of Africa had begun in 180. In a time of peace the Scillitan martyrs had died at Carthage (Görres, Jahr. f. Prot. Theol. 1884, pts. ii. iii.); but after that there is a blank till 198, when Namphamo was the new "archimartyr" of the church. A few months' respite followed. It was disturbed by an event which is with some plausibility alleged to have taken place at Carthage. A certain soldier refused the donativum of Severus and Caracalla, publicly declined the laurel crown accepted by his fellow-soldiers, and proclaimed himself a Christian. The incident is described in the de Corona; Tertullian, making it a test case, debated whether the Christian could accept military service. His advice, and the conduct founded upon it, infuriated the heathen. Under Hilarian (202–203) persecution broke out again. It took the special form of refusing the Christian dead their usual place of burial; the cry invaded the proconsul's tribune, "Areae non sint!" ("No cemeteries for the Christians!"). Just then the decree issued in 202 by Severus indirectly if not directly gave sanction to all measures of repression. It forbad proselytizing by either Jew or Christian. It was easy, were the African proconsul so minded, to read into this purely prohibitive measure a licence to persecute. The "fight of martyrdom and the baptism of blood" which ensued is perhaps to be traced in Tertullian's de Fuga and Scorpiace (between 202–212). These treatises are fiercely scornful against the flight once counselled when persecution raged. The de Fuga (c. v.) denounces, not less angrily, a growing practice—purchase of immunity. Of sterner mould and of more loving faith were the brothers Satyrus and Saturninus, the slaves Revocatus and Felicitas, and the nobly born and nobly-wedded Perpetua. The Acts of their passion, by some (e.g. Bonwetsch and Salmon) attributed to Tertullian himself, have preserved a picture of the times—a reluctant proconsul, all-willing martyrs, and a scoffing crowd saluting their baptism of blood with the mocking cry, "Salvum lotum" (see the Acts in Migne's Patr. Lat. iii., and Aubé's collation, op. cit. pp. 221–224, 509, etc.).
Again there came a respite, and again must the character of the proconsul have been instrumental in securing it. Of Julius Asper (proconsul in 205 or 206) it is told that not only did he refuse to force a Christian to sacrifice who under the torture had lapsed from the faith, but publicly expressed regret to his assessors and the advocates at having to deal with such cases (ad Scapulam, c. iv.). For five or six years persecution was stayed, years of literary activity on the part of Tertullian. In 211, for some unknown reason, the religious war broke out afresh, and its cruel if brief progress is told in the ad Scapulam. Tertullian's last "Apology" is worthy of the Christian gladiator. Stroke upon stroke he deals his ponderous blows against the proconsul. "We battle with your cruelty," he cries; but his weapons are the "offensive" weapons which Christ had put in his hands—prayer for the persecutors, love for enemies (Matt. v. 44d). God's judgments, he warns them, were abroad. Drought, fires, eclipses, declared His wrath; the miserable deaths of persecuting proconsuls betokened it. "This our sect shall never fail," is his triumphant shout. "Strike it down, it will rise the more. We recompense to no man evil for evil, but we warn you—Fight not against God!"
In 212 the blessing of peace rested again upon Africa and continued for some years.
III. WRITINGS.—Tertullian's literary activity is by some confined to 197–212; by others, with far greater probability, it is extended to at least c. 223. A general chronological arrangement only is possible, the dates given being few and uncertain. The only work which supplies positive evidence of date is the first book adv. Marcionem (3rd ed.). In c. xv. Tertullian says he is writing in the 15th year of Severus, now considered to be a.d. 207 (Bonwetsch, Die Schriften Tertullians nach der Zeit ihrer Abfassung, p. 42). Tertullian was then a Montanist, but his pen had for some years been employed in behalf of the church.
Tertullian's writings represent him variously as layman, priest, and schismatic; and divide broadly into works written in the Catholic or Montanist periods of his life. The latter must further be subdivided into treatises in which Catholic or schismatic elements are respectively prominent. In character they are threefold: (a) Apologetic; (b) Dogmatic and polemical; (c) Moral and ascetic. The arrangements of Bp. Kaye and Bonwetsch have in the main suggested that which follows; though the dates attached are in almost all cases conjectural.
(1) Works written while still in the church: (a) Apologetic writings (c. 197–198): ad Martyres; Apologeticum; de Testimonio Animae; ad Nationes, i. ii; adv. Judaeos.
(b) Other works of this period, but of less certain date: de Oratione; de Baptismo; de Poenitentia; de Spectaculis; de Cultu Feminarum, i.; de Idololatria; de Cultu Feminarum, ii.; de Patientia; ad Uxorem, i. ii. (the last five c. 197–199); de Praescriptione Haereticorum (c. 199); adv. Marcionem i. (1st ed.), c. 200.
(2) Montanistic writings: —
(a) Defending the church and her teachings (c. 202–203): de Corona; de Fuga in Persecutione; de Exhortatione Castitatis.
(b) Defending the Paraclete and His discipline: de Virginibus Velandis (c. 203–204, a transition work); adv. Marcion. (2nd ed.; c. 206); ib. (3rd ed.; c. 207). Between 200–207 or later: adv. Hermogenem; adv. Valentinianos; adv. Marcion. (iv.); de Carne Christi; de Resurrectione Carnis; adv. Marcion. (v.). De Pallio and de Anima (c. 208–209); Scorpiace (c. 212; al. 203 or 204); ad Scapulam (c. 212). Three c. 217, al. 203–207: de Monogamia; de Jejunio; de Pudicitia; and adv. Praxean (c. 223, al. c. 208–209).
A. Tertullian, Layman and Apologist.—Ad Martyres.—Two thoughts (c. iii.) should animate the martyrs. (1) Christians were soldiers, "called to the military service of the living God" by a sacramental oath, to which they must be true. (2) They were Christian athletes whose prison was their training-school (palaestra), where "virtus duritia extruitur, mollitia vero destruitur." The words of Christ (Matt. xxvi. 41) should help them to subject the flesh to the spirit, the weaker to
