Tertullian
Roman Christian theologian and writer (c. 155 – c. 220)
b. c. 160 · d. c. 240
Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature and was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against what he viewed as heresy, including Gnosticism.
Works
- Apologeticus 197
- On the Prescription of Heretics c. 200
- De spectaculis c. 200
- Against Marcion c. 208
- On Baptism c. 200
- Against Praxeas c. 213
- De pudicitia c. 217
- Ad martyras c. 203
- To Scapula 212
- De Carne Christi
- Adversus Valentinianos
- On Female Dress
- The Chaplet
- De pallio
- Of Patience
- Against Hermogenes
- De resurrectione mortuorum
- De exhortatione castitatis
- Adversus Iudaeos
- De oratione
- The Soul's Testimony
- De paenitentia
- On the Soul
- To his Wife 5th century
- To the Nationes
- Scorpiace
- On Idolatry
- De fuga in persecutione
- De virginibus velandis
- De monogamia
- De ieiunio adversus psychicos
- Certum est quia impossibile est
- De fato
- Adversus Apelleiacos
- De exstasi
- De censu animae contra Hermogenem
Events
Places
- Roman Carthage death
How we know
Recorded as a historical figure.
- Ecclesiastical History 1 claim — Severan persecution
- De Viris Illustribus 1 claim — Tertullian goes over to the New Prophecy
- Patrology 3 claims — Tertullian writes the Apology; Tertullian writes to Scapula; Octavius or Apologeticum?
Sayings
- The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The last chapter of the Apology and the most quoted sentence in Latin Christian literature after the creeds. Usually cited as "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the…
- We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you--cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies… Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Part of an argument that the Christians could ruin the empire by simply withdrawing from it, and choose not to. The boast is rhetorical — the real numbers around 197 were far…
- the Christians to the lion! Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The mob’s cry, quoted by Tertullian to mock it — his complaint is that one man is thrown to one beast, so the shout is as innumerate as it is cruel. Blaming Christians for…
Show all 6
- We are of your stock and nature: men are made, not born, Christians. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Addressed to pagan magistrates who treated the Christians as a foreign tribe. It is the sentence that makes conversion, rather than descent, the whole of what a Christian is …
- See, they say, how they love one another Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Tertullian is reporting what outsiders said of the Christians, and reporting it as an insult they meant to sting: he adds that the same people are "wroth with us, too, because we…
- O noble testimony of the soul by nature Christian! Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Tertullian has just argued that an ordinary person, startled, says "God" and not "the gods" — the exclamation is his conclusion, not his premise. The phrase outlived the argument…
Glosses
- Octavius or Apologeticum? Two Latin apologies from the same generation share whole passages, and nobody can settle which one borrowed. Tertullian's Apologeticum dates itself to 197. The Octavius of Minucius Felix dates itself not at all, and…