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Course 12 · Lesson 2.2

Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 2.2

What you will learn

  • Describe who Tertullian was, where he worked and what kinds of books he wrote.
  • Explain his argument in The Prescription Against Heretics and his remark about Athens and Jerusalem.
  • Identify the Latin terms he used for the Trinity and the person of Christ.
  • Explain why his later turn to Montanism makes his legacy complicated.

The big idea

Tertullian of Carthage, who wrote in the years around 200, was the first major Christian author to write theology in Latin. He gave the Western church some of its most lasting vocabulary, including the words trinity, person and substance as used about God. He was a fierce debater who argued that heretics had no right to use Scripture, and a strict moralist who eventually joined a movement the church rejected. His mixed legacy is a reminder that a writer can be both a major source of orthodoxy and a figure the church holds at arm’s length.

Key terms

Prescription (praescriptio)
A legal term from Roman law, meaning an objection that stops a case before it begins. Tertullian used it to argue that heretics have no standing to argue from Scripture, since it belongs to the church.
Substance (substantia)
Tertullian’s Latin word for what God is, the single divine being shared by Father, Son and Spirit.
Person (persona)
Tertullian’s Latin word for each of the three who share the one divine substance. In Roman usage it could mean a role or an individual in a legal case.
Montanism
A movement that began in Phrygia in the second century, around Montanus and the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla. It claimed new prophecy and urged a strict discipline. Most church leaders rejected it.
Modalism
The view that Father, Son and Spirit are one God appearing in three modes or roles, not three who are distinct. Tertullian wrote against it.
Rigorism
A strict approach to discipline that allows little forgiveness for serious sins after baptism.
Carthage
A great city in North Africa, near modern Tunis, and a center of Latin Christianity.

Background

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus lived in Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was born around the middle of the second century and died after 220. An ancient tradition calls him a lawyer, though modern scholars question whether he was a professional one. His writing certainly uses legal arguments, and he had a fine Latin style, vivid and sometimes harsh. He became a Christian as an adult, probably in the 190s.

He wrote on many subjects. His Apology, from about 197, defends Christians against the charges of the previous lesson. Other works treat baptism, prayer, the soul, marriage, martyrdom and the resurrection of the body. He also wrote against opponents: Against Marcion, Against Praxeas, and the Prescription Against Heretics. His writing is the first large body of Christian theology in Latin that survives.

Before Tertullian, Christian writers in Rome mostly wrote in Greek. His work belongs to the point at which the church in the western Mediterranean began to speak and think in its own language.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Prescription Against Heretics

In this work, written around the year 200, Tertullian argues that debating heretics from Scripture is a mistake. In Roman law, a prescription could settle a dispute by showing who held the property first. Tertullian applies the idea: Scripture belongs to the church that received it from the apostles, so the heretics have no right to use it. The question to ask, he says, is where the true teaching is found, and the answer is in churches that trace their teaching to the apostles.

He also says that the rule of faith contains what is needed and that endless curiosity is dangerous. This sounds like Irenaeus, though the tone is sharper. Readers disagree about whether the argument is sound, since it risks closing a conversation before it begins. Tertullian himself, in other works, argued from Scripture at length.

Step 2: Athens and Jerusalem

In the same work, Tertullian asks what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, and what the Academy, Plato’s school, has to do with the church. He means that heresies often grow from philosophy, and that Christians need no new inquiry after Christ. The remark is often quoted as a rejection of philosophy.

It is more complicated than that. Tertullian uses Stoic ideas himself. He argues that the soul is in some sense bodily, a view that comes from Stoic thought. He does not escape philosophy. He sets limits on how far it should lead, and later Christians would argue about where to draw the same line.

Step 3: The vocabulary of the Trinity

In Against Praxeas, written to oppose a teacher who said the Father himself had become incarnate and suffered, Tertullian develops a way to say that God is both one and three. He writes of one substance and three persons, and he is the first known author to use the Latin word trinitas for the Father, Son and Spirit. He uses the image of a root, a shoot and a fruit, or of a spring, a river and a stream, to show how the three belong together.

Tertullian also speaks of the Son as a second and the Spirit as a third in order, and sometimes in ways that suggest the Son is lesser. Later councils would clarify the equality of the three. Even so, his Latin terms became part of the common language of Western theology.

Step 4: The person of Christ

Tertullian taught that Christ is both God and man. In Against Praxeas, he describes two substances, divine and human, joined in one person without confusion. Centuries later, this language of two natures in one person was echoed by the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon, which later lessons treat. Historians note that Tertullian did not work out the idea fully, but he supplied the Latin words.

Step 5: Montanism and the question of legacy

Later in life, Tertullian was drawn to the New Prophecy, or Montanism, which taught continuing prophecy and strict rules on fasting, remarriage and flight from persecution. Jerome and others say he separated from the Catholic church. Historians debate how formal or complete the break was and whether he founded his own group. His writings from the later period are sharper against church leaders.

Because of this, the church never honored Tertullian as a saint. Yet later writers, including Cyprian of Carthage, who is said to have called him master, drew heavily on his work. He is called a Father of the church in a looser sense, as an early and important teacher with significant faults.

  1. What is the strength of Tertullian’s argument that Scripture belongs to the church? What is its weakness?
  2. Is there a legitimate worry behind the question about Athens and Jerusalem?
  3. Why would legal vocabulary be useful for describing the Trinity?
  4. Does a strict approach to discipline help or hurt a church?
  5. How should a church treat a gifted teacher who falls into error?
  6. Why did Latin Christianity need its own technical vocabulary?

Examples

A legal move

In a Roman court, a defendant might argue that the plaintiff had no right to bring the case at all. Tertullian made the same move against heretics. Instead of arguing each verse, he asked who had the right to read the Scriptures in the first place.

Three yet one

Tertullian compares the Trinity to a spring, a river and a canal, which are three but share one source of water. He knew that images are limited. Later writers used similar pictures and also warned about their weaknesses.

A leader who left

A reader of Tertullian’s later works sees a man who has grown impatient with the leaders of his church and attracted by a stricter group. Whether he finally left is debated, but his shift in tone is clear.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic theology takes up Tertullian’s terminology of substance and person, and treats his Trinitarian and Christological formulas as foundations. It does not call him a saint or a Doctor of the church because of his later separation, and it regards his rigorism as a mistake.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers usually give Tertullian less weight than the Greek Fathers, noting his Montanist ties and the fact that the East did not take up his Latin formulas. They respect his defense of the faith before his turn to Montanism.

Protestant

Protestants, especially in the Reformed tradition, have often cited Tertullian on the Trinity and on his insistence that the apostolic writings are authoritative. Some admire his suspicion of philosophy. Others argue that his prescription against heretics comes close to an argument for church authority above Scripture.

Scholarly views

Historians study Tertullian as the earliest witness to African Christianity in Latin, and as a source of information on practices such as baptism and penance. They debate the extent of his legal training, the nature of his break with the church, and how much his thought depended on Stoicism.

Why it matters

Tertullian shows that theology is partly the work of finding words. The terms he coined or shaped were not decoration. They let Western Christians say that God is one and three, and that Christ is God and man, without contradiction. He also shows how a strong conviction, held without humility, can turn into harshness and division.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Tertullian rejected all philosophy.

Correction: His question about Athens and Jerusalem is a warning, but his own thought uses Stoic ideas. He opposed philosophy being used to decide the content of the faith, not the use of reason or learning.

Misunderstanding: Tertullian was condemned as a heretic by a council.

Correction: There is no council condemning him by name. Later writers say he left the church for Montanism, and the church did not honor him as a saint. His earlier orthodox works were nonetheless read and used.

Misunderstanding: He invented the doctrine of the Trinity.

Correction: The faith in Father, Son and Spirit goes back to the New Testament. Tertullian supplied Latin terms and a framework that later writers developed. The precise doctrine took shape over the next two centuries.

Misunderstanding: The Latin church simply copied the Greek.

Correction: Tertullian is an example of a Latin author thinking independently, with his own vocabulary. Later the Greek and Latin traditions interacted in complicated ways.

Knowledge check

What did Tertullian argue in the Prescription Against Heretics?

He argued that heretics have no right to use Scripture, because it belongs to the church that received it from the apostles. Like a Roman legal prescription, the point was to stop the debate before it started. The real question, he said, is where the apostolic teaching is found, and the answer is in the churches that trace it to the apostles.

What Latin terms did Tertullian use for God?

He wrote of one substance (substantia) and three persons (personae), and he is the first known author to use the Latin word trinitas of the Father, Son and Spirit. He wrote this in Against Praxeas, against a teacher who said the Father himself suffered.

What was Montanism, and what was Tertullian’s connection to it?

Montanism, or the New Prophecy, began in Phrygia and claimed continuing prophecy with a strict discipline on fasting, marriage and flight from persecution. Most church leaders rejected it. Tertullian was drawn to it later in life. Later writers say he left the church, though historians debate how complete his break was.

Why is Tertullian not honored as a saint?

Because of his attachment to Montanism and his harsh rigorism, later church leaders did not honor him as a saint or Doctor of the church. His works were still read and used, and he is regarded as an important early teacher with serious faults.

Think it through

  1. Is it ever right to refuse to argue a point from Scripture? What would be the cost?
  2. What does it say about a movement that a gifted writer joined it and criticized the church?
  3. Which would be harder to give up in your own faith, a technical vocabulary or an image? Why?
  4. How should a Christian think about the work of a writer who gets some things right and others wrong?

Independent assignment

A short comparison of Irenaeus and Tertullian

Read a few chapters of the Prescription Against Heretics (chapters 7 and 13 to 21 are a good start) and compare them with Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, chapters 1 to 4. In your notebook, write about 500 words answering: what do the two agree on, how does their tone differ, and which argument would be more persuasive to a doubtful reader? Include one quotation from each, copied exactly and marked with its chapter.

Further study