EXCERPTS FROM TERTULLIAN
EXCERPTS FROM EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
Tertullian against lenient brethren
25. Concerning the Psychics.
26. Concerning remittance of sins.
27. Concerning fasting.
28. Concerning marriage.
29. On the New Prophecy.
29. ON THE NEW PROPHECY
Well therefore does Peter, when recognizing the companions of his Christ in their indissoluble connection with Him, suggest an expedient: "It is good for us to be here" (good: that evidently means to be where Moses and Elias are); "and let us make three tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. But he knew not what he said." How knew not? Was his ignorance the result of simple error? Or was it on the principle which we maintain in the cause of the new prophecy, that to grace ecstasy or rapture is incident. For when a man is rapt in the Spirit, especially when he beholds the glory of God, or when God speaks through him, he necessarily loses his sensation, because he is overshadowed with the power of God,-a point concerning which there is a question between us and the carnally-minded (Adversus Marcionem IV, 22).
As for ourselves, indeed, we inscribe on the soul the lineaments of corporeity, not simply from the assurance which reasoning has taught us of its corporeal nature, but also from the firm conviction which divine grace impresses on us by revelation. For, seeing that we acknowledge spiritual charismata, or gifts, we too have merited the attainment of the prophetic gift, although coming after John (the Baptist). We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amidst the sacred rites of the Lord's day in the church: she converses with angels, and sometimes even with the Lord; she both sees and hears mysterious communications; some men's hearts she understands, and to them who are in need she distributes remedies. Whether it be in the reading of Scriptures, or in the chanting of psalms, or in the preaching of sermons, or in the offering up of prayers, in all these religious services matter and opportunity are afforded to her of seeing visions (De anima, 9).
For after the Bishop of Rome had acknowledged the prophetic gifts of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and, in consequence of the acknowledgment, had bestowed his peace on the churches of Asia and Phrygia, he (Praxeas), by importunately urging false accusations against the prophets themselves and their churches, and insisting on the authority of the bishop's predecessors in the see, compelled him to recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father (Adversus Praxean, 1).
Indeed, Praxeas had deliberately resumed his old (true) faith, teaching it after his renunciation of error; and there is his own handwriting in evidence remaining among the carnally-minded, in whose society the transaction then took place; afterwards nothing was heard of him. We indeed, on our part, subsequently withdrew from the carnally-minded on our acknowledgment and maintenance of the Paraclete (Adversus Praxean, 1).
Accordingly, these who have received "another Paraclete" in and through the apostles, -(a Paraclete) whom, not recognising Him even in His special prophets, they no longer possess in the apostles either;- come, now, let them, even from the apostolic instrument, teach us the possibility that the stains of a flesh which after baptism has been repolluted, can by repentance be washed away (De puditicia, 12).
"But," you say, "the Church has the power of forgiving sins." This I acknowledge and adjudge more (than you; I) who have the Paraclete Himself in the persons of the new prophets, saying, "The Church has the power to forgive sins; but I will not do it, lest they commit others withal." (De puditicia, 21).
I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you usurp this right to "the Church." If, because the Lord has said to Peter, "Upon this rock will I build My Church," "to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom; " or, "Whatsoever thou shale have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens," you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? ... What, now, (has this to do) with the Church, and) your (church), indeed, Psychic? For, in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to spiritual men that this power will correspondently appertain, either to an apostle or else to a prophet. For the very Church itself is, properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity of the One Divinity-Father, Son. and Holy Spirit (De puditicia, 21).
And accordingly "the Church," it is true, will forgive sins: but (it will be) the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man; not the Church which consists of a number of bishops. For the right and arbitrament is the Lord's, not the servant's; God's Himself, not the priest's (De puditicia, 21).
Thus far touching my eulogy of the flesh, in opposition to its enemies, who are, notwithstanding, its greatest friends also; for there is nobody who lives so much in accordance with the flesh as they who deny the resurrection of the flesh, inasmuch as they despise all its discipline, while they disbelieve its punishment. It is a shrewd saying which the Paraclete utters concerning these persons by the mouth of the prophetess Prisca: "They are carnal, and yet they hate the flesh." (De resurrectione carnis, 11).
In His works did God write it, before He wrote it in the Scriptures; He proclaimed it in His mighty deeds earlier than in His inspired words. He first sent Nature to you as a teacher, meaning to send Prophecy also as a supplemental instructor, that, being Nature's disciple, you may more easily believe Prophecy, and without hesitation accept (its testimony) when you come to hear what you have seen already on every side (De resurrectione carnis, 12).
It was fit and proper, therefore, that the Holy Ghost should no longer withhold the effusions of His gracious light upon these inspired writings, in order that they might be able to disseminate the seeds of truth with no admixture of heretical subtleties, and pluck out from it their tares. He has accordingly now dispersed all the perplexities of the past, and their self-chosen allegories and parables, by the open and perspicuous explanation of the entire mystery, through the new prophecy, which descends in copious streams from the Paraclete (De resurrectione carnis, 63).
Thereafter adverse judgments began to be passed upon his conduct -whether on the part of Christians I do not know, for those of the heathen are not different-as if he were headstrong and rash, and too eager to die, because, in being taken to task about a mere matter of dress, he brought trouble on the bearers of the Name, -he, forsooth, alone brave among so many soldier-brethren, he alone a Christian. It is plain that as they have rejected the prophecies of the Holy Spirit, they are also purposing the refusal of martyrdom (De corona, 1).
As persecutions in increasing number threaten us, so the more are we called on to give earnest thought to the question of how faith ought to receive them, and the duty of carefully considering it concerns you no less, who no doubt, by not accepting the Comforter, the guide to all truth, have, as was natural, opposed us hitherto in regard to other questions also (De fuga in persecutione, 1).
For how am I to protect chastity and sobriety without taxing their adversaries? What those adversaries are I will once for all mention: they are the exterior and interior botuli of the Psychics. It is these which raise controversy with the Paraclete; it is on this account that the New Prophecies are rejected: not that Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla preach another God, nor that they disjoin Jesus Christ (from God), nor that they overturn any particular rule of faith or hope, but that they plainly teach more frequent fasting than marrying ... They are therefore constantly reproaching us with Novelty; concerning the unlawfulness of which they lay down a prescriptive rule, that either it must be adjudged heresy, if (the point in dispute) is a human presumption; or else pronounced pseudo-prophecy, if it is a spiritual declaration; provided that, either way, we who reclaim hear (sentence of) anathema (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 1).
In like manner they censure on the count of novelty our Stations as being enjoined; some, moreover, (censure them) too as being prolonged habitually too late, saying that this duty also ought to be observed of free choice, and not continued beyond the ninth hour,-(deriving their rule), of course, from their own practice ... Accordingly, setting out of the question the confirmer of all such things, the Paraclete, the guide of universal truth, inquire whether there be not a worthier reason adduced among its for the observing of the ninth hour; so that this reason (of ours) must be attributed even to Peter if he observed a Station at the time in question (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 10).
"It is the spirit of the devil," you say, O Psychic. And how is it that he enjoins duties which belong to our God, and enjoins them to be offered to none other than our God? Either contend that the devil works with our God, or else let the Paraclete be held to be Satan. But you affirm it is "a human Antichrist: "for by this name heretics are called in John. And how is it that, whoever he is, he has in (the name of) our Christ directed these duties toward our Lord; whereas withal antichrists have (ever) gone forth (professedly teaching) towards God, (but) in opposition to our Christ? On which side, then, do you think the Spirit is confirmed as existing among us; when He commands, or when He approves, what our God has always both commanded and approved? But you again set up boundary-posts to God, as with regard to grace, so with regard to discipline; as with regard to gifts, so, too, with regard to solemnities: so that our observances are supposed to have ceased in like manner as His benefits; and you thus deny that He still continues to impose duties, because, in this case again, "the Law and the prophets (were) until John." It remains for you to banish Him wholly, being, as He is, so far as lies in you, so otiose (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 11).
For, by this time, in this respect as well as others, "you are reigning in wealth and satiety" -not making inroads upon such sins as fasts diminish, nor feeling need of such revelations as xerophagies extort, nor apprehending such wars of your own as Stations dispel. Grant that from the time of John the Paraclete had grown mute; we ourselves would have arisen as prophets to ourselves, for this cause chiefly (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 12).
Plainly, your habit is to furnish cookshops in the prisons to untrustworthy martyrs, for fear they should miss their accustomed usages, grow weary of life, (and) be stumbled at the novel discipline of abstinence; (a discipline) which not even the well-known Pristinus -your martyr, no Christian martyr- hhad ever come in contact with ... This is why they who preach sobriety are "false prophets;" this why they who practise it are "heretics!" Why then hesitate to believe that the Paraclete, whom you deny in a Montanus, exists in an Apicius? (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 12).
The Holy Spirit, when He was preaching in whatsoever lands He chose, and through whomsoever He chose, was wont, from foresight of the imminence either of temptations to befall the Church, or of plagues to befall the world, in His character of Paraclete (that is, Advocate for the purpose of winning over the judge by prayers), to issue mandates for observances of this nature; for instance, at the present time, with the view of practising the discipline of sobriety and abstinence: we, who receive Him, must necessarily observe also the appointments which He then made (De jejunio adversus psychicos, 13).
And so they (the Psychics) upbraid the discipline of monogamy with being a heresy; nor is there any other cause whence they find themselves compelled to deny the Paraclete more than the fact that they esteem Him to be the institutor of a novel discipline, and a discipline which they find most harsh: so that this is already the first ground on which we must join issue in a general handling (of the subject), whether there is room for maintaining that the Paraclete has taught any such thing as can either be charged with novelty, in opposition to catholic tradition, or with burdensomeness, in opposition to the "light burden" of the Lord (De monogamia, 2).
But the Paraclete, having many things to teach fully which the Lord deferred till He came, (according to the pre-definition,) will begin by bearing emphatic witness to Christ, (as being) such as we believe (Him to be), together with the whole order of God the Creator, and will glorify Him, and will "bring to remembrance" concerning Him. And when He has thus been recognised (as the promised Comforter), on the ground of the cardinal rule, He will reveal those "many things" which appertain to disciplines; while the integrity of His preaching commands credit for these (revelations), albeit they be "novel," inasmuch as they are now in course of revelation, albeit they be "burdensome," inasmuch as not even now are they found bearable: (revelations), however, of none other Christ than (the One) who said that He had withal "other many things" which were to be fully taught by the Paraclete, no less burdensome to men of our own day than to them, by whom they were then "not yet able to be borne." (De monogamia, 2).
Of old we were destined to this sanctity. Nothing of novelty is the Paraclete introducing. What He premonished, He is (now) definitively appointing; what He deferred, He is (now) exacting." And presently, by revolving these thoughts, you will easily persuade yourself that it was much more competent to the Paraclete to preach unity of marriage, who could withal have preached its annulling; and that it is more credible that He should have tempered what it would have become Him even to have abolished, if you understand what Christ's "will" is. Herein also you ought to recognise the Paraclete in His character of Comforter, in that He excuses your infirmity from (the stringency of) an absolute continence (De monogamia, 3).
"Hardness of heart" reigned till Christ's time; let "infirmity of the flesh" (be content to) have reigned till the time of the Paraclete. The New Law abrogated divorce-it had (somewhat) to abrogate; the New Prophecy (abrogates) second marriage, (which is) no less a divorce of the former (marriage) (De monogamia, 14).
When then, he who had called himself a "believer," (Paul) added thereafter that he "had the Spirit of God," which no one would doubt even in the case of an (ordinary) believer; his reason for saying so was, that he might reassert for himself apostolic dignity. For apostles have the Holy Spirit properly, who have Him fully, in the operations of prophecy, and the efficacy of (healing) virtues, and the evidences of tongues; not partially, as all others have. Thus he attached the Holy Spirit's authority to that form (of advice) to which he willed us rather to attend; and forthwith it became not an advice of the Holy Spirit, but, in consideration of His majesty, a precept (De exhortatione castitatis, 4).
The reason why the Lord sent the Paraclete was, that, since human mediocrity was unable to take in all things at once, discipline should, little by little, be directed, and ordained, and carried on to perfection, by that Vicar of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. "Still," He said, "I have many things to say to you, but ye are not yet able to bear them: when that Spirit of truth shall have come, He will conduct you into all truth, and will report to you the supervening (things)." But above, withal, He made a declaration concerning this His work. What, then, is the Paraclete's administrative office but this: the direction of discipline, the revelation of the Scriptures, the reformation of the intellect, the advancement toward the "better things? " (De virginibus velandis, 1).
So, too, righteousness -for the God of righteousness and of creation is the same- was first in a rudimentary state, having a natural fear of God: from that stage it advanced, through the Law and the Prophets, to infancy; from that stage it passed, through the Gospel, to the fervour of youth: now, through the Paraclete, it is settling into maturity. He will be, after Christ, the only one to be called and revered as Master; for He speaks not from Himself, but what is commanded by Christ. He is the only prelate, because He alone succeeds Christ. They who have received Him set truth before custom. They who have heard Him prophesying even to the present time, not of old, bid virgins be wholly covered (De virginibus velandis, 1).
Tertullian is traditionally regarded as a fiery apologist of unknown biography who burst into Latin Christianity, in the reign of Septimius Severus, with a number of remarkable treatises that he composed over a relatively short period of time, after which he fizzled out for the rest of his long-lasting life. Surprisingly, he focused his attacks on a Greek painter, and also fought some other unfamiliar character that could not share his admiration for a strange group of visionaries who lived in Phrygia long time since. Some less demanding section of the clergy unleashed his fury no less than an otherwise unrecorded persecution of Christians. Not only himself but also his epoch is elusive. Ruthless opponents of the bishop Cyprian, who fled Carthage when Decius launched his anti-Christian campaign, followed his guidelines in a religious confrontation closely mirroring the subsequent Donatist controversy that flared up in Africa after Diocletian’s resignation. Following his unrelenting defence of the orthodox stance and his proscription of all heretics, at some point in time he supposedly forsook the Church Catholic to follow the ridiculous directions and put up with the frivolities of a gang of false prophets. Such two hardly compatible stages in his career were not successive but widely overlapping.
A quite different approach is presented in Did Tertullian really exist? Did Cyprian? Did Hippolytus? according to which the efforts of early 4th-century African and Roman rigorists, forcefully denouncing an entrenched ecclesiastical body intent on preserving its former privileged position in the Church in spite of the disappointing behaviour of many of its members in times of harassment, along with the reaction of the hierarchical organization under attack, gave rise to the purported works of their respective literary champions, which conveniently came down from the preceding century to the assistance of Donatists and Caecilianists.