Tertullian (Part Four).

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A woodcut illustration depicting Tertullian.

Quintus Florens Tertullian (Anglicised to Tertullian).

160 A.D. - 220 A.D.

Church Father and Theologian.

Source: http://www.higherpraise.com/preachers/tertullian.htm.

This File: August 2011.

User: Serge Lachinov.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Scriptures, the Rule of Faith, is, for him, fixed and authoritative (De corona, iii-iv). As opposed to the pagan writings, they are Divine (De testimonio animae, vi). They contain all truth (De praescriptione, vii, xiv) and from them the Church drinks (potat) her Faith (Adv. Praxeam, xiii). The Prophets were older than the Greek philosophers and their authority is accredited by the fulfilment of their predictions (Apol., xix-xx). 

The Scriptures and the teachings of philosophy are incompatible, insofar as the latter are the origins of sub-Christian heresies. "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" he exclaims, "or the Academy with the Church?" (De praescriptione, vii). Philosophy as pop-paganism is a work of demons (De anima, i); the Scriptures contain the Wisdom of Heaven. However, Tertullian was not averse to using the technical methods of Stoicism to discuss a problem (De anima). The Rule of Faith, however, seems to be also applied by Tertullian to some distinct formula of Doctrine, and he gives a succinct statement of the Christian Faith under this term (De praescriptione, xiii).

Tertullian was a defender of the necessity of Apostolicity. In his "Prescription Against Heretics", he explicitly challenges heretics to produce evidence of the Apostolic Succession of their communities. "Let them produce the original records of their Churches; let them unfold the Roll of their Bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first Bishop of theirs] Bishop shall be able to show for his Ordainer and predecessor some one of the Apostles or of Apostolic men, a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the manner in which the Apostolic Churches transmit their registers: as the Church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the Church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way, the other Churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their Episcopal places by Apostles, they regard as transmitters of the Apostolic seed."

Fornicators and Murderers should never be admitted into the Church under any circumstances. In De pudicitia, Tertullian condemns Pope Callixtus I for allowing such people in when they show repentance.

Ichthys (also Ichthus or Ikhthus /ˈɪkθəs/), from the Koine Greek word for fish: ἰχθύς, (capitalized ΙΧΘΥΣ or ΙΧΘΥϹ) is a symbol consisting of two intersecting arcs, the ends of the right side extending beyond the meeting point so as to resemble the profile of a fish, used by early Christians as a secret Christian symbol and now known colloquially as the "sign of the fish" or the "Jesus fish."

This Fish symbol was used in the early Church, when the Christians were being persecuted by the Romans. Christians then needed to be careful, when dealing with strangers, for fear of identification as a Christian and persecution. 

When you encountered someone, you would draw an arc on the ground. If the other person drew a reverse arc over yours, it would form the Fish symbol. 

Both people would then know that they could safely talk about being a Christian.

Español: Dibujada por Fibonacci, modificando un poco el 

código fuente de dominio público de Lupin.

English: Drawn by Fibonacci, modifying Lupin's PD source code a bit.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Tertullian was a determined advocate of strict discipline and an austere code of practice, and, like many of the African Fathers, one of the leading representatives of the Rigorist element in the Early Church. These views may have led him to adopt Montanism, with its ascetic Rigor, and its belief in chiliasm and the continuance of the prophetic gifts. In his writings on public amusements, the veiling of virgins, the conduct of women, and the like, he gives expression to these views.

On the principle that we should not look, at or listen to, what we have no right to practise, and that polluted things, seen and touched, pollute (De spectaculis, viii, xvii), he declared a Christian should abstain from the theatre and the amphitheatre. There, pagan religious rites were applied and the names of pagan divinities invoked; there, the precepts of modesty, purity, and humanity were ignored or set aside, and, there, no place was offered to the onlookers for the cultivation of the Christian Graces.

Women should put aside their gold and precious stones as ornaments (De cultu, v-vi), and virgins should conform to the law of Saint Paul for women and keep themselves strictly veiled (De virginibus velandis). He praised the unmarried state as the highest (De monogamia, xvii; Ad uxorem, i.3) and called upon Christians not to allow themselves to be excelled in the virtue of celibacy by Vestal Virgins and Egyptian priests. He even labelled second marriage a species of adultery (De exhortations castitatis, ix), but this directly contradicted the Epistles of the Apostle, Paul.

His moral vigour, and the service he provided, as an ingenious and intrepid defender of the Christian religion,  were, for him, down to his view of Christianity as first, and chiefly, an experience of the heart.

Because of his later affiliation with Montanism, he, like the influential Alexandrian theologian, Origen, has failed to receive the elevation of official Canonisation.

Tertullian is sometimes criticised for being misogynistic, on the basis of the contents of his 'De Cultu Feminarum,' section I.I, part 2 (trans. C.W. Marx): "Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.”

Tertullian wrote in his book "On Patience" 5:15: "Having been made pregnant by the seed of the devil ... she brought forth a son." Or, in a different translation: "For straightway that impatience, conceived of the devil's seed, produced, in the fecundity of malice, anger as her son; and when brought forth, trained him in her own arts."

Tertullian's writings are edited in volumes 1–2 of the Patrologia Latina, and modern texts exist in the Corpus Christianorum Latinorum. English translations by Sidney Thelwall and Philip Holmes can be found in volumes III and IV of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, which are freely available online; more modern translations of some of the works have been made.

THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON TERTULLIAN.