Tertullian
Tertullian
Tertullian, full name Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, c. 155 – c. 240 AD, was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology."...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionAuthor
patience hope lamps
Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
scripture argument headache
Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.
nature men religion
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.
discipline judging quality
You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.
errors truth-is customs
Custom without truth is error grown old.
wealth
Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money
truth hatred enemy
Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.
jerusalem athens
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem.
religious art divorce
[Hermogenes] despises God's law in his painting, maintains repeated marriages [almost certainly a reference to remarrying after divorce or perhaps even widowhood, which Tertullian, who became a Montanist, opposed], alleges the law of God in defense of lust [likely same reference], and yet despises it in respect of his art.
religious mean sacrifice
Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices, and these are idolatry. Idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed, the one as well as the other is a service to dead men. Moreover, demons dwell in the images of the dead. ... this sort of exhibition has passed from honors of the dead to honors of the living; I mean, to quaestorships [financial overseers]and magistractes, to priestly offices of different kinds. Yet, since idolatry still cleaves to the dignity's name, whatever is done in its name partakes of its impurity.
lust soul maidens
The soul whose bosom lust did never touch Is God's fair bride; and maiden's souls are such.
prevention birth murder
Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.
pleasure dies
Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?
states impossibility
The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.