Tertullian

Tertullian objects to the military service of his own times on account of dangers, and inconveniences very similar to those, which deterred the Jews.

and likewise Tertullian, who in some parts seems to disapprove of capital punishments, has said, “No one can deny that it is good the guilty should be punished.

” Tertullian in his Apology, speaking in the character of Christians, says, “We sail along with you, and we engage in the same wars,” having a little before observed, “we are but strangers, yet we have filled all your cities, your islands, your castles, your municipal towns, your councils, and even your camps.

and first about the names I will make my demand.

another I will snatch from the authority of Scripture itself.

But from what follows he argues, because it is written, And the earth was invisible and unformed.

6), and Tertullian, the father of the Church, who was noted for his knowledge of Roman law, and possibly was identical with the jurist of that name, of whom five fragments are preserved in the Digest, speaks of infamia as capitis minutio, De Spectaculis, 22, Scenicos manifeste damnant ignominia et capitis deminutio.

Remember, inspector, that the things which were treated beforehand we have proved of the apostle too in their place, and that whatever was deferred to this work we have discharged — lest either here you think the iteration superfluous, by which we have confirmed the former hope, or there hold the deferment suspect, by which we drew out these very things.

Plainly the Marcionites think that here too the apostle votes for them about the substance of Christ — that there was a phantasm of flesh in Christ — when he says that, being constituted in the form of God, he counted it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not the truth, and in the likeness of man, not in man, and being found in fashion as man, not in …

You have too, from us, a little book concerning paradise, in which we have established that every soul is sequestered in the lower regions until the day of the Lord.

Epicurus judged dreams wholly vain, freeing the divinity from business, and dissolving the order of things, and scattering all in passivity, as exposed to chance and fortuitous.

who, when she had slept in peace, and while the burial was still delayed, was meanwhile being composed by the prayer of a presbyter — at the first breath of the prayer she removed her hands from her sides into the posture of a suppliant, and, the peace being again said, restored them to their station.

Only I pray that, when you ask, you remember Tertullian the sinner too.

This treatise will not be idle, instructing both those who are just now being formed, and those too who, content to have simply believed, carry an untested though probable faith, through inexperience, without having examined the grounds of the traditions.

Faith is placed in the rule;

But first of all I lay this down:

So, deserting my faith, I am found a denier.

that our virgins ought to be veiled from the time they have made the passage of their age.

Truth was content to make a pact with custom, so that, silently, under the name of custom, it might enjoy itself even in part.

And surely that is to be chosen which keeps virgins covered, known to God alone—virgins for whom, besides that glory is to be sought from God and not from men, even their own good is a thing to blush at.

We read the Lives of the Caesars:

Whatever wind of argument, then, these scorpions shall have conceived, against whatever sharp point they shall have driven themselves, there is now one line:

But those who think that confession is constituted not here — that is, not within this compass of the earth, nor during this voyage of life, nor among the men of this common nature — what a presumption is it against the whole order of things to be undergone in this earth and in this life and under human powers!