TERTULLIANUS, QUINTUS SEP TIMIUS FLORENS (more commonly TERTULLIAN), a theologian of the West ern Church; born of heathen parents in Carthage about 160. His father was a Roman centurion under the proconsol of Africa. The details of his life are little known, but the strongly marked charac ter of the man comes out in every page of his numerous writings. He had a liberal education, and shows extensive ac quaintance with poetry, history, and law, and considerable knowledge of philoso phy and science. Though he calls the philosophers "the patriarchs of heretics" and the learning of secular literature "folly with God," he speaks of the de light he once had in the indecent profani ties of the public plays, and confesses that he had fallen into the greatest sins. He nowhere says much about his personal religion, but calls himself "a sinner of all brands, and fit only for penitence, and asks his readers to remember in their prayers Tertullian the sinner." He had sufficient command of Greek to write in that language his earliest treatises, all of which are lost. Jerome mentions that he was a presbyter of the Catholic Church, whether at Rome or Carthage is unknown. Tertullian himself speaks of his having lived at Rome. Eusebius says "he was accurately acquainted with the Roman laws and one of the most dis tinguished men in Rome." It is possible that before his conversion he had prac tised there as an advocate or rhetorician. He did not become a Christian till about 190, and he has not recorded the history of his conversion.
That he was married is shown by his two books "To the Wife," in which he argues against second marriages. Some time between 199 and 203 his opposition to the spirit of worldliness in the Church culminated in his becoming a leader of the Montanist sect. According to Jer ome, this was owing to "the envy and insults of the clergy of the Roman Church," but the chief causes were doubtless the uncompromising character of his natural disposition, and his re pugnance to the laxity of the Roman clergy in their reception of the Lapsi, and very probably the favor shown to the Patripassian heresy by the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus. He died between 220 and 240, "in decrepit old age" (Jerome). Augustine says that he at last withdrew from the Montanists, and "propagated conventicles of his own," which is rendered less likely by the fact that the Montanist sect survived in Africa till the 5th century, under the name of "Tertullianists." Tertullian was a man "of an eager and vehement disposition" (Jerome), who threw all his great gifts of learning, im agination, eloquence, and wit into the re ligious controversies of his time for 30 years (190-220). Along with the Roman
love for substantiality and strength, he had the "bitter, stern, and harsh tem per" which Plutarch ascribes to the Car thaginians. He wanted the sweet rea sonableness and calmness, the feeling for harmonious form, and the instinct for speculative thought that distinguish the greatest Greek fathers of the Church. He had the heart of a Christian with' the adroit intellect of an advocate. His aim is always to make his adversaries appear ridiculous and contemptible. He pours unsparingly on them a fiery stream of strong argument and satire, mixed with the sophisms, insinuations, and hyporboles of a special pleader. His style is most vivid, vigorous, and con cise, abounding in harsh and obscure ex pressions, abrupt turns, and impetuous transitions, with here and there bursts of glowing eloquence, reminding the read er at one time of Carlyle, at another of Larnennals. What appear to be African provincialisms Niebuhr contends are only words and expressions taken from the ancient Latin writers.
He was the first to give such words as persona, liberum arbitrium, trinitas, satisfacio, sacramentum, substantia, etc., the place they hold in Christian theology. Many sentences of Tertullian's, as, for example, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church"; "Christ is truth, not custom"; "It is absolutely credible because absurd—it is certain because im possible"; "the human race has always deserved ill of God"; "the unity of here tics is schism"; "it is contrary to religion to compel religion"; "how wise an arguer does ignorance seem to herself to be," have become proverbial. "Who can sufficiently extol the eloquence of Tertullian!" exclaims Vincentius of Le rinum; "almost every word conveys a thought, every sentence is a victory. He is among the Latins what Origen is among the Greeks—the greatest of all." Like Origen, Tertullian was a man of great genius, sincerity, and zeal, a vigor ous ascetic, and an indefatigable worker, and, though wielding great influence over his contemporaries, was never more than a presbyter. Like him, too, this cham pion of the Christian faith against all op ponents, Jews, heathens, and heretics, was himself a heretic to the majority of the Christians of his time. Both show the same contempt of the world and en thusiasm for martyrdom. But in the tendency of their views the contrast be tween them is as striking as in their natural temper and their literary style.