus (Migne).
5 The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux.
6 Perhaps.(Egipana (marginal reading of the MS. a3 given in Oehler and Migne).
7 i.e., Bacchus.
SOehler reads " vi(3?e etem; " but Migne's " viwentem " seems better: indeed, Oehler's is probably a misprint. The punctuation of this treatise in Oehler is very faulty throughout, and has been disregarded.
ELUCIDATION.
This Fragment is noted as spurious, by Oehler who attributes it to somebody only mode- rately acquainted with Tertullian's style and teaching.' I do not find it mentioned by Dupin, nor by Routh. This translation is by Thelwall.
vu AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS."
TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.
CHAP. I. — OCCASION OF WRITING. RELATIVE POSITION OF JEWS AND GENTILES ILLUS- TRATED.
It happened very recently a dispute was held between a Christian and a Jewish pros- elyte. Alternately with contentious cable they each spun out the day until evening. By the opposing din, moreover, of some partisans of the individuals, truth began to be overcast by a sort of cloud. It was therefore our pleasure that that which, owing to the con- fused noise of disputation, could be less fully elucidated point by point, should be more carefully looked into, and that the pen should determine, for reading purposes, the questions handled For the occasion, indeed, of claiming Divine grace even for the Gentiles derived a pre- eminent fitness from this fact, that the man who set up to vindicate God's Law as his own was of the Gentiles, and not a Jew " of the stock of the Israelites." ' For this fact — that Gentiles are admissible to God's Law — is enough to prevent Israel from priding himself on the notion that " the Gentiles are accounted as a little drop of a bucket," or else as " dust out of a threshing-floor: " ^ although we have God Himself as an adequate engager and faithful promiser, in that He promised to Abraham that " in his seed should be blest all nations of the earth;"'* and that^ out of the » [This treatise was written while our author was a Catholic. This seems to me the best supported of the theories concerning it. Let us accept Pamelius, for once and date it a.d. 198. Dr. Allix following Baronius, will have it as late as a.d. 208. Neander thinks the work, after the quotation from Isaiah in the beginning of chapter ninth, is not our author s, but was finished by an- other hand, clumsily annexing what is said on the same chapter of Isaiah in the Third Book against Marcion. It is only slightly varied. Bp. Kaye admits the very striking facts instanced by Neander, in support of this theory, but demolishes, with a word any argument drawn from thence that the genuine work was written after the author's lapse. This treatise is suflficiently an- notated by Thelwall, and covers ground elsewhere gone over in this Series. My own notes are therefore very few.]
^Comp. Phil. iii. 5.
3 See Isa. xl. 15: " dust of the balance^'' Eng. ver.; poTrij ^vyoO LXX. For the expression " dust out of a threshing-floor," how- ever, see Ps. i. 4, Dan. ii. jS.
4 See Gen. xxii. 18; and comp. Gal. iii. 16, and the references in both places.
womb of Rebecca " two peoples and two na- tions were about to proceed,"* — of course those of the Jews, that is, of Israel; and of the Gentiles, that is ours. Each, then, was called a people and a nation; lest, from the nun- cupative appellation, any should dare to claim for himself the privilege of grace. For God ordained " two peoples and two nations" as about to proceed out of the womb of one woman: nor did grace* make distinction in the nuncupative appellation, but in the order of birth; to the effect that, which ever was to be prior in proceeding from the womb, should be subjected to "the less," that is, the pos- terior. For thus unto Rebecca did God speak: " Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy bowels; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the less." '' Accordingly, since the people or station of the Jews is anterior in time, and " greater " through the grace of primary favour in the Law, whereas ours is understood to be " less " in the age of times, as having in the last era of the world ^ attained the knowledge of divine mercy: beyond doubt, through the edict of the divine utterance, the prior and " greater " people — that is, the Jew- ish— must necessarily serve the " less; " and the " less " people — that is, the Christian — overcome the "greater." For, withal, ac- cording to the memorial records of the divine Scriptures, the people oi the Jews — that is, the more ancient — quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while " the people " said to Aaron, " Make us gods to go before us. " » And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of 5 This promise may be said to have been given " to Abraham," because (of course) he was still living at the time; as we see by comparing Gen. xxi. 5 with xxv. 7 and 26. See, too, Heb. xi. 9.
* Or, " nor did He make, by grace, a distinction.
7 See Gen. xxv. 21-23, especially in the LXX.; and cotnp. Rom.
8 Saeculi.
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWS.
[chap. II.
the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (abandoning God) gave honour, saying, "These are the gods who brought us from the land of Egypt."' For thus, in the later times in which kings were governing them, did they again, in con- junction with Jeroboam, worship golden kine, and groves, and enslave themselves to Baal.^ Whence is proved that they have ever been de- picted, out of the volume of the divine Scrip- tures, as guilty of the crime of idolatry; where- as our " less " — that is, posterior — people, (\\i\\.- ting the idols which formerly it used slavishly to serve, has been converted to the same God from whom Israel, as we have above related, had departed. 3 For thus has the "less" — that is, posterior — people overcome the"greater people," while it attains the grace of divine favour, from which Israel has been divorced.
CHAP. II. — THE LAW ANTERIOR TO MOSES.
Stand we, therefore, foot to foot, and de- termine we the sum and substance of the actual question within definite lists.
For why should God, the founder of the uni- verse, the Governor of the whole world,* the Fashioner of humanity, the Sower ^ of universal nations be believed to have given a law through Moses to one people, and not be said to have assigned it to all nations.? For unless He had given it to all by no means would He have habitually permitted even proselytes out of the nations to have access to it. But — as is congruous with the goodness of God, and with His equity, as the Fashioner of mankind — He gave to all nations the selfsame law, which at definite and stated times He enjoined should be observed, when He willed, and through whom He willed, and as He willed. For in the beginning of the world He gave to Adam himself and Eve a law, that they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree planted in the midst of paradise; but that, if they did contrariwise, by death they were to die.^ Which law had continued enough for them, had it been kept. For in this law given to Adam we recognise in embryo ^ all the pre- cepts which afterwards sprouted forth when given through Moses; that is. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole heart and out of thy whole soul; Thou shalt love thy ' Ex. xxxii. 4: comp. Acts vii. 38-41; i Cor. x. 7; Ps. cvi. 19-22.
^Comp. 1 Kings xii. 25-33; 2 Kings xvii. 7-17 (in LXX. 3 and 4 Kings). The Eng. ver. speaks of " calves;" the LXX. call them " heifers."
4 Mundi.
5 Comp. Ter. xxxi. 27 (in LXX. it is xxxviii. 27); Hos. ii. 23; 7 Condita.
neighbour as thyself;* Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not steal; False witness thou shalt not utter; Honour thy father and mother; and. That which is another's, shalt thou not covet. For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise, as the womb of all the precepts of God. In short, if they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have contravened His precept; if they had habitually loved their neighbour — that is, themselves ^ — they would not have believed the persuasion of the serpent, and thus would not have committed murder upon themselves, ' by falling '° from immortality, by contravening God's precept; from theft also they would have abstained, if they had not stealthily tasted of the fruit of the tree, nor had been anxious to skulk be- neath a tree to escape the view of the Lord their God; nor would they have been made partners with the falsehood-asseverating devil, by believing him that they would be " like God;" and thus they would not have offended God either, as their Father, who had fashioned them from clay of the earth, as out of the womb of a mother; if they had not coveted another's, they would not have tasted of the unlawful fruit.
Therefore, in this general and primordial law of God, the observance of which, in the case of the tree's fruit, He had sanctioned, we recognise enclosed all the precepts specially of the posterior Law, which germinated when disclosed at their proper times. For the sub- sequent superinduction of a law is the work of the same Being who had before premised a precept; since it is His province withal sub- sequently to train, who had before resolved to form, righteous creatures. For what wonder if He extends a discipline who institutes it? if He advances who begins? In short, before the Law of Moses," written in stone-tables, I contend that there was a law unwritten, which was habitually understood naturally, and by the fathers was habitually kept. For whence was Noah " found righteous," '- if in his case the righteousness of a natural law had not preceded? Whence was Abraham accounted " a friend of God," '^ if not on the ground of equity and righteousness, (in the observance) of a natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named "priest of the most high God,"'* if.
8 Deut. vi. 4, 5; Lev. xix. 18; comp. Matt. xxii. 34-49; Mark xii. 28-34; Luke x. 25-28; and for the rest, Ex. xx. 12-17 > Dcut 9 Semetipsos.? Each other.
»o Excidendo; or, perhaps, " by self-excision," or " mutual ex cision."
" Or, " the Law written for Moses in stone-tables."
'2 Gen. vi. 9, vii. i; comp. Heb. xi. 7.
•■♦Gen. xiv. 18 • Ps. ex. (cix. in. LXX.) 4; Heb. v. 10, vii, 1-3 CHAP. III.]
AN ANSWER TO THE JEWSbefore the priesthood of the Levitical law, there were not levites who were wont to offer sacri- fices to God? For thus, after the above-men- tioned patriarchs, was the Law given to Moses, at that (well-known) time after their exode from Egypt, after the interval and spaces of four hundred years. In fact, it was after Abraham's " four hundred and thirty years " ' that the Law was given. Whence we under- stand that God's law was anterior even to Moses, and was not first (given) in Horeb, nor in Sinai and in the desert, but was more an- cient; (existing) first in paradise, subsequently re-formed for the patriarchs, and so again for the Jews, at definite periods: so that we are not to give heed to Moses' Law as to the primitive law, but as to a subsequent, which at a definite period God has s,et forth to the Gentiles too and, after repeatedly promis- ing so to do through the prophets, has re- formed for the better; and has premonished that it should come to pass that, just as " the law was given through Moses " = at a definite time, so it should be believed to have been temporarily observed and kept. And let us not annul this power which God has, which reforms the law's precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a view to man's salvation. In fine, let him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be ob- served as a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because of the threat of death, teach us that, for the time past, right- eous men kept the Sabbath, or practised cir- cumcision, and were thus rendered " friends of God." For if circumcision purges a man since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did He not circumcise him, even after his sinning, if circumcision purges? At all events, in settling him in paradise. He appointed one uncircumcised as colonist of paradise. There- fore, since God originated Adam uncircum- cised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, conse- quently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices, uncircumcised and inobservant" of the Sabbath, was by Him commended; while He accepted ^ what he was offering in simplicity of heart, and reprobated the sacrifice of his brother Cam, who was not rightly dividing what he was offering.* Noah also, uncircum- cised— yes, and inobservant of the Sabbath — God freed from the deluge. ^ For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and in- observant of the Sabbath, He translated from « Comp. Gen. xv. 13 with Ex. xii. 40-42 and Acts vii. 6. Or, " credited him with.
4 Gen. iv. 1-7, especially in the LXX.; comp, Heb. xi. 4.
5 Gen. vi. 18, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 5.
this world;* who did not first taste ' death, in order that, being a candidate for eternal life,* he might by this time show us that we also may, without the burden of the law of Moses, please God. Melchizedek also, "the priei;t of the most high God, " uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God.' Lot, withal, the brother ■" of Abraham, proves that it was for the merits of righteousness, without observance of the law, that he was freed from the conflagration of the Sodomites."
CHAP, III. — OF CIRCUMCISION AND THE SUPER- CESSION OF THE OLD LAW.
But Abraham, (you say,) was circumcised. Yes, but he pleased God before his circum- cision;'- nor yet did he observe the Sabbath. For he had " accepted " '^ circumcision; but such as was to be for "a sign " of that time, not for a prerogative title to salvation. In fact, subsequent patriarchs were uncircumcised, like Melchizedek, who, uncircumcised, offer- ed to Abraham himself, already circumcised, on his return from battle, bread and wine,'* "But again," (you say) "the son of Moses would upon one occasion have been choked by an angel, if Zipporah'^ had not circum- cised the foreskin of the infant with a pebble; whence, "there is the greatest peril if any fail to circumcise the foreskin of his flesh." Nay, but if circumcision altogether brought salvation, even Moses himself, in the case of his own son, would not have omitted to cir- cumcise him on the eighth day; whereas it is agreed that Zipporah did it on the journey, at the compulsion of the angel. Consider we, accordingly, that one single infant's com- pulsory circumcision cannot have prescribed to every people, and founded, as it were, a law for keeping this precept. For God, fore- seeing that He was about to give this circum- cision to the people of Israel for "a sign," not for salvation, urges the circumcision of the son of Moses, their future leader, for this reason; that, since He had begun, through him, to give the People the precept of cir-