-
Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters; it carries the whole man along with it.
Tertullian -
Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other distinct, the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Tertullian
-
See how these Christians love one another.
Tertullian -
We ourselves, though we're guilty of every sin, are not just a work of God: we're image. Yet we have cut ourselves off from our Creator in both soul and body. Did we get eyes to serve lust, the tongue to speak evil, ears to hear evil, a throat for gluttony, a stomach to be gluttony's ally, hands to do violence, genitals for unchaste excesses, feet for an erring life? Was the soul put in the body to think up traps, fraud, and injustice? I don't think so.
Tertullian -
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Tertullian -
Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.
Tertullian -
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.
Tertullian -
All the Scriptures give clear proof of the Trinity, and it is from these that our principle is deduced...the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed.
Tertullian
-
Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God.
Tertullian -
He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.
Tertullian -
Let the emperor make war on heaven; let him lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him put guards on heaven; let him impose taxes on heaven! He cannot. . . . He gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power where he got the breath of life.
Tertullian -
Nature is schoolmistress, the soul the pupil; and whatever one has taught or the other has learned has come from God - the Teacher of the teacher.
Tertullian -
Where our work is, there let our joy be.
Tertullian -
The Law found more than it lost when Christ said, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven’ (Matthew 5:44-45). This most important commandment summarizes in a word the universal discipline of patience, since it does not allow us to do evil even to people who deserve it.
Tertullian
-
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
Tertullian -
How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.
Tertullian -
How many men of rank (to say nothing of common people) have been delivered from devils, and healed of diseases!
Tertullian -
A holy woman may be beautiful by the gift of nature, but she must not give occasion to lust. If beauty be hers, so far from setting it off she ought rather to obscure it.
Tertullian -
Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.
Tertullian -
Discipline is an index to doctrine.
Tertullian
-
I owe no duty to the forum, the election ground or the senate; I am ... no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier, no king; I have withdrawn from the populace. My only business is with myself. I have no care save not to care. The better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent. ... None is born for another, being destined to die for himself.
Tertullian -
There is strife between God s ways and human ways; damned by you, we are absolved by God.
Tertullian -
The first reaction to truth is hatred.
Tertullian -
For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing!
Tertullian