osition is the theme of many arguments in
the Montanist writings. But the intention of finding a basis for the
laws of the Paraclete, by showing that they existed in some fashion even
in earlier times, involved Tertullian in many contradictions. It is
evident from his writings that Montanists and Catholics in Carthage
alternately reproached each other with judaising tendencies and an
apostasy to heathen discipline and worship. Tertullian, in his
enthusiasm for Christianity, came into conflict with all the authorities
which he himself had set up. In the questions as to the relationship of
the Old Testament to the New, of Christ to the Apostles, of the Apostles
to each other, of the Paraclete to Christ and the Apostles, he was also
of necessity involved in the greatest contradictions. This was the case
not only because he went more into details than Irenaeus; but, above all,
because the chains into which he had thrown his Christianity were felt
to be such by himself. This theologian had no greater opponent than
himself, and nowhere perhaps is this so plain as in his attitude to the
two Testaments. Here, in every question of detail, Tertullian really
repudiated the proposition from which he starts. In reference to one
point, namely, that the Law and the prophets extend down to John, see
Noldechen's article in the Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie,
1885, p. 333 f. On the one hand, in order to support certain trains of
thought, Tertullian required the proposition that prophecy extended down
to John (see also the Muratorian Fragment: "completus numerus
prophetarum", Sibyll. I. 386: [Greek: kai tote de pausis estai metepeita
prophetou], scil. after Christ), and on the other, as a Montanist, he
was obliged to assert the continued existence of prophecy. In like
manner he sometimes ascribed to the Apostles a unique possession of the
Holy Spirit, and at other times, adhering to a primitive Christian idea,
he denied this thesis. Cf. also Baith "Tertullian's Auffassung des
Apostels Paulus und seines Verhaltnisses zu den Uraposteln" (Jahrbuch
fur protestantische Theologie, Vol. III. p. 706 ff.). Tertullian strove
to reconcile the principles of early Christianity with the authority of
ecclesiastical tradition and philosophical apologetics. Separated from
the general body of the Church, and making ever increasing sacrifices
for the early-Christian enthusiasm, as he understood it, he wasted
himself in the solution of this insolu