Tertullian: Against Marcion

You may, I assure you, more easily find a man born without a heart or without brains, like Marcion himself, than without a body, like Marcion’s Christ. — Against Marcion IV.X It would have been but right that a new god should first be expounded, and his discipline be introduced afterwards; because it would be the god that would impart authority to the discipline, and not the discipline to the […]

Read more

Tertullian: Divine Passions

What would be said, if, when you thought the doctor necessary, you were to find fault with his instruments, because they cut, or cauterize, or amputate, or tighten; whereas there could be no doctor of any value without his professional tools?… Your conduct is equally unreasonable, when you allow indeed that God is a judge, but at the same time destroy those operations and dispositions by which He discharges His […]

Read more

Tertullian: Divine Goodness and Justice

In short, from the very first the Creator was both good and also just. And both His attributes advanced together. His goodness created, His justice arranged, the world; and in this process it even then decreed that the world should be formed of good materials, because it took counsel with goodness. The work of justice is apparent, in the separation which was pronounced between light and darkness, between day and […]

Read more