ow pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity! You do not well know how to sing this, except when you are
holding communion with many. But those conventions, after they have been
first employed in prayers and fasting, know how to mourn with the
mourners, and thus at length to rejoice with those that rejoice."
[612:2]

Greek was now spoken throughout a great part of the Roman Empire, and at
this period it continued to be used even by the chief pastors of the
Italian capital, so that when Tertullian here mentions _the Greek
nations_, [613:1] he employs an expression of somewhat doubtful
significance. But it is probable that he refers chiefly to the mother
country and its colonies on the other side of the Aegean Sea, or to
Greece and Asia Minor. It is apparent from the apostolic epistles, most
of which are addressed to Churches within their borders, that the
gospel, at an early date, spread extensively and rapidly in these
countries; and it is highly probable that, at least in some districts,
its adherents would have now made a considerable figure in any
denominational census. They were thus, perhaps, emboldened to erect
their ecclesiastical courts upon a broader basis, as well as to hold
their meetings with greater publicity, than heretofore; and, as these
assemblies were attended, not only by the pastors and the elders, but
also by many deacons and ordinary church members who were anxious to
witness their deliberations, Tertullian alleges, in his own rhetorical
style of expression, that in them "the representation of the whole
Christian name was celebrated with great solemnity." [613:2] These Greek
councils commenced with a period of _fasting_--a circumstance by which
they seem to have been distinguished from similar meetings convened
elsewhere, and as they thus supplied him with an argument in favour of
one of the grand peculiarities of the discipline of Montanism, it is
obviously for this reason they are here so prominently noticed. If, as
he contends, these fasts were kept so religiously by the representatives
of the Church when in attendance on some of their most solemn
assemblies, there might, after all, be a warrant for the observance of
that more rigid abstinence which he now inculcated. But though this
passage of Tertullian is the only authority adduced to prove that
councils originated in Greece, it is plain that it gives no sanction
whatever to any such theory. Neither does it afford the sli