Tertullian Quotes

Enoch predicted that "the demons and the spirits of the angelic apostates would turn into idolatry all the elements, all the adornment of the universe, and all things contained in the heaven, the sea, and the earth, that they might be consecrated as God in opposition to God." All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all himself. The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry.

Custom without truth is error grown old.

Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.

He who flees will fight again.

Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.

We ourselves, though we're guilty of every sin, are not just a work of God: we're image. Yet we have cut ourselves off from our Creator in both soul and body. Did we get eyes to serve lust, the tongue to speak evil, ears to hear evil, a throat for gluttony, a stomach to be gluttony's ally, hands to do violence, genitals for unchaste excesses, feet for an erring life? Was the soul put in the body to think up traps, fraud, and injustice? I don't think so.

Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other [distinct], the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy.

You cannot parcel out freedom in pieces because freedom is all or nothing.

The blood of the Christians is seed

The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.

To forbid birth is only quicker murder.

If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.

Now we allow that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does.

The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore they will suffer if you take away their pleasure by not feeling pain.

Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear.

Daily, every moment, prayer is necessary to men.

It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.

For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing!

See how many men of rank have been delivered from devils and healed of diseases!

Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity, insert into their ears the word of God, tie the yoke of Christ around their necks, and adorn their whole persons with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.

It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of those who oppose us.

The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'

It is certain because it is possible.

Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.

Patience is God's nature.

There are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit that appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, perform many cures, and foresee certain events.

All the Scriptures give clear proof of the Trinity, and it is from these that our principle is deduced ... the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed.

I owe no duty to the forum, the election ground or the senate; I am ... no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier, no king; I have withdrawn from the populace. My only business is with myself. I have no care save not to care. The better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent ... None is born for another, being destined to die for himself.

The first reaction to truth is hatred.

How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many
magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the
Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their
deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their
own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then
ever before from applause.

Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.

Woman, thou shouldst ever be clothed in rags and in mourning, appearing only as a penitent, drowned in tears, and expiating thus the sin of having caused the fall of the human race. Woman thou art the gate of the devil. It is thou who hast corrupted those whom Satan dare not attack face to face.

Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.

If the sky stands still, if the earth quakes, if there is famine, if there is pestilence, at once the cry is raised: Throw the Christians to the lions! So many to one?

Patience ornaments the woman and proves the man.

You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest.

And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living.

[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.

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.

It is to believed because it is absurd.

Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil's work ... How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face - you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance.

A man becomes a Christian, he is not born one.

Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God

He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies

Hope is patience with the lamp lit.

Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money.

It is not consistent with truth that a man should sacrifice half of his stomach only to God-that he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating. Your belly is your God, your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, and your belchings are your prophesizing ... [such] a grossly- feeding Christian is akin to lions and wolves rather than God. Our Lord Jesus called Himself Truth and not habit.

I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.

I believe because it is absurd.

The nature of rumor is known to all.

Nature is schoolmistress, the soul the pupil; and whatever one has taught or the other has learned has come from God - the Teacher of the teacher.

The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.

The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for lie was in God, and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things

The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

Can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.

Fear is the foundation of safety.

We live in the world with you. We do not forsake forum or bath or workshop, or inn, or market, or any other place of commerce. We sail with you, fight with you, farm with you.

When we are going to enter the water ... in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, his pomp, and his angels. After this we are immersed three times, making a somewhat larger pledge than the Lord appointed in the Gospel. Then we are taken up [a reference to the Roman tradition of recognizing a newborn baby as a member of the family]. We first taste a mixture of milk and honey and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week.

If we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty [Christians were punished for not worshiping Roman gods] that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those whom we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist is in its nonexistence secure from suffering.

The blood of Christians is seed.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed.

Let the emperor make war on heaven; let him lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him put guards on heaven; let him impose taxes on heaven! He cannot ... He gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power where he got the breath of life.

Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.

Those who fled will fight another time.

For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because [God] has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to man's wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume it.

Woman is a temple built over a sewer.

He has inhibited discussion by designating admonition as the method of dealing with a heretic- and the first method, too, because he is not a Christian. This is so that he would not seem to require correction again and again and before two or three witnesses as though he were a Christian. He ought to be corrected for the very reason that he is not to be disputed with. In addition, this is said because a controversy over the Scriptures can, clearly, produce no other effect than help to upset either the stomach or the brain.