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LIFE AND WORKS OF TERTULLIAN
Modern scholarship has made Tertullian a most accessible subject for the student and researcher. The critical editions of the Latin texts of all his treatises are available in two convenient volumes (Corpus Christianorum, series Latina 1 and 2). A concordance of Tertullian’s vocabulary was prepared by Gösta Claesson (Claesson 1974, 1975). Timothy Barnes has written what will long be the standard biography in English, which, in his inimitable style, revises many long-held notions about Tertullian’s life and works (Barnes 1985). There is also the annual review of publications about Tertullian in the Revue des Études Augustiniennes. Most of these reviews now appear together as a separate volume (Braun 1999). A full-length treatment of his theology has recently appeared in English (Osborn 1997a). Surveys of the trends in scholarship on Tertullian have appeared (Siniscalco 1978; Sider 1982), although they are now in need of an update. There is even a website devoted to Tertullian studies (http://www.tertullian.org/).
While the contemporary scholar is well served by these research tools, Tertullian’s life remains hidden in obscurity. The traditional picture of it was painted at the end of the fourth century by Jerome, who elsewhere described him as a ‘learned and zealous writer’ (Letter 84.2; see also 70.5), in his On Illustrious Men 53. Here, we find him mentioned as a presbyter from Carthage, whose father was a proconsular centurion, who had an impetuous temperament, who was at his prime under the Severan emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, who was read daily by Cyprian (who referred to him as ‘master’), who lapsed into Montanism, who wrote many works and who died in old age. To that must be added Eusebius’ comment that he was skilled in Roman law at Rome (Ecclesiastical History 2.2.4).
That information was accepted as reliable by scholars (e.g. Quasten 1953:246–7) until the publication of Barnes’ biography, which is a sustained critique of this picture. He questions or dismisses the ideas that Tertullian’s father was a centurion, that Tertullian was a presbyter, that he was a jurist and that he lived a long life. Some scholars, possessed of the same revisionist spirit, have also questioned his legal background (Fredouille 1972; Bray 1977; Rankin 1997) and even whether his Montanism meant that he became a schismatic (Powell 1975; Rankin 1986, 1995; Trevett 1996:69; Tabbernee 1997:54–5). The question of Montanism will be addressed further below. Others, though, have not been convinced by all these arguments. A number of other writers, often not specialists on Tertullian, seem to have ignored this revision almost entirely.
Where does this leave a reconstruction of Tertullian’s life? It seems to me that Barnes’ scepticism about Jerome’s sketch is well founded. In these few pages, I must rely heavily on the insights offered by Barnes, although without merely presenting a reduced paraphrase of his biography.
Tertullian’s literary career was spent in Carthage. He made several references to the city in his writings. On the Pallium is addressed to the men of Carthage (1.1). The martyr Perpetua, who died in Carthage in 203, is mentioned in On the Soul (55.4). To Scapula was written to the proconsul of the Roman province of Africa (of which Carthage was the capital), calling upon him to stop persecuting Christians in order to spare the city and province from divine wrath (5.2–3).1 In it are mentioned recent fires near the walls of Carthage (3.2) and the eclipse visible in the city of Utica, some 30 kilometres north-west of Carthage (3.3). The Pythian games under Septimius Severus in Carthage rate a mention in Antidote for the Scorpion’s Sting (6.2; Barnes 1969:125–8). Other references to Carthage are of a mythological or remote historical nature and tell us little about Tertullian in the city, except that it is not surprising for a local author to refer to his own city’s past (On Monogamy 17.2; To the Heathens 2.9.13; 2.17.7). Unless he stated it merely as a rhetorical flourish, we know that he visited Rome at some stage (On the Apparel of Women 1.7.2). 2
Septimius Tertullianus grew up as a pagan.2 That he converted to Christianity in response to some event, which led him to regret and reject his past life, is deduced from the opening of On Repentance (1.1) and from On Flight in Time of Persecution (6.2). He married, even though his treatise To his Wife tells us little about the relationship. Written early in their marriage (1.1.1), this work was not only for his wife but also for all Christian women (1.1.6). He advocated that a Christian (male as well as female—see To his Wife 1.6.1 and On Exhortation to Chastity, addressed to a man) should not seek remarriage after the death of their spouse (although this is modified in the second book of To his Wife). He described his wife, in the opening address, as joined with him in the Lord’s service (1.1.1), so we may presume they were both Christians at this time. Whether it was the hyperbole of the argument or not is difficult to tell, but Tertullian seemed to demonstrate little interest in having children (1.5.1–2; 1.6.2). Despite the high moral standards he set for marriage, Tertullian confessed to adultery (On the Resurrection of the Dead 59.3). We do not know when his wife died.
That Tertullian could write meant that he belonged to an elite in terms of his education, if we accept the view that literacy in the ancient world was possessed by only about ten per cent of the population (Gamble 1995:4–5). Tertullian himself acknowledged that most Christians were uneducated, even though that did not mean they were unwise (Against Praxeas 3.1). If we accept that Carthage had a population of up to 700,000 people in total (Duncan-Jones 1963; Norman 1988:16), and if we accept the ‘crude estimate’ that in the year 200 about 0.35 per cent of the population was Christian (Stark 1996:7), then we can reach the tentative conclusion that there were about 230 literate Christians in Tertullian’s time in the city. Of course, if the population of Carthage was closer to one-quarter of a million then that figure drops to about eighty-five. As susceptible as these figures are to error, they give us some indication of Tertullian’s potential for significance within the Christian community.
His education would have been thorough and there is no doubt that he progressed beyond grammar at a ‘secondary’ level to rhetoric at a ‘tertiary’ level.3 He attended a declamation offered by the Carthaginian rhetorician Phosphorus (Against the Valentinians 8.3). We shall return to the influence of rhetoric in his writings below. He composed his treatises not only in Latin but also in Greek (On Baptism 15.2; On the Military Crown 6.3; On the Veiling of Virgins 1.1). A close relative wrote a literary piece based on Virgil (On the Prescriptions of Heretics 39.4). Tertullian himself knew the repertoire of classical literature, perhaps better than most of his generation (Barnes 1985:196–206). It would seem likely that only someone from at least a moderately wealthy family could afford to be given such an education.
That Tertullian was not a priest may be inferred from some of the comments he made in which he contrasted himself and lay Christians with clerics on the topic of second marriage and found no contrast at all (On Monogamy 12.2; On Exhortation to Chastity 7.3). Indeed, Tertullian’s claim to priesthood in On Fasting 11.4 is nothing other than the claim to the priesthood of all Christian believers found in 1 Pt 2:9.
We may even hazard a guess about his appearance and claim that he wore a beard, for he offers a stinging criticism of those who disfigure the way God created them by shaving (On the Shows 233). If he followed his own standards, we may conclude that he refrained from the stylish grooming that seemed to be the fashion, such as dyeing or setting the hair, depilating bodily hair, powdering the body and shaping the beard (On the Apparel of Women 2.8.2). He lamented the custom of the local population who abandoned the use of the pallium for the Roman toga (On the Pallium). Yet he remains a faceless figure, never the subject, as far as I know, of artistic representation.
Some of Tertullian’s treatises reveal that he had much in common with Montanism (as we know it today), or the New Prophecy as he called it. To what extent, if at all, this meant that he joined a group that was schismatic (or, to put it another way, that he left the church) continues to be debated. This movement had emerged in Phrygia in about 165– 170 with the oracles of Montanus, Maximilla and Priscilla. It was ‘a prophetic renewal movement informed by the Holy Spirit’ (Tabbernee 1997:24), which can be characterized as charismatic, ascetic, enthusiastic, innovative, spiritualist, ecstatic and rigorous. We do not know much about early Montanism, and what we do know comes from Tertullian (and we do not know the extent to which he recast Montanism to suit his own inclinations), from some inscriptions or from sources that are both antagonistic and much later. Like most renewal movements within Christian history, Montanism went through phases and cycles, and it challenged the established authority (Trevett 1996:146–9). Adherents attracted to this style of Christianity clashed with their more conventional Christians. Montanists claimed to be inspired by the Paraclete, which tended to give them a bad reputation with bishops, who wanted to be the sole source of authority within a community. They were considered to be elitist because of their more demanding and perfectionist notions of Christian life. They insisted on rigorous fasting, forbade remarriage and did not believe in the possibility of post-baptismal reconciliation of Christian sinners. They accepted women in positions of responsibility. Many of these beliefs attracted Tertullian, but the extent to which his own ideas about them or things like enthusiasm for martyrdom or eschatology derived from New Prophecy, or were projected upon it, remains unclear. The idea that Tertullian established an even more rigorous group when he grew dissatisfied with the Montanists (Augustine, On Heresies 86) has also been questioned (Barnes 1985:258–9). The notion that Tertullian’s Montanism meant that he ever left the church is one that does not seem sustainable today (Rankin 1995:27–38). I think we can support the notion that the Christian community in Carthage contained a wide cross-section of opinion and practice, Montanists included. What we do find in Tertullian, I believe, is typical of those who join elitist movements: a tendency to become increasingly intolerant of the ‘less committed’ majority, particularly over the issue of whether or not the church (and who in the church) could readmit serious sinners to communion through a penitential process. By the end of his literary career, however, he certainly did not see himself as having anything in common with Christians who did not hold to his Montanist convictions (On Modesty 1.10), even if no group actually had been declared schismatic.
The date of his death is unknown but perhaps it was not long after his final treatise in the second decade of the third century (Barnes 1985:59). His works were known in Late Antiquity, as indicated by Jerome’s comments to Florentinus about Paul wishing to get his copy of them back from Rufinus (Letter 5.2).
There are thirty-one extant treatises generally accepted as being written by Tertullian.4 A number have not survived.5 When it comes to dating Tertullian’s works, Barnes employs four criteria: allusions to historical events, references to earlier writings, doctrine and style (Barnes 1985:32–54). From this, he produces a chronological table in which the works are dated between 196 and 212 (Barnes 1985:55). The most distinctive feature is that all the Montanist works are dated from 206 to 211, and that after 206 there is no work that does not display characteristic Montanist indicators, except To Scapula, dated to 212 because of its reference to historical events. In his 1985 postscript Barnes makes a number of adjustments to that chronology. In particular, he accepts the likelihood that Tertullian’s Montanist writings could have been written over a longer period of time than he first permitted, even up to the end of that second decade of the third century (Barnes 1985:326–8).
The third criterion, concerning the appearance of Montanist references in Tertullian’s treatises, is worthy of further comment. Any work that has one or more out of eight features is considered by Barnes to be from his Montanist period. Those features are: the naming of the three Montanist founders or their oracles, references to New Prophecy, promotion of ecstasy, reference to special spiritual gifts, reference to the Holy Spirit as Paraclete, first-person references to Montanists, second-person references to Catholics and abuse of Catholics as ‘psychici’. This draws in a catch of the following treatises: Against Marcion (particularly books four and five), Against the Valentinians, On the Soul, On the Resurrection of the Dead, On the Military Crown, On Exhortation to Chastity, On Flight in Time of Persecution, On the Veiling of Virgins, Against Praxeas, On Fasting, On Monogamy, and On Modesty. The first four have very limited references, whereas the last four seem to have the most strident abuse of those who do not support Montanism (placing them at the end of Tertullian’s literary career).
There are several treatises that provide no indication of when they were written. Barnes places them in Tertullian’s pre-Montanist phase, tentatively between 198 and 203 (Barnes 1985:55). They are To his Wife, On Baptism, On Prayer, On Repentance and On Patience. It would be my argument, however, that Tertullian could have written a work in his Montanist years, as he did with To Scapula, which displays no signs of Montanism, particularly if its contents would not have been the subject of debate between Montanists and other Christians.
A comparison of Barnes’ chronology with that offered by Fredouille reveals similarities, except for four treatises: On the Shows, Antidote for the Scorpion’s Sting, On the Pallium and On the Flesh of Christ (Fredouille 1972:487–8; Rankin 1995: xv). Even some of these differences can disappear. Given that in his postscript Barnes no longer insists on dating On the Shows and On Idolatry before Apology, the position of On the Shows in the table becomes more flexible. Also, the only point Barnes makes about On the Flesh of Christ is that it must follow On the Testimony of the Soul and precede On the Resurrection of the Dead. Thus, now that all the pre-Montanist works do not have to be before the first book Against Marcion in 207 or 208 (because its Montanist reference is likely to be a later addition), then there is nothing to stop moving On the Flesh of Christ from 206 closer to Fredouille’s preferred date of 208 to 212.
The question of dating Tertullian’s literary output, at least in relative terms, is important even if it is complex and open to much disagreement. He was a writer whose thinking about issues changed or intensified over the years, particularly with his increasingly Montanist perspective. In addition, he often revised material from one treatise and used it in another with some modifications. The other important point to note in interpreting his works is that sometimes it is not a question of him changing his mind over time but of writing with particular readerships in mind. In apologetic works written to imperial officials, he was not as critical of the Roman system as he was in works addressed to an exclusively Christian audience (Evans 1976:21–2). As anyone trained in rhetoric would have known, telling the whole truth was not the best way to win arguments. Tertullian was selective and conscious of the occasion. One cannot refer simply to one passage in one text to demonstrate Tertullian’s opinion on a matter. Instead, one needs to survey his output developmentally or comparatively, as well as rhetorically.
Even though Barnes divides Tertullian’s literary career into two phases (pre-Montanist and Montanist), nowhere does he suggest that his later works are to be treated with suspicion as heretical. Thus, I have reservations about the implications behind the names of the divisions of Tertullian’s works offered by Fredouille (Catholic, Montanistinfluenced and Montanist), which suggest that his later works are to be mistrusted because they are no longer Catholic. No work of Tertullian is unorthodox. They may be unusual and extreme but they are not heretical. Christine Trevett writes that ‘Tertullian the Montanist was Tertullian the Montanist catholic.’ (Trevett 1996:69).
I am not inclined to see two distinct phases in his literary life. There was no dramatic or sudden catharsis. His ideas certainly became sharper ...
