CHAPTER XVI.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF CHRISTIANS.

TERTULLIAN contrasts the joys of the Christian life with worldly and heathen pleasures.* "Believe not that even this short period of the corporal life of Christians is joyless. Wherefore art thou so unthankful that thou dost not esteem enough and acknowledge the many and great pleasures which are granted thee by God? For what is more blessed than reconciliation with God our Father and Lord, than the revelation of truth, the detection of error, the forgiveness of great sins? What greater joy than even the disgust with worldly joys; than the contempt of all worldly things; than true freedom; than a pure conscience; than peacefulness in life; and the absence of fear in the prospect of death; than to be able to tread under foot the gods of the heathen world, and to cast out evil spirits, and to seek for revelations ? are the pleasures, the entertainments of Christians-holy, everlasting, and not to be purchased with money."

These

* Jam nunc si putas delectamentis exigere spatium hoc, cur tam ingratus eo, ut tot et tales voluptates a Deo contributas tibi satis non habeas neque recognoscas ? Quid enim jucundius, quam Dei Patris et Domini reconciliatio, quam veritatis revelatio, quam errorum recognitio, quam tantorum retro criminum venia? Quæ major voluptas, quam fastidium ipsius voluptatis, quam seculi totius contemtus, quam vera libertas, quam conscientia integra, quam vita sufficiens, quam mortis timor nullus, quod calcas deos nationum, quod dæmonia expellis, quod medicinas faces, quod revelationes petis, quod Deo vivis? Hæ voluptatis, hæc spectacula Christianorum sancta, perpetua, gratuita; in his tibi ludos circenses interpretare, cursus seculi intuere, tempora labentia spatia dinumera, metas consummationis exspecta, societates ecclesiarum defende, ad signum Dei suscitare, ad tubam angeli erigere, ad martyrii palmas gloriare. Si scenicæ doctrinæ delectant, satis nobis litterarum est, satis versuum est, satis sententiorum, satis etiam canticorum, satis vocum, nec fabulæ, sed veritates, nec strophæ, sed simplicitates. Vis et pugillatus et luctatus? præsto sunt, non parva sed multa. Adspice impudicitiam dejectam a castitate, perfidiam cæsam a fide, sævitiam a misericordia contusam, petulantium a modestia obumbratam, et tales sunt apud nos agones, in quibus ipsi coronamur. Vis autem et sanguines aliquid? habes Christi.-Tertull. de Spectac. § 29.

CHRISTIANS' HOME-HAPPINESS.

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As to what especially concerns domestic life, the same writer thus describes the happiness of a Christian marriage.* "How can we find words to express the happiness of that marriage which the Church effects, and the oblation confirms, and the blessing seals, and angels report, and the Father ratifies. What a union of two believers, with one hope, one discipline, one service, one spirit, and one flesh! Together they pray, together they prostrate themselves, and together keep their fasts, teaching and exhorting one another. They are together at the church and at the Lord's supper; they are together in straits and refreshments. Neither conceals anything from the other; neither avoids the other; neither is a burden to the other; freely the sick are visited, and the needy relieved; alms without torture; sacrifices [the gifts presented at the altar] without scruple; daily diligence without hindrance; no using the sign [of the cross] by stealth; no hurried salutation [of fellow-Christians]; no silent benediction; psalms and hymns resound between the two, and they vie with each other which shall say best to their God. Christ rejoices on hearing and beholding such things; to such persons he sends his peace. Where the two are, he is himself; and where he is, there the Evil One is not.

Christian matrons expressed the change that had passed over them, in their whole outward appearance; the modesty and absence of display in the attire of Christian females formed a striking contrast to the unbecoming and showy dress J of many heathen 66 women. If the duty of friendship," says Tertullian, "and of kind offices to the heathen calls you,

* Qualǝ jugum fidelium duorum unius spei, unius disciplinæ, ejusdem servitutis! Ambo fratres, ambo conservi, nulla spiritus carnisve discretio. Atque vero duo in carne una; ubi caro una, unus et spiritus. Simul orant, simul volutantur, et simul jejunia transigunt, alterutro docentes, alterutro hortantes, alterutro sustinentes.

In ecclesia Dei

pariter utrique, pariter in convivio Dei, pariter in angustiis, in persecutionibus, in refrigeriis; neuter alterum celat, neuter alterum vitat, neuter alteri gravis est; libere æger visitatur, indigens sustentatur; eleemosina sine tormento, sacrificia sine scrupulo, quotidiana diligentia sine impedimento; non furtiva signatio, non trepida gratulatio, non muta benedictio; sonant inter dues psalmi et hymni, et mutuo provocant, quis melius Deo suo cantet. Talia Christus videns et audiens gaudet, his pacem suam mittit; ubi duo, ibi et ipse; ubi et ipse, ibi et malus non est.-Tertull. ad Uxorem, ii. 9.

why not appear with your own proper weapons, so much the rather when you have to do with strangers to the faith. Let there be a distinction between the handmaids of the devil and those of God, that you may be an example to them, and that they may be edified by you, that God may be glorified in your body, as the apostle says; but he is glorified by chastity and by an attire that accords with chastity." Many persons of laxer sentiments said, on the other hand, that Christians ought not to give occasion to the heathen to blaspheme the name of God and his doctrine (1 Tim. vi. 1), by a sudden and striking alteration in the exterior, that people might not have to say what they would be sufficiently disposed to do -that Christianity turned men into demure hypocrites. To such persons Tertullian replied: "On that ground, then, let us not put away our ancient vices; let us retain the same morals, as well as the external appearance; and then, forsooth, the heathen will not blaspheme! A great blasphemy, indeed, if it be said, Since she has become a Christian, she goes about more meanly dressed! Will she be afraid to appear poorer since she has become richer, and to appear meaner since she has become more adorned? Must Christians walk according to the good pleasure of the heathen or of God? Let our only wish be, to avoid giving just cause for blasphemy. How much more blasphemous it is, if ye who are called the priestesses of chastity go about decorated and painted after the manner of the immodest?" When some persons said that the main point to be regarded was not the exterior, but the internal disposition, which was visible to him who sees the innermost heart; Tertullian endeavoured to show that it was a Christian duty to avoid every appearance of evil, and to express by the whole outward life the essential nature of the religion which is professed, and thus to win men over to it. "God is the searcher of hearts, we all know; but yet we recollect what the apostle has said: Let your honesty (probrum vestrum) be known unto all men,' (Phil. iv. 5); and why, unless that wickedness may gain no access to you, and that ye may be an example and a testimony to the wicked? Or why is it said: Let your works shine?' Or why does the Lord call us 'the light of the world?' Why does he compare us to a city set upon a hill,' if we are not to shine amongst those that are in darkness, and to be conspicuous

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THEIR MODESTY OF ATTIRE.

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amongst the debased? This it is which makes us the light of the world—our goodness. But goodness, at all events true and complete goodness, loves not darkness, but rejoices to be seen, and exults even in being pointed at. It is not enough that Christian chastity should be, it should also be seen; for so great ought to be its fulness that it should flow over from the mind into the manners, and rise up from the conscience into the countenance." The Christian female," says Tertullian, "neither goes about to the temples, nor inquires after the public shows, nor knows the heathen feast-days. She has no cause for appearing in public, except to visit a sick brother, or to present a sacrifice [i. e. to partake of the Lord's Supper], or to hear the word of God." And among the injurious effects of a mixed marriage he adduces these: "Who would allow his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren, to go about from street to street, the round of strange cottages, even the poorest? . . . . Who would, without suspicion, let her go to that feast of the Lord which they defame? Who would suffer her to creep into a prison to kiss the chains of a martyr; yea, and to meet any one of the brethren with the kiss? to offer water for the saint's feet? . . . If a stranger brother came, what lodging would he expect in the house of an alien from the faith? If a present is to be made to any, the barns and cellars are closed"

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHRISTIANS IN THE TIME OF PUBLIC CALAMITIES, INFECTIOUS DISEASES, AND MORTALITY-MEMORIALS OF THE DEAD-THE MARTYRS.

We have already remarked that the heathen frequently reproached the Christians on account of public calamities, and attributed them to the wrath of the gods against these their enemies; or they said to them: "What advantage have you before us in worshipping your God, since you are subject to the same calamities? To this the teachers of the

Church replied, that the Christians, in as much as they belonged outwardly to the world, must share in earthly sufferings with the rest of mankind, but that in their inner life they were exalted above them, and that they were distinguished by the impression which these sufferings made upon them, and by the manner in which they bore them, from the heathen in common with whom they had them outwardly. "That man," says Cyprian,*" regards the misfortunes of the world as a punishment, whose whole joy and glory is in the world. That man mourns and weeps if he is unfortunate in this world, who cannot be happy in the world to come; all the fruit of whose life is enjoyed here, all whose consolation is bounded by time; whose frail and short life reckons here upon some sweetness and pleasure; when it departs hence nothing is left but punishment. But for them who have the confident expectation of future good, the attacks of present evils are not a cause of deep affliction. Lastly, we are not thrown into consternation by adversities, nor are our spirits broken, nor do we grieve, nor do we murmur in any loss of property, or failure of health. We who live more in the spirit than in the flesh, overcome the weakness of the body by the strength of the mind. By those very things which torture and weary us, we know and are sure that we are proved and strengthened. Do you believe that we suffer misfortune equally with yourselves, when you see that misfortune is borne by you and by us in a very different manner. You always manifest a noisy and complaining impatience; we show a steady and pious resignation which is always quiet and grate

* Nec ideo quis putet Christianos iis quæ accidunt non vindicari, quod et ipsi videantur accidentium incursione perstringi. Poenam de adversis mundi ille sentit cui et lætitia et gloria omnis in mundo est. Ille moret et defiet, si sibi male sit in sæculo, cui bene non potest esse post sæculum, cujus vivendi fructus omnis hic capitur, cujus hic solatium omne finitur cujus caduca et brevis vita hic aliquam dulcedinem computat et volup tatem; quando isthinc excesserit pœna jam sola superest ad dolorem. Cæterum nullus iis dolor est de incursione malorum præsentium, quibus fiducia est futurorum bonorum. Denique nec consternimur adversis, nec frangimur, nec dolemus, neque in ulla aut rerum clade aut corporum valetudine mussitamus. Spiritu magis quam carne viventes firmitate animi infirmitatem corporis vincemus. Per ipsa quæ nos cruciant et fatigant probari et corrobari nos scimus et fidemus.-Cypr. lib. ad Deme

trianum.