PROPERTY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

PREFACE.

Of the life of Tertullian little is known, except what is contained in the brief account of St. Jerome original: "Catal. Scriptt. Eccles.".

"Tertullian, a presbyter, the first Latin writer after Victor and Apollonius, was a native of the African province and the city of Carthage, the son of a proconsular centurion. He was a man of sharp and vehement temper original: "acris et vehementis ingenii." Bishop Kaye’s translation has been retained; the words, however, appear to me to be indicative of intellectual as well as moral qualities.. He flourished under Severus and Antoninus Caracalla and wrote numerous works, which, as they are generally known, I think it unnecessary to detail. I saw at Concordia, in Italy, an old man named Paulus. He said that, when young, he had met at Rome with an aged scribe of the blessed Cyprian, who told him that Cyprian never passed a day without reading some portion of Tertullian's works, and used frequently to say, Give me my master, meaning Tertullian. After remaining a presbyter of the Church until he had attained middle age, Tertullian was driven by the envy and insulting treatment of the Roman clergy to embrace the opinions of Montanus, which he mentioned in several of his works under the title of the 'New Prophecy.' However, he composed, expressly against the Church, the treatises On Modesty, On Persecution, On Fasting, On Monogamy, and six books On Ecstasy, to which he added a seventh against Apollonius. He is reported to have lived to a very advanced age and to have composed many other works which are no longer extant."