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HERMOGENES

HERMOGENES

to his then Montanist principles, that Hermo-genes was a painter, and that he had marriedmore than once. Neander and others have con-tended that we are not to infer from suchphrases as “ pingit illicite,” that Tertullian con-demned the painter’s art as altogether unlawful,provided it were not employed in the service ofidolatry, and have supposed that the offence ofHermogenes in his eyes was that he paintedmythological subjects. But there is no trace ofthis limitation in the treatise itself, which shewsall through a dislike of the pictorial art, and itappears to us that Tertullian considered thatthe representation of the humau form was for-bidden by the second commandment. But it isprobably not of much practical difference howwe decide the question, for art not having beenat the time enlisted in the service of the Chris-tian church, a painter’s customers would bealmost exclusively heathen, and their tasteswould regulate his choice of subjects. As forthe charge of frequent marriages, if Hermogenes,who must in 207 have been advanced in life,was then married to a third wife, it would beoccasion enough, to a writer so fond of rhetoricalexaggeration as Tertullian, to describe him asone who had formed a practice of marrying(nubit assidufc), or who had “married morewomen than he had painted.” Tertullian’s lan-guage would lead us to think that Hermogeneshad not only remarried, but had endeavoured toprove from Scripture that a second marriagewas not unlawful.

To speak now more particularly of the doc-trines of Hermogenes, the language of Hip-polytus might lead us to suppose that hedenied the physical possibility of creation fromnothing ; but in the representation of Tertullianno stress is laid on the philosophic maxim,.“Nihil ex nihilo,” and the eternal existence ofmatter seems to be assumed only in order toaccount for the origin of evil. The argument ofHermogenes was, either God made the world outof His own substance, or out of nothing, or outof previously existing matter. The first oremanation hypothesis is to be rejected, since Hewho is indivisible and immutable could notseparate Himself into parts, or make Himselfother than He had ever been. The secondsupposition is disproved by the existence of evil,for if God had made all things out of nothingunrestrained by any condition, His work wouldhave been all good and perfect like Himself. Itremains, therefore, that God must have formedthe world out of previously existent matter,through the fault of which all the evil of whichwe have experience is to be accounted for.Further, God must have been always God andLord, therefore there must always have existedsomething of which he was God and Lord. Tothis last argument Tertullian replies that Godwas always God but not always Lord, andappeals to the commencement of Genesis, wherethe title God is given to the Creator from thefirst, but the title Lord not till after thecreation of man. Concerning Tertullian’s asser-tion on this occasion that God was not alwaysFather, see Bull, Vef. Fid. Kic. iii. 10. Fromthe assertion of Hermogenes that God wasalways Lord of matter, Neander infers that hemust have held that God was always exercisingHis lordship; consequently that he denied any

creation in time, but held that God had beenfrom eternity operating in a formative manneron matter. Tertullian does not appear tohave drawn this consequence, and (c. 44)assumes it as a point undisputed between himand his opponent that there had been somedefinite epoch of creation. But the account ofHippolytus shews Neander to have been in theright. With regard to the general argument,Tertullian shews that the hypothesis of theeternity of matter relieves none of the difficultiesof reconciling the existence of evil with theattributes of God. If God exercised lordshipover matter, why did He not clear it of evilbefore He employed it in the work of creation ?If He could not do that, why did He employ inHis work that which He knew to be evil ? Itwould really, he says, be more honourable toGod to make Him the free and voluntary authorof evil than to make him the slave of matter,compelled to use it in His work, though knowingit to be evil. He contends that the hypothesis ofHermogenes amounts to Ditheism, for that thoughhe does not give to matter the name of thatGod, he ascribes to it God’s essential attributeof eternity. He asks on this hypothesis whatjust claim of lordship could God have overmatter which was as eternal as Himself; nay,which might claim to be the superior of thetwo ; for matter could do without God, but God,it would seem, could not carry out His workwithout coming to matter for assistance. Inthe discussion every word in the Mosaic accountof creation receives minute examination, andthere is a good deal of strained verbal inter-pretation on both sides. But it is plain thatthe authority and, to all appearance, the canonof Scripture were subjects on which both thedisputants were agreed. Nay, Tertullian countsthe Scripture so exclusive a ground of authoritythat its mere silence is decisive in his favour,and since it makes no mention of pre-existentmatter, he holds that those who assert its exist-ence incur the woe denounced against thosewho add to that which is written.

Though the word “ materialist ” is first heardof in this controversy, the views of Hermogeneswere very unlike those which in modern timesgo by that name, and it may be doubted whetherour word matter exactly corresponds to thehyle of Hermogenes. The latter word seems tohave included the ideas of shapelessness anddisorderly motion, so that though in our modernlanguage all the sensible world may be describedas material, it was not so in the language ofthis discussion. That which became k6<t/iosceased to be hyle, and, in fact, Tertullian doesnot admit the existence of matter in the senseof Hermogenes. Hermogenes held matter to beinfinite, and refuses to apply to it any predicate.It is without form, and the difficulty of con-ceiving any quiescent object without attributingto it some outline, is got over by describingmatter as in a perpetual state of turbulent rest-less motion, like water boiling in a pot. It isnot to be called good, else it would not haveneeded the Deity to fashion it, nor bad, else itwould not have been capable of being reduced toorder. It is not to be called corporeal, becausemotion, which is one of its essential attributes,is incorporeal, nor incorporeal because out of itbodies are made. Hermogenes repudiated the