SOURCE: "Tertullian's Scorpiace," The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XX, 1969, pp. 105-32.

In the following essay, Barnes argues that Tertullian's Scorpiace was composed in 203-04, rather than during his post-207 Montanist period, as many scholars have contended.

Modern scholarship has been unjustly selective in its treatment of Tertullian. Some of his works, most notably the Apologeticum and De Pallio, receive lavish attention and repeated investigation; and even a lost treatise is capable of provoking lengthy speculations.² Yet other works, ultimately of no less importance, suffer almost total neglect. The consequences have been serious, for the general understanding of Tertullian no less than for the interpretation of the neglected treatises. Although the two most recent studies devoted specifically to its elucidation were published in 1927 and 1886,³ the Scorpiace is habitually misdated by nearly a decade—and that under the influence of those two fundamental errors which, above all else, have...