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But the prejudice and bigotry of the heathen against the Gospel induced them not only to credit the most atrocious calumnies against its professors, but also to entertain the most erroneous and ridiculous notions respecting the objects of Christian worship. Sometimes they confounded the Christians with the Jews, and received as true the idle tales related by Tacitus respecting the origin and fortunes of the Jewish nation; at other times they charged the Christians with the monstrous absurdity of worshipping the head of an ass! although, as Tertullian observes, Tacitus himself had furnished the means of disproving his own statement, by relating that when Pompey visited the temple at Jerusalem, and entered the most holy place, he found there no visible representation of the deity. In replying to these calumnies Tertullian takes the opportunity of stating, in spirited and eloquent language, the character of the true God whom the Christians worshipped, and of insisting upon the genuineness of the Jewish Scriptures, by which the knowledge of the one Supreme Jehovah, the creation of the world, and the origin of mankind, had been preserved and transmitted from age to age.

It has been remarked that the treatment of the primitive Christians formed a solitary exception to that system of universal toleration which regulated the conduct of the Roman government towards the professors of every other religion. Gibbon appears to have assigned the true reason of this deviation from its usual policy, when he observes that, while all other people professed a national religion, the Christians formed a sect. The Egyptian, though he deemed it his duty to worship the same birds and reptiles to which his ancestors had paid their adorations, made no attempt to induce the inhabitants of other countries to adopt his deities. In his estimation, the different superstitions of the heathen world were not so much at variance that they could not exist together. He respected the religion of others, while he preferred that of his own country. But Christianity was from its very nature a proselyting religion. The convert not only abandoned the faith of his ancestors, and thereby committed an unpardonable offence in the eyes of a Gentile, but also claimed to himself the exclusive possession of THE TRUTH, and denounced every other mode of worship as criminal.

This peculiarity in the character of Christianity, as I have

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already observed, made the ruling powers extremely jealous of it, and sufficiently accounts for its being excepted from the general system of toleration. In vain did Tertullian insist. upon the right of private judgment in matters of religion; in vain did he expose the strange inconsistency of tolerating the absurd superstitions of Egypt, and at the same time persecuting the professors of a religion which inculcated the worship of one pure, spiritual, omniscient, omnipotent God-the Creator and upholder of all things; by thus asserting that the God of the Christians was the only living and true God he unavoidably destroyed the effect of his appeal to the understanding, the justice, and the humanity of the Roman governors.

It has been remarked of the Christians of Tertullian's time, that they ran into a dangerous extreme in accounting for events in providence as an immediate interposition of heaven in their behalf-ascribing favourable events to their prayers, and such calamities as came upon the country to the divine displeasure, excited by the cruelties that were inflicted upon them. On this point the Pagans were not backward to retort. They appealed to the continually increasing power and glory of Rome during the 700 years that had preceded the birth of Christ, and contended that this long series of prosperity was to be attributed solely to that piety towards the gods which had always formed a striking feature in the national character. "But how," they asked, "are we to account for the calamities by which the empire has been visited, since the odious sect of the Christians appeared? How, but by their impiety and their crimes, which have drawn down upon us the wrath of heaven? By tolerating their existence we have in fact become partakers of their guilt. Let us then hasten to repair our error, and to appease the displeasure of the gods by utterly rooting out their enemies from the earth." The stated returns of the public games and festivals were the occasions on which the blind and inhuman zeal of the deluded populace displayed itself in all its ferocity. Every feeling of compassion was then extinguished; and the cry of "Christianos ad leonem !"-away with the Christians to the lion! resounded from every part of the crowded amphitheatre.

Another ground of accusation against the Christians was, that they refused to sacrifice to the heathen deities for the safety of

the emperor. Tertullian admits the fact; but his answer is, that their refusal did not arise from any feeling of disrespect or disaffection, but from the well-grounded conviction that the gods of the heathen were mere stocks and stones, and consequently incapable of affording protection to the emperor. "Far from being indifferent to his welfare," says Tertullian, "we put up daily petitions in his behalf, to the true, the living, the eternal God; by whom kings reign and princes decree justice, and through whose power they are powerful: to that God we pray, in full confidence that he will hear our prayers, and grant the emperor a long life, a peaceful reign, and every public and private blessing." Tertullian adds, "Do not trust merely to my assertions: consult our sacred books; you will there find that we are expressly enjoined to pray for kings and those in authority."

Abstaining, as the Christians most cautiously did, from every act which in the least approximated to idolatry, the seasons of publc festivity were to them seasons of the most imminent danger. Their abhorrence of every species of excess, their refusal to join in obstreperous or indecent expressions of joy, to illuminate their houses in the day-time, or to hang garlands over their doors, were construed by their adversaries into certain marks of disloyalty. Tertullian answers this charge by appealing to the uniform tenour of their conduct; "a less equivocal proof," he adds, "of our affection towards our sovereign, than those outward demonstrations of joy which have been displayed in our own time, by men who, at the very moment, were plotting his destruction. As our religion teaches us to disregard and despise the honours and riches of this world, we are not liable to be led astray by those feelings of avarice and ambition which impel others to disturb the public tranquillity; and if you would take the trouble of informing yourselves of what passes in our assemblies, and at our love-feasts, so far from finding reason to view them with jealousy as dangerous to the state, you would acknowledge that their necessary tendency is to increase our love towards God, and towards our neighbour-to make us better men and better subjects."

But though the heathen might be compelled to allow that a Christian was a peaceable, they still accused him of being an

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unprofitable citizen: he brought no offerings to the Pagan temples, and contributed nothing towards defraying the expenses of the public games, or to the support of those trades which were more immediately connected with the pomps and ceremonies of idolatry. In reply to this complaint, Tertullian affirms that the Christians, in his day, did not affect a life of solitude and abstraction; but dwelt in the world, and laboured in their respective callings and occupations, like other men. In like manner they disclaimed all singularity of dress or diet, freely using the gifts of Providence, but careful not to abuse them. "They indeed," says Tertullian, "who minister to the vicious and criminal passions of mankind-pimps, assassins, and fortune-tellers, may with truth complain that the Christians are unprofitable to them; but all who think that the best man is the most useful citizen must admit the claim of the Christian to that character, whose religion teaches him that, not only his actions, but his very thoughts must be pure; and who regulates his conduct by a reference, not to the imperfect laws of man, the penalties of which he might hope to evade, but to the perfect law of that God from whom nothing can be hid, and whose vengeance it is impossible to escape."

Unable either to fix any stain upon the morals of the Christians, or to substantiate the charges of irreligion or disloyalty against them, their enemies proceeded, in the last place, to undervalue Christianity itself, and to represent it as a mere species of philosophy. "The philosophers," they said, "inculcate innocence, justice, patience, sobriety, charity; and what do the Christians more?" "Be it so," says Tertullian; "why then do you deny to us alone the indulgence which you extend to every other sect? But look at the effects of Christianity, and you will be forced to confess that it is something more than a species of philosophy; how otherwise can you account for the altered lives and morals of its professors? a change which philosophy has never yet produced in its votaries."

The conclusion of the Apology points out to us one cause of the extensive spread of Christianity which some writers have overlooked, and that is the astonishing courage and constancy with which the Christians of those days bore the torments inflicted upon them by their persecutors. "Proceed," says Ter

tullian, to the provincial governors-" proceed in your career of cruelty; but do not imagine that you will-thus accomplish your purpose, of extinguishing the hated sect. We are like the grass, which grows the more luxuriantly the oftener it is mown. The blood of Christians is the seed of Christianity. Your philosophers taught men by words to despise pain and death; but how few are their converts compared with those of the Christians, who teach by example! The very obstinacy with which you upbraid us is the great propagator of our doctrines. For who can witness it and not enquire into the nature of that faith which inspires such supernatural courage? Who can enquire into that faith and not embrace it? Who can embrace it, and not desire himself to undergo the same sufferings, in order that he may thus secure a participation in the fulness of the divine favour?" So much for Tertullian's masterly Apology. On his other numerous pieces I can only offer a few cursory remarks and of those on a selection of them.

One of them is a tract on Repentance, or penitence, in which he states the requirements of the divine law, and contends that acknowledgment of guilt is necessary for every deviation in thought, word, will, or deed, and speaks of some who abused the doctrine. He shows that, though men may impose upon their fellow-creatures, they cannot impose upon God, who never extends forgiveness to a sinner but in the way of confessing and forsaking his sins.

He has a treatise on Prayer, in which he highly extols the Lord's prayer, explains each separate petition, and then proceeds to blame several superstitions which had crept into the churches. Another of his pieces is on Idolatry, in which a number of cases of conscience are handled. Many believed that idolatry consisted only in burning incense before the idol, in sacrificing, or in being initiated into the heathen mysteries. But Tertullian shows that making objects of worship, no matter of what substance, or in what form, was idolatry; and that building their temples, or altars, or adorning their shrines, though done to gain a livelihood, was idolatry also.

In the 17th chapter of his Apology, Tertullian had affirmed that the belief of a Supreme Being was natural to man, and he endeavoured to prove it from expressions uttered under ex

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