Voices and influences
Tertullian
The Carthaginian lawyer who gave the church the word Trinity and told Rome the blood of martyrs is seed.
Summary
This site quotes Tertullian 402 times across 40 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 220.
- Quoted here most in Luke: 65 of 402.
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Tertullian
- Lived
- died 220
- Tradition
- Early Church
5 of 402 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Tertullian died in 220 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
Why, even now the followers of Simon [Magus] are so confident of their art that they undertake to bring back the souls of the prophets from hell. And this, I believe, because their power lies in their ability to deceive.
The rest of the quotation
This power was actually granted to the witch of Endor, who brought back the soul of Samuel after Saul had consulted God in vain. Apart from that case, God forbid we should believe that any soul, much less a prophet, could be called forth by a demon.
1 Samuel 28:14 “What does he look like?” asked Saul. “An old man is coming up,” she replied. “And he is wearing a robe.” So Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed facedown in reverence. BSB
In a manner most germane to this parable, He said by Jeremiah: "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and ye shall walk in all my ways, which I have commanded you."
The rest of the quotation
This is the invitation of God. "But," says He, "they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear." This is the refusal of the people. "They departed, and walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart." "I have bought a field-and I have bought some oxen-and I have married a wife."
Jeremiah 7:23–26 but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again. Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers. BSB
Look here then, say you: I discover a self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the book of Jonah declares, "And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not."
The rest of the quotation
In accordance with which Jonah himself says unto the Lord, "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil."
Jonah 3:9 Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.” BSB
Such eye-witnesses the Lord in infancy found; no different ones had He in adult age. Peter alone do I find-through (the mention of) his "mother-in-law" ,-to have been married.
Mark 1:29 As soon as Jesus and His companions had left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. BSB
How, if there can be a threat without its accomplishment, can you have in a threatening god, one that executes also, and in both, one that is a judicial being?
The rest of the quotation
So, again, He commands that the dust be shaken off against them, as a testimony,-the very particles of their ground which might cleave to the sandal, not to mention any other sort of communication with them. But if their churlishness and inhospitality were to receive no vengeance from Him, for what purpose does He premise a testimony, which surely forbodes some threats?
Luke 10:11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off as a testimony against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’ BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Tertullian 402 times across 40 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born at Carthage around 155, trained in Roman law and rhetoric, and converted as an adult. Jerome says his father was an officer of the proconsul and that Tertullian himself became a presbyter; modern scholars doubt both details, and Tertullian never mentions either. What is beyond doubt is the training. Everything he wrote reads like a brief. He was the first major Christian author to write in Latin, and because he was first he had to build the vocabulary. He is the earliest writer known to use trinitas — Trinity — of God, and he supplied the formula the church has used ever since: one substance in three persons, substantia and persona, both terms taken straight out of Roman law where they meant an estate and a party to a case. Sacramentum, satisfaction, merit — a great deal of the working language of Western theology comes out of this one man's desk. His Apology, written about 197 and addressed to the governors of the empire, is the most aggressive defense of Christians ever written. He argues the trials are illegal on Rome's own terms, that Christians are convicted for a name and not an act, that the same magistrates enforce laws they privately despise. Then he turns it: kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to powder — your cruelty proves nothing except our innocence, and the more you mow us down the more we grow. The blood of Christians is seed. He wrote against Marcion, who had cut the Old Testament and most of the New out of the Bible, in five books. He wrote against Praxeas, who taught that the Father suffered on the cross. He wrote On the Prescription of Heretics, arguing that heretics had no right even to appeal to Scripture since the Scripture belonged to the churches the apostles founded — and asked the question that has been quoted ever since: what has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Academy with the Church. He wrote on baptism, on prayer, on patience, on the dress of women, on the soldier's crown, on whether a Christian may run from persecution. His answer to that last one was no. Around 207 he joined the New Prophecy, the movement called Montanism, which held that the Spirit was still speaking and demanded a stricter discipline than the bishops would enforce. He never came back. The church that took his vocabulary never canonized him. He died about 220, an old man, still writing. Sources: Tertullian, Apology, Against Marcion, Against Praxeas, On the Prescription of Heretics (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vols. 3–4); Jerome, On Illustrious Men 53; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.
402 quotations across 40 books
Where this voice is quoted
And early in the morning all the people would come to hear Him at the temple.
“Fit hours for an audience there also were. "Early in the morning" must they resort to Him, who (having said by Isaiah, "The Lord giveth me the tongue of the learned") added, "He hath appointed me the morning, and hath also given me an ear…”
Indeed, the Son of Man will go as it has been determined, but woe to that man who betrays Him.”
“"Woe," says He, "to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!" Now it is certain that in this woe must be understood the imprecation and threat of an angry and incensed Master, unless Judas was to escape with impunity after so vast…”
When He came to the place, He told them, “Pray that you will not enter into temptation.”
“This passage He confirms by subsequent ones, saying, "Pray that ye be not tempted; " yet they were tempted, (as they showed) by de-setting their Lord, because they had given way rather to sleep than prayer.”
“Why do we need any more testimony?” they declared. “We have heard it for ourselves from His own lips.”
“By what means, however, are you going to prove to us that they pronounced the sentence "Ergo tu filius Dei es" interrogatively, and not affirmatively?”
So Pilate asked Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied.
“Likewise, when Pirate asked Him, "Art thou Christ (the King)? "He answered, as He had before (to the Jewish council) "Thou sayest that I am" in order that He might not seem to have been driven by a fear of his power to give him…”
When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased. He had wanted to see Him for a long time, because he had heard about Him and was hoping to see Him…
“" Herod was "exceeding glad" when he saw Jesus, but he heard not a word from Him. For, "as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth," because "the Lord had given to Him a disciplined tongue, that he might…”
As they had requested, he released the one imprisoned for insurrection and murder, and handed Jesus over to their will.
“Then Barabbas, the most abandoned criminal, is released, as if he were the innocent man; while the most righteous Christ is delivered to be put to death, as if he were the murderer.”
For if men do these things while the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
“Seize the opportunity of unexpected felicity: that you, who sometime were in God's sight nothing but "a drop of a bucket," and "dust of the threshing-floor," and "a potter's vessel," may thenceforward become that "tree which is sown beside the waters, is perennial in leaves…”
who had not consented to their decision or action. He was from the Judean town of Arimathea, and was waiting for the kingdom of God.
“The only shift left to the impudence of the heretics, is to admit that what remained there was the phantom of a phantom! But what if Joseph knew that it was a body which he treated with so much piety?”
but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
“For who can refuse to believe that these words often revolved in the thought of those women between the sorrow of that desertion with which at present they seemed to themselves to have been smitten by the Lord, and the hope of the resurrection itself…”
He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee:
“For the same thing was said by the angels to the women: "Remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered up, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."”
But we were hoping He was the One who would redeem Israel. And besides all this, it is the third day since these things took place.
“For as two of them were taking a walk, and when the Lord had joined their company, without its appearing that it was He, and whilst He dissembled His knowledge of what had just taken place, they say: "But we trusted that it had been…”
While they were still in disbelief because of their joy and amazement, He asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”
“But what need of so tortuous a construction, when He might have simply said, "A spirit hath not bones, even as you observe that I have not?”
and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.
“Even to the last He taught us (the same truth of His mission), when He sent forth His apostles to preach His gospel "among all nations; " for He thus fulfilled the psalm: "Their sound is gone out through all the earth, and their words…”
and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.
“Again, in the Pslams, David says: "Bring to God, ye countries of the nations"-undoubtedly because "unto every land" the preaching of the apostles had to "go out" -"bring to God fame and honour; bring to God the sacrifices of His name: take up victims and…”