Tertullian Quotes
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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.
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If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.
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The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
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Woman is a temple built over a sewer.
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Learn about the incorruptible King, and know his heroes who never inflict slaughter on the peoples.
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Christians are made, not born.
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Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.
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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.
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The state of faith allows no mention of impossibility.
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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.
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Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
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Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity.
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Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.
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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.
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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.
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The blood of the Christians is seed.
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In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God's sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil's gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die... Woman, you are the gate to hell.
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Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder.
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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.
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Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.
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He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies.
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But all the other frenzies of passions-impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes-beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.
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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?
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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.