Origin of the Baptists
S. H. Ford
CHAPTER XIV
Century
Two - Tertullianists
Tertullianus was born in Carthage in the latter
part of the second century. His writings and his memory were fresh; and the
churches which believed and practiced as he did were numerous at the time of
the rise of Novatian and Novatus. They were scattered
throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Of the learning, the ability, and the
piety of Tertullian, even the old Catholic historians speak in the highest
praise. his letters to the Emperor of Rome, and his defenses of Christianity,
are monuments of his learning and genius.
Like the Novatians and Donatists, Tertullian beheld the innovations and
corruptions which were fast changing the spiritual character of the churches
into semi-Jewish organizations. He pleaded and protested against the growing
tendency, and, at length, with a minority, withdrew from the Church at
Carthage. This minority church continued there, as similar churches did in
other places, till the rise of Novatus, and, finally,
of the Donatists. They were frequently called Tertullianists, but more generally Montanists.
To learn their principles we must go
to the writings of this extraordinary man. Neander says:
"In the last years of the second
century Tertullian appears as a zealous opponent of infant baptism, a proof
that the practice had not as yet come to be regarded as an apostolic
institution, for, otherwise, he would hardly have ventured to express himself
so strongly against it. We perceive, from his arguments against infant baptism,
that he introduces Matt..xix: 14. Tertullian advises
that, in consideration of the great importance of the transaction, and of the
preparation necessary to be made for it by the recipients, baptism should
rather be delayed than prematurely applied. ‘Let them come,’ says Tertullian,
‘while they are growing up; let them come while they are learning, while they
are being taught that to which they are coming; let them become Christians
while they are susceptible.’ " (Neander, vol. i,
p. 312).
The great Neander, commenting on these
words, remarks:
"Tertullian evidently means that
children should be led to Christ by instructing them in Christianity, but that
they should not receive baptism until, after being sufficiently instructed,
they are led by personal conviction, and by their own free choice, to seek for
it with sincerity of heart." (Ut supra).
With such principles, where
would Tertullian be classed now?
As the corruptions which were steadily undermining the standing of the churches
increased, Tertullian denied to them the claim of being true Christian
Churches. He plead for an equality among presbyters or elders against the
growing arrogance of the metropolitan pastors. He plead for the purity of the
church, and the rejection of all unregenerate persons. He joined the now
numerous sect of the Montanists, and finally
proclaimed with them that the one immersion "can relate only to us who
know and call on the true God and Christ. The heretics have not this God and
Christ. These words, therefore, can not be applied to
them, and as they do not rightly administer the ordinance, their baptism is the
same as none."
Such were the principles
of the Tertullianists in the second century. Were
they not Baptists?
Tertullian is called a Montanist. Now
these Montanists were principally found in Phrygia.
Of these people we give the bitter statements of an enemy who lent all his
talent and power to corrupt and carnalize Christianity. Eusebius says:
"There is a certain village in Mysia, (a region of Phrygia,) called Ardaban,
where first of all one Mantanus, a late convert in
the time of Gratus, proconsul of Asia, inflated with
an immoderate desire of chieftainship, primacy, and being deranged and bereft
of his wits, became furious, and published strange doctrines, and contrary to
the customs of ancient tradition. There were few of the Phrygians seduced,
notwithstanding that bold and blind spirit instructed them to revile every
church under heaven. The faithful in Asia excommunicated, rejected, and
banished this heretical opinion out of their churches." (Eusebius, 1. s.,
chap. xiv).
The first thing that strikes the
reader of this paragraph is that the churches, even in the times of Eusebius,
were separate and independent, that they all immersed is unquestioned. The
introduction of Jewish and Pagan ceremonies, at the time of the rise of Montanus, is recorded by every historian; and Neander, with
almost every other reliable antiquarian, acknowledges that a half century after
this period, "infant baptism was not introduced as an apostolic
practice." The conclusion which forces itself on the impartial mind is,
that all the churches, at the time to which Eusebius referred in the foregoing
extract, were nominally made up of baptized believers, which we now call
Baptist Churches. But they were gradually losing their spiritual elements and
gospel principles, and departing from the faith once delivered to the saints.
The abuse afterward heaped on Montanus and Tertullian
by this court bishop Eusebius, who was affected with Arianism, reveals the
spirit which actuated the Judaizing party.
Neander says:
"Montanus
belonged to the class of men in whom the first glow of conversion begat and
unconquerable opposition to the world. We should remember that he lived in a
country where the expectation that the church should finally enjoy on the
theater of its sufferings, the earth itself, previous to the end of all things,
a millennium of victorious dominion." (Neander, vol. i,
p. 518).
That there may have been some
extravagances in regard to spiritual operations and influences, maintained by
the Tertullianists, is altogether possible. That Montanus and his associates have been shamefully misrepresented
is certain.
"While it was the custom to
derive the power conceded to the bishops from the power to bind and loose,
conferred on PETER, the Montanist Tertullian, on the other hand, maintained
that these words referred only to Peter personally, and to those who, like
Peter, were filled with the Holy Ghost indirectly. Montanism
set up a church of the Spirit, consisting of the spiritual homines,(spiritual men,) in opposition to the
prevailing outward view of that institution."
Tertullian says:
"'The church, in the proper and
pre-eminent sense, is the Holy Spirit in which the three are one, and next the
whole community of those who are agreed in this faith.' The Catholic point of
view expresses itself in this, viz.: that the idea of the church is put first,
and by this very position of it is made outward. Next the agency of the Holy
Spirit first, and considers the church as that which is only derived."
(Neander, vol. i, p. 518).
There was the ground on which took
place the first grand separation from a carnalized community. As the fading
light left the once irradiated churches wrapped in the twilight, which soon
afterward settled into deep night, the Montanists
parted from them, and proclaimed the true gospel principles, conversion, faith,
spirituality first, baptism and church-membership NEXT. The dissenting
minorities were excluded and traduced. But, unflinching and uncompromising,
they would not acknowledge those societies to be churches, and therefore re-immersed
all who came from them.
These men were Baptists, if immersing
none but professedly converted men, and organizing independent churches on the
principles of the gospel, constitute men Baptists. We found them in Phrygia and
Armenia, in Italy and Africa, increasing steadily till crushed out by imperial
cruelty. We traced their footsteps among the Pyrenees and Alps, where they lay
concealed, and suddenly started into life at the Reformation of Luther.
Thus through the darkness have we
tracked them up to the dissent of the Montanists in
Asia, in the year 190, which was within a century of the apostles. Here, in the
rural districts of Asia, which had witnessed the toil and sufferings of the
apostles, and where their teachings were remembered by the living, who had
actually listened to their preaching, and where their writings were recorded as
the inspired voice of Go, here we find Baptists protesting against the very
first departures from the simplicity and spirituality of apostolic churches. HERE WE FIND WHERE THE
BAPTISTS CAME FROM.