Among the earlier writings of Augustine, the first work treats the nature of the human soul, its dignity and grandeur. The second discusses the fundamental question of how man acquires knowledge. Each is in the form of a dialogue.
Three treatises on marriage, though not generally classified among TheseTertullian's major compositions, are works of considerable interest and importance.
These treatises date from the last third of the second century. Athenagoras of Athens belonged to that select group of Christian laymen known as the Apologists, who supported the successors of the apostles in the ministry of the faith by defending that faith and pleading for a just hearing before the pagan majority and pagan overlords.
Hermogenes was still living when Carthage's native son took up his pen to oppose him, but that did not make Tertullian's polemic more considerate, or his satire less passionate and biting. Hermogenes taught a form of materialism. Tertullian brilliantly convicts him of contradiction.
Written from Roman North Africa, primarily between 250 and 258, and meant to be circulated and copied, the four volumes of letters provide an entr_e into Cyprian's social and mental world and a glimpse of some of the spiritual horizons of an articulate mid-third-century provincial Roman. The first volume contains letters from the year 250.
