Concept

Tertullian

Overview

Tertullian (; Latin: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; c. 155 – c. 220 AD) 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.

Tertullian was the first theologian to write in Latin, and so has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "the founder of Western [Christian] theology". He is perhaps most famous for being the first writer in Latin known to use the term trinity (Latin: trinitas).

Tertullian enunciated new theological concepts and advanced the development of early Church doctrine. However, some of his teachings, such as the subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father, were later rejected by the Catholic Church. Tertullian later joined the Montanist sect, but today most scholars reject the assertion that he left the mainstream church or was excommunicated.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Tertullian is discussed.

Nor was this doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice; but the division of the divine substance into God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. For these words, _God has no parts_, were added, for explication of the word _consubstantial_, at the request of the dissenting Fathers, and are further explained both in Athanasius his creed, in these words, _not…
Thomas Hobbes, The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04
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The early Christians, as is well known, were reluctant to believe that the new doctrines were intended for Gentiles as well as Jews. Both the New Testament and some of the church fathers testify to this fact. Merivale makes it clear that Tertullian believed that Christianity must always, to some extent, stand apart from the ordinary march of events, and that the true faith could only be held by a chosen few. He does…
Charles William Super, Between Heathenism and Christianity
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Hence these writers are named 'Supralapsarians', because the decree to punish precedes, according to them, the knowledge of the future existence of sin. But the opinion most common to-day amongst those who are called Reformed, and one that is favoured by the Synod of Dordrecht, is that of the 'Infralapsarians', corresponding somewhat to the conception of St. Augustine. For he asserts that God having resolved to…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
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The Roman Catholics have expiations which are called "penitences." By the laws of the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, crimes were expiated with money. That was called _compounding_, _componat cum decem, viginti, triginta solidis_.
Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
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But we have thought it better to plead our cause with the Platonists, because their writings are better known. For the Greeks, whose tongue holds the highest place among the languages of the Gentiles, are loud in their praises of these writings; and the Latins, taken with their excellence, or their renown, have studied them more heartily than other writings, and, by translating them into our tongue, have given them…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
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Tertullian

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Tertullian

Related ideas

Place in the tradition