Tag: #tertullian

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

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

One of the most intriguing parables Jesus ever told was the parable of ‘the Rich Man and Lazarus,’ recorded only for us in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 16. I have often wondered, and have even disagreed with somebody sharply, over how ‘literally’ Jesus’ parable here is a description of the afterlife prior to the bodily resurrection.

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

The North African Christian theologian Tertullian (c. 145—220 A.D.) was a prolific writer, and one of our key witnesses to the condition and beliefs of Christianity at the end of the second century. His work ‘On the Resurrection of the Flesh’ was written to defend orthodox Christianity against the many heresies, then current, which taught

In the opening chapter of his treatise ‘On the Resurrection of the Flesh,’ the Christian writer Tertullian (c. 145—220 A.D.) gives us a brief survey of the views prevalent in his day concerning the afterlife. The range of views — Christian and pagan — which he presents still sounds surprisingly modern. On the Resurrection of

If you’ve read certain bestselling conspiracy novels, you may be forgiven for thinking that the earliest centuries of Christianity are shrouded in mystery, rather like the Dark Ages, and we really can’t know what the earliest Christians believed. “History is always written by the winners,” as the character Sir Leigh Teabing scurrilously claims in one

In his treatise On the Flesh of Christ, the North African Christian theologian Tertullian (c. 145-220 A.D.) argues that in Jesus, the Son of God truly became a human being, truly taking on our human nature in the womb of the virgin Mary. He argues this against numerous heretics who taught that the Son of

According to the Barnabas Fund’s daily prayer diary for Saturday 18th August, Christians are increasingly finding themselves despised by Western society. Its daily prayer for that day states, As Christians in many Western countries find themselves increasingly despised by society at large and their freedom of conscience and freedom of speech being gradually eroded, pray

Explosive new discovery threatens to rewrite conspiracy theorists’ view of early Christianity Yes, the title is facetious. The writings of the North African presbyter Tertullian, which I am going to share below, have been known about ever since they were written at the beginning of the third century A.D. (around A.D. 210). They haven’t been