• Home
  • Works
  • Introduction Guide Collaboration Sponsors / Collaborators Copyrights Contact Imprint
Bibliothek der Kirchenväter
Search
DE EN FR
Works Tertullian (160-220) Introductory Note to Tertullian
Introductory Note: Part First.
From Dr. Holmes, I append the following Introductory Notice:

(II.)

Tertullian's work against Marcion, as it happens, is, as to its date, the best authenticated--perhaps the only well authenticated--particular connected with the author's life. He himself 1 mentions the fifteenth year of the reign of Severus as the time when he was writing the work: "Ad xv. jam Severi imperatoris." This agrees with Jerome's Chronicle, where occurs this note: "Anno 2223 Severi xvº Tertullianus...celebratur." 2 This year is assigned to the year of our Lord 207; 3 but notwithstanding the certainty of this date, it is far from clear that it describes more than the time of the publication of the first book. On the contrary, it is nearly certain that the other books, although connected manifestly enough in the author's argument and purpose (compare the initial and the final chapters of the several books), were yet issued at separate times. Noesselt 4 shows that between the Book i. and Books ii.-iv. Tertullian issued his De Praescript. Haeret., and previous to Book v. he published his tracts, De Carne Christi and De Resurrectione Carnis. After giving the incontestable date of the xv. of Severus for the first book, he says it is a mistake to suppose that the other books were published with it. He adds: "Although we cannot undertake to determine whether Tertullian issued his Books ii., iii., iv., against Marcion, together or separately, or in what year, we yet venture to affirm that Book v. appeared apart from the rest. For the tract De Resurr. Carnis appears from its second chapter to have been published after the tract De Carne Christi, in which latter work (chap. vii.) he quotes a passage from the fourth book against Marcion. But in his Book v. against Marcion (chap. x.), he refers to his work De Resurr. Carnis; which circumstance makes it evident that Tertullian published his Book v. at a different time from his Book iv. In his Book i. he announces his intention (chap. i.) of some time or other completing his tract De Praescript. Haeret., but in his book De Carne Christi (chap. ii.), he mentions how he had completed it,--a conclusive proof that his Book i. against Marcion preceded the other books."


  1. Book i., chap. xv. ↩

  2. 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. ↩

  3. So Clinton, Fasti Romani, i. 204; or 208, Pamelius, Vita Tertull. ↩

  4. In his treatise, De vera aetate ac doctrina script. Tertulliani, sections 28, 45. ↩

pattern
  Print   Report an error
  • Show the text
  • Bibliographic Reference
  • Scans for this version
Commentaries for this Work
Allgemeine Einleitung zu Tertullian
Introductory Note to Tertullian

Contents

Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

© 2023 Gregor Emmenegger
Imprint
Privacy policy