Tag: history

Creation by God ‘ex nihilo’ taught by Tertullian (3rd century)

The Christian doctrine of creation ‘ex nihilo’ teaches that God created all things out of nothing (‘ex nihilo’ is just a Latin phrase meaning ‘out of nothing’). We find the belief very clearly stated by the early Christian theologian Tertullian, writing less than two centuries after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension. What we don’t always

Tertullian and the ‘New Prophecy’

One of the saddest things one encounters when reading the 2nd-/3rd-century Christian writer Tertullian — and the reason he never became ‘St. Tertullian’ in Christian tradition — is his embrace in later life of the Christian overexuberance known as Montanism, or the ‘New Prophecy.’ The New Prophecy was a movement which came out of the

Life begins at conception, according to Tertullian (c. 145—220 A.D.)

The North African Christian theologian Tertullian’s treatise On the Resurrection of the Flesh is rewarding reading. In its sixteenth chapter we have an early testimony to the Judaeo-Christian belief that life begins at conception. On the Resurrection of the Flesh, written around A.D. 208, was written to counter the position of the various schools of

Is religion the cause of all wars?

The argument is often put forward by atheists that “religion is the cause of all wars.” On at least two occasions I’ve had this very thing said to me. But is it really true? Come, let us reason together. Firstly, let us consider the assertion itself. “Religion is the cause of all wars.” As aphorisms