Tertullian Quotes
-
If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.
-
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.
-
Learn about the incorruptible King, and know his heroes who never inflict slaughter on the peoples.
-
Woman is a temple built over a sewer.
-
The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
-
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.
-
Christians are made, not born.
-
The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.
-
Prevention of birth is premature murder, and it makes no difference whether it is a life already born that one snatches away or a life that is coming to birth.
-
Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity.
-
The angels as the guardians of men are set over men as instructors and monitors. This shows the relationship that is to exist between them. Man's attitude is to be one of obedience and subjection. He is to follow the lead of the angels, and consequently some reverence is already implied in the very relationship that exists between man and angel.
-
Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.
-
Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.
-
Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.
-
Offerings to propitiate the dead then were regarded as belonging to the class of funeral sacrifices, and these are idolatry. Idolatry, in fact, is a sort of homage to the departed, the one as well as the other is a service to dead men. Moreover, demons dwell in the images of the dead. ... this sort of exhibition has passed from honors of the dead to honors of the living; I mean, to quaestorships financial overseers and magistractes, to priestly offices of different kinds. Yet, since idolatry still cleaves to the dignity's name, whatever is done in its name partakes of its impurity.
-
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.
-
Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
-
The blood of the Christians is seed.
-
It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer the eucharist, nor to claim for herself a share in any masculine function- not to mention any priestly office.
-
Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.
-
Custom without truth is error grown old.
-
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.
-
We worship unity in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the person nor dividing the substance. There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
-
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?