United States or North Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If I could bathe. "Are you dirty? That betokens inward defilement. I never bathe, but my body is always clean. But I have noticed, as soon as my thoughts become impure, the body becomes impure! What do you think, then, will do you good? You do not wish to marry. Tertullian says marriage and fornication are the same. And St. Jerome is of opinion that it is better to burn than to marry." "But St.
It was also in allusion to this most sacred ancient emblem that Tertullian, and other early Fathers, spoke of Christians as "Pisciculi."
For instance, the word "clergy," for the ministerial body, which is found in the Apostolical Canons, is also used by Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian. The word "reader," for an inferior order in the clergy, is used by Cornelius, bishop of Rome; nay, by Justin Martyr. "Altar," which is used in the Canons, is the only word used for the Lord's table by St.
How could any one become a Christian and at the same time remain a Greek or a Roman? The gloomy views of the Montanist Tertullian were, to many, frightful truths requiring constant care and self- examen.
Tertullian speaks equally plainly, stating the objection made in his days also to Christianity, that "the nations who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy." "So they do," he answers quite frankly, "but these cheat themselves with waters that are widowed.
Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage from the year 248, though a pupil and an admirer of Tertullian, reverts in his own writings at once to orthodoxy and to an easy and copious diction.
Some would have him rejected, and commended him to the mercy of God; others, less rigid, were willing to receive him, since he was ready to submit to any penance. Then the quarrel began again. High above every other voice rose the shrill tones of a man who had just arrived from Carthage, and who boasted of personal friendship with the venerable Tertullian.
See, also, Tertullian: Apology, XVII; "And this is the crowning guilt of men that they will not recognize One of whom they cannot possibly be ignorant." Against the Heathen, I. 33. Hortatory Address to the Greeks, V. Exhortation to the Heathen, XI. Stromata, IV, 25.
Very rightly and aptly doth Chrysostom write against these men. "Heretics," saith he, "shut up the doors against the truth: for they know full well, if the door were open, the Church should be none of theirs." Theophylact also: "God's Word," saith he, "is the candle whereby the thief is espied." And Tertullian saith, "The Holy Scripture manifestly findeth out the fraud and theft of heretics."
Word Of The Day