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1 The notes of Dr. Holmes were bracketted, and I have been forced to remove this feature, as brackets are tokens in this edition of the contributions of American editors. The perpetual recurrence of brackets in his translations has led me to improve the page by parenthetical marks instead, which answer as well and rarely can be mistaken for the author's parentheses, while these disfigure the printer's work much less. I have sometimes substituted italics for brackets, where an inconsiderable word, like and or for, was bracketted by the translator. In every case that I have noted, an intelligent reader will readily perceive such instances; but a critic who may wish to praise, or condemn, should carefully compare the Edinburgh pages with our own. I found them so painful to the eye and so needlessly annoying to the reader, that I have taken the responsibility of making what seems to me a very great typographical improvement.
2 (I.) Concerning Tertullian; (II.) Concerning his Work against Marcion, its date, etc.; (III.) Concerning Marcion; (IV.) Concerning Tertullian's Bible; (V.) Influence of his Montanism on his writings.
3 We quote Bishop Kaye's translation of Jerome's article; see his Account of the Writings of Tertullian, pp. 5-8.
7 Valesius, however, supposes the historian's words tw=n ma/lista e0pi\ 9Rw/mhj lamprw=n to mean, that Tertulian had obtained distinction among Latin writers.
8 See De Proescript. Hoeretic. xxx.
9 De Poenitentia, i. Hoc Genus Hominum, quod et ipsi retro fuimus, caeci, sine Domini lumine, natura tenus norunt; De Fuga in Persecutione, vi. Nobis autem et via nationum patet, in quâ et inventi sumus; Adv. Marcionem, iii. 21. Et nationes, quod sumus nos; Apolog. xviii. Haec et nos risimus aliquando; de vestris fuinus; also De Spectac. xix.
10 [Kaye, p. 9. A fair view of this point.]
11 These notes of Bishop Kaye may be found, in their fuller form, in his work on Tertullian, pp. 8-12.
13 Jerome probably took this date as the central period, when Tertullian "flourished," because of its being the only clearly authenticated one, and because also (it may be) of the importance and fame of the Treatise against Marcion.
14 So Clinton, Fasti Romani, i. 204; or 208, Pamelius, Vita Tertull.
15 In his treatise, De vera aetate ac doctrina script. Tertulliani, sections 28, 45.
16 De Proescript. Hoeret. xxx.
17 Comp. Adv. Marcionem, iv. 4.
19 Dr. Burton's Lectures on Eccl. Hist. Of First Three Centuries, ii. 105-109.
22 Vincentius Lirinesis, in his celebrated Commonitorium, expresses the opinion of Catholic churchmen concerning Tertullian thus: "Tertullian, among the Latins, without controversy, is the chief of all our writers. For who was more learned than he? Who in divinity or humanity more practised? For, by a certain wonderful capacity of mind, he attained to and understohod all philosophy, all the sects of philosophers, all their founders and supporters, all their systems, all sorts of histories and studies. And for his wit, was he not so excellent, so grave, so forcible, that he scarce ever undertook the overthrow of any position, but either by quickness of wit he undermined, or by weight of reason he crushed it? Further, who is able to express the praises which his style of speech deserves, which is fraught (I know none like it) with that cogency of reason, that such as it cannot persuade it, it comples to assent; whose so many words almost are so many sentences; whose so many senses, so many victories? This know Marcion and Apelles, Praxeas and Hermogenes, Jews, Gentiles, Gnostics, and divers others, whose blasphemous opinions he hath overthrown with his many and great volumes, as it had been thunderbolts. And yet this man after all, this Tertullian, not retaining the Catholic doctrine-that is, the old faith-hath discredited with his later error his worthy writings," etc.-Chap. xxiv. (Oxford trans. Chap. xviii.)
23 Neander's introduction to his Antignostikus should be read in connection with this topic. He powerfully delineates the disposition of Tertullian and the character of Montanism, and attributes his seccession to that sect not to ourward causes, but to "his internal congeniality of mind." But, inasmuch as a man's subjective development is very much guided by circumstances, it is not necessary, in agreeing with Neander, to disbelieve some such account as Jerome has given us of Tertullian (Neander's Antignostikus, etc. Bohn's trans., vol. ii. pp. 200-207).
24 Introductory Notice to the Anti-Marcion, pp. xiii., xiv.
25 In the end of Chapter Second.
26 Eccl. Hist. Illust. From Tertullian's Writings, p. 36 sqq. (ed. 3, Lond. 1845).
28 Antignostikus, p. 424 (Bohn's tr., ed. 1851).
30 See 2 Kings (4 Kings in LXX. and Vulg.) xiv. 9.
31 Here, again, our limits forbid a discussion; but the allusion to the Rhone having "scarcely yet lost the stain of blood" which we find in the ad. Natt. i. 17, compared with Apol. 35, seems to favour the idea of those who date the ad. Natt. earlier than the Apology, and consider the latter as a kind of new edition of the former: while it would fix the date of the ad. Natt. as not certainly earlier than 197, in which year (as we have seen) Albinus died. The fatal battle took place on the banks of the Rhone.
35 Ref. to in de Idolol. 13; in de Cult. Fem. i. 8. In the de Cor. 6 is a reference to the Greek tract de Spectaculis by our author.
36 Archdeacon Evans, in his Biography of the Early Church (in the Theological Library), suggests that the success which the Apology met with, or at least the fame it brought its author, may have been the occasion of Tertullian's visit to Rome. He rejects entirely the supposition that Tertullian was a presbyter of the Roman church; nor does he think Eusebius' words, kai\ tw=n ma/lista e0pi\ 9Rw/mhj lamprw=n (Eccl. Hist. ii. 2. 47. ad fin., 48 ad init.), sufficiently plain to be relied on. One thing does seem pretty plain, that the rendering of them which Rufinus gives, and Valesius follows, "inter nostros" (sc. Latinos) "Scriptores admodum clarus," cannot be correct. That we find a famous Roman lawyer Tertullianus, or Tertyllians, among the writer fragments of whom are preserved in the Pandects, Neander reminds us; but (as he says) it by no means follows, even if it could be proved that the date of the said lawyer corresponded with the supposed date of our Tertullian, that they were identical. Still it is worth bearing in mind, especially as a similarity of language exists, or has been thought to exist, between the jurist and the Christian author. And the juridical language and tone of our author do seem to point to his having -though Mr. Evans regards that as doubtful-been a trained lawyer.-Tr.
37 Kaye, as above. Pref. to 2d ed. pp. xxi. xxii. incorporated in the 3d ed., which I always quote.
38 i.e., four years after Kaye's third.