b. =Controversial Treatises against the Heretics.= In the tract _De præscriptione hæreticorum_ he proves that the Catholic church, because in prescriptive possession of the field since the time of the Apostles, is entitled on the legal ground of _præscriptio_ to be relieved of the task of advancing proof of her claims, while the heretics on the other hand are bound to establish their pretensions. A heresiological appendix to this book has been erroneously attributed to Tertullian (see § 31, 3). He combats the Gnostics in the writings: _De baptismo_ (against the Gnostic rejection of water baptism); _Adv. Hermogenem_; _Adv. Valentinianos_; _De anima_ (an Anti-Gnostic treatise, which maintains the creatureliness, yea, the materiality of the soul, traces its origin to sexual intercourse, and its mortality to Adam’s sin); _De carne Christi_ (Anti-Docetic): _De resurrectione carnis Scorpiace_ (an antidote to the scorpion-poison of the Gnostic heresy); finally, the five books, _Adv. Marcionem_. The book _Adv. Praxeam_ is directed against the Patripassians (§ 33, 4). In this work his realism reaches its climax at c. 7 in the statement: “_Quis enim negabit, Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie_,”--where, however, he is careful to state that with him _corpus_ and _substantia_ are identical ideas, so that he can also say in c. 10 _de carne Christi_: “_Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporate nisi quod non est._”
c. =Practical and Ascetical Treatises.= His pre-Montanist writings are characterized by moderation as compared with the fanatical rigorism and scornful bitterness against the Psychical, _i.e._ the Catholics, displayed in those of the Montanist period. To the former class belong: _De oratione_ (exposition of the Lord’s Prayer); _De baptismo_ (necessity of water baptism, disapproval of infant baptism); _De pœnitentia_; _De idolatria_; _Ad Martyres_; _De spectaculis_; _De cultu feminarum_ (against feminine love of dress); _De patientia_; _Ad uxorem_ (a sort of testament for his wife, with the exhortation after his death not to marry again, but at least in no case to marry an unbeliever). To the Montanist period belong: _De virginibus velandis_; _De corona militis_ (defending a Christian soldier who suffered imprisonment for refusing to wear the soldier’s crown); _De fuga in persecutione_ (which with fanatical decision is declared to be a renunciation of Christianity); _De exhortatione castitatis_ and _De monogamia_ (both against second marriages which are treated as fornication and adultery); _De pudicitia_ (recalling his milder opinion given in his earlier treatise _De pœnitentia_, that every mortal sin is left to the judgment of God, with the possibility of reconciliation); _De jejuniis adv. Psychicos_ (vindication of the fasting discipline of the Montanists, § 40, 4); _De pallio_ (an essay full of wit and humour in answer to the taunts of his fellow-citizens about his throwing off the toga and donning the philosopher’s mantle, _i.e._ the Pallium, which even the Ascetics might wear).[78]