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Quintus Septimius Florens TERTULLIANUS was the son of a centurion stationed at Carthage. He received a good literary education, and practiced for some years as an advocate. Being converted to Christianity, he was an ordained priest. He wrote numerous works on the rites and discipline of the Church, and in defence of Christianity. Of these the most important is his Plea for Christians against Heathens, written 198 A.D. In this he refutes the slanderous attacks made against Christian morals, analogous to the calumnious charges made frequently in recent times against Jews; and he appeals to Roman law and justice for the same fair-play that was shown to other accused persons. We learn from this work how widely Christianity was diffused throughout the Roman Empire at the end of the second century. Shortly afterwards he joined the Montanists, a sect of fanatic ascetics who denounced all profane learning, condemned military service, regarded second marriages as adultery, denied the power of the Church to give absolution for sins committed after baptism, and generally applied Christian doctrines in ways utterly at variance with the wise moderating spirit of the Roman Church. The precise time at which he joined the sect appears doubtful. Many of his works, which are strongly marked with the Montanist (i.e. Puritanical) tendency, are vigorous denunciations of heresy, and in support of Church discipline; as e.g. his treatise de Prescriptione Hereticorum, and that against Praxeas in defense of the Trinity. He appears finally to have separated from the Montanists, and to have formed a sect apart, remnants of which were found by Augustine in the African Church more than a century afterwards.
Tertullian's writings, which contrast strongly with those of the Alexandrian school, illustrate the practical aspect of the Church as an organization of life. They are full of wide and varied learning; but intellectual processes are rigorously subordinated to the tradition of the Church and to the edification of Christian life.
Of the death of Tertullian nothing is known; but he lived to an advanced age.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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