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Home , Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas

THE LEGAL CONCEPT OF RATIO IN

BY

GERALD BRAY

The that Tertullian used the word ratio, especially in his philosophical treatises, as the equivalent of the Stoic or Divine , has received general acceptance in scholarly circles in recent years. It is now assumed, virtually without argument, that since derived its vocabulary from the Greek, and since ratio was in common use in Latin as the of X6yog, Tertullian have followed established usage in this respect. Consequently, his use of ratio may be construed as referring to the Divine Mind in the Stoic sense, albeit with suitably Christianized overtones. In particular, the influence of Neo- has disposed many scholars to accept this scheme, since it provides a ready parallel with and makes Tertullian look more like a precursor of than the maverick philosopher- theologian he might otherwise so easily appear. The following comment by F. De Pauw is typical: "Pour designer cette realite (sc. the source from which unwritten traditions are derived and by which they are justified), Tertullien emploie un terme vague et multivalent, susceptible par consequent d'equivoque, a savoir le terme ratio... Parmi les sens qu'il regoit le plus fondamental est celui de raison-sagesse; un autre, derive mais qui interesse specialement en la matiere, est celui de motif-fondement. Il arrive souvent que la signification premiere influence les autres acceptions, et, en particulier, que les deux sens sur-indiques se compenetrent mutuellement. Nous obtenons alors le sens de fondement ou argument de raison, de ou convenance rationnelle, de fondement qui confere a l'observance qu'elle justifie un caractere eminemment rationnel."1

De Pauw begins his study with some caution, aware that Tertullian 2 used ratio in many different ways which are not always readily separable.2

1 F. De Pauw, La justificationdes traditions non-ecrites chez Tertullien, Ephemerides TheologicaeLovanienses 19 (1942) 11. 2 Cf. A. Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chritiens, 696, where many instances of ratio used in Tertullian are cited as having more than one possible . The confusion is particularly acute in Adv. Prax. 5-6 where Blaise maintains 95

But whatever reservations De Pauw may have as to the centrality of the Stoic concept of Divine Reason in Tertullian's thought, he does not maintain them for long. He assumes, quite unhistorically, that the basic meaning of ratio is "Reason" and the rest of his study is based on that assumption. Indeed he states quite clearly that Tertullian used the word ratio to refer to the divine Even more direct than De Pauw is J. Fontaine. Writing in a commentary on De corona 4,5 Fontaine says: "La raison 6tant le fondement de la loi comme de toute institution humaine, toute observance raisonnable, meme non-ecrite, possede en raison la meme autorite qu'une loi. Tertullien utilise ici 1'effort des juristes de I'Empire pour elaborer une philosophie du droit qui en permette la systematisation rationnelle. Effort commence des la Republique dans le sillage des Grecs, et particulierement du rationalisme stoicien ;cf. en particulier, Cic6roii, De legibus, livre I. Une telle filière intellectuelle va permettre a Tertullien de remonter par la raison au fondement naturel, et par IA, divin, de toute observance raisonnee"4

Fontaine may be thought, in contrast to De Pauw, to have grossly overstated his case - few would accept, for instance, the notion that Tertullian was essentially a rationalist - but he raises some interesting points nevertheless. Conscious as he is of Tertullian's debt to the Roman , Fontaine then asserts that the latter were engaged in the elabora- tion of a systematised philosophy of , the origins of which go back to . According to him, therefore, Tertullian simply followed a - sophical tradition already current among the jurists of his . In the light of these statements we believe that some clarification is needed as to the meaning of the word ratio in Tertullian. We feel that although Fontaine is probably correct in positing a juristic origin for this particular term, he is mistaken in his assumption that the jurists were concerned to work out a legal philosophy. Likewise we are convinced that De Pauw has erred in stating that Tertullian assimilated ratio to in imitation of the Stoics. It is of course true that Tertullian spoke of God as rationalis but, as we shall see, he did not understand this in the same way as the Stoics.5 We feel that a thorough study of the historical develop- ment of the word ratio, together with a close examination of the relevant passages in Tertullian bear out our contention. Let us then consider that ratio is both the k6709 ?v8Ld9eTO<;of Hippolytus ("le Verbe latent au sein de Dieu de toute eternite") and also the of the sermo-7,,oyo5,a which he notes without further explanation. 3 Ibid., 31. 4 De corona, ed. J. Fontaine, Collection Erasme, 18 (Paris 1966) 74. 5 In fact, he sharply disagreed with them. Cf. e.g. De anima 5,2 et passim.