PREFACE.

The whole tenor of those two books implies that he was living in the ordinary course of married life. Previous to his conversion, he seems to have been engaged in the practice of the law The passage quoted by Pamelius (On the Cloak, c. 5) does not directly prove this; for it is spoken by the Cloak personified. It relates to other offices, judicial and military ("I do not judge, I do not serve as a soldier"), and declares that those who wore it had abandoned public life altogether. Yet, undoubtedly, Tertullian had reference to himself, and the great prominence given to the law in the description makes it probable that he was previously engaged in it., an accurate acquaintance with which Eusebius has occasion to specify distinctly Reference: Eccl. Hist. ii. 2. "Tertullian, a man accurately acquainted with the Roman laws...". Upon his conversion, he abandoned it, and in the interval before his secession, he was admitted to the Priesthood. In this short interval, besides the works belonging to it that are now extant, he "detected, and as it seemed, uprooted, the heresy of Praxeas," which had spread to Carthage, and brought Praxeas himself to sign a formal—though, as it subsequently appeared, a hypocritical—recantation, which was preserved in the Church. In the same period, he probably wrote two treatises against Marcion, the first a sketch, the second a fuller work, lost through the treachery of an apostate Catholic. A later author mentions that he had "practiced Rhetoric at Carthage for many years, with much distinction," and this is perhaps borne out by the very varied character of his learning. An early work of his is also mentioned by St. Jerome, written as an exercise after the manner of rhetoricians.