Apologeticus or Apologeticum is Tertullian's most famous work, consisting of apologetic and polemic ; In this work Tertullian defends Christianity, demanding legal toleration and that Christians be treated as all other sects of the Roman Empire.

Tertullian ( lawyer, theologian ) also alludes to Christ as the Alpha and Omega ( De Monogamiâ, v ), and from Prudentius ( Cathemer., ix, 10 ) we learn that in the fourth century the interpretation of the apocalyptic letters was still the same: " Alpha et Omega cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula, Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt.

His theory of spurious origin involved Tertullian and Cyprian, and the interpretation by Augustine which led to the marginal note, and that marginal note was in the Bible text used by the author of the Confession of Faith at the Council of Carthage of 484 AD.

Tertullian may have authored the term Patripassianism but was certainly a chief opponent of Modalism or the belief in one God with different modes.

" Similarly, Irenaeus wrote that the Christian " will not be commanded to leave idle one day of rest, who is constantly keeping sabbath ", and Tertullian argued " that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all servile work always, and not only every seventh-day, but through all time ".

Tertullian was a determined advocate of strict discipline and an austere code of practise, and like many of the African fathers, one of the leading representatives of the rigorist element in the early Church.

Christian exegesis of the " evil one " in have also led some commentators, like Tertullian, to agree that Cain was the son of the Devil in Christianity or some fallen angel.

In support of his allegation, Bernard quotes Tertullian as writing against Praxeas: " The simple, indeed ( I will not call them unwise or unlearned ), who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation ( of the Three in One ), on the very ground that their very Rule of Faith withdraws them from the world's plurality of gods to the one only true God ; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own economy.

In his De praescriptione contra haereticos, Tertullian mentioned continence as one of the customs in Mithraism that he claimed were imitated from Christianity, but does not associate it specifically with the clergy.

Similarly, Tertullian argued that second marriage, by one who was made freed from the first by death, " will have to be termed no other than a species of fornication ," partly based on the reasoning that such involves desiring to marry a women out of sexual ardor.

Around AD 213 in Adversus Praxeas ( chapter 3 ) Tertullian provided a formal representation of the concept of the Trinity, i. e. that God exists as one " substance " but three " Persons ": The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

For Tertullian, the Romans are at fault here for worshipping the wrong religion, not that of the one true God.

We may say with Tertullian, an ancient Christian writer: “ the one who will be a man is one already ” ( Apologeticum IX, 8 ), there is no reason not to consider him a person from conception.

A quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church, Tertullian: " homo est qui venturus est.

Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus were among the greatest early Christian apologists who engaged in critical analyses of unorthodox theology, Greco-Roman pagan religions, and Gnostic groups.

Tertullian ( c. 160 – c. 225 ), who wrote in Latin, also understood (" I will ascend above the tops of the clouds ; I will make myself like the Most High ") as spoken by the Devil, but " Lucifer " is not among the numerous names and phrases he used to describe the Devil.

The initial volumes include the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, among other authors.

The earliest historical evidence of Christianity among the native Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian and Origen in the first years of the 3rd century, although the first Christian communities probably were established some decades earlier.

Irenaeus and Tertullian argued against Marcionism's elevation of Paul and stated that Peter and Paul were equals among the apostles.

In addressing the charges, Tertullian plans to show the hypocrisy that surrounds these charges, demonstrating that those crimes exist among the pagan prosecutors as well.

Answering accusations of heresy and “ tumultuous defection ,” among others, Jewel establishes the truth and legitimacy of the claims of not only the Church of England but the whole protestant reformation by demonstrating the continuity between the reformers and Scripture, the apostles ( especially, Paul ), the church fathers ( i. e., Augustine, Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, etc.

Aristotle's epigenetic view of successive life principles (" souls ") in a developing human embryo — first a vegetative and then a sensitive or animal soul, and finally an intellective or human soul, with the higher levels able to carry out the functions also of the lower levels — was the prevailing view among early Christians, including Tertullian, Augustine, and Jerome.

Tertullian, in several places, speaks of this book with esteem ; and would persuade us, that it was preserved by Noah during the deluge.

Celsus in De Medicina and the church leader Tertullian state that he vivisected at least 600 live prisoners ( although Tertullian lived several centuries after Herophilos and may have had reasons to discredit what he saw as heresy ).

While Valentinus was alive he made many disciples, and his system was the most widely diffused of all the forms of Gnosticism, although, as Tertullian remarked, it developed into several different versions, not all of which acknowledged their dependence on him (" they affect to disavow their name ").

Multiple early Christian documents discuss the " ordinance " or " several ceremonies ... explained in the Apostolical Constitutions " of " chrism ", including documents by Theophilus ( d. 181 ) and Tertullian ( d. 220 ).

Here Tertullian mentions: Nero, and to a certain extent: Domitian, as examples of emperors who raged against the Christians through the use of unjust laws, simply for condemning “ some magnificent good ”.

:* In 225 Tertullian spoke of " those who would deserve the excellent gifts of the spirit -- and who ... by means of the Holy Spirit would obtain the gift of language, wisdom, and knowledge.

( 1 Sam. 10: 10, 11 ; 1 Sam. 19: 19-24 ) In 225 AD Tertullian speaks of " those who would deserve the excellent gifts of the spirit-and who ... by means of the Holy Spirit would obtain the gift of language, wisdom, and knowledge.

" It is noteworthy that all of the images so mentioned by Tertullian and Clement were common Greco-Roman depictions used by non-Christians ; but Christians adopted them for their own use, even giving a specifically Christian significance to some of them.

A common misconception is that Tertullian decisively left the orthodox church and joined a separate Montanist sect ; in fact, he remained a catholic Christian.

By the second and third centuries, such Church Fathers as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian wrote of formalised, regular services: the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer, and prayers at the third hour of the day ( terce ), the sixth hour of the day ( sext ), and the ninth hour of the day ( none ).

Tertullian, on the other hand, described the bosom of Abraham as that section of Hades in which the righteous dead await the day of the Lord.

The Circumcellions regarded martyrdom as the true Christian virtue ( as the early Church Father Tertullian said, " a martyr's death day was actually his birthday "), and thus disagreed with the Episcopal see of Carthage on the primacy of chastity, sobriety, humility, and charity.

Writing a little later, Tertullian makes the same main point but adds expressly that recently founded churches ( such as his own in Carthage ) could be considered apostolic if they had " derived the tradition of faith and the seeds of doctrine " from an apostolic church.

5 ), and also in Tertullian, where it is too close to be anything but a conscious following of the Greek.

Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian held the letters of Paul to be on par with the Hebrew scriptures as being divinely inspired, yet others rejected him.

An earlier example has been suggested in Tertullian < u > De Corona Militis xi </ u >, " Apud hunc Christum tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis ," but here the word paganus may be interpreted in the sense " civilian " rather than " heathen ".

It is an old error to suppose that Tertullian attacked this in his ' De pudicitia ', but Tertullian is referring to the remission of sins, not to the reception of converts, and was probably writing ten years earlier ; the bishop he criticizes is much more likely to be the bishop of Carthage than the bishop of Rome.

Further, Tertullian has been thought to be a lawyer based on his use of legal analogies and an identification of him with the jurist Tertullianus, who is quoted in the Pandects.

Although Tertullian utilized a knowledge of Roman law in his writings, his legal knowledge does not demonstrably exceed that of what could be expected from a sufficient Roman education.

For Tertullian the soul is, however, a distinct entity and a certain corporeity and as such it may be tormented in Hell ( De anima, lviii ).

Kelly has stated: " Tertullian followed the Apologists in dating His “ perfect generation ” from His extrapolation for the work of creation ; prior to that moment God could not strictly be said to have had a Son, while after it the term “ Father ”, which for earlier theologians generally connoted God as author of reality, began to acquire the specialized meaning of Father and Son .".

In discussing whether sins committed subsequent to baptism may be forgiven, Tertullian calls baptism and penance " two planks " on which the sinner may be saved from shipwreck — language which he gave to the Church ( De penitentia, xii ).

# With reference to the ' rule of faith ', it may be said that Tertullian is constantly using this expression, and by it means now the authoritative tradition handed down in the Church, now the Scriptures themselves, and, perhaps, a definite doctrinal formula.

The rule of faith, however, seems to be also applied by Tertullian to some distinct formula of doctrine, and he gives a succinct statement of the Christian faith under this term ( De praescriptione, xiii ).

There have been many works attributed to Tertullian in the past which have since been determined to be almost definitely written by others.

As early as the time of Tertullian, some homilists were likening the Jewish people to a " new Cain ", asserting that they would be " fugitives and wanderers ( upon ) the earth ".

The epithets that can be identified are: Cozeuios, i. e. Conseuius the Sower, which opens the carmen and is attested as an old form of Consivius in Tertullian ; Patultius: the Opener ; Iancus or Ianeus: the Gatekeeper ; Duonus Cerus: the Good Creator ; rex king ( potissimum melios eum recum: the most powerful and best o ' em kings ); diuum patrem ( partem ): father of the gods ( or part of the gods ); diuum deus: god of the gods ; ianitos: the Janitor, Gatekeeper.

For instance, Steven Cox and Kendell Easley list four separate approaches to a solution, ranging from a grammatical approach to the translation of the Greek word prote used in Luke to be read as " registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria " to archeological arguments and references to Tertullian that indicate that a " two step census " was performed, involving an early registration, given that Luke 2: 2 refers to the " first enrolment ".

The statement " Credo quia absurdum " (" I believe because it is absurd "), often attributed to Tertullian, is sometimes cited as an example of such a view in the Church Fathers, but this appears to be a misquotation from Tertullian's De Carne Christi ( On the Flesh of Christ

Rather, some of them are biblically inspired traditions derived from the writings of Froehlich ( who was strongly influenced by early church writers such as Tertullian ) and some are past practices found to be beneficial.

This can be seen to be but a clarification in observing the great care, from the earliest date, taken to preserve every particle of Eucharist, e. g. Tertullian, 211: " We take anxious care lest something of our Cup or Bread should fall upon the ground " ( Jurgens § 367 ).