Tertullian expresses most distinctly the views of the Western Church. Man, he says, has not, like God, goodness belonging to his essence; he must acquire it by his free selfdetermination. Had he remained faithful to the divine will he would have been exalted above all the angels. God gave Adam a law that he might accustom himself to submit his own will to the divine. Sin consisted in his desiring to detach his will from this subjection. From this, and not from the materials of sin, are all its consequences to be deduced. It was his destiny to rule over the rest of Creation, in dependence on God. By his unfaithfulness he was brought in bondage to it.* Providence delayed the restoration of man in order to let him struggle, that man by the same freedom of will through which he was conquered, might win the victory over Evil. Original goodness, Tertullian held to be indelible It might be checked, but not entirely crushed; the corruption of man is, as it were, his second nature, but yet the Divine remains in him as his proper nature. In the worst men there is something good; in the best, something bad. The testimonium animæ naturaliter Christiana, † the freedom of this is founded in his nature, and is not to be regarded as his ideal destination, it does not agree with this that he should be subject to all things according to his nature. We might suppose a hiatus, if the whole representation did not show systematic strictness in so slight a degree. Ὁ δὲ γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος ζῷον αὐτεξούσιον ἦν, οὐκ ἄρχον, οὐ νοῦν ἔχον (Bunsen, not without probability, reads οὐκ ἄρχοντα νοῦν ἔχον) οὐκ ἐπινοίᾳ καὶ ἐξουσίᾳ καὶ δυνάμει πάντων κρατοῦν, ἀλλὰ δοῦλον καὶ πάντα ἔχον τὰ ἐναντία ὅ (t. ὅς τῷ αὐτεξουσίον ὑπάρχειν τὸ κακὸν ἐπιγεννᾷ εκ συμβεβηκότος ἀποτελούμενον (Bunsen supplies ὂν) μὲν οὐδὲν, ἐὰν μὴ ποιῇς· ἐν γὰρ τῷ θέλειν καὶ νομίζειν τι κακὸν τὸ κακὸν ὀνομάζεται οὐκ ἂν απ ̓ ἀρχῆς ἀλλ ̓ ἐπιγινόμενον, οὗ αὐτεξουσίου ὄντος νόμος ὑπὸ θεοῦ ὡρίζετο, οὐ ματην· οὐ γὰρ μὴ εἶχεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ μὴ θέλειν τι, εἰ μὴ (in the text καὶ) νόμος ωριζετο —εί δὲ θέλεις θεὸς γενέσθαι ὑπάκουε τῷ πεποιηκότι.

* Adv. Marcion. ii. c. 5-9; c. 6.-Nam bonus natura Deus solus; qui enim quod est sine initio habet, non institutione est; habet illud, sed natura. Homo autem qui totus ex institutione est,-non natura in bonum despositus est, sed institutione, non suum habens bonum esse, quia non natura in bonum dispositus est, sed institutione, secundum institutorem bonum, scilicet bonorum conditorem. Ut ergo bonum jam suum haberet homo, emancipatum sibi a Deo et furet proprietas jam boni in homine et quodammodo natura de institutione adscripta st illi-potestas arbitrii quæ efficeret bonum, ut proprium jam sponte præstari ab homine, &c.

↑ De Animâ, c. 41; c. 22.

TERTULLIAN'S VIEWS OF THE FALL.

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the Will, and a certain power of divination are indications of the divine nature. That sinful tendency, which, since the sin of the first man, is the disturbing element of development, he calls vitium originis; the passions, the lusts, everything which belongs to the Jux ahoyos, he ascribes to the first disunion; he does not admit a trichotomy of human nature, but considers the soul to be endowed with higher and lower powers. His doctrine of the propagation of Sin in human nature was connected with a peculiar theory of the propagation of souls. He imagined that the soul was propagated along with the body, hence the soul of the first Man is the Mother of all souls. And since the spiritual life has been corrupted in the germ by sin, this constitution must be extended further by propagation. The doctrine obtained the name of Traducianism; it was connected with Tertullian's sensuous habits of conception, but had a deeper ground. In opposition to the Gnostic natural differences in men, he maintained the possibility of a moral change in all men, partly by free will, partly by grace. When they appealed to Christ's words, a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit," therefore, good can only proceed from a good nature; he rejoined, the bad tree will bring forth good fruit if it be grafted, and the good tree will bring forth bad fruit if it be not grafted. The corrupt nature of man can be purified, but even a good constitution requires fostering. This is effected by the power of grace, which is more powerful than nature, and to which the free will is subject. Whither this turns itself, thither the whole human nature turns.* He wished to prove that there is no irresistible opposition in human nature to Christ. His words might appear to speak of a grace attracting the will irresistibly; for the dootrine of grace had already been carried to such lengths, as to crush human Freedom. But this would be at variance with his whole view of Free Will. However much controversy impelled him to one-sided expressions, yet we may fairly suppose that he wished to exhibit very strongly the power of grace for overcoming human nature, without excluding thereby the condition, i.e., the inclination of the free

* De Animâ, c. 21.-Hæc erit vis divinæ gratiæ potentior utique natura, habens in nobis subjacentem sibi liberam arbitrii potestatem, quod avrεžovolov dicitur, quæ cum sit et ipse naturalis atque mutabilis, quoque vertitur natura convertitur.

Will. But it always deserves notice, that in his writings first of all, occur expressions which can be almost understood to point to the irresistible power of grace. In another remarkable passage, ,* he says: there is many a good so great, that divine grace alone can impart it, which gives to every one as it seems good. Here he certainly speaks of an unconditional divine operation, but not in reference to morality in general, but only in reference to certain particular charismata, and hence in other cases, we must suppose grace to be connected with Free Will. Tertullian's Montanism was also not without its effect; it was the peculiarity of this tendency to set forth the unconditional operation of the divine Spirit, the almighty power of God, and the passivity of man. Only this principle was maintained by him, not generally, but in reference to particular cases, such as the Inspiration of the Prophets. But certainly such were his principles, that Tertullian, of all the Church Fathers of this period, asserted the power of grace in the most unconditional terms.

CYPRIAN, writing in the name of an African Council, calls original Sin a contagio mortis antiquæ. He distinguishes between the evil implanted by Nature and that which has taken root by the lapse of Time. No one is pure from the stain of Sin, but freedom to believe and not to believe lies in the will of Man.‡

LACTANTIUS & considers the condition of Man in Paradise as the childhood of an innocence not yet arrived at the knowledge of good and evil. According to the relative Dualism which is to be found in him, and which makes the opposition of Good and Evil necessary for the development of the Universe, he further assumes that Man was thrust into a world of contrarieties, that by means of them he might form himself to freedom from evil.

THE CHURCH TEACHERS WHO OCCUPIED A MIDDLE POSITION.

JUSTIN regards the prevalence of sin and death, which he

* De Patient. i.-Bonorum quorundam sicuti et malorum intolerabilis magnitudo est, ut ad capienda et præstanda ea sola gratia divinæ inspirationis operetur. Nam quod maxime bonum id maxime penes Deum nec alius id quam qui possidet dispensat, ut cuique dignatur. Epist. 59. Baluz., 64. Goldhorn, c. 5.

De Gratia Dei ad Donatum, c. 2. De Testimoniis, iii. 54, 52. § Instit. Divin. ii. 12.

includes in the idea of φθορά, as the consequence of the first sin; but adds, that every man is evil through his own will. He thus developes the connexion of these positions: if mar had not departed from his union with God, he would have attained to a condition exalted above all Sin. By the first sin Evil gained power over him, but yet a reaction against it remained in him, and it is his own fault if he allow himself to be carried away by Evil.* Against the heathen he developes this doctrine without reference to Genesis; he rather proceeds on universal human experience, and draws a contrast between the higher life of Christians and a life on mere natural impulses. Man follows the blind impulse of his nature without the consciousness of his higher destiny as the child of necessity and ignorance, until he is enlightened by Christianity and attains to a morally free and conscious life.

TATIAN sets out from the general antagonism between uxá and πνεῦμα. The x is by nature transitory, and attains to a higher life only by its connexion with the πνεῦμα. Since man has estranged himself by sin from communion with God, he is no longer exalted above the rest of the Creation, the Soul has lost the higher life, and he is distinguished from the beasts only by the faculty of speech. Yet the Soul has a spark of the Divine left, and can turn again to God by its free will, can attain to Christianity and to a share in the πνεῦμα The admission of this reaction against Evil is an inconsequence, but the undeniability of the fact determines him, and he places the free decision of Man exactly in this reaction, according to which he embraces the faith or not.‡

* Dial. c. Tryph c. 88.—ὑπὲρ τοῦ γένους τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅ ἀπὸ τοῦ ̓Αδὰμ ὑπὸ θάνατον καὶ πλάνην τὴν τοῦ ὄψεως ἐπεπτώκει παρὰ τὴν ἰδίαν αἰτίαν ἑκάστον αὐτῶν πονηρευσαμένου. Βουλόμενος γὰρ τούτους ἐν ἐλευθερᾳ προαιρέσει καὶ αὐτεξουσίους γενομένους, τούς τε ἀγγελους καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ὁ Θεὸς πράττειν ὅσα ἕκαστον ἐνεδυνάμωσε δύνασθαι ποιεῖν, ἐποίησεν, εἰ μὲν τὰ εὐάριστα αὐτῳ αἱροῖντο, καὶ ἀφθάρτους καὶ ἀτιμωρήτους αὐτοὺς τηρῆσαι, ἐὰν δὲ πονηρεύσανται, ὡς αὐτῷ δοκεῖ, ἕκαστον κολάζειν.

+ Apol. i. § 61.—ἐπειδή τὴν πρώτην γένεσιν ἡμῶν ἀγνοοῦντες κατ' ἀνάγκην γεγενήμεθα ἐξ ὑγρᾶς σπορᾶς κατὰ μίξιν τὴν τῶν γονέων προς ἀλλήλους καὶ ἐν ἔθεσι φαύλοις καὶ πονηραῖς ανατροφαῖς γεγόναμεν, ὅπως μὴ ἀνάγκης τέκνα μηδέ ἀγνοίας μένωμεν, ἀλλὰ προαιρέσεως καὶ ἐπιστήμης, ἀφέσεως τε αμαρτιων ὑπὲρ ὧν προημάρτομεν τύχωμεν ἐν τῷ υδατι, κ.τ.λ.

Ibid c. Græc. § 12, 7, 15.

THEOPHILUS of ANTIOCH regards the paradisaical state as one of innocent childhood, from which Man might have raised himself immediately to Heaven. Moral and physical evil were the consequence of his estrangement from God. This extended itself over all nature; for previously there were no poisonous or ravenous beasts.*

The

The Alexandrian teachers gave the greatest prominence to Free Will as the conditio sine quâ non of righteous divine judgment, in combating with the Gnostics. CLEMENT said in reply to the Gnostic dilemma quoted above,† that Man was certainly not created perfect, but endowed with all the capabilities for acquiring all the virtues, and destined to attain, through his own endeavours, a state of happiness. Gnostics quoted many passages of Scripture, such as Job xxv. Ps. li. and liii. (on which others grounded the doctrine of original Sin) to prove their assertion that Evil was necessarily connected with Matter, and hence was involved in material propagation. Clement calls it a blasphemy against Nature, a contradiction of the blessing which God himself pronounced (as recorded in Genesis) on the propagation of mankind; he refers those passages only to the first tendency given to Man by Nature, which precedes the development of the higher consciousness; in those passages it was called Sin. He pronounces death to be necessary, as founded in the natural connexion of the present development of the human race.§ It might seem as if Clement did not acknowledge a disturbance in human nature and an original sin, but regarded the present constitution of Man as necessary to his essence. But this cannot be concluded with certainty, though he had a much more undeveloped consciousness of the depravity of human nature than Tertullian. That he admitted a change in the original nature is plain, for he *Ad. Autol. ii. 27.

+ Strom. vi. p. 662. - ᾧ λόγῳ λύεται τὸ πρὸς των αἱρετικῶν ἀπορούμενον ἡμῖν, πότερον τέλειος ἐπλάσθη ὁ ̓Αδαμ, ἢ ἀτελὴς ἀλλ ̓ εἰ μὲν ἀτελὴς πῶς τελείου Θεοῦ ἀτελὲς τὸ ἔργον, καὶ μάλιστα ἄνθρωπος ; εἰ δὲ τέλειος, πως παραβαίνει τὰς ἐντολὰς ; ἀκούσονται γὰρ καὶ παρ ̓ ἡμῶν, ὅτι τέλειος κατὰ τὴν κατασκευὴν οὐκ ἐγένετο, πρὸς δε το αναδέξασθαι την αρετὴν ἐπιτήδειος διαφέρει γαρ δήπου ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν γεγονέναι ἐπιτή δειον πρὸς τὴν κτῆσιν αὐτῇς· ἡμᾶς δὲ ἐξ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν βούλεται σώζεσθαι.

Strom. iii. p. 468.

§ Ibid. iii. p. 453.—φυσικῇ δέ ἀνάγκῃ θείας οἰκομίας γενέσει θάνατος ἕπεται καὶ συνοδῳ ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος ἡ τούτων διάλυσις ακολουθεῖ.