Our author had confined himself in the third book for the most part to the testimony of evangelists and apostles; he informs us, that his object in the fourth is to show that our Lord himself testified of only one God, his Father, the maker and governor of the world, the author of the old and new covenants, and the judge of all mankind(77). He does not carry on his argument with much regularity, and it would be difficult to give any useful analysis of it. But he discusses, towards the end, in chapters thirty-seven, thirty-eight, and thirty-nine, the great question of the accountability of man, and the freedom of the will.
In the preface to the fifth book(78), he announces his intention of carrying on the argument by quotations from the writings of the apostle Paul, to show that the same God who had spoken to Abraham and given the law had in the latter days sent his Son to give salvation to human flesh; which he pursues in the first eighteen chapters, dwelling particularly on the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh (chap. 7-14), and corroborating S. Paul's doctrine from other parts of Scripture. He is thence led to the object and end of the scheme of salvation by Christ, and the opposition to it by Satan (chap. 19-24), especially the great opposition to it through the agency of antichrist (chap. 24-30), and passes from the notice of the state of departed souls (chap. 31) to exhibit and confirm his opinion of the terrestrial reign of Christ and the righteous (chap. 32-35), concluding with the consummation of all things in the eternal felicity of the just.
It will be seen by this slight sketch that the former part of the treatise is by far the most regular; and for this sufficient reason, that it was more completely studied and digested before it was written. In the latter books, he adheres but imperfectly to the intention announced in the preface, and introduces much matter which was evidently suggested casually as he was writing, by some word or expression he found himself using.
The work, as I have said, was written in Greek; but the greater portion of the original has been lost. What remains has been preserved by various authors in the form of quotations. In this way two-thirds of the first book have come down to us; a few detached fragments in the latter half of the second; considerably larger and more numerous portions of the third; very little of the fourth, but copious extracts from the fifth, especially near the beginning. The whole, however, existed in the ninth century, as we learn from the testimony of Photius(79). But, although we have lost the greater part of the original, an ancient Latin translation of the whole work has been preserved to us. The precise antiquity of this version we are unable to ascertain; but the closeness with which Tertullian appears to follow it in many passages(80), and in particular his making the very same mistakes as the interpreter, (as for instance, in regard to the _name_ of the heretic Epiphanes, which they have both rendered by an _epithet_, and others instanced by Massuet,) almost amounts to a demonstration that he had read that version. That it existed in the time of S. Augustin, is certain, as he quotes it at least twice, almost word for word(81).