(born ca. 150-160, died ca. 220-240) A major theologian in the early Christian church, known for his powerful denunciations of many influences he considered heretical, including the widespread admiration of pagan philosophers and many Gnostic ideas, yet in later life a , and thus he himself an embracer of beliefs that came to be declared heretical.
Sourced:
- Man is one name belonging to every nation on the earth. In them all one soul though many in tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.
- Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.
- Adversus Valentinianos (Against the Valentinians)
- Truth does not blush.
- Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est.
- It is to believed because it is absurd.
- De Carne Christii (3)
- Certum est, quia impossible est.
- It is certain because it is impossible.
- De Carne Christii (5.4)
- Two lines from De Carne Christii have often become conflated into the statement: "Credo quia impossibile" (I believe it because it is impossible), which can be perceived as a distortion of the actual arguments that Tertullian was making.
- De calcaria in carbonarium.
- Translation: Out of the frying pan into the fire.
- De Carne Christii (6)
- Omnia periclitabuntur aliter accipi quam sunt, et amittere quod sunt dum aliter accipiuntur, si aliter quam sunt cognominantur. Fides nominum salus est proprietatum.
- All things will be in danger of being taken in a sense different from their own proper sense, and, whilst taken in that different sense, of losing their proper one, if they are called by a name which differs from their natural designation. Fidelity in names secures the safe appreciation of properties.
- De Carne Christii (13.2)
- One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man.
- It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.
- Infirma commendatio est quae de alterius destructione fulcitur.
- Of little worth is the recommendation which has for its prop the defamation of another.
- Adversus Marcionem (IV.15)
- I must dispel vanity with vanity.
- Adversus Marcionem (IV.30)
- Cum ergo spiritus Dei descendit, indiuidua patientia comitatur eum.
- When God's Spirit descends, then Patience accompanies Him indivisibly.
- De Patientia (15:7)
- Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason— nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.
- De Paenitentia (On Repentance)
Quotes by others about Tertullian:
- This is said with more spirit than truth.
- Every word almost was a sentence; every sentence a victory.
- St. Vincent of Lerins on his esteem of Tertullian's writings.
Attributed:
- Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.
- He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies.
- Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
- Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money.
- The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
- You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.
- You cannot parcel out freedom in pieces because freedom is all or nothing.
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