OF QUINTUS SEPT. FLOR. TERTULLIANUS. VOL. III. WITH THE EXTANT WORKS OF VICTORINUS AND COMMODIANUS. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXX. THE WRITINGS OF TERTULLIANUS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME ARE : J A FRAGMENT ON THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. BY THE MARTYR INTRODUCTION. 罪 O arrange chronologically the works (especially if numerous) of an author whose own date is known with tolerable precision, is not always or necessarily easy: witness the controversies as to the succession of St. Paul's epistles. To do this in the case of an author whose own date is itself a matter of controversy may therefore be reasonably expected to be still less so; and such is the predicament of him who attempts to perform this task for Tertullian. I propose to give a specimen or two of the difficulties with which the task is beset; and then to lay before the reader briefly a summary of the results at which eminent scholars, who have devoted much time and thought to the subject, have arrived. Such a course, I think, will at once afford him means of judging of the absolute impossibility of arriving at definite certainty in the matter; and induce him to excuse me if I prefer furnishing him with materials from which to deduce his own conclusions, rather than venturing on an ex cathedra decision on so doubtful a subject. 1. The book, as Dr. Holmes has reminded us, of the date of which we seem to have the surest evidence, is adv. Marc. i. This book was in course of writing, as its author himself (c. 15) tells us, "in the fifteenth year of the empire of Severus." Now this date would be clear if there were no doubt as to which year of our era corresponds to Tertullian's fifteenth of Severus. Pamelius, however, says Dr. Holmes, makes it A.D. 208; Clinton, (whose authority is more recent and better,) 207. 2. Another book which promises to give some clue to its 1 Introductory Notice to the Anti-Marcion, pp. xiii. xiv. |