into the reader's hands, which he may follow up or not as he sees fit.

It is natural to begin with Cyprian, of whom Jerome tells us that he was accustomed to call Tertullian his 'master1.' His views with regard to Baptism may conveniently be studied in the work of Dr Mason to which reference has already been made, pp. 64–76.

For Jerome himself see, in addition to pp. 164—177 of the work just mentioned, the following references: Ep. lxix ad Ocean. 6 and 7, Comm. in Ezech. xxviii. Something may also be gleaned from O. Zöckler, Hieronymus, sein Leben und Wirken, Gotha, 1865, esp. p. 440, and Collombet, Histoire de S. Jérôme, Paris, 18442. Isidore of Seville embodied large quantities of matter from Tertullian in his Origines. I have noted the passages from the de Baptismo as they occur, but the following list may perhaps be useful:

de Baptismo, iv = Origines I vi 19. 49

It is interesting to observe that in the age succeeding Isidore, the work of Tertullian was read and utilised by a group of scholars. Leidrad, Bishop of Lyons, Magnus, Bishop of Sens, Rabanus, Bishop of Mainz,

See Cyprian Epp. lxiii 8; lxiv 3; lxix 11, 13, 14, lxxiii 6, 9, 21; lxxiv 5, ad Donat. iii 4.

I have also read

1 de Vir. Inl. liii. 15; lxx 2, 3; lxxii 1; 2 From the point of view of this inquiry a disappointing work. 3 See esp. Klussmann, Excerpta Tertull. ex Isidoro. through Don José Flaquer y Fraisse, San Isidoro, su Influencia en la Filosofía de la edad media, Madrid, 1858. It is written in an inflated style, and, among the list of authors given on p. 15 to whom Isidore was indebted, Tertullian is not even named.

all use expressions which are evidently drawn from this treatise. See Mason, pp. 215 foll.

After these Western writers, it remains to mention one whose works betray a very intimate acquaintance with the de Baptismo of Tertullian in a quarter where it was hardly to be expected-Didymus, the blind scholar of Alexandria. As there is little reason to suppose that Didymus was a Latin scholar, we must conclude that Tertullian's treatise was still accessible in its Greek form in the fourth century. See Mason, pp. 290-297, and Joh. Leipold Didymus der Blinde von Alexandrien in Texte und Untersuchungen 1903, xiv 3, which, though interesting in itself, is disappointing from this point of view.

See also Harnack in Sitzungsber. d. Königl. preuss. Ak. d. Wissensch. Berlin, 1895, pp. 561-579, and d'Alès Theol. de Tert. Appendice Tertullien devant les Pères,' p. 499, where full references, and, in some cases, quotations are given.

$5. Latinity and Style.

A full account of Tertullian's Latinity and style would carry us beyond the appropriate limit of space. A list of authorities on the subject will be found in the Bibliography at the end of this Introduction. I propose to deal here with three points only, and with those but briefly (1) 'African' Latin: (2) features peculiar to Tertullian (3) points of interest in the de Baptismo.

(1) The problem of those who are engaged in the study of African' Latin is mainly this: elements which may fairly be called 'African' have to be separated off from those which were merely late, or not peculiar to Africa; and due allowance has to be made for the native

idiom-Berber, or whatever it may have been-and its influence on the vocabulary, syntax, and idioms of those to whom it was their native tongue, and who only learnt to write or speak Latin later.

The first of these objects of study demands good critical editions of the surviving literature, well indexed; and these are only gradually being produced. When a complete collection has been made, we may hope to say with greater certainty that particular words or idioms are African,' 'Gallic,' 'Spanish,' 'Italian,' or the like. At present such decisions are tentative and provisional. Mr Watson, in the article on Cyprian referred to below, thinks that the information to be derived from a study of the formal treatises on Rhetoric will prove valuable in this connexion.

The second of these questions requires acquaintance with a field of study at present little cultivated. The evidence available for a study of the native idiom of N. Africa-whatever it may have been-is scanty, and we have to fall back upon a vague category of 'Semitisms,' about which we may hope in time to know something more definite. I have noted a few below, but I feel no certainty that they came to Tertullian from his native tongue, and not rather from the Hebrew Scriptures, either directly, or through Greek or Latin Versions.

(2) The difficulty of estimating all this is increased in the case of Tertullian by his strongly marked individuality. He was a trained lawyer who had received a thorough rhetorical education. The number of authors whom he quotes, and the variety of subjects with which he deals, prove him to have been a widely-read man, of multifarious learning,

and good memory. In the course of his life he was a Stoic materialist, an orthodox Churchman, and a Montanist, and none of the three elements is without its effect upon his writings. He was a master of irony and invective, and possessed a certain biting wit, which is effective enough in its way. Suavity and gentleness are not conspicuous among his qualities, and yet an appeal like that with which this treatise ends goes far to soften the impression which his hard hitting and caustic irony would otherwise leave on the reader's mind. His style may attract or repel, but at least it is the style of a man of powerful and original mind, who was deeply in earnest, and meant what he said. Like Luther, whom he resembles in other respects than those of style, he was often earnest at the expense of proportion, and his obscurity is, like Luther's, that of a man who tries to make language bear more than it will carry, and not that of a man who, having little to say, lacks skill to say it clearly.

This is a question of more than merely literary interest. No one writer, except perhaps Augustine, has so powerfully influenced for good or evil the vocabulary and thought of the Christian Church in the West. And when so careful a writer as Dr Westcott can speak of 'Augustine's lamentable Africanism',' it is plain that the natural bias, so to speak, of a writer like Tertullian, is a factor of importance. For example; much of the usual conception of the doctrine of the Atonement, and much of the language in which it is commonly expressed, come in the first instance from him. He viewed the relation between God and man in the light of a legal transaction, and expressed it in terms of Roman law; and from the mingled clearness, hardness, and narrowness of such a 1 Religious thought in the West, p. 246.

conception Christians have found it hard to set themselves free. Not only, therefore, must such words as sacramentum, satisfacere, and the like, be first divested of associations which have gathered round them since, but the student must try to estimate how far, in general, the clear-cut and precise phraseology of such a man as Tertullian is capable of expressing the many-sidedness of Christian truth. 'Life,' in Shelley's splendid image, 'like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity'; and, in like manner, we may feel that of the many colours through which we of the Western Church have learnt to look at Divine Truth, that of the first great Father of the African Church is not the least vivid.

(3) Passing now to the de Baptismo, we may note the following:

Subs. and Gen. for adj. and subst. [Due to lack of adjectives in Semitic languages. Esp. common in Minucius Felix.]

Animal simplicitatis et innocentiae. viii.

2. Graecisms.

1. Capit used like évdéxeraι, with infin.

2.

Capit numerari. XV.

Habere with abstract noun like xew in the sense of to