Tertullian

/teuhr tul"ee euhn, -tul"yeuhn/, n. (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus)

A.D. c160-c230, Carthaginian theologian.

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born с 155/160, Carthage

died after 220, Carthage

Early Christian theologian and moralist.

Educated in Carthage, he became impressed by the courage, morality, and uncompromising monotheism of Christian martyrs, and he converted to Christianity. He became a leading member of the African church and one of the early Apologists. He devoted himself to writing for 20 years, producing works on such topics as defense of the faith, prayer and devotion, and morality, as well as the first Christian book on baptism, De baptismo. Later, dismayed by the laxity he witnessed among even his orthodox contemporaries, he joined the prophetic movement known as Montanism, then left it to form his own sect, which survived in Africa until the 5th century.

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▪ Christian theologian

Introduction

Latin  in full Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus  

born c. 155, /160, Carthage [now in Tunisia]

died after 220, , Carthage

      important early Christian theologian, polemicist, and moralist who, as the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin (Latin language), was instrumental in shaping the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity.

Life

      Knowledge of the life of Tertullian is based almost wholly on documents written by men living more than a century after him and from obscure references in his own works. On this basis a general outline of his life has been constructed, but most of the details have been continually disputed by modern scholars.

      He was born in Carthage, which, at that time (approximately AD 155–160), was second only to Rome as a cultural and educational centre in the West. Tertullian received an exceptional education in grammar, rhetoric, literature, philosophy, and law. Little is known of his early life. His parents were pagan, and his father may have been a centurion (i.e., a noncommissioned officer) in an African-based legion assigned to the governor of the province. After completing his education in Carthage, he went to Rome, probably in his late teens or early 20s, to study further and perhaps begin work as a lawyer. He is most likely not the jurist Tertullian mentioned in the Digest, a collection of Roman legal opinion compiled under the aegis of the 6th-century Byzantine emperor Justinian, though this is disputed.

      While in Rome, he became interested in the Christian movement, but not until he returned to Carthage toward the end of the 2nd century was he converted to the Christian faith. He left no account of his conversion experience, but in his early works, Ad martyras (“To the Martyrs”), Ad nationes (“To the Nations”), and Apologeticum (“Defense”), he indicated that he was impressed by certain Christian attitudes and beliefs: the courage and determination of martyrs, moral rigorism, and an uncompromising belief in one God. By the end of the 2nd century the church in Carthage had become large, firmly established, and well organized and was rapidly becoming a powerful force in North Africa. By the year 225 there were approximately 70 bishops in Numidia and Proconsularis, the two provinces of Roman Africa. Tertullian emerged as a leading member of the African church, using his talents as a teacher in instructing the unbaptized seekers and the faithful and as a literary defender (apologist) of Christian beliefs and practices. According to Jerome, a 4th-century biblical scholar, Tertullian was ordained a priest. This view, however, has been challenged by some modern scholars.

Literary activities.

      During the next 20 to 25 years—i.e., from his early 40s to mid-60s—Tertullian devoted himself almost entirely to literary pursuits. Developing an original Latin style, the fiery and tempestuous Tertullian became a lively and pungent propagandist though not the most profound writer in Christian antiquity. His works abound with arresting and memorable phrases, ingenious aphorisms, bold and ironic puns, wit, sarcasm, countless words of his own coinage, and a constant stream of invective against his opponents. Yet, he could be gentle and sensitive, as in a treatise to his wife (Ad uxorem), and he could be self-critical and reflective, as in his treatise on patience (De patientia), a virtue that he admitted was conspicuously absent from his life.

      As a historical personage Tertullian is known less for what he did than for what he wrote. The range of his interests and the vigour with which he pursued them, however, encouraged other Christians to explore previously uninvestigated areas of life and thought. Like his contemporaries, he wrote works in defense of the faith (e.g., Apologeticum) and treatises on theological problems against specific opponents: Adversus Marcionem (“Against Marcion,” an Anatolian heretic who believed that the world was created by the evil god of the Jews), Adversus Hermogenem (“Against Hermogenes,” a Carthaginian painter who claimed that God created the world out of preexisting matter), Adversus Valentinianos (“Against Valentinus,” an Alexandrian Gnostic, or religious dualist), and De resurrectione carnis (“Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh”). He also wrote the first Christian book on Baptism, De Baptismo; a book on the Christian doctrine of man, De anima (“Concerning the Soul”); essays on prayer and devotion, De oratione (“Concerning Prayer”); and a treatise directed against all heresy, De praescriptione haereticorum (“Concerning the Prescription of Heretics”). In addition to apologetical and polemical works, he addressed himself to a whole range of moral and practical problems on issues facing Christians of his day: what is appropriate dress; the wearing of cosmetics, De cultu feminarum (“Concerning the Dress of Women”); service in the military, De corona (“Concerning the Crown”—a military decoration); whether one should flee under persecution, De fuga in persecutione (“Concerning Flight in Persecution”); on marriage and remarriage, De exhortatione castitatis (“Concerning the Exhortation to Chastity”) and De monogamia (“Concerning Monogamy”); on the arts, theatre, and civic festivals, De spectaculis (“Concerning Spectacles”); De idollatria (“Concerning Idolatry”); on repentance after Baptism, De poenitentia (“Concerning Repentance”); and others.

Tertullian as a Montanist

      Sometime before 210 Tertullian left the orthodox church to join a new prophetic sectarian movement known as Montanism (founded by the 2nd-century Phrygian prophet Montanus), which had spread from Asia Minor to Africa. His own dissatisfaction with the laxity of contemporary Christians was congenial with the Montanist message of the imminent end of the world combined with a stringent and demanding moralism. Montanism stood in judgment on any compromise with the ways of the world, and Tertullian gave himself fully to the defense of the new movement as its most articulate spokesman. Even the Montanists, however, were not rigorous enough for Tertullian. He eventually broke with them to found his own sect, a group that existed until the 5th century in Africa. According to tradition, he lived to be an old man. His last writings date from approximately 220, but the date of his death is unknown.

Assessment.

      In antiquity most Christians never forgave him for his apostasy (rejection of his earlier faith) to Montanism. Later Christian writers mention him only infrequently, and then mostly unfavourably. Somewhat grudgingly, however, they acknowledged his literary gifts and acute intelligence. Modern scholars, however, do not share this earlier view. In the 19th and 20th centuries Tertullian has been widely read and studied and is considered one of the formative figures in the development of Christian life and thought in the West.

      Tertullian is usually considered the outstanding exponent of the outlook that Christianity must stand uncompromisingly against its surrounding culture. Recent scholarship has tended to qualify this interpretation, however. Because he was a moralist rather than a philosopher by temperament—which probably precipitated his famous question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”—Tertullian's practical and legal bent of mind expressed what would later be taken as the unique genius of Latin Christianity. Like most educated Christians of his day, he recognized and appreciated the values of the Greco-Roman culture, discriminating between those he could accept and those he had to reject.

Robert L. Wilken

Additional Reading

A complete listing of Tertullian's works may be found in Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 2, pp. 246–319 (1953, reprinted 1986), with extensive bibliography. Editions of his work appear in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vols. 20 (1890), 47 (1906), 69–70 (1939–42), and 76 (1957); and in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 2 vol. (1953–54), the latter with bibliography. English translations of all his works are in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, American rev. ed. by A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 3 and 4 (1869–70, reprinted 1994). Modern English translations of individual treatises are by Ernest Evans, William P. Le Saint, and others in the various series of translations of the Fathers. Additional bibliography is listed in Bibliographia Patristica, 35 vol. (1956–88/90). A more recent study that considers anew the evidence of his life and the chronology of his writings, disputing the opinions of many modern scholars is Timothy David Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (1971, reissued 1985). Eric Osborn, Tertullian, First Theologian of the West (1997, reissued 2002), is also of interest.

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