That which has been said above in reference to the testimony found in book v., chap. 23, of Eusebius, will largely apply, in principle, to the citation found in chap. 24, of the same book. In the latter, as in the former, case, the historian is not giving the exact utterance of Irenæus, but simply declares, in substance, his decision in regard to the proper time for the celebration of the passover festival.
Before passing from Irenæus to the consideration of another case of the fathers, it would be proper to commend the candor of our opponent, as manifested in his hearty condemnation of the looseness of Dwight and others in their statements of historic facts. In making the concession which the gentleman has, he will doubtless bring upon himself the condemnation of those who exalt success above truth. He has taken from such one of their most potent weapons. The language of Irenæus, which is here admitted to be of spurious origin, has figured largely in the discussion of this question, in the past. It was pointed and decisive, and seemed to furnish just the material necessary to the satisfactory making out of a case, otherwise sadly deficient in the proofs which it needed. It will, therefore, be yielded up with reluctance. Nevertheless, we hope that the acknowledgment, made by our opponent in this article, will lead clergymen, for the future, to desist from the use of it, until they are able to refute what the writer in the Statesman here asserts.
In the meanwhile, the reader must not allow himself to suppose that the gentleman, by saying what he has, has really brought Sabbatarians under obligation to hint for new light, since what he here asserts is but a fact with which they have been familiar for years, and which they have iterated and re-iterated until they have almost despaired of bringing their opponents to an acknowledgment of the real state of things. Occasionally, others outside of their ranks have, as does the gentleman, borne testimony to the accuracy of their statements. If the reader would have an illustration of this, taken from the writings of an anti-Sabbatarian author, he will find it in the works of Domville, in which, substantially, the same conclusions are reached, Mr. Domville not only tracing the mistake to Dr. Dwight, but also allowing that the language cited was probably taken from the interpolated epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians.
Up to this point, we have carefully examined, one by one, the historic quotations from ancient writers, which have been presented for our consideration; henceforth, we shall pursue a different course. As we have now reached, in the person of Tertullian, the close of the second, and the opening of the third, century of the Christian era, we find ourselves in a period when it is so generally acknowledged that the work of apostasy was so manifest that the utterances of the men of those times—even though they were pointed and explicit in regard to the sanctity of the first day of the week, as looked upon by themselves—could furnish no reliable standard of Christian faith in our day.
The gentleman himself is compelled to admit that his own witness, Tertullian, became, in the second year of the third century, an ardent advocate of the errors, follies, and heresies, of Montanus. Not only so, but the writings of that father are proverbial, among scholars, for the fanciful conceits and the false notions which are so conspicuous upon their pages. Tertullian was a fiery zealot and a bitter partisan, manifestly credulous beyond bounds, and more earnest for his sect than anxious for the reliability of the sources of his information. Zell, in his popular Encyclopedia, speaks of him as follows:—
“After he was past middle age, he embraced the doctrines of Montanus, to which his ardent, sensuous imagination, and ascetic tendencies would incline him. He is said to have been determined to that course by the ill-treatment he received from the Roman clergy. Whether he remained a Montanist till his death, cannot be decided.... They [his works] are characterized by vast learning, profound and comprehensive thought, fiery imagination, and passionate partisanship, leading into exaggeration and sophistry. His style is frequently obscure.”
Montanus was a false prophet of the second century, who believed himself to have received, from the Holy Ghost, revelations which were withheld from the apostles; he denied the doctrine of the trinity, the propriety of second marriage, and the forgiveness of certain sins. The disciple of such a man is surely a strange witness to be found in the employ of orthodoxy. Should his appearance, however, be excused, as it is above, by the statement that he was introduced, not because of the reliability of his own opinion, but simply to testify of the usage of his own times; it may be replied, first, that an ardent partisan, a person of strong imagination, and a notorious heretic, is hardly qualified to speak reliably, even in a matter of this nature, since, from the very constitution of his mind, he would almost of necessity allow what he said to be warped by prejudice, or biased by conceptions of interest; secondly, that in the quotation presented from his pen, it is not a little remarkable that, instead of asserting a general usage of Sunday-keeping, he is manifestly finding fault with a large class of his fellow-Christians for not regarding the day in the same light, and observing it with the same rigor, that he did; thirdly, that it is by no means impossible that the very men, whom in his fiery zeal he thus upbraids, were, after all, sounder than himself in the faith, and would, could they be fairly heard upon this subject, vindicate their supposed desecration of the first day, from the same grounds as do the Sabbatarians now, i. e., because they did not look upon it as holy time.
If the above responses are not satisfactory, and if it be insisted that the testimony of the witness shall, after all, he received, then we propose that he be called to the stand once more, and be allowed to fill up the measure of what he has to say upon this subject. We have seen that, according to his opinion, many of his fellow-disciples were lax in their Sunday-keeping habits, and that to one who believed that no labor should be performed upon it, whatever, they treated it very much as men would treat a mere festival occasion. But where did Tertullian and his sympathizers obtain their notions of the manner in which Sunday should be kept? Was it from the Scriptures? We shall see; here is the witness; let him speak for himself:
“As often as the anniversary comes around, we make offerings for the dead as birth-day honors. We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day, to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege, also, from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign (of the cross). If for these and other such rules, you insist upon leaving positive Scripture injunctions, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom, as their strengthener, and faith, as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has.”—De Corona, sects. 3 and 4.
The reader will at once observe that tradition is the foundation which is here laid for that kind of Sunday observance for which Tertullian was so great a stickler. Not only so, but the fact is brought to light, also, that the men whom he represented were in the habit of offering prayers for the dead; of signing themselves with the sign of the cross; and going through other ceremonies, which to us, at the present time, are not only ridiculous in the extreme, but bear upon their face the impress of the man of sin so unmistakably that none will be deceived.