Apologetic

Footnotes

^[1487] [This appeal to the universal conscience and consciousness of mankind is unanswerable, and assures us that counter-theories will never prevail. See Bossuet, De la Connoisance de Dieu et de Soi-même. Œuvres, Tom. V. pp. 86 et. seqq. Ed. Paris, 1846.]

^[1488] [Compare the heathen ideas in Plato: e.g. the story Socrates tells in the Gorgias, (near the close) about death and Judgment.]

IX. A Treatise on the Soul.

^[1489] [It is not safe to date this treatise before a.d. 203, and perhaps it would be unsafe to assign a later date. The note of the translator, which follows, relieves me from any necessity to add more, just here.]

Chapter I.—It is Not to the Philosophers that We Resort for Information About the Soul But to God.

^[1490] In this treatise we have Tertullian’s speculations on the origin, the nature, and the destiny of the human soul. There are, no doubt, paradoxes startling to a modern reader to be found in it, such as that of the soul’s corporeity; and there are weak and inconclusive arguments. But after all such drawbacks (and they are not more than what constantly occur in the most renowned speculative writers of antiquity), the reader will discover many interesting proofs of our author’s character for originality of thought, width of information, firm grasp of his subject, and vivacious treatment of it, such as we have discovered in other parts of his writings. If his subject permits Tertullian less than usual of an appeal to his favourite Holy Scripture, he still makes room for occasional illustration from it, and with his characteristic ability; if, however, there is less of his sacred learning in it, the treatise teems with curious information drawn from the secular literature of that early age. Our author often measures swords with Plato in his discussions on the soul, and it is not too much to say that he shows himself a formidable opponent to the great philosopher. See Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, pp. 199, 200.

^[1491] Suggestu. [Kaye, pp. 60 and 541.]

^[1492] Flatu “the breath.”

^[1493] Utique.

^[1494] Consternata.

^[1495] Consternata.

^[1496] Externata. “Externatus = ἐκτὸς φρενῶν. Gloss. Philox.

^[1497] Pietatis.

^[1498] Fidei sacramento.

^[1499] The allusion is to the inconsistency of the philosopher, who condemned the gods of the vulgar, and died offering a gift to one of them.

^[1500] Vivicomburio.

Chapter II.—The Christian Has Sure and Simple Knowledge Concerning the Subject Before Us.

^[1501] Mentioned below, c. xxxiii.; also Adv. Valent. c. xv.