ordinary Christian women, is vastly different from portraying her as the crowned queen of heaven. There is nothing definite in the monuments in favor of mariolatry; and since the whole literature of the first three centuries is destitute of any evidence on the side of this form of idolatry, no indefinite monumental representation is to be warped into an indication of such idolatry within those centuries.

6. The Catacombs witness rather against than for the doctrine of purgatory. There is no such catalogue of petitions for the departed as might be expected to have sprung from any clear recognition of such a doctrine. The prayers recorded to have been sent after the dead, and in their behalf, are simply the spontaneous outbreathings of affection, such as might naturally be uttered apart from any theory of their special needfulness; prayers of sweet confidence and joyful hope, rather than anxious supplications for the relief of friends from a torturing purgatory.

7. The Catacombs in no wise disagree with the evidence supplied by patristic literature, that the custom of addressing prayers to the saints was not in vogue before the fourth century. That some brief petitions or ascriptions to the departed should be found only accords with the fact that many of the inscriptions belong to a later period. One of these, pertaining to the year 380, contains the cry of an orphaned girl for parental remem. brance. A few undated inscriptions of similar import are found; but it remains to be proved that they were preConstantinian, and, if so, that they represent a custom.1

1 Schultze says this class of inscriptions cannot be proved to be earlier than the fifth century. (Katakomben, p. 269.)

"Until the fourth century," says Pressensé, "no name of any creature, angel or saint, ever entered into the prayers of the Church." 1

Surely it is no small distance which separates the Church of the Catacombs from the Church whose central sanctuary now overlooks the site of these ancient cemeteries. The teaching which is gathered from their symbols and inscriptions is in many points vitally contrasted with that which is published from St. Peter's and the Vatican. No doubt the papal Church surpasses the primitive Christian communion in splendor and majesty of externals; but before the mirror of Christ's teaching the more excellent glory is with the humble Church of the primitive age.

V. MEN OF MARKED INDIVIDUALITY.

In treating of martyrs, apologists, and theologians, we have already portrayed most of the representative men of the era, as far as suits our purpose. But there are two who may well claim a somewhat fuller sketch, as being eminent exponents of peculiarly interesting types of character. We refer to Tertullian and Origen.

TERTULLIAN was born at Carthage, not far from the middle of the second century. He was the son of a centurion in the service of the proconsul. The advantages of a good education seem to have been supplied to him. He became sufficiently versed in the Greek to write treatises in that language. Eusebius speaks of him as a "man who made himself accurately ac

1 Christian Life, Book II., chap. iv.

This
This may be

quainted with the laws of the Romans." taken as an indication that he pursued for a time the life of an advocate. The style of his writings is also strongly suggestive of training in such a vocation. Apart from the testimony of his numerous writings to his energetic use of his pen, few definite facts are given of his life after his conversion. Jerome speaks of him as "Tertullianus presbyter," and there are some indications in his own writings that he belonged to the clergy. He lived in marriage relations, and we have two letters from him addressed to his wife. His career as a Christian was divided into two sections by his espousal of Montanism; though as a Montanist he simply exhibited, in intensified form, the traits by which he had previously been characterized. Obscurity rests upon the close of his life. He probably died about the year 220.

Tertullian, no doubt, took no small element of character from the national stock. He was in native temperament a Carthaginian, filled with the ardor and passionate impulses congenial to the burning African soil. He gave his whole soul to whatever he espoused. Though we have no definite account of his conversion, we are justified in presuming that his conviction was no sooner enlisted on the Christian side than Christianity filled his whole horizon, and became the one object of his hopes and ambitions. Unreserved devotion to an object of his affection, and vehement opposition to an object of his dislike, were irrepressible tendencies of his nature. No virtue was so difficult for him to cultivate as patience. It was an oft-defeated struggle after this grace which led to his pathetic exclamation, “I, most

miserable, ever sick with the heats of impatience, must of necessity sigh after, and invoke, and persistently plead for, that health of patience which I possess not." 1 “To him,” says Pressensé, “moderation was impossible: he went to extremes both in hatred and love, both in language and in thought; but every act and word was the result of deep conviction, and was animated by that which alone can give vitality to the efforts of any human spirit, a sincere and earnest passion for truth. Even the excess of his vehemence gave him an element of power, for it commanded the service of a fiery eloquence. His whole character is summed up in the one word "passion," - passion made to subserve the holiest of causes, pure from all petty ambition, but constantly betraying itself into harshness and injustice toward others." 2

This fulness of the emotive element naturally conditioned the intellectual factor in Tertullian. We should not expect to find in him great philosophical breadth or thorough intellectual consistency. "Tertullian's mind," says Neander, "had acuteness, depth, and dialectic dexterity, but no logical clearness, repose, and arrangement; it was profound and fruitful, but not harmonious; the check of sober self-government was wanting. Tertullian, though an enemy of philosophical speculation, which seemed to him to be a falsifier of the truth, was not destitute of a speculative element; but it wanted the scientific form. Feeling and imagination prevailed above the purely intellectual. An inward life, filled with Christianity, outran the development of his understanding." 3

1 De Patientia, i. 2 Martyrs and Apologists, Book II., chap. iii. 8 Antignosticus, Intro.

In the style of Tertullian we see an image of the man. "It is strong, even to hardness; it is strained, incorrect, African, but irresistible. It is poured forth like lava from an inward furnace, kept ever at white heat; and the track of light it leaves is a track of fire too. The language of Tertullian is full of sharp antitheses, like those which characterize his thoughts. In every phrase one might seem to hear the sharp clash of swords that meet and cross, and the spark which dazzles us is struck from the ringing steel. Hence that incomparable eloquence, which, in spite of sophisms and exaggerated metaphors, rules us still." It is, perhaps, in his Apologeticus that Tertullian's power as a writer appears at highest advantage. This is not free from the faults commonly pertaining to his style. "Nevertheless," says Pressensé, "we do not hesitate to place among the very masterpieces of the human mind this incorrect harangue, so mightily is it moved with a great impulse."

As regards the range of his thoughts and principles, Tertullian cannot be excused from the charge of a certain one-sidedness, as might be judged from the single fact of his affiliation with Montanism. He carried his supernaturalism and asceticism beyond the true mean. He crowded out, in a measure, the thought of sanctifying the world by the thought of renouncing or repudiating the world. Piety, shaped according to his model, would savor of extreme Puritanism. Still, much is to be found in his conception of Christianity that is worthy of imitation; and, as a matter of fact, Tertullian has been a powerful factor in the religious and theological world. Especially influential has been his emphasis

1 Pressensé.