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305 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Tereteegeu Tertnlllan or in close associations, lived according to " the third rule " of certain orders. The institution first arose among the Minorites (see FRANCIS, SAINT, of ASSIST, AND THE FRANCISCAN ORDER), then was imitated in the preaching order, and later, under various names, arose also in other orders, such as the Augustinians, Services, and Trappists (qq.v.). (O. ZbC%LERt.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: Consult the lists of works under the arti cles in this work on the orders named in the teat; also J. G. Adderly and C- L. Marson, " Third Orders." A Translation of an ancient Rule of the Tertiariea, together with an Account of some modern " Third Orders," Oxford, 1902. TERTULLIAN, ter-tul'i-an, QUINTUS SEPTIMIiJS FLORENS. I. Life. II. Writings. General Character (¢ 1). Chronology and Contents (¢ S). III. Theology. General Character (¢ 1). Specific Teachings ($ 2). IV. Moral Principles.
I. Life: Quintus Sept.imius Florens Tertullian, the first great writer of Latin Christianity and one of the grandest and most original characters of the ancient Church, was born at Carthage about 150 or 160, and died there between 220 and 240. Of his life very little is known, and that little is based upon passing references in his own writings, and upon Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IL, ii. 4 (Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., i. 106, with the notes of A. C. MeGiffert), and Jerome, De vir. ill., liii. (Eng, transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., iii. 373). His father held a position (centurio proconsularis, " aide-de-camp ") in the Roman army in Africa, and Tertullian's Punic blood palpably pulsates in his style, with its archaisms or provincialisms, its glowing imagery, its passionate temper. He was a scholar, having received an excellent education. He wrote at least three books in Greek, to which he himself refers; but none of these are extant. His principal study was jurisprudence, and his methods of reasoning reveal striking marks of his juridical training. He shone among the advocates of Rome, as Eusebius reports. His conversion to Christianity took place about 197198 (so Harnack, Bonw-etsch, and others), but its immediate antecedents are unknown except as they are conjectured from his writings. The event must have been sudden and decisive, transforming at once his own personality; he himself said that he could not imagine a truly Christian life without such a conscious breach, a radical act of conversion: " Christians are made, not born " (Apoh, xviii.; ANF, iii. 33). In the church of Carthage he was ordained a presbyter, though he was married-a fact which is well established by his two books to his wife. In middle life (about 207) he broke with the Catholic Church and became the leader and the passionate and brilliant exponent of Montanism (see MONTANUS, MoNTnNISaI), that is, he became a schismatic. The statement of Augustine (Hcer., lxsxvi.) that before his death Tertullian returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church is very improbable. His party, the Tertullianists, still had in the times of Augustine a basilica in Carthage, but in that same period passed into the orthodox Church. XL-20
Jerome says that Tertullian lived to a great age. In spite of his schism, Tertullian continued to fight heresy, especially Gnosticism; and by the doctrinal works thus produced he became the teacher of Cyprian, the predecessor of Augustine, and the chief founder of Latin theology.
II. Writings: These number thirty-seven, and several Latin tracts are lost (cf. ANF, iii. 12-13) as well as those written in Greek. Tertullian's writings cover the whole theological field r. General of the time-apologetics against paganCharacter. ism and Judaism, polemics, polity, discipline, and morals, or the whole reorganization of human life on a Christian basis; they give a picture of the religious life and thought of the time which is of the greatest interest to the church historian. Their general temper is austere, their purpose practical; they are full of life and freshness. In his endeavors to make the Latin language a vehicle for his somewhat tumultuous ideas, the author now and then becomes strained and obscure; but, as a rule, he is quick, precise, and pointed. He is always powerful and intrepid, commanding, not begging, the attention of the reader; with reference to earlier literature and customs he is a master of wit and sarcasm and is always original. He has been likened to a fresh mountain torrent, tumultuous, and making its own path.
The chronology of these writings is in part determined by the Montanistic views that are set forth in some of them, by the author's own allusions to this writing or that as antez. Chronol- dating others (cf. Harnack, Litteratur,
ogy and ii. 260-262), and by definite historic Contents. data (e.g., the reference to the death of Septimius Severus, Ad Scapulam, iv.). In his work against Marcion, which he calls his third composition on the Marcionite heresy, he gives its date as the fifteenth year of Severus' reign (Adv. Marcionem, i. 1, 15). The writings may be divided with reference to the two periods of Ter tullian's Christian activity, the Catholic and the bfontanist (cf. Harnack, ut sup., ii. 262 sqq.), or according to their subject-matter. The object of the former mode of division is to show, if possible, the change of views Tertullian's mind underwent. Following the latter mode, which i6 of a more prac tical interest, the writings fall into two groups: (1) apologetic and polemic, e.g., Apologeticus, De testimonio animce, Adv. Judteos, Adv. Marcionem, Adv. Praxeam, Adv. Hermogenem, De prcescriptione hereticorum, Scorpiace, to counteract the sting of Gnosticism, etc.; (2) practical and disciplinary, e.g., De monogamia, Ad uxorem, De virginibus velan dis, De cultu feminarum, De patientia, De pudicitia, De oratione, Ad martyras, etc. Among the apolo getic writings the Apologeticus, addressed to the Roman magistrates, is the most pungent defense of Christianity and the Christians ever written against the reproaches of the pagans, and one of the most magnificent legacies of the ancient Church, full of enthusiasm, courage, and vigor. It first clearly pro claims the principle of religious liberty as an in alienable right of man, and demands a fair trial for the Christians before they are condemned to death. Tertullian was the first to break the force of such
