TERTULLIAN’S THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS: TOWARDS
IDENTIFYING TERTULLIAN'S PRINCIPLES OF SCRIPTURAL INTERPRETATION
by
ROBERT BLAZECKA
Bachelor of Religious Education, PRBI, 2006
Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES PROGRAM

in the
FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY

November 2020
©Robert Blazecka 2020

Abstract
This thesis is an attempt to articulate Tertullian’s principles of hermeneutics. It gathers relevant
statements from across his recognized works, and attempts to synthesize his thought on hermeneutics.
What emerges are eight principles that determine his Scriptural interpretation. In the first chapter,
Tertullian’s treatises are placed in the literary context of classical rhetoric, and an argument is advanced
that Tertullian took much influence from the rhetorical tradition, but does not uniformly conform to
exact parameters of Ciceronian rhetoric. Rather, Tertullian is an original writer who synthesized
classical rhetoric with the literary structures of the Scriptural canon as he saw it. The second chapter
explores Tertullian’s view of the Scriptures, arguing that he held to a unified canon of writings that he
understood to be God’s word. The third chapter is the mainstay of this thesis, and argues that many of
Tertullian’s treatises are best read as a unified theological project. It is argued that many of his writings
evince an effort on Tertullian’s part to apply hermeneutic principles to an array of theological topics,
and thus may profitably be read as a concentrated literary effort in hermeneutics. Lastly, an attempt to
state his hermeneutics in eight principles are explained and demonstrated.

ABBREVIATIONS
Ad Martyras
Ad Martyras
Ad Nationes
Ad Uxorem
Adversus Hermogenem
Adversus Judaeos
Adversus Marcionem
Adversus Praxeas
Adversus Valentinianus
Apologeticus Pro Christianus
De Anima
De Baptismo
De Baptismo
De Carne Christi
De Corona Militis
De Cultu Feminarum
De Exhortatione Castitatis
De Fuga in Persecutione
De Idolatria
De Jejuniis, Adversus Psychicos
De Monogamia
De Oratione
De Paenitentia
De Pallio
De Patientia
De Prescriptione Haereticorum
De Pudititia
De Resurrectione Carnis
De Spectaculis
De Testimonio Animae
De Velandis Virginibus
Scorpiace

To the Martyrs
To the Martyrs
To the Nations
To His Wife
Against Hermogenes
Against the Jews
Against Marcion
Against Praxaeus
Against the Valentinians
Apology for the Christians
On the Soul
On Baptism
On Baptism
On the Flesh of Christ
On the Soldier’s Garland
On the apparel of women
On Exhortation to Chastity
On Flight in Persecuation
On Idolatry
On Fasting, Against the Materialists
On Monogamy
On Prayer
On Repentance
On the Ascetic Mantle
On Patience
The Prescription Against Heresies
On Modesty
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
On the Shows
The Soul’s Testimony
On Veiling Virgins
Antidote to the Scorpion’s Bite

Table of Contents
Introduction

1

Chapter I. Tertullian and Rhetoric: Defining His Rhetorical Influence
A. Biography
B. Tertullian and Rhetoric: Defining the Rhetorical Influence
C. Tertullian, Rhetoric, and Sophistry
D. Tertullian and Rhetoric: Summary
E. The Reception of Rhetoric in Tertullian in the Secondary Literature

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6
11
28
31
32

Chapter II. Tertullian and the Scriptures
A. The Nature of the Scriptures
B. The Apostles
C. Canon

37
37
39
45

Chapter III. Tertullian’s Hermeneutics
A. The Possibility of Finding Tertullian’s Hermeneutics
B. The Problem of Underlying Unity in Tertullian’s Treatises
C. The Problem of Divergent Lists of Principles
D. Tertullian’s Priorities of Rules and Argument
E. Tertullian’s Eight Principles of Hermeneutics
Conclusion

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99

Bibliography

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Introduction
This thesis is a theological investigation of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. In an age before the genre
of Bible commentaries, Tertullian sits as one of the first Christian writers to make an effort at
articulating rules for the interpretation of Scripture. Many of his treatises can be profitably read as an
effort to apply the Bible to the theological, cultural, and ecclesiastical issues of his day. This area of
Tertullian studies has been recently rediscovered, as some contemporary patristic and New Testament
scholars have been surprised at the quality and depth of Tertullian’s handling of Scripture. 1 His
exegesis of Scripture is one of the dominant areas of scholarship in Tertullian studies still active today.
This thesis claims that Tertullian’s (many) statements of a hermeneutical nature evince a system
of thought that determines how he reads Scripture. This system of thought is expressed in eight rules,
many of which have considerable conceptual overlap. This conceptual overlap can be partly explained
by reference to Tertullian’s rhetorical background, which plays no small part in his hermeneutics.
The research method used in this thesis is the careful study of the entirety of Tertullian’s
commonly recognized works as represented in the popular Pre-Nicene Fathers English translations. 2
Careful attention is given to isolating and collating his clearest statements of hermeneutical principles
and to categorize these various statements under suitable headings. These headings are common
hermeneutical principles broadly recognizable within the pages of the church Fathers and already
established, as such, in the field of patristic studies. The aim of this study is to construct a broad picture
of how Tertullian handles the Scriptures. Relevant conversations in secondary sources are consulted,
with the most germane scholarly insights being brought to bear on the inquiry into Tertullian’s
hermeneutics. Relevant conversations and scholarly insights include ongoing efforts to define

1
2

Todd D. Sill and David E. Wilhite, ed., Tertullian and Paul (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2013), xviii.
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973).

1

Tertullian’s relationship to classical rhetoric, the plausibility of reading his treatises as a theological
whole, and his particular view of the Scriptures.
This project is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces Tertullian and his context
with a particular focus on understanding his rhetorical background. This chapter primarily discusses the
two most commonly assumed streams of influence on Tertullian’s hermeneutics: that of rhetoric and the
Scriptures. This chapter seeks to clarify and define many aspects of Tertullian’s rhetoric with an eye
towards how this affects his hermeneutics. A case will be made that many of Tertullian’s treatises can
be read together as a larger literary project.
The second chapter is an introduction of prerequisite issues that aid in forming a comprehensive
view of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. Of particular concern is how Tertullian viewed the Scriptures to
which he applied his hermeneutics. Crucial to these hermeneutics is the unity and divine authorship of
the Scriptures since this plays no small part in the internal coherency of the Scriptures in his many
arguments. This chapter places an emphasis on one of Tertullian’s central concerns: the relationship of
apostolicity to the Scriptures. One notes that the eight rules proposed include rules pertaining to
ecclesiastical phenomenon. His concept of canon is briefly discussed as a product of his late second
and early third century context which helps to place Tertullian’s concept of Scripture in historical
context, the concept of canon at that time being different than what the modern reader may assume.
The third chapter is the mainstay of this thesis. It begins with a response to many scholars who
view it as implausible to collect a unified view of Tertullian’s hermeneutics due to the situational
quality of his writings. Evidence of underlying unity between treatises will be presented. A
demonstration of various frameworks that numerous scholars have presented for understanding
Tertullian’s hermeneutics will be discussed, with this thesis adopting its own model. Rather than
wholesale adoption of an existing model, this thesis carves out a new set of principles in concert with
2

some of the existing contributions to this area of study. This is framed as eight “rules,” arranged
approximately in order of importance. The first is the rule of reason and nature. By this, Tertullian
appeals to a normative law, known to all men 3 and founded by God, though distorted by human
sinfulness. The rule of faith is second, which is a statement of faith given to the Apostles by Jesus, and
a normative standard by which he reads scripture. Next is the rule of progressive revelation, which is a
theological rubric by which he understands the nature of God’s ongoing work in history. He uses this
rubric extensively in arguments involving how to apply the Scriptures, especially in discerning the
contemporary meaning of Old and New Testament texts. Fourth is the rule of discipline, which is an
ethical criterion by which to identify which churches have ethical warrant to interpret the scriptures
properly. Fifth is the rule of context, which attempts to express the importance of placing a text within
its historical context, as well as recognizing the context the reader is in within the broad scope of God’s
working in history. Next is the rule of ecclesiastical fellowship, which, like the rule of discipline, is an
ecclesiastical tool of narrowing the field of who is allowed to interpret the scriptures. Churches that do
not walk in fellowship with established churches are disqualified from having a hearing at the
exegetical table, for they do not maintain the unity of the faith with established congregations. Seventh
is the rule of tradition, which is a normative yet amendable body of tradition not found in scripture, but
practised in churches that maintain communion with other apostolic churches. Lastly there is the rule of
grammar and logic, which is a catch-all for Tertullian’s frequent appeals to various linguistic and
grammatical principles that he frequently advances to justify his interpretations of scripture.

3

This thesis makes use of traditional masculine pronouns.

3

This thesis has made use of a digital compilation of Tertullian’s works as a primary source for
research. 4 To be clear, this text makes use of the same translations of the Latin found in the most
common print version of his works, The Ante-Nicene Fathers series. 5 The Delphi Classics edition has
the added advantage of including the original Latin. When citations of Tertullian’s work depend on
precise wording, a comparison with the original Latin was made to ensure that no arguments are
contingent on questionable translations. Where applicable, this thesis has also consulted more recent
translations of Tertullian’s works to be found in the Ancient Christian Writers series, though this series
is only a partial collection of Tertullian’s writings. 6 When citing Tertullian, this thesis has adopted the
method of citing the Latin title and locations of Tertullian’s works, which creates a greater uniformity
of formatting, and, thus, ease of reference. This should allow the reader to more precisely locate any
citations, as page numbers are no longer useful for a resource so widely available in numerous online
and digital formats. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are taken from the Ante-Nicene Fathers series.
The approach to research for this project and the subsequent development of argument
contained in this thesis, has been an inductive one. That is, it has sought to make observations about
Tertullian’s literature first, and to draw conclusions from a collected set of data. The criteria for
including relevant data has been a linguistic one: texts containing comments pertaining to hermeneutics
in the broadest sense have been selected for analysis and comparison. This has not reduced the method
of study to word searches, but has sought to identify texts where the meaning of a section may be
applicable to the study of Tertullian’s hermeneutics.

4
5
6

Tertullian, The Complete Works of Tertullian, trans. Sydney Thelwall, Peter Holmes, and Robert Ernest Wallis, Delphi
Classics, Google Books, 2018, https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/tertullian.
The Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Tertullian, Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage: To His Wife, An Exhortation to Chastity, Monogamy, trans. William
P. Le Saint (New York, NY: Newman, 1951); Tertullian: The Treatise Against Hermogenes, trans. J. H. Waszink (New
York, NY: Paulist, 1956); Tertullian: Treatises on Penance, trans. William P. LeSaint (London: Newman, 1959).

4

Lastly, it should be stated that this thesis takes a historical-critical approach to Tertullian's
writings, which reads him as a product of his own historical context; that is, a late second century Latin
writer who used the literary tools of the rhetorical schools of his era. This context was one in which the
classical tradition was the starting point for the appropriation of the Christian scriptures. Clearly,
Tertullian demonstrates his creativity as a rhetor by applying the principles of that tradition to the
Christian Scriptures. He is not merely a rhetor as some have described him, but a creative Christian
thinker and writer who profoundly affected the trajectory and language of Latin theology.

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Chapter 1
Tertullian and Rhetoric: Defining His Rhetorical Influence

Introduction
This chapter will introduce some of the biographical narratives of Tertullian that have affected
how he is read and explore the variegated ways the tradition of rhetoric forms the background behind
his writings, and, thus, his hermeneutic(s). It will conclude with a review of how Tertullian’s rhetoric
has been received in the secondary literature, thereby priming the reader for concerns about Tertullian’s
hermeneutics raised by varying assessments of the role of rhetoric in Tertullian’s writings.

A. Biography
One of the features of Tertullian studies is the paucity of biographical information about the
man himself. There are only three sources for information about him on which the rest of church
history has sketched his biography. The first is Tertullian’s own writings, none of which are
biographical in character, although certain facts may be gleaned here and there from them. The second
source is a brief statement of Jerome’s, written in his Lives of Illustrious Men;
Tertullian the presbyter is now at last placed first of the Latins after Victor and
Apollonius . . . He was a presbyter of the Church up to the middle of his life; later, when
he had lapsed into the doctrine of Montanus because of the envy and reproaches of the
clergy of the Roman Church he mentions the new prophecy in many books. Moreover he
composed volumes specifically against the Church: On Modesty, On Persecution, On
Fasts, On Monogamy, six books On Ecstasy and a seventh which he composed Against
Apollonius. 7

7

Ronald E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, Patristic monograph series, no. 14 (Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1989), 155. Italics added.

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The last source is Eusebius, where he is briefly introduced as a lawyer: “Tertullian, a famed,
distinguished expert on Roman law.” 8 Eusebius’ claim has been widely accepted by many, albeit this
proposal has been challenged in recent years. There is debate whether Eusebius confused Tertullian
with Tertullianus, a famous Roman jurist. The two may not be the same person. Notably, T. D. Barnes
has established the most significant case against the traditional view of Tertullian as a jurist. 9 There
remain, however, some who still defend it as probable. 10
Primary source support for a legal background to Tertullian is usually drawn from his work De
Praescriptio, where his central argument for the Rule of Faith has parallels in the regula of Roman
law. 11 Such an overt appeal to the Roman legal system to set rules of engagement is surely good
evidence of the man’s legal pedigree, is it not? However, legal analogies are insufficient to make a
positive demonstration that Tertullian was a jurist, as legal training was a standard in Roman education
at the time. The Roman education curriculum was highly systematized and standardized, and remained
relatively unchanged from 90 BC to well past 500 AD. 12 Even elementary education for children
included the memorization of a large amount of Roman law. 13 In addition, the primary emphasis of
textbooks for rhetoric was legal training. 14 A good knowledge of Roman law was thus crucial to any
respectable rhetorical education. This is, therefore, adequate to account for the legal content in
Tertullian’s writings. 15

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2.2.
Timothy D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (New York: Clarendon, 1971), 22-29.
Ibid., 23.
Hubertus R. Drobner, The Fathers of the Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 160.
James J. Murphy and Richard A. Katula, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 3rd ed. (New York, NY: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2003), 135.
Jo Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
1988), 107.
Murphy and Katula, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 158.
David I. Rankin, “Was Tertullian a Jurist?,” Studia Patristica 31 (1997): 335-42.

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Furthermore, although Tertullian demonstrates familiarity with Roman law, it is not evident to
any outstanding degree. On the contrary, Barnes argues that there are significant gaps in Tertullian’s
knowledge of Roman law; indeed, there were cases of family law and dealings with Christians in
Roman law of relevance to Tertullian’s arguments in Apologeticum and Monogamia that are not
mentioned. 16 For an alleged expert jurist, the absence of these cases is peculiar in Tertullian’s
writings. 17 Barnes explains Eusebius’ belief in a legal background on account of the poor Greek
translations of Tertullian’s work that Eusebius was using, particularly the mistranslation that the
Apologeticum was addressed to the Roman Senate. 18 In sum, there are good grounds for questioning
the traditional Eusebian view of Tertullian as a “[A] famed, distinguished expert on Roman Law.” 19
Regarding Jerome’s biography of Tertullian as a presbyter, there is a significant problem in that
Tertullian identifies himself with the laity, not the priesthood. 20 As such, Jerome gives the researcher
nothing about Tertullian but a perspective that can be falsified from Tertullian’s own writings. There is,
however, some debate among patristic scholars whether the title of ‘presbyter’ can be applied to the
laity, as the presbytery may have simply been distinct from the priesthood. Although Tertullian says he
is not a priest, that does not necessarily exclude him from being a presbyter as Jerome says. A careful
look at Tertullian’s use of terms for various ecclesiastical offices is worth exploring further, in order to
establish more firmly the clerical status of Tertullian in order to assess the historical claim of Jerome.
Tertullian clearly identifies himself as a member of the laity, and, in fact, contrasts this with
priests. “Are not even we laics priests?” 21 In context, Tertullian here is referring to the universal
priesthood of all believers of which all laity are part. In saying “we laics” he identifies himself as
16
17
18
19
20
21

Barnes, Tertullian, 27.
Barnes, Tertullian, 23-24.
Ibid., 24.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2.2.
Exhort Cast 7.3; Monogamia 12.2.
Tertullian, De Exhortatione Castitatis, 7.3.

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unordained laity. 22 Tertullian thus clearly self-identifies as ‘laity’ in contrast to a ‘priest,’ but was he
actually part of the presbytery? In the same context, merely a few verses later, Tertullian distinguishes
presbyters 23 from the laity as well: “[U]nless the laics as well observe the rules which are to guide the
choice of presbyters, how will there be any presbyters at all, who are chosen to that office from among
the laics?” 24 This passage points to Tertullian holding the presbytery to being a distinct class from the
laity of which he self-identifies, so he could not have been a presbyter.
In De Monogamia, he repeats this argument about presbyters, although he puts more emphasis
on the laity conforming to the same marital standards as clergy in general, with emphasis upon the
office of bishop. 25 One sentence may help shed some light on Tertullian’s use of terms for ecclesiastical
office: “From whence is it that the bishops and clergy come?” 26 This is a clear instance of Tertullian
using the term ‘clergy’ 27 to indicate a separate class of persons from lay Christians. Given that he has
already distinguished the bishop, what other classes of clergy could he be referring to, if not presbyters
and priests? The most natural reading of Tertullian, then, excludes the laity from all ecclesiastical
offices, with the term clerus in his usage referring to priests, presbyters, and bishops. Coupled with his
own self-identity as a laic, it is clear that he was not a priest or bishop; also, given his use of terms, it is
highly unlikely that he was both a laic and a presbyter. In sum, Tertullian’s explicit identification with
laity coupled with his use of clerical terms casts no small doubt on the accuracy of Jerome’s biography.
Attempts to re-construct Tertullian’s life are all highly speculative. As such, it is better to be
content with the conclusion of Barnes: “Paucity of evidence renders a full biography of Tertullian

22
23
24
25
26
27

Latin Laicus.
Latin Presbyterus.
Tertullian, De Exhortatione Castitatis, 7.5.
Latin Episcopus.
Tertullian, De Monogamia 12.2.
Latin Clerus.

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impossible.” 28 The remaining biography, however, is that he wrote in Latin in the late second, early
third century, was a pagan who became a Christian, was married, and lived in Carthage. He evidently
received an excellent education in the rhetorical tradition, and was involved in the Montanist schism.
Two important exclusions to the traditional biography have been adopted by this thesis that may
indirectly influence his hermeneutics. The first is the attribution of an ecclesiastical office to Tertullian,
while the second is his alleged status as a great legal scholar.
Both of these backgrounds are of interest to Tertullian’s hermeneutics. The ecclesiastical
background of Tertullian is important as this thesis holds “the Rule of Ecclesiastical fellowship” to be
one of his principles of hermeneutics. It is a deeply ironic principle of hermeneutics, since Tertullian
eventually fell out of fellowship with the Roman hierarchy and so ends his theological career by being
excluded from the community he argued was best fit to rightly interpret the Scriptures. Interestingly, his
clearest articulation of this ecclesiastical aspect of his hermeneutics is found in his Montanist works.
Tertullian’s alleged legal background is of some hermeneutical importance in that it is so widely
received. Given the paucity of information about him, it is one of the few points of Sitz im Leben that
readers have. It is unfortunate that his legal background is so well received when whatever legal
background Tertullian has pales in comparison to the importance of his background in classical
rhetoric. One wonders if Tertullian studies would be better situated if Eusebius had introduced
Tertullian as a rhetorician? Surely this would be an aid to future readers who perhaps could thereby
better understand the literary phenomenon before them. Eusebius’ original claim had the affect of
giving Tertullian some prestige (one notes that Eusebius’ first adjectives for Tertullian are “famed and
distinguished...”) in the eyes of his readers, and that seems to be the ongoing effect behind this claim: it
gives the reader of Tertullian a sense of the sophistication and high social status of the author. However,
28

Barnes, Tertullian, 1.

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Tertullian’s background is better served by viewing him as theological rhetor, not a lawyer. A legal
background merely helps one understand some of the terms in De Prescriptio, but a rhetorical
background is applicable to all of Tertullian’s writings, and so is in need of renewed emphasis over
against the traditional received narrative of a churchman and legal scholar.

B. Tertullian and Rhetoric: Defining the Rhetorical Influence
T. D. Barnes points out that the relationship of Tertullian to rhetoric is often ill-defined. 29
Despite being ill-defined, it remains a point of consensus among scholars that rhetorical influence runs
deep in Tertullian. It is significant that neither an ecclesiastical nor legal background is universally
accepted by scholars, but a rhetorical provenance to his writings has no detractors. The influence of
rhetoric was not a matter of selective doctrines, as though he chose a principle here and an idea there.
Rather, it was a total art of his thinking with deep Ciceronian sympathies. 30

1. The Difficulty of Defining Rhetoric
Cicero’s works on the topic form the basis for what is known and defined as rhetoric in Roman
antiquity. Cicero’s De Inventione is the primary treatise that outlines Cicero’s principles and methods of
rhetoric, and was used and commented on well into the late middle ages. 31 Though regarded by many
scholars as an unoriginal work, 32 predominantly by virtue of it being an early treatise of Cicero’s, and
more reflecting the general consensus of rhetoric at the time rather than the idiosyncrasies of Cicero’s

29
30
31
32

Barnes, Tertullian, 214.
Fredouille, Jean-Claude. Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique (Paris, France: Études Augustiniennes, 1972),
178.
Ibid., 90, 188.
Ibid., 90.

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mature and original works and letters, 33 it is still regarded as a good picture of what anyone educated in
rhetoric was likely given as a curriculum in the course of their education. Indeed, the whole of classical
rhetoric often goes by the name Ciceronian rhetoric. 34 This is an important work to place beside
Tertullian’s body of writing, since “the most striking aspect of Tertullian’s rhetoric is his conformism
or, more precisely, his fidelity and his attachment to classical and Ciceronian techniques and ideals.” 35
A brief perusal of De Inventione raises some difficulties, however, for the modern reader. This
work is not so different from a modern textbook on argument and speech-writing, with many commonsense observations about language and reasoning that gives pause to consider whether “rhetoric” is so
broad a category that it admits of nothing very peculiar. Is applying the label of “rhetorician” to
Tertullian then, simply to say nothing of great specificity? This classic textbook on rhetoric leaves one
wondering what exactly this category means as applied to Tertullian, other than that he was a man who
wrote with an emphasis on the tools of argument and logic.
Quintillian, another famous rhetor who bequeathed to us a treatise on oratory, admits as much:
“Aristotle himself also by his tripartite division of oratory, into forensic, deliberative and
demonstrative, practically brought everything into the orator’s domain, since there is nothing that may
not come up for treatment by one of these three kinds of rhetoric.” 36 More explicitly regarding rhetoric;
“[I]ts material was all and every subject that might come up for treatment.” 37
Aristotle defines rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion.” 38 Saying that one is a rhetorician then, is somewhat akin to nowadays saying one has a
33
34
35
36
37
38

Robert Dick Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 1971), 12 ftn 2.
George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1980), 89-90.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 171. Translation mine.
Quintillian, Institutes of Oratory, 2.21.2.
Quintillian, Institutes of Oratory, 3.1.1.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.2.1.

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degree in “Communications.” The category is just as nebulous now as it was then. “To tell the truth,
this distinction did not, in the eyes of the ancients, have the importance that we would be tempted to
give it: rhetoric was indeed much more flexible than one might think, when it came to define or label
genres.” 39 It is little wonder then, why Barnes describes the assessment of rhetorical influence on
Tertullian as “ill-defined.” 40
This exceedingly broad scope of rhetoric should be kept in mind regarding Tertullian. The label
of rhetor primarily serves to place Tertullian within the educational canons of his day, when rhetoric
was a crucial component of a respectable education. In practical terms, it means Tertullian’s writing
will bear similarities to the father of Latin literature, Cicero, with literary polishes that one might find
in the best oratorical resources such as Quintillian. This Latin literary craft was just that, the art of
speaking and writing well according the literary ideals of one’s era.

2. The Ideal Rhetor
Inconvertibly, there are, indeed, ideals of the era that one can identify to help clarify the opacity
of the label, “rhetorician.” It was an art with certain values and qualities that were expected of the ideal
rhetor. According to Cicero, the rhetor was an artful and persuasive speaker. He was an intellectually
well-rounded man, able to speak winsomely in the primary disciplines of philosophy, law, and history.
The Carthaginian follows this ideal nicely: “If Tertullian is a ‘rhetorician’, he also has the culture that
Cicero demanded from the speaker, especially in the three essential disciplines of philosophy, law and

39
40

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 110. Translation mine.
Barnes, Tertullian, 214.

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history.” 41 Even if we doubt his status as a famed legal scholar, Tertullian’s references to Roman law
have long been a distinguishing mark of his writing.

3. Rhetoric in Tertullian: Literary Structure
Tertullian’s writings bear distinctive influences from the rhetorical writings of Cicero, 42
Quintilian, 43 and Aristotle. 44 This is not just because he quotes or alludes to these authors directly.
More telling is how he follows the modes of argument recommended by these authors in their
rhetorical textbooks, and uses the categories of ancient rhetoric to structure his writings as though they
were speeches. 45 Since the structure of many of Tertullian’s treatises often precisely conform to classic
speech structures, we will look at this in more detail.
Ancient rhetorical handbooks (like Cicero’s youthful De Inventione) divided a speech
into certain sections: exordium, narratio, partitio (or propositio), confirmatio,
reprehensio and peroration. Tertullian...deliberately used the standard forms when
composing his apologeticum. Nor does that ornate work of art stand alone: a similar
analysis can be applied to such apparently unpromising material as the Scorpiace -and
perhaps to the De Anima. 46
In English, these Latin categories roughly translate as follows: preamble, narrative, partition (or
proposition), confirmation (arguments advanced of one’s own position), refutation (arguments
advanced of one’s opponent’s arguments) and conclusion. The intention of the exordium (preamble)
was to render one’s audience favourable and attentive to the speaker. Exordiums fell into five types,
depending whether they appealed to the honourable, the remarkable, the humble, the doubtful, or the

41
42
43
44
45
46

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 483.
Tertullian, De Anima 24.3.
Barnes, Tertullian, 217-218.
Tertullian, De Anima 12.3.
Robert Dick Sider, “Tertullian, On the Shows,” Journal of Theological Studies 29, no. 2 (October 1978): 339-365, 363.
Barnes, Tertullian, 206. Italics added.

14

obscure. 47 The narration set forth the case that was to be made, and presented the purpose of the
speech, which may be “[T]o attack someone on the other side or make a comparison or amuse the
audience.” 48 The Partition presented either the speaker’s points of agreement with his opponent, or a
simple list of the points to be demonstrated. 49 The Confirmation was the part of the speech where
arguments were advanced, which were classified as either probable or necessary. 50 The Refutation was
the part of the speech where the formal argument of the opponent was dismantled, either by denying
the premises, showing a non sequitur, an invalid form, or by simply setting a better argument against
one’s opponent. 51 Lastly, the conclusion did three things: ‘rounded off’ the argument or ‘summed
things up,’ raised ire against one’s opponent, and/or incited pity for the speaker. 52
Classical rhetoric also sought to find rubrics whereby speeches and treatises may be definitively
categorized. There is a history to this discussion whereby various rhetors from the socratics through to
Quintillian sought to define what kind of speech belongs in what category, and these categorical
debates were never fully resolved. 53 The lists need not be detailed here, as Tertullian’s work does not
conform precisely to these categories. It is sufficient for this thesis to observe that Tertullian played
with these structures to a greater or lesser degree of conformity. Barnes captures this literary flexibility
well: “Tertullian transcended the limitations of normal genres. He took some elements appropriate to a
consolatio, and others belonging to exhortation, combined them with several motifs from the
philosophical diatribe-and wrote something new and Christian. Precise analysis is difficult, since the

47
48
49
50
51
52
53

Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 93.
Ibid., 93.
Ibid., 93.
Ibid., 94.
Ibid., 94.
Ibid., 94.
Barnes, Tertullian, 225.

15

historical development of the pagan literary forms remains obscure.” 54 Sider summarizes much of the
rhetorical influence on Tertullian’s hermeneutics thusly:
[T]hree important features do distinguish Tertullian’s exegetical methods. First, he uses familiar
techniques with a nicely-finished, systematic, and persistent application quite novel in Christian
literature, which indicates a skill acquired from beyond the Christian tradition. Secondly, he
employs his methods with a suggestive deliberation constantly pointing the reader in a highly
stylized manner and in the very language of the rhetorical textbooks, to his procedure...Finally,
the fact that such methods as contextual and literary analysis are found as an integral part of
certain expository passages neatly elaborated by a transparently rhetorical programme of topics
stoutly supports the view which sees classical rhetoric as a major source for the essential
patterns of Tertullian’s Biblical exegesis. 55
But what are we to make of the treatises that do not follow classical speech patterns? Compiling
a coherent picture of Tertullian’s appropriation of the classical tradition can be a puzzling endeavour
due to frequent departure from the canons of rhetoric. But even this may reflect of the depth of
Tertullian’s appropriation of the rhetorical tradition. It should be noted that in his later rhetorical works,
Cicero emphasized the inadequacy of rules and stressed that rhetoric was an ‘art.’ 56
Some works, like the Apologeticus, follow rhetorical canons very closely. Others, such as De
Monogamia, fully merit the criticism of simple biting polemics. 57 Sider gives a good general summary
of Tertullian’s relationship to rhetorical structures: “[I]n the disposition of his material Tertullian moves
well beyond the imitation of rhetorical rules to an imaginative correlation of form and content.” 58 If
one looks for exact imitation, the rhetorical background can be difficult to see. If, however, rhetoric is
regarded as an ‘art of thinking adapted to particular purposes,’ the gist is unmistakable. “It is clear,
then, that a single set of structural principles may not, perhaps be uniformly applied to all the treatises.
Yet we have found that the rhetorical categories are especially illuminating when applied to the major
54
55
56
57
58

Barnes, Tertullian, 226.
Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 100.
George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 45.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 128. Translation mine.
Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 21.

16

polemical treatises, while the neat formalism of others, at times perhaps sophistic, suggests rhetorical
influence of a more stylistic kind.” 59
Sider observes that Tertullian lays out his arguments along both rhetorical structures, and the
structure of the Biblical Canon. Tertullian often treats the Gospels as confirmatio, (the confirmation of
one’s arguments) and the epistles as refutatio (The refutation of opposing arguments). 60 Tertullian does
not do this across all of his works, but this pattern is most clearly seen in De Resurrectione and De
Monogamia. “the different sequences expected by classical rhetorical theory and the Biblical Canon are
made to coincide.” 61 Tertullian’s five books against Marcion are also arranged according to the
sequence of the Biblical Canon. “[T]he first book tackles Marcion’s philosophical arguments, the
second demonstrates the identity of the Creator and Marcion’s Good God, the father of Jesus, the third
disproves Marcion’s Christology, the fourth examines his Gospel, the fifth his version of the Pauline
epistles.” 62 Claude Rambaux has observed that the literary structure of De Monogamia chapters 4-13 is
basically a chronological treatment of the Bible. 63 It is an open question whether this was a creative
arrangement on Tertullian’s part, or whether he genuinely saw the structure of the Scriptures as
arranged according to a classical speech.
A further question may be raised as follows: to what extent are Tertullian’s treatises as a whole
structured, if at all? The question arises because Tertullian states at the end of his treatise De
Prescriptio that this work in particular functions as a kind of prolegomena for subsequent treatises he
intended to write: “On the present occasion, indeed, our treatise has rather taken up the general position
against heresies, (showing that they must) all be refuted on definite, equitable, and necessary rules,
59
60
61
62
63

Ibid., 40.
Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 31.
Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 31.
Barnes, Tertullian, 127.
Claude Rambaux, “La composition et l’exegese dans les deux lettres Ad uxorem, le De exhortatione -castitatis et le De
monogamia,” Revue d’ Etudes Augustiniennes Et Patristiques 23, no. 1-2 (1977): 19, ftn. 255.

17

without any comparison with the Scriptures. For the rest, if God in His grace permit, we shall prepare
answers to certain of these heresies in separate treatises.” 64 It should be noted immediately that this
breaks with the kinds of conclusions permitted by strict Ciceronian rhetoric in De Inventione, which
states that conclusions should be a summary, or an incitement of indignation against one’s opponent, or
an appeal to pity. 65 Tertullian does none of these, but concludes with a warning of judgment and the
above cited “more to follow.” 66 Tertullian here breaks with standard rhetorical practice and instead opts
to let this treatise stand as an introduction of principles to other treatises. These treatises that are to
follow are specific applications of the “definite, equitable, and necessary rules” that Tertullian outlined
and for which he argued. It may be fairly asked which treatises specifically are designed to follow from
these principles?
Jean Daniélou proposes certain treatises that are well suited to Tertullian’s stated purpose, and
how these treatises conform to topics familiar to contemporary theologians. The author asserts:
Tertullian’s works form a kind of Summa which deals in succession with the various
aspects of his faith. In the De testimonio animae and the De praescriptionibus, for
example, Tertullian considers the problem of the sources of faith. In the Adversus
Hermogenem and the Adversus Marcionem he treats of the relationship between God
and the world. The De anima is a study of man. The De Carne Christi is concerned with
the incarnation of Christ, the Adversus Praxean with the Trinity and the De
Resurrectione Carnis with Christian eschatology. Taking these works as a whole, we can
see that Tertullian’s intention was to provide an exposition of the whole of Christian
faith by contrasting it with the various deformations of that faith and by taking
advantage of this contrast to throw light on points which were not sufficiently clear. 67
The idea that Tertullian’s works form a kind of a “Summa” is worth considering in more detail,
as this may suggest how Tertullian’s writings are structure across his treatises. But how far can the idea
64
65
66
67

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 44.13.
Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition, 93.
One notes that this is a far cry from Cicero’s counsel to “let the whole thing be summed up, and summed up so that
nothing be introduced subsequently besides the conclusion.” Cicero, De Inventione, 1.33.
Jean Daniélou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea. Vol. 3. The Origins of Latin
Christianity, trans. by David Smith and John Austin Baker (Philadelphia PA, Westminster, 1977), 343-344. Italics
added.

18

of the medieval Summa be fairly applied to Tertullian? There are elements of continuity and
discontinuity here, as well as entirely novel elements inappropriate to the genre. The points of
continuity are as Daniélou enumerates above, in that the overall topics conform nicely to what would
later become the primary loci 68 of systematic theology. To suggest that Tertullian’s works can be seen
as a ‘Summa’ is not to say that he had the entirety of the categories of medieval theology and dialectic
methods precisely in mind. The largest discrepancy is of course a historical one: medieval dialectic
overshadowed Latin rhetoric from around 700 until the Renaissance, 69 though the rhetorical tradition
began to be revived by, of all people, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in the 1300’s. 70
Coincidentally enough, this was in Aquinas’ famed Summa, albeit for ethical purposes rather than
structural and methodical. 71
It would be claiming too little, however, to state that Tertullian had nothing of the sort in mind,
as he explicitly states that he had in mind to lay out ‘principles of arguments’ and to ‘apply these to
theological topics.’ 72 It is, therefore, fitting that some of his earliest works, De Testimonio Animae and
De Prescriptio, lay out foundational principles of reasoning; which is roughly analogous to a
Prolegomena. De Carne Christi and De Resurrectione Carnis are likely candidates for works which
were to follow De Prescriptio. It will be shown later that, in spite of its polemical title, Ad Marcion also
bears distinct evidence of a systematic approach to writing theology.
It may be more than a happy coincidence that many of these treatises can be arranged along the
traditional topics of modern systematic theology. The alignment is not entirely complete, as there are
treatises that fall outside of this arrangement. Nonetheless, there is enough of a stated intention in De
68
69
70
71
72

A locality; a place or topic.
Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 274.
Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition, 190.
Ibid., 190.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 44.13.

19

Prescriptio, and enough of treatises along those lines to suggest that the categories that were to emerge
later in systematic theologies can be seen in embryonic form in many of Tertullian’s treatises.
A modest point of corroboration can perhaps be gleaned from Barnes’ chronological ordering of
Tertullian’s works. Daniélou’s proposal is loosely reflected in the chronological order in which
Tertullian wrote the relevant treatises. Dating the order of Tertullian’s works is a difficult affair, and the
following table is Barnes’ ordering, offered with modest probability. NB: works of relevance to
Daniélou’s proposal are in bold. 73
Date

73

Work

196 or early 197

De Spectaculis
De Idolatria
De Cultu Feminarum II

Summer 197

Ad Nationes
Adversus Judaeos

Summer/Autumn 197

Ad Martyras

Autumn 197 or later

Apologeticum

198

De Testimonio Animae

? Between 198 and 203

De Baptismo
De Oratione
De Paenitentia
De Patientia
Ad Uxorem

203

De Praescriptione
Haereticorum

Late 203/early 204

Scorpiace

204/5

Adversus Hermogenem

205

De Pallio

? 205/6

De Cultu Feminarum I

206

De Carne Christi

206/7

Adversus Valentinianos
De Anima

Barnes, Tertullian, 55.

20

De Resurrectione Mortuorum
Between April 207 and April 208 Adversus Marcionem
Early 208

De Corona Militis

208/9

De Exhortatione Castitatis
De Fuga in Persecutione
De Virginibus Velandis

210/11

Adversus Praxean
De Monogamia
De Jejunio
De Pudicitia

c. September 212

Ad Scapulam

With the exception of De Testimonio Animae, all of the relevant treatises are written subsequent
to Tertullian’s alleged prolegomena, of his supposed Summa, De Prescriptio. It appears that his writing
career began with an external and apologetic thrust which turned into more focused theological issues
after he wrote De Praescriptio. If one imagines a planned literary effort, interrupted by writing treatises
on pressing practical issues, the chronology is not out of step with an ordered effort to write theology.
The point is minor, but minor though it be, it is worth noting. It is certainly an interesting and relevant
one given Daniélou’s proposal.
Daniélou’s proposal is not a suggestion of great technicality, but suggests to us how Tertullian’s
writings may be viewed as a systematic literary effort through the means of separate treatises.
Continuities aside, Tertullian’s alleged “Summa,” and the suggestion of a “systematic” ordering of his
treatises is of course best placed within his own literary context of rhetoric. Tertullian wrote separate
treatises, but there is evidence for a larger theological project underlying them. This means Tertullian’s
treatises are best read together, and not in isolation.
A comparison can perhaps be made with the work of Cicero. Would it be a careless anachronism
to regard Cicero as a political theorist? Cicero wrote disparate treatises, and in varying styles, with
21

arguments suited for the immediate topic of the treatise. In addition, some of his works, De Republic,
De Legibus, and De Natura Deorum are best read together as an extended argument for Cicero’s vision
of the ideal state. De Inventione, De Oratore and Brutus are essential treatises on oratory. They are
treatises which refer to one another, and chronologically build on one another. They are not formal
‘Summa’ of political philosophy or rhetoric respectively, but nevertheless form a sustained literary
effort to think about the moral and legal foundations of the Roman state and the practice of oratory.
Within these works, there is an explicit system of thinking, with principles and assumptions that Cicero
continually returns to, and stated in the format of speeches and dialogues with interlocutors. They can
be read together profitably, and, when done so, give a much fuller picture of the individual’s thought.
Tertullian engaged in a similar project with theology. Though the analogy is not a perfect fit with
Tertullian, it remains close enough to make the point that there is an overall consistency and coherence
that makes it possible to understand them as a totality.
Also similar to Tertullian is Cicero’s academic heritage of being criticized for paradox,
inconsistencies, and rhetorical opportunism. 74 Just as Cicero can be accused of shifting the sands of
argument in favour of his point at the moment, his overall view of politics is fairly easy to discern, even
in many of its particulars. Tertullian is in the same situation, where his paradoxical use of argument and
rhetoric from one treatise to another should not obfuscate his principled attempt at doing theology.
In summary, therefore, we may say that Tertullian’s appropriation of rhetorical tools to structure
his writings is variegated. Sometimes he demonstrates strict conformity, sometimes breaking wellestablished rules, and at times making something new and Christian by combining rhetorical structures
with the structure of the Biblical canon. His treatises, for the most part, function in isolation and can be
profitably read as such, but they are still not altogether unrelated to one another. Tertullian broke with
74

Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, NL: E. J. Brill, 1985), 65.

22

rhetorical rules on exactly this point, using De Prescriptio in particular as a treatise of principles meant
to be applied to other theological topics. While precise ordering may forever remain a mystery, several
of his treatises are likely candidates to be seen as an effort to apply a set of rules to loci that would later
emerge as the traditional loci of systematic theology.

4. Rhetoric in Tertullian: Argument Structure and Audience Tailoring
Closely related to the literary structure of his writings is the rhetorical influence of his argument
structure and style. While Tertullian did not conform every treatise to a precise categorization of
speech, he did follow the canons of argumentation very closely in many of his treatises. This is
summarized well by Robert Sider, who is worth quoting at length here:
We may . . . summarize the results of our investigation of the relation between
Tertullian’s methods of Biblical exegesis and the textbook rules for controversies over
written documents. We have found that Tertullian has employed (1) appeal to the
context; (2) careful verbal and grammatical analysis; (3) appeal to the honourable and
expedient especially to show the serious consequences for morality and religion if the
opponents’ interpretation is accepted; (4) such conjectural modes of argument as
consideration of (a) character and life of the author and (b) time and circumstances; (5)
in a minor way certain other topics, or variations of them, such as ʻthe importance of
the subject demands a literal interpretation’. In the passages analysed Tertullian has
followed the rhetorical rules almost programmatically. 75
Sider’s list of Tertullian’s methods of exegesis gives a good summary of the kinds of rhetorical
leanings that influence his hermeneutics. Rhetoric is not merely about the use of arguments, but how
these arguments are structured to persuade. In rhetoric, syllogisms “are used with a deliberate sharpness
of outline which indicates his conscious effort to achieve rhetorical effect by shaping arguments into

75

Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 96-97.

23

the pattern of the formal topics.” 76 The main effect Tertullian is aiming for is a literary crescendo that
adds forcefulness and persuasiveness to his various treatises.
This rhetorical structuring of arguments is also seen in the kind of arguments that Tertullian
advances. He appeals to more classical sources and general principles in works like De Apologeticus,
where he is addressing a non-Christian audience. He bases his proofs much more in the scriptures in
Adversus Judaeos. His arguments are also much more exegetical in such circumstantial topics as De
Corona Militis, and De Jejuniis, where he is engaging with in-house arguments between Christians. He
is at his most metaphysical in De Anima, where it reads like a philosophical treatise more so than his
customary railing against heretics in Adversus Hermogenem, Adversus Marcionem, and Adversus
Valentinianus. This reflects the rhetorical emphasis of tailoring arguments to one’s audience. 77
This diversity of argumentative strategy is important to note, because Tertullian has been
accused of shifting his attitude towards Scripture across his treatises and embracing a skepticism that
deprives the Scripture of its primacy: “He shows a certain skepticism in his controversial works, a
skepticism which tends to deprive the Scripture of its primacy. A very different attitude is found in
his catechetical works.” 78 If O’ Malley is correct, it would be very difficult to pursue the project of
compiling a coherent picture of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. It would, in fact, hardly be credible to
suggest that he held firm principles about how to read Scriptures which only held primacy as his
opinion of them rose or fell at a skeptical whim.
Contrary to O’ Malley’s claim of skepticism above, however, it is much more probable that a
shifting emphasis on the Scriptures is a product of the rhetorical method of tailoring one’s arguments to
their specific audience. To say it different, it is a stronger (more persuasive) argument to point to a
76
77
78

Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 114.
Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 87.
T. P. O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible (Nijmegen, NL: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1967), 134.

24

rhetorical background, which taught Tertullian that “[N]o single kind of style can be adapted to every
cause, or every audience, or every person, or every occasion...it is of consequence also to consider who
form the audience...we adopt a character of style, fuller, plainer, or middling, suited to the subject on
which we are to speak.” 79 His rhetorical education would have taught him that different kinds of
arguments appeal to different classes of people depending on their status in society and their overall
background. 80 The good orator conforms his arguments to the ethos of his audience, and this is
adequate to account for varying dependence on the Scriptures for his arguments. Rhetoric thus helps to
understand the diversity in argument in Tertullian’s treatises.
This understanding of rhetoric then, goes a long way to understanding Tertullian’s treatises as a
whole. Though, admittedly, the treatises do vary in argumentative strategy, style, structure, and tone, it
does not follow that taking a different argumentative approach to a topic results in inconsistencies of
substance. It may simply mean that one’s audience is different and that one is operating out of different
plausibility structures. To conclude, whether to Jews, pagans, or psychics, Tertullian’s treatises, broadly
speaking, argue for the truth of the Christian faith, yet with emphases suitable to his audience.
To restate, this thesis argues that Tertullian adapted his rhetorical training to the goal of
persuading his audience of the truth of the Christian faith (in the case of his apologetic works) or for
the doctrinal issues he regarded as purer expressions of the Christian faith. His varying arguments
should not be seen, therefore, as skepticism or inconsistency (though there, indeed, may be that), but
rather as a synthesis of the concerns of rhetoric and the concerns of his faith. Modern classicists such as
Robert Kennedy see classical rhetoric and the Scriptures as having many overlapping qualities and

79
80

Cicero, De Oratore 3.55. The Complete works of Cicero, Delphi Classics, Google Books, 2014.
https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/cicero/
Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 87.

25

concerns. The concern to preach the word of God has much overlap with classical rhetoric’s emphasis
on the spoken word to persuade an audience, 81 and this overlap finds a good archetype in Tertullian.

5. Rhetoric in Tertullian: The Exempla
Another specific rhetorical technique, the exempla, is worth mentioning, as it bears important
imprint on Tertullian’s exegesis. While Tertullian never so much says “I am using an exempla now,” he
does frequently make use of biblical character’s lives and practices as normative with these often
forming a core of his arguments. For Tertullian, Christ is the ultimate exemplar. He states this in very
strong terms: “But facts will satisfy me instead of words. Withdraw all the sayings of Christ, His acts
shall speak.” 82 To the rhetor, there is a forcefulness to arguments based on exempla of which the
modern reader needs to be aware. Cicero describes this as follows: “Example is that which confirms or
invalidates a case by some authority, or by what has happened to some man, or under special
circumstances. Instances of these things, and descriptions of them, will be given amid the precepts for
oratory.” 83 Sometimes, Tertullian is criticized for his selective use of Scripture, where it may be the
case that he is just applying the principles of the exempla to his exegesis.
For example, Candida Moss criticizes Tertullian’s use of Paul’s life as a martyrological
exemplar. For Moss, this was an abuse of the Scriptural text for Tertullian’s purposes: “In many ways
the appeal to Paul as martyrological exemplar is an expedient rhetorical move designed to undermine
Paul’s own writings.” 84 In the eyes of classical rhetoric, the particulars of Paul’s life serve as a
powerful example of a practice Tertullian wishes his readers to imitate. In light of Tertullian’s rhetorical

81
82
83
84

Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition. 120-132.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, 4.7.6.
Cicero, De Inventione, 1.49.
Moss, “The Justification of the Martyrs,” in Tertullian and Paul, 113.

26

background, Moss’ criticism is one that does not give adequate credit to the canons of Latin rhetoric. It
may, therefore, be argued that Tertullian read Paul as ‘any good orator’ would likely read him, with a
carefully crafted synthesis of his life and doctrine as a unified argument.
The exempla is a model example of Tertullian appropriating a technique of rhetorical
argumentation and, especially, his application of it to Scripture. Barnes puts this rhetorical influence on
Tertullian’s hermeneutics well: “His debts to his classical education are many and great. Without a
thorough training in ancient rhetoric one may doubt whether he would have learned how to employ
exempla, both pagan and Christian.” 85

6. Rhetoric in Tertullian: Brevity.
Another example of Tertullian’s synthesis of the rhetorical tradition and the Scriptures is his
emphasis on brevity. Cicero and Quintilian emphasize the importance of being concise enough for the
subject matter at hand, and no more. Brevity is a dominant motif and frequently exposited topic of the
great rhetors. Tertullian’s style reflects this emphasis, as his writings are generally devoid of
speculation, and conforms to the canons of brevity elucidated by Cicero, Aristotle, and Quintilian. For
Tertullian’s part, he explicitly appeals to the principle of brevity, but defends this principle from
Scripture rather than an academic tradition: “To the Christian, but few words are necessary for the clear
understanding of the whole subject...for ‘endless questions’ the apostle forbids.” 86 For Tertullian, the
appeal of brevity is found within apostolic authority, and no appeal to the authority of Cicero is needed
to justify it. This is a good example of a synthesis with the classical tradition. No overt appeal to
classical authors is made, but, rather, apostolic authority is claimed as the source. Nevertheless, it is

85
86

Barnes, Tertullian, 213-214.
Tertullian, De Anima, 2.7.

27

difficult not to see the shadow of Cicero behind this statement, for Paul's emphasis on this point is
minor, but Cicero’s is well known.

7. Rhetoric in Tertullian: Re-casting Aphorisms
One last example of Tertullian’s appropriation of rhetoric is taking famous aphorisms and recasting them along Scriptural themes. 87 For example, He takes a famous quotation from Cicero’s work,
De Officiis; “Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praises, ye laurels.” 88 and recasts it for his argument:
“Let curiosity yield to faith, let fame give place to salvation.” 89 Tertullian does the same with Juvenal. 90
These parodies reveal a mind steeped in classical literature, with a desire to re-cast it in Christian terms.
In brief, they may be held as further examples of Tertullian conforming his rhetoric and persuasive
style to the audience at hand.

C. Tertullian, Rhetoric, and Sophistry
A special problem arises in distinguishing rhetoric from sophistry, and this is because Tertullian
is often cast as a polemicist whose writings are pure sophistry. 91 However, it is not always clear
whether the term “sophist” is used in a technical sense or a pejorative sense. Moreover, Philostratus
bequeathed to posterity a conception of sophism that could be an important description of Tertullian’s
style of writing, and thus further refine our understanding of the influence of rhetoric on Tertullian.
The term sophist had several meanings over the years, including being a synonym for a public
teacher. A sophist was initially a professional educator who instructed young men in making public
87
88
89
90
91

Clare K. Rothschild, “Christ the Foolish Judge in T’s On the Prescription of Heretics,” in Tertullian and Paul, 42.
Cicero, De Officiis, 1.77.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 14.5.
Juvenal, The Satires, 3.230, cf. Adv. Marcion, 4.24.9.
Barnes, Tertullian, 183; Claude Rambaux, “La composition et l’exegese dans les deux lettres Ad uxorem, le De
exhortatione -castitatis et le De monogamia,” 46

28

displays of eloquence for fees. 92 Sophism gradually became a term used for those who studied and
practiced rhetoric. 93 By Tertullian’s day, a clear pejorative meaning had become associated with that
profession, with Tertullian himself accusing Marcion of casting sophistical arguments. 94
In addition to this, Tertullian described Paul’s encounter with the “huckstering wiseacres and
talkers” of Athens to have been an encounter with “the sophistical doctrines of men.” 95 The pejorative
meaning seems to have emerged because sophists were well-known for making public displays by
arguing for both sides of the same topic. 96 For this, they were excoriated most famously by both Plato 97
and Aristotle. 98 Due to the triumph of Aristotle and Plato in the history of philosophy, few extant works
of genuine sophists have been preserved. 99
If the meaning of ‘sophist’ is understood to be a class of rhetorical teachers, then, in this
definition, it is unlikely that Tertullian was ever one in any formal sense of the term. Incontrovertibly, it
is difficult to conceive of him as a teacher of rhetoric when he explicitly repudiates many aspects of
classical education and explicitly states that Christians are forbidden from teaching it. 100 These strong
opinions against the educational structures of his day are not exclusive to Tertullian alone, though, as
elementary educators find themselves on the list of prohibited professions of Hippolytus’ The Apostolic
Tradition. 101 One also notes that this work (deemed of North African origin) is often cited as being of

92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101

W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 35.
Murphy and Katula, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 24.
Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 4.12.
Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul. 3.2
Guthrie, The Sophists, 47.
Plato, Gorgias, 458d - 466c. The Complete Works of Plato, Delphi Classics, Google Books, 2015.
https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/plato/
Guthrie, The Sophists, 52.
Guthrie, The Sophists, 52.
Tertullian, De Idolatria, 10.4-5.
Hippolytus, The Apostolic Tradition, 2.12-13. The Hippolytan authorship of this document is contested, but the
provenance is not.

29

the same time period as Tertullian. This over-arching bias against pagan learning, combined with
Tertullian’s scrupulous advocacy of separation from pagan culture makes it unlikely he was a sophist.
A more honorable definition of the sophist is given to us by one of Tertullian’s contemporaries,
Philostratus. 102 In his usage, the sophist was one who fused rhetoric and philosophy as Cicero did.
“Philostratus was celebrating the marriage of philosophy and rhetoric in his Lives of the Sophists, and
defined the sophist’s art as philosophical rhetoric. Gorgias and Hippias had finally triumphed over
Socrates and Plato.” 103 This label of sophist could be reasonably attributed to Tertullian, with an eye
towards describing his style of writing in comparison to some of his contemporaries. If we substitute
“theology” for “philosophy,” the following observation of Cicero could well apply to Tertullian: “In
addition to using philosophical principles in his rhetoric and rhetorical strategies in his philosophical
works, Cicero reoriented the treatment of these two disciplines by observing that philosophy and
rhetoric have a common subject matter which can be treated by a common methodology.” 104 Cicero’s
contribution to rhetoric was in uniting philosophical speculation with rhetorical practice, and this is the
non-pejorative meaning of “sophist.”
Cicero’s synthesis of rhetoric and philosophy results in literature that is distinct from
philosophy. One of the key qualities of this synthesis is that philosophy lost its abstract qualities, and
this is also a distinct mark of Tertullian as a theologian. “Tertullian’s normal inclinations: he applied the
techniques of rhetoric to specific issues and avoided metaphysical speculation.” 105 Further, the goal of a
treatise was not to explore or define a topic as in philosophy, as the sophist was not concerned with
abstract definitions, but in persuading his hearers. To this end, treatises are always tailored to a

102
103
104
105

Philostratus was Greek sophist who lived c.170-250 AD.
Barnes, Tertullian, 213.
Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 72.
Barnes, Tertullian, 128.

30

particular audience, which meant that the methods of argument were fluid according to one’s hearers.
Colish explains: “In addressing a cultivated audience he may flatter their conception of themselves by
appealing to the higher values. Uneducated audiences, on the other hand, can best be moved by an
appeal to profit or pleasure...” 106
Sophism then, is an aspect of Tertullian’s writing in multiple senses. As mentioned above, he is
frequently cast as a sophist, without clearly identifying whether this is an appeal to his Ciceronian
literary roots, or just a pejorative title to draw attention to the worst aspects of his literary habits. 107
Broadly speaking, his writings reflect all of the above in different places, though he was never a pure
sophist in the sense which Plato decried as a writer of speeches which argue for contradictory positions
for amusement’s sake, nor is it likely he was a sophist in the sense of a teacher of rhetoric in the
classical tradition. Sophism bears a close relationship to rhetoric, as the sophist was trained in rhetoric,
and Tertullian certainly was a sophist in this sense at least. Philostratus’ cast of the sophist is also
appropriately applied to Tertullian as a philosophical rhetorician, insofar as this is descriptive of
Tertullian’s style in being averse to abstractions.

D. Tertullian and Rhetoric: Summary
Tertullian’s hybrid literature of rhetoric and theology stands out from his contemporaries. The
above exploration of his relationship to rhetoric gives some much-needed specificity to his relationship
to often ill-defined genre. It also helps to distinguish him among the church fathers and what qualities
mark his writings that are not found in other church fathers broadly of his era. Tertullian is lacking in
the allegorical approach of Clement of Alexandria and Origen and makes no overtly Platonic appeals

106
107

Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 87.
Barnes, 183, ftn 10.

31

(contra Justin Martyr). “Tertullian would have deplored the attempts of Justin, Clement and Origen to
reconcile Christianity and pagan philosophy. He explicitly rejected a Stoic, Platonic or dialectical
Christianity.” 108 Since rhetoric is distinguished by its lack of interest in abstractions and ideals,
Tertullian’s synthesis with his rhetorical background is a synthesis of method, not content: “[I]n a wider
sense, he had himself reconciled Christianity and classical culture. For he used the benefits of a
traditional education to defend and to propagate what he considered to be the truth.” 109
Tertullian’s rhetorical training, though it taught him to write in individual treatises, was not a
tradition that celebrated atomism of argumentation, but stood out for the very unity of ideas sought in
the ideal rhetorician: “One strength of technical rhetoric in contrast to most other ancient critical
writing should be noted. It has a concept of unity of the material: it deals with the whole argument, the
whole speech...” 110 This gives us a glimpse as to how his writings may be read as a whole. Though the
rhetorical tradition is predominantly individual treatises, its ideals and concepts provide a framework to
how a writer within that literary tradition may have had an eye to a larger literary project, especially if
the writer said as much in his own writing. Again, the comparison of Tertullian with Cicero’s works on
oratory and politics appear to have significant overlap.
We may say that Tertullian is a rhetor, and his rhetorical education is the primary background
behind his hermeneutics. His emphases will be on how he structures his treatises, and these will be
along the lines of a persuasive speech that shies away from excessive abstractions, and whose
argumentation strategies were tailored to the audience of the treatise.

108
109
110

Barnes, Tertullian, 210.
Ibid., 210.
Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition, 107.

32

This thesis defines “rhetoric” as used by Tertullian as a method of reasoning within a literary
tradition that sought to arrange the art of argument into patterns of presentation that were thought to be
the most persuasive way to present a discourse on a set of ideas, in order to win one’s audience over.

E. The Reception of Rhetoric in Tertullian in the Secondary Literature
Having introduced his literary background, it remains to be asked, in the light of this thesis’
attempt to compile a coherent picture of Tertullian’s hermeneutics, whether such a project may be fairly
undertaken. After all, many scholars regard Tertullian’s treatises as internally inconsistent, and beset by
the intractable problem that individual treatises are tailored to specific audiences, rather than to be read
as a whole.
Many scholars see his rhetoric as a liability to his exegesis, and this rhetorical background is set
not as a background, but as an antithesis to the Scriptures, as seen in the following citations: “Tertullian
was a rhetorician rather than an exegete or a systematic theologian. Although normally referred to as
such, his extant works are not so much ‘treatises’ but ‘polemics’.” 111 and; “Tertullian’s method is not
that of the systematic theologian but that of the literary artist and the master of rhetoric.” 112 As will be
shown, there is a trend among some scholars to regard theological principles and universals as
indistinguishable from the immediate context of Tertullian’s particular treatises. Some contend that
Tertullian should be read strictly as a polemicist whose writings do not demonstrate internal
consistency or theological unity. What follows is a brief survey of a number of scholars who hold this
view. To begin, Geoffrey D. Dunn and John M. G. Barclay are both particularly critical of Tertullian’s
internal consistency and find a large amount of internal contradiction within Tertullian’s writings.
111
112

William Tabernee, “The World to Come: Tertullian’s Christian Eschatology,” in Tertullian and Paul, 271-272.
Robert Dick Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian,” in Paul and the legacies of
Paul, ed. William S. Babcock (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press. 1990), 100.

33

It must be remembered that he was an occasional writer, always dealing with some
controversial topic. If an opponent denied that some requirement in the Hebrew Scriptures still
applied because it had been replaced by the new covenant of Jesus, he could argue for the
continuing relevance of the old because Jesus had come to fulfill not abolish the old. Yet,
equally, on other occasions, could he argue the exact opposite by appealing to more
supersessionist passages of the New Testament. 113
Barclay finds these contradictions ultimately licensed to Tertullian by the writing practices of
the apostle Paul. “Tertullian is a master of rhetorical invention and can turn different elements of the
Biblical tradition to varying purposes according to his argumentative needs . . . In that respect, at least,
he resembles Paul, who also produces varying statements on the people of Israel in different letters.” 114
Dunn and Barclay simply see Tertullian as using polemics and rhetorical techniques to serve his
occasion-bound purposes, without any consideration of broad unity across his treatises. Precise
examples of Tertullian arguing positively for both sides of an issue are, however, suspiciously absent in
both of these scholar’s writings.
Likewise, Candida Moss sees in Tertullian’s rhetoric a deliberate attempt to mine the Scriptures
for support for his own esoteric positions: “In many ways the appeal to Paul as martyrological
exemplar is an expedient rhetorical move designed to undermine Paul’s own writings . . . Paul’s
writings do not appear to form the theological underpinning for Tertullian’s views on martyrdom; they
are invoked strategically and selectively.” 115 Considering how much intellectual effort Tertullian makes
in defending the Scriptures as the final court of inquiry, Moss’ perspective on Tertullian’s use of Paul
involves its own narrow selection of Tertullian’s works. It will be shown later how difficult this is to
hold if we take a plain reading of Tertullian’s statements about his respect for the Scriptures.

113
114
115

Geoffrey D. Dunn, “Tertullian, Paul, and the Nation of Israel by Geoffrey D. Dunn,” in Tertullian and Paul, 97.
John M. G. Barclay, “Tertullian, Paul, and the Nation of Israel: A response to Geoffrey D. Dunn,” in Tertullian and
Paul, 98.
Moss, “The Justification of the Martyrs,” in Tertullian and Paul, 113.

34

Helen Rhee, however, is of the opinion that Tertullian’s strictly polemical use of rhetoric applies
to anything Tertullian says about hermeneutics. She remarks: “To this end, a consistency is not
necessarily his exegetical method or principle, but his controversial and polemical contexts and his
vision of Christianity drawn from the scripture; the former is relative to the latter and his audience and
style become occasional depending on the particular controversy or argument of the opponents with
which he was dealing.” 116
Similarly, John F. Jahnsen states the following: “One reason why we cannot define precisely his
principles of interpreting scripture is because we can never divorce his exegetical method from the
controversies in which he was engaged. He is preeminently the controversialist rather than the
exegete.” 117 Fredouille cautions us that Tertullian’s hermeneutical statements need to be taken with a
grain of salt, and that scholars are “[O]bliged to gather statements often hasty and partial, that one is
never certain to interpret (these principles) correctly in their positive meaning, because they are
subordinated to the circumstantial imperatives of polemics.” 118
In summary, according to the above mentioned scholars, Tertullian’s exegesis is too closely tied
to his immediate circumstances. As such, even Tertullian’s own statements of his hermeneutic methods
cannot be taken at face value. Rather, express statements of his own hermeneutics are under suspicion
of being conveniently adopted for the sake of whatever case he is arguing at the moment. J. H Waszink
states this position plainly: “For we cannot...limit ourselves to collecting a number of general
statements by Tertullian which pertain to the subject since, as we all know, Tertullian has a gift for

116
117
118

Helen Rhee, “Tertullian and Paul: The Wealth of Christians,” in Tertullian and Paul, 196.
John F. Jahnsen, “Tertullian and the New Testament,” The Second Century 2, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 191-207, 207.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 337. Translation mine.

35

presenting a locus communis adapted ad hoc as one of his firm and lasting convictions.” 119 This
suggests, as noted above, that such statements by Tertullian need to be treated quite carefully.
Unequivocally, if scholars desire to peer into Tertullian’s genuine operating principles, they need to
look for statements that are in accord with “[T]he general tendencies of his argumentation and of his
conviction as a Christian.” 120
Such are the criticisms levelled against the Carthaginian. His treatises differ in style and
argumentation, and this is the fundamental problem. However, seldom are specific texts from treatises
placed side by side with a clear contradiction or change of opinion demonstrated. The difference in
style and argument is simply assumed as sufficient evidence that Tertullian held either a fluctuating
attitude towards the Scripture itself or that he had no regard for unity of thought across his treatises. 121
There are other scholars, however, who are not so skeptical about Tertullian’s hermeneutical
methods. Nor do they see his appropriation of the rhetorical tradition as a liability to his exegesis. What
follows is a brief look at the opinions of this smaller group. Some scholars believe that the status of
“rhetor” has become an unfortunate prejudice to place on Tertullian: “The Carthaginian has long been a
victim of the prejudice that made him a “rhetorician,” that is, a writer resorting to the most worn
literary paths and using the arsenal of rhetorical figures of speech.” 122 Fredouille, though often critical,
also sees in Tertullian a redeemer of the classical tradition, a man who uses rhetorical tools to persuade
others of the truth of his faith. With regards to Cicero’s classic introduction to rhetoric, in which he asks

119

120
121
122

Locus communis Latin for “a common topic.” Ad hoc Latin for “To this”; generally signifies a solution designed for a
specific problem or task, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. J. H. Waszink, “Tertullian’s
Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition. In Honorem
Robert M. Grant, William R. Schoedel and Robert L. Wilken eds (Paris, France Editions Beauchesne, 1979), 26.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 27.
O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 134.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 482. Translation mine.

36

whether skill in language is good for society or not, Fredouille notes that Tertullian would squarely be
one who used eloquence to advance wisdom rather than distort it. 123
Ben Witherington III also responds to disparaging views of Tertullian as a theologian and
exegete as follows: “I do not agree with the notion that we should simply see Tertullian as a brilliant
rhetorician instead of being a systematic thinker or exegete. While the modern phrase ‘systematic
theologian’ may be pressing things too far, it will not do to underestimate the theological and logical
prowess of Tertullian when it comes to major theological ideas.” 124 Witherington thus sees in much
Tertullian scholarship an excessive criticism that is in need of correction.
In his work on the history of African Christianity, Paul Monceaux responds to the dismissal of
Tertullian as a polemicist with a glowing evaluation of his use of rhetoric: “He borrows much from his
predecessors, but he brings much more from deep within; he revitalizes and makes his mark on
everything he touches. In the end, he knew how to make theology a living work, by the ardor of
conviction, by personality and imagination. If he is considered to be one of the most vigorous of the
polemicists, he is probably the most witty and amusing of theologians.” 125 For these scholars,
Tertullian’s use of rhetoric is virtuous. For these scholars, his rhetorical training is not seen in antithesis
to his exegesis or his theology. An evaluation of these competing assessments will briefly follow.
On the one hand, the subversion of Paul which Moss sees in Tertullian’s exegesis, and Dunn and
Barclay’s accusation that Tertullian finds licence to contradict himself because Paul did it first, is
overstated, and poorly demonstrated. Paul’s self-contradiction is simply stated with no demonstration,

123
124
125

Cicero, De Inventione I.1.
Ben Witherington III, “His Eminence Immanent: Tertullian’s take on Pauline Eschatology,” in Tertullian and Paul, 279.
Paul Monceaux, Histoire litteraire de l’Afrique Chretienne, vol.1, Tertullien et les Origines (Paris, France: E Leroux,
1901), 335.

37

and Tertullian is treated similarly. 126 A lack of demonstration gives no weight to a position other than
that of scholarly authority, which Tertullian’s detractors can fairly lay claim to, some being well
respected patristic scholars. On the other hand, Fredouille, and Monceaux are no patristic slouches, so
other than quantity of scholarly opinion, this argument is at best a stalemate between these two groups,
neither giving thorough demonstration of their positions.
An argument, or more of a warning, can perhaps be advanced about scholarly presuppositions.
Paul Riceour identified a method of hermeneutics that he called “The school of suspicion” 127 that is
worth careful consideration in the biases of scholars, particularly scholars of religion or religious
history. This method of reading texts is “[A] distinctively modern style of interpretation that
circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths.
Ricoeur’s term has sustained an energetic after-life within religious studies, as well as in philosophy,
intellectual history, and related fields...” 128 This method appears to be in use by scholars such as O’
Malley in regards to Tertullian’s alleged skepticism towards the Scriptures, and it is barely contained in
the overt accusations of Moss. 129 Moss’ assumptions about Tertullian’s selectivity of material implies
the only acceptable method of argument is a comprehensive survey of scriptural-textual data. Since
Tertullian was selective, this implies an intent to undermine Paul’s authority. This suspicious posture
towards Tertullian is also plainly stated by Waszink, who eschews methods that take Tertullian’s
statements of hermeneutic principle at face value. 130

126
127
128
129
130

Barclay, “Tertullian, Paul, and the Nation of Israel: A response to Geoffrey D. Dunn,” in Tertullian and Paul, 98.
Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1970), 32.
Rita Felski, “Critique and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion”, M/C Journal [Online], Volume 15, no. 1 (26 November
2011). No pages.
O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 134; Moss, “The Justification of the Martyrs,” 113.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 27.

38

The “school of suspicion” way of reading of Tertullian involves a preference for reading
between the lines of his treatises in order to determine an underlying attitude rather than emphasizing
his clear statements. This thesis does not sympathize with hermeneutical methods that bend over
backwards to find underlying motives and subtle shifts in the unwritten attitudes of ancient writers that
circumvent otherwise plain statements.
A presupposition of suspicion is best refuted by contrary evidence, which will have to await
until the fourth chapter, where an attempt is made to lay out Tertullian’s hermeneutics via his own plain
statements. There it will be argued that Tertullian does indeed evince somewhat of a unified system of
thought that determines his interpretation of the Scriptures. This thesis’ own presupposition is that it is
improper to read so much between the lines that Tertullian’s plain statements are no longer taken as
such. If one who has been called “the best Biblicist of antiquity” 131 can be read to be a Biblical skeptic,
or interpreted to be subversively seeking to undermine the authority of Paul, it seems he can be made to
say anything.
This thesis makes the modest assumption that the controlling centre of properly understanding
Tertullian is the plain statement of his own ideas. Indeed, in collating his many hermeneutical
statements across his treatises, this thesis needs to assume Tertullian wanted his reader to accept the
basic veracity of these statements in order for his arguments to be persuasive. Coupled with his
statement at the end of De Prescriptio that this treatise functions as a presentation of basic principles to
which other treatises are to follow, seems to warrant accepting this at face value unless countervailing
evidence is presented.

131

Luther: Lectures on Romans, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. XV, Wilhelm Pauck, ed., (Philadelphia, PN:
Westminster, 1951), xl.

39

Any other reading of Tertullian seems to make it impossible to understand much of what is
written at all. If Tertullian cannot be left free to have his own statements read at face value, what is left
to any reading of him? How can the “general tendencies of his argumentation and of his conviction as a
Christian” be established apart from his own most explicit statements of those convictions? 132 The end
state of Tertullian scholarship would be to leave Tertullian’s treatises as fragmented polemical works,
with his “real meaning” lost in the whirling sands of a rhetorical artist. There would be no theologian or
exegete of note, and little coherency across treatises. This would be a peculiar conclusion to come to
for a writer who had such profound influence on the development of Latin theology.
Something similar may be said in response to whether or not Tertullian was an exegete.
Whether one wants to extend this title to Tertullian, this thesis is content with observing that Tertullian
engaged in copious amounts of exegesis, and that this quality of his writings is generally underappreciated, as several modern patristic and New Testament scholars have recently stated. 133 The title
of exegete is accurate insofar as it is a component of much of Tertullian’s work, without implying that
he was a writer of commentaries. In the interest of accuracy, perhaps it would be better to regard
Tertullian’s work as proto-exegetical. Sider explains: “[O]ne cannot properly speak of ‘exegesis’ until
the fourth century, for the Bible was used in the early centuries primarily for proof in controversy or
apology. Nevertheless, Tertullian’s scriptural proofs are normally accompanied by exposition, and we
are still in the process of defining its source and character.” 134

132
133
134

Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 27.
Sill and Wilhite, ed. Tertullian and Paul, xviii.
Robert Dick Sider, “Approaches to Tertullian: A Study of Recent Scholarship,” The Second Century 2, no. 4 (Winter
1982): 228-260, 245.

40

The Christian tradition of Biblical commentaries emerged out of the classical tradition of
commenting on ancient Greek and Latin authors. 135 In Tertullian’s time, this literature had not yet come
to maturity, thus exegesis as one would recognize it today did not emerge until the work of Hillary and
Jerome. “In the time of Tertullian there did not yet exist -a fact often overlooked- detailed
commentaries on Vergil and Cicero that could be compared to the commentaries on Homer, Pindar and
Demosthenes which were so important for the development of the technique of exegesis in general, and
consequently also for Christian exegesis.” 136 Titles aside, the primary concern of this thesis is that
Tertullian’s exegetical abilities and efforts are not minimized under the rubric of his title as a rhetor.
Within the expectations of the literature of the era, there is no better effort at articulating principles of
hermeneutics to be found than within the writings of Tertullian.
In summary, this thesis takes it as a fair practice to read Tertullian as a thinker who sought to
address theological problems through the application of a fairly consistent set of authoritative
principles. One notes that this will become clearer in the specifics of chapter four. Irrespective,
Tertullian executed this literary intention and project through the means of individual rhetorical
treatises topically chosen. Tertullian should not, however, be read as so situational that his treatises, at
least those mentioned by Daniélou, cannot be read together as a larger project.

135
136

Stanley E. Porter, “Big Enough is Big Enough: A Review Article,” Trinity Journal 37, no.1 (2016): 31-45. 32.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 18.

41

Chapter 2
Tertullian and the Scriptures

A. The Nature of the Scriptures
Before embarking on a discussion of Tertullian’s specific principles, it is helpful to discuss
Tertullian’s understanding of the nature of the Scriptures. Tertullian regards this as something of a
prerequisite to much of his argumentation against Marcion. “I find it necessary to set forth the form
and, so to speak, the nature of the Scriptures themselves.” 137 By the “form and nature” of the
Scriptures, Tertullian means the Scripture’s literary qualities, and in Against Marcion, he speaks much
about issues of allegory, parable, and literal hermeneutics/exegesis vs. figurative/typological language.

1. The Unity of the Bible
One of the first things to emerge when Tertullian talks about the scriptures is his strong sense of
their unity. He regards the Scriptures as internally consistent and unified, and this internal consistency
is something guaranteed by God himself as the author of the Scriptures. 138
This view of the Scriptures is frequently appealed to, especially in his arguments with
Marcion’s positing of a dichotomy between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New
Testament. Tertullian makes such frequent appeal to the unity of the Testaments in determining
exegesis, that it is possible to suggest this is a principle of exegesis in itself. Tertullian steadfastly
refuses to interpret the Scriptures in a way that is inconsistent with itself as a whole. “. . . In as much as

137
138

Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, 3.5.1.
Peter Iver Kaufman, “Tertullian on Heresy, History, and the Reappropriation of Revelation,” Church History 43, no. 1
(March 1974): 17-25.

37

it is easier to believe that that one passage should have some explanation agreeable with the others,
then that an apostle should seem to have taught principles mutually diverse.” 139
For Tertullian, Scripture cannot contradict itself. As such, any interpretation that pits one
passage against another is immediately regarded as incorrect. If we may consider this to be a principle,
it is a principle of exclusion: while it may not help us determine the positive meaning of a text of the
Scriptures, for Tertullian, it is a principle which excludes certain other interpretations. It is a principle
which narrows the scope of plausible readings of a passage. Tertullian does admit to ambiguous
passages in the Scriptures, with various plausible interpretations, but no reading is afforded the liberty
of contradicting other parts of Scripture.

2. The Divine Authorship of the Scriptures
The doctrine of divine authorship of the Scriptures features prominently in Tertullian’s
writings. 140 After a litany of verses condemning idolatry, Tertullian remarks: “And why should I, a man
of limited memory, suggest anything further? Why recall anything from the Scriptures? As if either the
voice of the Holy Spirit were not sufficient; or else any further deliberation were needful.” 141
Tertullian’s belief in divine authorship of the Scriptures leads him to use divine authorial intent
as a mechanism to refute interpretations which stand at odds with the stated purpose of the text.
Tertullian’s belief in divine intent behind the Scriptures is rooted in John 20:31. Addressing the
controversies about the Trinity, he states that any reading of a text that goes against the definite purpose
of the text is incoherent. “Whenever, therefore, you take any of the statements of this Gospel, and apply
them to demonstrate the identity of the Father and the Son, supposing that they serve your views
139
140
141

Tertullian, De Monogamia, 11.8.
O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 123.
Tertullian, De Idololatria, 4.5.

38

therein, you are contending against the definite purpose of the Gospel. For these things certainly are not
written that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Father, but the Son.” 142

3. The Language of the Scriptures
For Tertullian, the Scriptures are a book written in popular speech, as explained by Sider: “For
Tertullian, the ‘popular’ language was the speech of Christians firmly oriented toward the Bible. His
language, therefore, has many stylistic features which are properly Biblical, such as love of antitheses,
a feature also rooted in popular speech.” 143 This rather mundane observation has a lot of import for
Tertullian. It forms the basis for which Tertullian can argue that the Scriptures speak in “an ordinary
manner”, and conform to normal rules of logic, grammar, and speech: “[F]or we read, ‘And yet He
used not to baptize, but His disciples!’ As if, in truth, John had preached that He would baptize with His
own hands! Of course, his words are not so to be understood, but as simply spoken after an ordinary
manner; just as, for instance, we say, ‘The emperor set forth an edict,’ or, ‘The prefect cudgelled him.’
Pray does the emperor in person set forth, or the prefect in person cudgel?” 144

B. The Apostles
Related to the nature of the scriptures and their divine authorship is apostolic authority, which
comes up frequently in Tertullian’s writings. A number of features highlight his strong regard for their
infallibility and divine authority. They include the following:

142
143
144

Tertullian, Adv. Praxeaus, 25.4.
Sider, “Approaches to Tertullian: A Study of Recent Scholarship,” 242.
Tertullian, De Baptismo, 11.1.

39

1. The Infallibility of the Apostles
According to Tertullian, the apostles were commissioned by God with the authority to write the
New Testament documents. “We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has
apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the
gospel.” 145 For Tertullian, to suggest the apostles err is to suggest that Christ erred who appointed
them: “When Marcion complains that apostles are suspected (for their prevarication and dissimulation)
of having even depraved the gospel, he thereby accuses Christ, by accusing those whom Christ
chose.” 146

2. The Hierarchy of Apostles
Tertullian also speaks of a hierarchy among the apostles, and therefore among their writings.
His doctrine of apostolic authority thus includes the category of apostolic men such as Mark and Luke.
Their authority to write was delegated to them by more authoritative apostles.
Luke, however, was not an apostle, but only an apostolic man; not a master, but a
disciple, and so inferior to a master-at least as far subsequent to him as the apostle whom
he followed (and that, no doubt, was Paul) was subsequent to the others; so that, had
Marcion even published his Gospel in the name of St. Paul himself, the single authority
of the document, destitute of all support from preceding authorities, would not be
sufficient basis for our faith. 147
Tertullian is here making a hypothetical argument about succession among the apostles. That is,
if Paul wrote on his own in contradiction to the other apostles, his writings alone would have
insufficient authority. Since he is lower in the hierarchy of apostles, he depends on the witness of more
authoritative apostles to validate his message as authoritative. In Marcion’s scheme, Paul was

145
146
147

Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, 4.2.1.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, 4.3.4.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, 4.2.4.

40

something of a renegade apostle, which Tertullian argues would not be sufficient to claim apostolic
authority. The apostles are a plural body, and have an order among themselves that preserves doctrinal
authority and continuity of teaching.

3. The Powers of the Apostles
Tertullian held that the office of apostle was accompanied by certain powers. This included the
power of forgiving sin, healing the sick, and raising the dead. In De Modestia, Tertullian challenges the
claims of his opponents whom he calls “psychics”, challenging them to manifest the powers of an
apostle or prophet: “Exhibit therefore even now to me, apostolic sir, prophetic evidences, that I may
recognize your Divine virtue, and vindicate to yourself the power of remitting such sins!” 148 For
Tertullian, at issue is the claim to forgive sins of immodesty which he says are not possible to forgive
apart from a Montanist penitential system. In De Modestia, much discussion is given to the nature of
apostolic authority to forgive sins, whereas in De Prescriptio, emphasis is given to supernatural
wonders and prophecy: “[H]ow that they raised the dead, restored the sick, foretold the future, that so
they might deservedly be regarded as apostles.” 149
These apostolic powers were the product of the apostles being given full and proper possession
of the Holy Spirit: “For apostles have the Holy Spirit properly, who have Him fully, in the operations of
prophecy, and the efficacy of (healing) virtues, and the evidences of the tongues; not partially, as all
others have.” 150 The power and authority granted to the apostles by the Holy Spirit also included the
power to interpret and apply the Old Testament. Tertullian argues that at the Jerusalem council in Acts
15, the apostles have the right to select from the Old Testament which laws are to be absolutely obeyed,
148
149
150

Tertullian, De Puditicia, 21.5.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 44.5.
Tertullian, De Exhortatione Castitatis, 4.6.

41

which are the most important, and which commandments are remissible. “Well, then, in what light do
the apostles will those crimes to appear which alone they select...from the pristine law?...These alone
they put in the foremost rank, of course as not remissible; (they,) who, for the heathen’s sake, made the
other burdens of the law remissible.” 151
Tertullian articulates a doctrine of apostolic succession. Apostolic authority is not given merely
by the succession of the apostolic office through the bishops, but through conformity to apostolic
teaching, conceived as the combination of the Scriptures and the rule of faith.
The apostles stand as auctores, not only through the succession of bishops, but also
through their writings and through the rule of faith. The apostles, and not the bishops,
are the auctores, and theirs is the auctoritas. They speak through scripture, through the
rule of faith, and through their successors in the episcopacy. Therefore, the authority of
the bishops does not derive from the physical succession, but from the fact that they hold
the faith of the apostles. 152
So, although there is succession and sequence among the apostles, this is not an authority that
exists independent of the apostles living faithful lives and teaching faithful doctrine. “[T]heir
legitimacy is not so much that of an office transmitted to them from the apostles as the consanguinitas
of what they teach and what the apostles taught.” 153

4. The Lives of the Apostles
It is not merely their succession from Christ, their teaching, their power, and their writing that
sums up Tertullian’s understanding of the apostles. For him, the apostle’s lives and writing style also
provided behavioural and literary norms to be emulated. His frequently biting literary style is in turn

151
152
153

Tertullian, De Puditicia, 12.6.
Justo L. Gonzalez, “Athens and Jerusalem Revisited: Reason and Authority in Tertullian,” Church History 43, no. 1,
(March 1974): 17-25, 24.
Allen Brent, “Tertullian on the Role of the Bishop” in Tertullian and Paul, 173.

42

derived from the style of the apostle Paul: “the apostle provided a model and offered an authority for
Tertullian’s biting tone.” 154
Paul’s life in particular is put into rhetorical relief as an ideal for Tertullian’s doctrine of
martyrdom. He uses Paul’s ignoring of Agabus’ prophecy in De Fuga 8 and again in Scorpiace 15:4-5
as proof. Similarly, Paul’s refusal to pay Felix for his escape (Acts 24:26) reveals him to be “the ideal
martyr.” 155 Tertullian sees Paul’s behaviour as “[N]eglectful of all means to secure himself from the
persecutions which had been foretold as about to occur there”, 156 and this conduct is regarded by
Tertullian as a strong argument for normative Christian behaviour in the face of persecution.
Commenting on this phenomenon, Robert Sider regards this practice of Tertullian to be superficial in
character, and more of a practice of carefully selected texts, for the purpose of advancing Tertullian’s
idiomatic theology. “TertulIian’s allusions are generally not focused on Paul in his own right but rather
on the import of the events in which Paul was involved.” 157
However, the frequency of Tertullian’s appeals to apostles as exemplars seems deeper than a
mere convenient buttress for argument. The rhetorical exempla means that he considers the lives of the
apostles as truly normative for a Christian’s conduct. It is noteworthy that this practice of holding up
the apostles as exemplars is not a practice restricted to the apostles alone. The Holy men of the
Scriptures are all held up as exemplars, and it is a principle of Tertullian’s exegesis to hold the lives of
these characters as normative, in that their lives demonstrate the authenticity of Scriptural morality.
They become living Scriptures, as it were.

154
155
156
157

Sider, “Approaches to Tertullian: A Study of Recent Scholarship,” 243.
Tertullian, De Fuga in Persecutione, 6.8; Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of
Tertullian,”106.
Tertullian, De Fuga in Persecutione, 12.10.
Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian,” 105.

43

Since the apostles were divinely chosen by Christ, their written work is to be interpreted in
conformity with their lives. “That Tertullian uses Paul’s personal history -as inferred from Canonical
texts -to combat miss-readings of Paul, is an interesting and distinctive feature of his work.” 158 Despite
presenting Tertullian’s use of Paul as superficially selective, Sider nonetheless feels comfortable stating
that; “In the literary art and rhetorical design of Tertullian, the life of Paul can be as important as his
thought.” 159 The same may be said of Tertullian’s use of the lives of the other apostles: “The apostles
did not commend the precept to flee from city to city. How could they when they were writing from
prison or an island exile? Paul bade us stand firm in the faith (Eph 6:14ff). John stated that cowardice
was incompatible with love of God (1 Jn 4:18). And if men heed the Spirit, the Spirit exhorts all men to
martyrdom.” 160

5. The Churches of the Apostles
Lastly, the apostles also feature in Tertullian’s writing as those who confer special significance
on the churches with which they were connected, especially the church of Rome: “Since, moreover,
you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very
authority (of apostles themselves). How happy, is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their
doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul wins his
crown in a death like John’s, where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and
thence remitted to his island-exile!” 161 This ecclesiastical dignity also extends to churches affiliated

158
159
160
161

Moss, “The Justification of the Martyrs,” 117-118.
Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian,” 100.
Tertullian, De Fuga in Persecutione, 9.4.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 26.2-3.

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with “apostolic men”: “… I have proposed as models those churches which were founded by apostles
or apostolic men; and anticedently I think, to certain founders, who shall be nameless.” 162

C. Canon
With Tertullian’s doctrine of both apostles and “apostolic men”, it remains to be asked what
books exactly composed the canon of Scripture in Tertullian’s thought? Tertullian’s writings contain
“[Q]uotations and allusions to all the Old Testament canonical and deutero-canonical books except
Ruth, Obadiah, 1 Chronicles, Esther and 2 Maccabees.” 163 Tertullian has citations or clear allusions to
all of the New Testament books except James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John. 164 Tertullian does speak of a
canon, 165 and acknowledges controverted books such as Hebrews with more or less certainty, as well as
an apocryphal body of literature: “But why need we care, since these philosophers have also made their
attacks upon those writings which are condemned by us under the title of apocryphal, certain as we are
that nothing ought to be received which does not agree with the true system of prophecy, which has
arisen in the present age...” 166
Tertullian’s understanding of canon admits of gradations of authority, just as the apostles held
gradations of authority. Disputed books like Hebrews are held at a “slightly lower level, though
accepted as Canonical” 167 He compares Hebrews, held by him to be written by Barnabas, as being
more generally accepted than the Shepherd of Hermas, a book which he regards with great disdain:
“The Epistle of Barnabas is more generally received among the Churches than that apocryphal

162
163
164
165
166
167

Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 2.2.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 318.
Jahnsen, “Tertullian and the New Testament,” 191.
Tertullian, De Monogamia, 7.1.
Tertullian, De Anima, 2.3.
O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 120.

45

‘Shepherd’ of adulterers.” 168 Tertullian appeals to church councils to buttress his rejection of the
Shepherd of Hermas. “If the Scripture of ‘the Shepherd’...had deserved to find a place in the Divine
canon; if it had not been habitually judged by every council of Churches (even of your own) among
apocryphal and false (writings)...” 169
Tertullian makes an argument for the inclusion of the book of Enoch in the canon of scripture.
“I am aware that the scripture of Enoch...is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the
Jewish canon either.” 170 In this chapter, he judges that the document was authored by Enoch, preserved
by Noah, and compares this literary restoration to Ezra’s restoration of Jewish literature after the
Babylonian exile. He suspects the Jews rejected it because of its references to Christ, and he argues that
the citation of Enoch by the apostle is a witness to its canonical status.
Tertullian is clearly aware of the contested status of Enoch, as well as of the book of Hebrews.
Since most of his writing is concerned with presenting the most compelling argument he can, Tertullian
regularly concedes that he does not expect his opponents to assume these works as canonical.
“Tertullian would certainly have liked to add Enoch to the Old and Hebrews to the New Testament; but
he contents himself with commending the testimony of these works and with justifying his own appeal
to them. He is not striving for any ‘reform’ of the Bible.” 171
Most of Tertullian’s use of 1 Enoch is found in his work De Cultu Feminarum, where Tertullian
makes use of Enoch 8:1-3, the revelation to women of the secrets of vanity in dress and behaviour.

168
169
170
171

Tertullian, De Pudicitia, 20.2.
Tertullian, De Pudicitia, 10.12.
Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, 1.3.1.
Hans Von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1972), 193.

46

Other than this, Tertullian only appeals to 1 Enoch for issues relating to the Sabbath, 172 the prediction
of an age of idolatry, 173 and general lists of righteous people.
For all of Tertullian’s reference to Scripture, the apocrypha, and the excluded books, some
scholars hold it is inappropriate to describe Tertullian as holding to a canon as such.
Although one cannot claim that Tertullian knew a closed collection of New Testament
books, his frequent references to a ‘New Testament’ and use of ‘Scripture’ for New
Testament writings make evident that he had a definite entity in mind (e.g. Against the
Jews 9; Against Praxeas 15; Prescription Against Heretics 17; 38) and that by his usage
it included certainly the four gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1
John, Jude and Revelation. 174
In this sense, it is best to regard Tertullian’s concept of canon as reflective of his era: among confessing
Christians, unanimity of opinion had not yet emerged, and disputed books were treated accordingly.
Tertullian’s writings give a very interesting picture of the fluid state of the canon during his
time. He acknowledges where there are disputes over books, names them, and rests no argument upon
disputed texts. Nevertheless, his own thinking on the canon appears fairly settled, and the “definite
entity in mind” should not be understated. He speaks of a canon, 175 and “the collection of sacred
Scriptures.” 176 There is also his insistence that he has not “introduced any corrupt text into the
Scriptures” 177 and his objection that Marcion “expressly and openly used the knife, not the pen, since
he made such an excision of the Scriptures as suited his own subject matter” 178 Appears to assume a
definitive body of writings. How can Tertullian object to introducing texts, or Marcion removing texts
if there was no definite body of writings to introduce or remove texts from? For Tertullian, the

172
173
174
175
176
177
178

Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos, 4.
Tertullian, De Idololatria, 4.15.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 318.
Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, 1.3.1; De Pudicitia, 10.12.
Tertullian, Apologeticus, 47.3.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio 38.6.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 47.9.

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Scriptures are no mere collection of writings, but are “His book” 179, they are Divine 180, with every
prophecy inspired by God: “They are uttered by the same voices, they are written in the same books-the
same Spirit inspires them.” 181 He speaks of “the harmony of the divine Scriptures.” 182 Also, Tertullian
claims that “the statements, however, of holy Scripture will never be discordant with truth.” 183 How can
there be harmony of the Scriptures, if there are no defined texts? This robust confidence in the
Scriptures points strongly towards a defined canon of books regarded as authoritative texts inspired by
God. He also gives several references to rejected apocryphal books, indicating he was familiar with
some disputes that appear to have settled. Ironically, though Tertullian gives witness to the unsettled
issue of canon, that does not mean the issue was unsettled in his own mind.
For the purposes of this thesis, Tertullian’s “Scripture” and “canon” is sufficiently familiar and
coherent to warrant being called “Scripture” and “canon” in a very similar sense to how we would use
those terms today. This is not to minimize developments surrounding the Scriptures in the coming
centuries, but grants Tertullian the audacity to have a defined canon of his own, which is strongly
hinted at in his writings. The reader can bear in mind that these terms are used with the caveat of the
nuances of late second century Christianity and the disputations about the canon that were still alive at
the time. On the whole, this should not detract from the overall coherence of Tertullian’s reference to
Scripture being a definite body of literature. The biggest dissimilarity that the contemporary reader
would find with Tertullian’s understanding of the Scripture is the inclusion of Enoch, and the
gradations of authority within the canon of Scripture itself. Even these dissimilarities never feature

179
180
181
182
183

Tertullian, De Testimonio Animae, 5.
Tertullian, Aduersis Judaeos, 1.6-7; 9.11; 11.11.
Tertullian, De Apologeticus, 20.4.
Tertullian, Aduersis Judaeos, 14.11.
Tertullian, De Testimonio Animae, 21.5.

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prominently in any of Tertullian’s arguments, with the exception of the caveats he makes over Enoch,
Hebrews and the Shepherd of Hermas already mentioned.

49

Chapter 3
Tertullian’s Hermeneutics

A. The Possibility of Finding Tertullian’s Hermeneutics
The project of compiling a coherent picture of Tertullian’s hermeneutics is fraught with a
number of difficulties which some scholars have attempted to overcome. Some believe the project is a
lost cause and that statements of exegetical practice in Tertullian are not what they appear to be. T.P. O’
Malley argues that “Tertullian is quite often a very different exegete than his own rules might permit
him to be.” 184 In other words, Tertullian’s actual practice of scriptural interpretation is quite different
from the principles he claims to hold to, thereby undermining the idea that Tertullian has any real
principles of exegesis at all. Others see in Tertullian’s work a sustained appeal to principles of exegesis,
with literary output designed specifically to define correct hermeneutics. 185 Karl Holl remarked that no
one of his own time had formulated the norms of good exegesis as well as Tertullian. 186
This thesis agrees more with the outlook of Holl than O’ Malley, as this seems more consistent
with Tertullian’s own statements of the value of correct exegetical principles: “We are as much bound
to keep the sense of the Lord as his precepts. Transgression in interpretation is not lighter than in
conversation.” 187 For Tertullian, correctly interpreting the Scriptures is a moral imperative in the same
category as obeying the Lord’s commands. This does seem to be a genuine conviction of his, and his
fidelity (or not) in applying those principles across the board should not detract from the fact that he did
articulate principles, and we can attempt to identify what those principles were.

184
185
186
187

O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 118.
Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, 91.
O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 130.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 9.22.

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B. The Problem of Underlying Unity in Tertullian’s Treatises
As mentioned in the first chapter, one of the hurdles facing this thesis’ hypothesis are the
numerous scholars who view Tertullian’s rhetorical background as a liability to his hermeneutics.
Specifically, they see a problem of reading his stated principles apart from the occasions he was
addressing in his specific treatises. Because this thesis claims Tertullian has eight rules, and these rules
are gathered from across his treatises, it would be helpful to discuss some of the ways scholars do see
unity across his treatises.
There are two competing perspectives among scholars who see a controlling motif in
Tertullian’s treatises, as represented in the work of Helen Rhee and Gerald Bray. The issue is whether
to identify the underlying unity as a, basically, ethical one, or more of an epistemological one. This
discussion is worth bringing up because both of these schools of thought affect how Tertullian handles
the Scriptures. This thesis will modify and adopt the suggestions of one, and reject the other.
Gerald Bray says that Tertullian cannot be properly understood outside of his all-encompassing
concern for holiness. “The student who would understand Tertullian must understand above all that his
life was the pursuit of holiness in the presence of the living God.” 188 For Bray then, the golden thread
that unites Tertullian’s treatises is Christian sanctity. This ethical theme will come up later in this thesis
as one of the eight rules. That is, Tertullian’s ethical presuppositions become hermeneutical rules which
exegesis must conform to; thus, it can be seen as an exegetical principle.
A different reading of Tertullian’s priorities and emphases is given to us by Helen Rhee, who
sees in Tertullian’s arguments an ultimate desire to resolve the issue of doubt, thereby casting him as a
man who seeks certainty. Addressing Tertullian’s hermeneutics, she says that Tertullian’s hermeneutic
concerns were still subject to the most fundamental goal of his writings: “[T]o attain a certitude that the
188

Gerald L. Bray, Holiness and the Will of God (London, UK: Butler & Tanner, 1979), 31.

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opponent cannot undermine by any form of argument.” and “[A] clarity which admit of no ambiguity,
whether in combating heretics, defending Christianity against pagans, or persuading or debating with
fellow Christians.” 189 Similarly, other scholars have also held the view that Tertullian’s primary modus
operandi is to be seen as a kind of faith vs. science debate, where the root of Tertullian’s concerns is to
try to arrive at certainty. 190 Compared to Bray’s emphasis of Tertullian’s ethical concerns, Rhee’s school
of thought sees a greater emphasis on epistemic concerns.
While there are many epistemological statements in Tertullian’s writing that could be of
relevance to epistemology, these statements are best understood as stemming from his rhetorical
background. After all, the original goal of rhetorical training was to try to come up with the most
persuasive argument possible in a public forum, often a court of law. 191 This means that in Tertullian,
the focus on convincing arguments stems more from the rhetorical tradition’s concerns to persuade:
“The task of the public speaker is to discuss capably those matters that law and custom have fixed for
the uses of citizenship and to secure as far as possible the agreement of his hearers.” 192 This rhetorical
emphasis on achieving persuasion should be considered in combination with Tertullian’s general
distaste for abstract philosophy. His education taught him to be concerned with persuasion and flow of
argument. He disliked and avoided abstractions. Is it likely that his true concern was to resolve an
abstract concern about certainty? An abstract concern for finding certainty is never explicitly stated, but
an intent to persuade and demonstrate is often stated. 193 Whatever one makes of the epistemic concerns
of Tertullian, it appears the stronger argument is to relate these concerns to his immediate context,

189
190
191
192
193

Rhee, “Tertullian and Paul,” 196.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 19.
Murphy and Katula, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 136.
Rhetorica ad Herrenium, 1.2.
De Res Carnis 18; De Corona 10; De Anima 37.

52

training, and personal proclivities rather than to a philosophical debate that emerged in the postCartesian world.
There exists then for some scholars a definite thread seen in Tertullian’s work that unifies his
treatises. While it may be pedagogically desirable to try to distill the thought of Tertullian into a single
guiding principle, this practice does not seem suitable for such a complex thinker. Bray’s attempt to
summarize Tertullian’s primary interest as “holiness” appears more faithful to Tertullian’s writing than
Helen Rhee’s summation of Tertullian’s interest in “certainty”. Though this thesis sees Rhee’s model as
anachronistic, she does nevertheless identify a unifying theme: Tertullian’s concern to persuade. Her
work abstracts this theme to an epistemic concern about certainty. The observation about a concern to
persuade fits well with a rhetorical background, but the abstraction to a philosophical concern does not.
The discussion above demonstrates that there is discussion in the scholarly literature as to how
to best conceive of underlying themes across his treatises. Though this discussion has not progressed
very far, it is significant for this thesis that both of the themes so far proposed have implications for
Tertullian’s hermeneutics. This thesis accepts the proposal of Bray and adapts it as a hermeneutical
principle, and also gives credit to Rhee’s observations, but prefers to cast it as an underlying rhetorical
background rather than a philosophical concern. On the whole, this minor discussion of a unifying
theme strengthens the plausibility of this thesis’ key presupposition that Tertullian’s writings are best
read as a whole.

C. The Problem of Divergent Lists of Principles
Many scholars have attempted to summarize Tertullian’s hermeneutics, with widely varying
conclusions as to how best to state these. There are happy threads of commonality in this discussion,
53

but a brief perusal demonstrates that there are many different ways to frame Tertullian’s overall
hermeneutical project. What follows is a perusal of several ways in which scholars have attempted to
summarize Tertullian’s hermeneutics, in order to contrast this thesis with the secondary literature.
Helen Rhee attempts to state what she sees as Tertullian’s primary hermeneutics as follows:
If there are any general principles in Tertullian’s use and exegesis of the scripture, they
would be his claims that only the genuine Christians, not the heretics, had the right to
use and interpret the scripture, which has its internal unity as God’s revealed truth, and
that the church’s regula fidei should be the authoritative norm and guide for a correct
scriptural interpretation by the Christians. 194
Rhee’s statement above draws attention to a common difficulty in articulating Tertullian’s
hermeneutics and distilling them into a few words. To attempt to summarize one of Rhee’s principles
into a concise sentence, it might be; the exclusive rights of genuine Christians to interpret the
scriptures in accordance with the rule of faith. This sounds like a peculiar principle indeed. It means
that only a genuine Christian can properly interpret the Scriptures, thus finding a principle within the
reader of the Scriptures himself. Nonetheless, Rhee is not alone in saying something like this is
operating in the way Tertullian reads the Scriptures. Some scholars feel inclined to include such nonliterary components as crucial to Tertullian’s handling of the Scriptures alongside his well-recognized
emphasis on the rule of faith.
Similar to Rhee’s inclusion of non-literary phenomena, Anthony Guerra talks about Tertullian’s
‘warrants’, which is a category of principles which Tertullian argues from in order to justify both his
arguments and his exegesis: “Tertullian consistently presents not one but rather five warrants for his
faith position: (1) scripture, (2) reason, (3) superior moral behavior, (4) spiritual testimony, and (5)
tradition. For Tertullian, these multiple warrants exist in a fluid state and the relative weight assigned to

194

Rhee, “Tertullian and Paul,”196.

54

each warrant varies in accord with the author’s polemical needs.” 195 Guerra’s doctrine of ‘warrants’ is
important for the argument in this thesis, as it provides a unique framework to understand the priorities
of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. One can see in Guerra’s third warrant, “superior moral behavior” echoes
of Gerald Bray, who views “holiness” as the dominant motif that unifies Tertullian’s treatises.
Jean-Claude Fredouille distills Tertullian’s hermeneutics to the following: “[T]he importance of
historical and literary context, distrust of allegory and predilection for literal meaning, typological
exegesis, comprehension and interpretation of detail in the light of the whole.” 196 This list is quite
different from Rhee’s. Fredouille emphasizes simpler literary practices, but nonetheless states that these
principles are controlled by something that looms larger for Tertullian, namely, the rule of faith: “But
there is a limit that the exegete cannot overcome: the one imposed on him by the regula fidei.” 197
Fredouille thus restricts Tertullian’s hermeneutics to strict literary practices, reserving theological
controlling principles like the rule of faith to a category of theological fiat rather than a principle of
hermeneutics per se.
Everett Ferguson lists Tertullian’s hermeneutics as follows: the meaning of words, taking the
whole of scripture into account, appeal to simplicity and clarity, basic literal reading of a text with rules
for identifying figurative language, interpreting obscure passages by clear ones, consideration of texts
which are limited to time and circumstance, the silence of scripture is prohibitive, and appeals to
commands and examples. 198 Other scholars come up with completely different lists to describe
Tertullian’s hermeneutical projects. These are variously stated, but are nonetheless attempts to describe
Tertullian’s overall interpretive practices. R. P. C. Hanson “[D]eclares the distinguishing characteristics
195
196
197
198

Anthony J. Guerra, “Polemical Christianity: Tertullian’s Search for Certitude,” The Second Century: a
Journal of Early Christian Studies 8, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 109-123, 109.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 429. Translation mine.
Ibid., 429. Translation mine.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 318.

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of Tertullian’s exegesis be ‘common sense, realism, and restraint’.” 199 John F. Jahnsen does not attempt
to enumerate Tertullian’s principles, but speaks of “aspects (of his hermeneutic) that find
expression” 200. Jahnsen identifies the following as prominent ‘aspects’ of Tertullian’s hermeneutic: the
wholeness and unity of Scripture, Scripture interprets Scripture, The ‘simplicitas’ of Scripture, what is
not specifically permitted is forbidden.
From the diversity of perspectives seen above, we can assume that enumerating Tertullian’s
principles in a simple list is no easy task. Tertullian is an eclectic writer, and his practices are difficult
to articulate in a way that reaches broad agreement. Nonetheless, his principles are evident enough that
one is by no means discouraged from making an attempt to describe them. There is a great variety of
attempts by scholars to describe what Tertullian is doing, and this thesis will come up with its own list,
more or less in conformity to some of the writers above.
The issue here appears to be one of scope. That is, shall our lists of Tertullian’s principles be
expansive and inclusive of Tertullian’s peculiarities, like Rhee’s and Guerra’s, or shall we restrict
ourselves to simple literary practices as Fredouille and Ferguson do?
In general, this thesis prefers the kind of summaries given by scholars such as Rhee and Guerra.
That is, summaries of Tertullian’s hermeneutics that include non-literary phenomena are preferred over
against the summaries of Fredouille or Ferguson, who restrict Tertullian’s hermeneutics to more
discrete literary categories.
The reason for a broader scope to Tertullian’s hermeneutics is this: this thesis wants to give a
more comprehensive account of the intellectual tools Tertullian uses to interpret the Scriptures. In

199
200

Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian, 9.
Jahnsen, “Tertullian and the New Testament,” 202.

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researching what are the operative ideas and practices stated and implied in Tertullian’s treatises, a
foray into phenomena that goes beyond mere grammar and literary practices cannot be avoided.
Further, the definition of a principle, according to Webster’s dictionary, is a “fundamental law,
doctrine, or assumption” 201 or “rule or code of conduct”. 202 However bizarre or difficult these
fundamentals are to state, they should be included in order to give an accurate picture of Tertullian’s
hermeneutics. Therefore, in asking what principles are operative in his hermeneutics, this thesis is open
to including the more peculiar elements of Tertullian’s thought.
This is an attempt at maximum comprehensibility in reading Tertullian. It is not just in his
hermeneutics, but almost everywhere else, as well, that Tertullian makes connections to a vast array of
data and principles. Andrew McGowan, in speaking of Tertullian’s handling of the Pauline epistles,
describes his reading of Paul as “maximalist”: “Tertullian’s reading of Paul is maximalist; that is, he
regards Paul not as a source whose real meaning must be established through single-minded attention
even to the Pauline corpus, but as organically related to a wider set of literature (the whole Biblical
Canon) and to the life of the church and its Rule of Faith in particular.” 203 How Tertullian reads Paul is
how he reads the Scriptures. Tertullian does not merely read Paul as an author, but Paul as connected to
a wide array of literature and communities: pagan, Jewish, and Christian. Beyond this, Tertullian reads
Paul in relation to the church, and a practice of discipline within the church that stands in
contradistinction to the pagan society around him. Since Tertullian is a “maximalist” writer, it seems
best to try to capture his hermeneutics in a “maximalist” manner as well, by capturing the breadth of
hermeneutic phenomenon that his writings evince.

201
202
203

Merriam-Webster.com. “Principle,” accessed Sep 28 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle.
Ibid.
Andrew McGowan, “Paul, Tertullian, and the Rule of Faith,” in Tertullian and Paul, 13.

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D. Tertullian’s Priorities of Rules and Argument
It would be most helpful if Tertullian himself stated anything about his own thinking on
exegetical priorities, and this he does in a variety of places, with no small ambiguity as to what these
priorities are.
One of his clearly stated rules is that of antiquity: what comes earliest supersedes and is more
authoritative than what comes later. “I am accustomed in my prescription against all heresies, to fix my
compendious criterion (of truth) in the testimony of time; claiming priority therein as our rule, and
alleging lateness to be the characteristic of every heresy.” 204
In the ninth chapter of De Prescriptio, In responding to his interlocutors about their
misinterpretation of Jesus’ saying “seek and ye shall find”, Tertullian articulates “reason” 205 as his
exegetical foundation: “Let it be granted, that these words, ‘Seek, and ye shall find,’ were addressed to
all men (equally). Yet even here one’s aim is carefully to determine the sense of the words consistently
with (that reason), which is the guiding principle in all interpretation.” 206
Another statement of his own priorities is found in De Corona; “The argument for Christian
practices becomes all the stronger, when also nature, which is the first rule of all, supports them.” 207 So
he has the criterion for truth as time, and the ultimate criterion for interpreting the scripture is reason,
and “the first rule of all” is nature.
A special problem arises when in another place, Tertullian includes the Scripture as the
foundation of all. His writings give the appearance of two very different approaches to Scripture. In De
Prescriptio, Tertullian explicitly eschews Scripture as a foundation for his argumentation: “On the
204
205
206
207

Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, 5.19.1. Lat. Priorem vindicans regulam nostram.
Lat. Ratio.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 9.1. Lat. Interpretationis gubernaculo is here rendered as “the guiding principle in all
interpretation.”
Tertullian, De Corona, 5.1. Lat. Natura...prima omnium disciplina est.

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present occasion, indeed, our treatise has rather taken up the general position against heresies, (showing
that they must) all be refuted on definite, equitable, and necessary rules, without any comparison with
the Scriptures.” 208 However, in De Velandis Virginibus, Tertullian articulates a tri-fold foundation for
his argument. It includes Scripture as the foundation for natural law. “Herein consists the defence of
our opinion, in accordance with Scripture, in accordance with Nature, in accordance with Discipline.
Scripture founds the law, Nature joins to attest it, Discipline exacts it.” 209 Ferguson notes that Tertullian
uses “nature” and “reason” interchangeably, and that by “discipline“, Tertullian means “ecclesiastical
practice.” 210 Taken this way, what Tertullian is saying here may be a little easier for modern ears to
understand: Scripture is the foundation of the rules of conduct, reason verifies those rules, and the
church is the centre for the practice and enforcement of those rules. Bray puts it this way: “Scripture is
thus the constitutive principle, nature its corroborating witness, and discipline the practical
appropriation of the new law.” 211
A cursory reading of the above quotes from Tertullian demonstrates how some scholars come to
the conclusion that Tertullian adopts principles as they suit him: “Tertullian has a gift for presenting a
locus communis adapted ad hoc as one of his firm and lasting convictions.” 212 O’ Malley specifically
notes that Tertullian removes a crucial principle when it suits him; “in the heat of controversy, he is
much more apt to limit Scripture.” 213
This apparent contradiction should not be taken as Ferguson intimates, to mean that Tertullian is
adopting whatever principles make for the best argument at the time, as if he personally held to nothing
but what would win the current argument. A much better framework for understanding Tertullian is that
208
209
210
211
212
213

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 44.13.
Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 16.1.
Everett Ferguson, “Tertullian, Scripture, Rule of Faith, and Paul,” in Tertullian and Paul, 26.
Jahnsen, “Tertullian and the New Testament,” 199.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 26.
O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 132.

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position taken by Anthony Guerra. Guerra proposes that Tertullian operates with a network of
intersecting “warrants”. These warrants are essentially principles, but Guerra rejects the idea that there
is an explicit hierarchy among them. Rather, “[T]he various warrants exist for Tertullian in a dynamic
state of inner tension, each warrant reacting with all the others. The changes in the interrelationships of
these warrants are a function of the particular adversary’s position addressed as well as of Tertullian’s
changing mind. These last two factors are intertwined and cannot in any simplistic or definitive manner
be isolated from one another.” 214
Regarding the above two quotes from De Prescriptio and Viginibus Velandis, it is plain enough
that these two quotes are taken from two different works with different audiences, and thus we may see
the cause of the using of different warrants as a “foundation”. In Virginibus Velandis, Tertullian is
addressing a controversy among Christians as to whether Christian women should wear the veil. In this
discussion, he claims Scripture founds the natural law. This is a shared assumption between himself and
his fellow Christian readers. However, in De Prescriptio, we see Tertullian guiding his Christian reader
on how to reason with those outside of the church. Here, the arguments must be based on “[D]efinite,
equitable, and necessary rules, without any comparison with the Scriptures.” 215 Tertullian believed
Scripture was pre-eminent, as he states in Virginibus Velandis. However, this does not mean that
Scriptures are the foundation for argumentation with heretics. He may eschew Scripture as a foundation
for discussion with heretics without rejecting Scripture as the foundation for moral imperatives like the
veiling of virgins, for these are two different kinds of foundations as dictated by the intended audience.

214
215

Guerra, “Polemical Christianity,” 120.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 44.13.

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This is a good example of Guerra’s observation that “The changes in the interrelationships of these
warrants are a function of the particular adversary’s position...” 216
To draw a contemporary example, it is no different than contemporary apologists who use
natural theology when reasoning with non-Christians, often making very little explicit reference to the
Bible. At the same time, when reasoning with their fellow Christians, these apologists will make
copious reference to Scriptures to argue for their positions. It would be specious to claim that modern
apologists change their opinions about the Bible in the heat of controversy as O’ Malley and Waszink
imply of Tertullian.
Tertullian is best viewed, not as a rhetorical opportunist, but a writer who adapts his argument
strategy based on the audience. For understanding Tertullian’s varied emphases in argumentation, it is
critical to pay attention to the intended audience of Tertullian’s treatises.
With respect to Tertullian’s “compendious criterion (of truth) in the testimony of time”, 217 and
his “first rule of all” 218 in nature and finding “the guiding principle in all interpretation” 219 in reason, it
is a little more difficult to establish exactly what is being said here, but an attempt at harmonization
will be explored in the next section. Nevertheless, what Tertullian means by “first” and “priority”
shows the difficulty in establishing a logical order to Tertullian’s hierarchy of principles. However,
rather than hastily asserting Tertullian contradicts himself here, Guerra’s contention that Tertullian’s
warrants should not be seen in a strict hierarchy is a promising interpretive tool. There may be multiple
senses in which something may be “first” and “the guiding principle.”

216
217
218
219

Guerra, “Polemical Christianity,” 120.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, 5.19.1.
Tertullian, De Corona, 5.1.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 9.1.

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The above clarification in establishing Tertullian’s priorities serves as a suitable introduction to
the eight principles of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. The above exploration of nature, reason, and truth,
coupled with the framework of intersecting warrants provided by Guerra, provides an apophatic
introduction that these principles are not minutely defined, nor are they a strict hierarchy.

E. Tertullian’s Eight Principles of Hermeneutics

1. The Rule of Reason and Nature
Tertullian devotes a considerable amount of effort to arguments from nature. His longest
discussion of nature is found in De Corona, where he builds his arguments on the belief that laws stem
from nature, of which God is the creator. Tertullian finds exegetical warrant for his appeals to nature,
reason, and law, from Paul in 1 Cor 11:14 and Romans 2:14. Commenting on these verses, Tertullian
says: “[H]e suggests both natural law and a law-revealing nature.” 220 For Tertullian, natural law is a
form of revelation, although our perception of this revelation is distorted by demonic forces and
“ungodly uses”: “[T]he entire creation which has been made over to our race for certain uses, whence
the apostle says that it too unwillingly became subject to vanity, completely bereft of its original
character, first by vain, then by base, unrighteous, and ungodly uses.” 221 Tertullian also attributes
distortions of this naturally revealed law to demons, which figure prominently as the forces behind the
Roman shows; “[A]ll the materials of which shows are got up belong to God, but lack the knowledge to
perceive as well that they have all been changed by the devil.” 222

220
221
222

Tertullian, De Corona, 6.1.
Tertullian, De Corona, 6.2.
Tertullian, De Corona, 6.3.

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In a later work, Tertullian articulates a logical ordering to the relationship of arguments from
Scripture and arguments from nature; “Herein consists the defence of our opinion, in accordance with
Scripture, in accordance with nature, in accordance with discipline. Scripture founds the law, nature
joins to attest it, discipline exacts it.” 223 If this is to be taken as a clarification of his position, nature
fills a “corroborating evidence” relationship to the Scriptures. Yet, Tertullian is at times willing to make
stand-alone arguments from nature. For example, in the following important quote, Tertullian claims
that the knowledge of God is derived from nature, on the condition that one is acting in accordance
with the divine dispensation: “One may no doubt be wise in the things of God, even from one’s natural
powers, but only in witness to the truth, not in maintenance of error; (only) when one acts in
accordance with, not in opposition to, the divine dispensation. For some things are known even by
nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many; the knowledge of our God is
possessed by all.” 224 Since the knowledge derived from nature is only accurate insofar as one is not
maintaining error, and that such knowledge may be distorted by demonic forces and ungodly uses, the
Scriptures are needed as an authoritative corrective to these trends.
Arguing that Christian soldiers should not practice the Roman tradition of wearing laurel
wreaths, he states; “The argument for Christian practices becomes all the stronger, when also nature,
which is the first rule of all, supports them.” 225 How is nature the “first rule of all” when it is Scripture
which “founds the law”? One simple answer might be that Tertullian is here thinking of chronology.
Nature is chronologically the first rule of all, being the first thing made, and Scripture, being
chronologically later, is nevertheless the authoritative foundation for settling disputed matters. Nature

223
224
225

Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 16.1.
Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis, 3.1.
Tertullian, De Corona, 6.1.

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is chronologically prior to Scripture, but being subject to distortions by natural reason, it is the
authority of Scripture which corrects erroneous reasoning.
Coming to the issue of hermeneutics, this natural law includes natural laws about how to
interpret the Scriptures. Tertullian frequently appeals to nature and reason abstracted as principles, and
he ties these to rightly interpreting the Scriptures. In responding to his interlocutors about their
misinterpretation of Jesus’ saying “seek and ye shall find”, Tertullian objects that their interpretations
are not in accord with reason: “Let it be granted, that these words, ‘Seek, and ye shall find,’ were
addressed to all men (equally). Yet even here one’s aim is carefully to determine the sense of the words
consistently with (that reason), which is the guiding principle in all interpretation.” 226 Similarly, in the
same chapter he writes: “[A]void interpreting, ‘Seek, and ye shall find,’ without regard to the rule of
reason.” 227
The above exploration of Tertullian’s use of reason and nature, especially as it relates to the
Scriptures, does indeed clarify these categories. Tertullian’s usage of these ideas reveals an internally
consistent logic of nature and authority across a fairly diverse sampling of Tertullian’s treatises. Put
simply, nature and reason are chronologically prior to Scripture, but since they may be distorted, are
subject to the authoritative primacy of the Scriptures.
One might imagine a particular objection to this harmonization of Tertullian by pointing to
Tertullian’s disparaging view of reason whenever it broaches the domain of philosophy. The difficulty
arises when comparing Tertullian’s use of reason and nature in De Corona, De Velandis Virginibus, and
De Resurectione Carnis as cited above, in contrast to his universally disparaging comments about
reason and philosophy in De Prescriptio, where he writes;

226
227

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 9.1.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 9.6. Lat. sine disciplina rationis interpretentur.

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For (philosophy) it is which is the material of the world’s wisdom, the rash interpreter of
the nature and the dispensation of God...Unhappy Aristotle! Who invented for these men
dialectics, that art of building up and pulling down; an art so evasive in its propositions,
so far-fetched in its conjectures, so harsh, in its arguments, so productive of contentionsembarrassing even to itself, retracting everything, and really treating of nothing! . . .
Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic
composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no
inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no further belief. For this
is our palmary faith, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides. 228
Given that philosophy is working with the material of nature, which Tertullian envisions in De
Corona as a law-revealing revelation from God, how can this be consistent with a clear denunciation of
attempts by pagans to understand it coherently? In saying “there is nothing which we ought to believe
besides” (faith), is not natural revelation essentially relegated to the dust bin of irrelevance, thus being
plain evidence that Tertullian’s “First rule of all” is really no rule at all? It appears to be only a mere
convenient rhetorical tool for his needs at the moment?
This apparent incongruity is a misinterpretation of Tertullian, for there is nothing overtly
inconsistent going on between his statements in De Corona, Viginibus Velandis, De Resurrectione
Carnis and De Prescriptione. Tertullian states plainly that the revelation from nature is “subject to
vanity”, a point he takes from Paul. There is no inconsistency in making an argument from the right use
of reason while in another work, decrying how pagan philosophy distorts that reason. In De
Prescriptio, “What he is really arguing is the use of reason in a ‘reasonable’ fashion, so that it does not
lose its bearings and arrive at senseless conclusions.” 229 Gonzales articulates a system by means of
which to understand Tertullian’s priority of reason as it relates to his other major principle of his, the
rule of faith.
To him, then, the question is not one of reason versus faith as sources of authority but is
rather a question of two different sorts of reason. One is the reason of “Athens”; the
228
229

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 7.2, 5-13.
Gonzalez, “Athens and Jerusalem Revisited,” 22.

65

other is the reason of “Jerusalem.” One could be called “dialectical reason“; the other
would then be “historical reason.” The former turns to itself, and achieves nothing
because it is applied to and ruled by nothing but itself. The latter turns to given facts-in
this case, the historical “disciplina” of Jesus, as summarized in the “rule of faith”- and
arrives at conclusions on the basis of such facts. Dialectical reason asks whether or not
God can do a certain thing; historical reason asks whether or not he in fact has done it,
and then applies itself to that given fact. 230
Gonzalez gives the label of “dialectical reasoning” to a distorted use of natural law which
Tertullian so forcefully denounces. Reason itself in Tertullian’s thought, is simply subject to distortion,
and his forceful denunciations of dialectical reason should not lead to the conclusion that Tertullian
disparages reason itself, 231 which he plainly advocated as a source of authority.
Interestingly though, he suggests that the purest expression of natural law would be in the
historical teachings of Jesus, of which the rule of faith is the most succinct expression. In this sense, the
rule of faith, which will be the next rule to be discussed, is itself the purest distillation of the law of
nature.

2. The Rule of Faith
Tertullian laid great importance on “The Rule of Faith” -a structured though malleable
statement of essential doctrine that serves as a rule by which Scriptural interpretation is to be measured.
It is a principle that sets the parameters for Christian discourse and draws a line for when orthodoxy
ends and freedom of opinion begins. “This law of faith being constant, the other succeeding points of

230
231

Gonzalez, “Athens and Jerusalem Revisited,” 22.
Compare this with Etienne Gilson, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (New York, NY: Charles’ Scribner’s
Sons, 1938), 10-11, who casts anti-rational theology as belonging to the “Tertullian Family” for its dismissal of the
authority of reason.

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discipline and conversation admit the novelty of correction; the grace of God, to wit, operating and
advancing even to the end.” 232
Commenting on Tertullian’s arguments in De Prescriptione, Gerald Bray remarks: “Much of
Tertullian’s argument concerns the interpretation of Scripture, which he insists must be read as an
organic whole within the context

of the Rule of Faith.” 233 It is not a mere personal nor corporate

creed for catechetical or liturgical purposes, but is a tool for rightly interpreting the Scriptures.
A very clear statement on the use of the rule of faith is found in De Puditicia, where, in
objecting to his opponents’ use of parables as sources of doctrine, Tertullian says: “From the beginning
they have fashioned the very substance of their doctrine to agree with the details of the parables. Of
course, since they are not bound by the rule of faith, they are free to hunt up and piece together things
which seem to be typified by the parable. We, however, do not fashion doctrines using the parables as
raw materials, but rather, we interpret the parables on the basis of our doctrines.” 234
Some scholars 235 argue that Tertullian saw the rule of faith as preeminent, and that in his mind,
it was a creedal statement to which Scripture must conform. In this sense, the rule of faith is said to be
Tertullian’s ultimate authority. For example, Ferguson states: “[T]he ‘rule’ functioned for Tertullian as
the first principles did in platonic and stoic philosophy – the foundational ideas, undemonstrable
themselves but the ‘givens’ that are the basis of all reasoning.” 236 O’ Malley thinks Tertullian’s view of
the rule of faith is so exalted that “Tertullian has taken a long step towards making the Scripture
irrelevant” 237 G.T. Armstrong notes the exegetical importance of the rule of faith, calling it “the

232
233
234
235
236
237

Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.5.
Bray, Holiness and the Will of God, 7.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 8.12-9.1.
Rhee, “Tertullian and Paul,”196; Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 429.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 319.
Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 24.

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fundamental principle of his hermeneutic.” 238 Fredouille sees the importance of things like the rule of
faith for Tertullian’s exegesis, but does not view it as a component of Tertullian’s hermeneutics per se.
Guerra on the other hand, would see the importance of the rule of faith, but classifies it as a subset of
‘tradition’, which is a tool in Tertullian’s intersecting ‘warrants’. So there is a wide range of opinion
about the relationship of the regula to Tertullian’s hermeneutics. This thesis’ position is closest to
Guerra’s, though placing the regula as a subset of a warrant does not seem to give the regula the
prominence in Tertullian’s thinking it deserves.
While it won’t do to understate the importance of the rule of faith for Tertullian’s hermeneutics,
a simple hierarchy with the rule of faith at the top does not give an accurate account of Tertullian’s loci
of authority as O’ Malley and to a lesser extent, Armstrong, among others, portray it. As we have seen
in our discussion of Tertullian’s concept of nature and reason, Tertullian is perfectly willing to grant
nature as a source of revelation, and reason as our steadfast guide through life and texts. Were it the
case that the rule of faith was so important as to “make the scripture irrelevant”, we would not see such
copious arguments from nature, history, and Scripture across his treatises.
If the rule of faith is not to be seen as the apex of a hierarchy of authority, what was its function
for Tertullian? Gerald Bray suggests that Tertullian understood the rule of faith like a Roman jurist: “He
quotes the jurist Paul 239: ‘A regula is that which explains briefly what the matter is. The law must be
deduced from the regula, but the regula is determined by what the law is,’ and concludes, ‘The regula
fidei was the summary of the lex (i.e. Scripture) which could then be used as the fundamental rule in
Biblical interpretation’” 240 In other words, if Tertullian is using the term regula as Paul the jurist uses it
in Roman law, then the rule of faith is not a rule that stands outside of Scripture, but is itself a summary
238
239
240

Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 24.
Julius Paulus Prudentissimus, a Roman jurist of the 2nd and 3rd century.
Bray, Holiness and the Will of God, 103.

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of Scripture. If “the regula is determined by what the law is”, then the regula fidei is determined by the
contents of Scripture, and is itself seen as a summary of the Scriptures.
Citing Eric Osborn, Ferguson describes the relationship of the rule to the Scriptures: “Osborn is
more accurate in saying that one of Tertullian’s moves in exegesis is to find Scripture concentrated in
the Rule of Faith, which is dependent on Scripture.” 241 This view of the regula as a concentration of
Scripture has some scholars arguing that it should not be seen as a “principle” that guides the
interpretation of Scripture, since the regula itself is a summary of the Scriptures.
Compiling citations from Flessman Van Leer, Ferguson writes; “‘Scripture in its entirety
expresses the regula’; the regula is not ‘a formal principle outside of scripture, but the purport,
intention of scripture itself’; while affirming that ‘scripture has to be explained according to the
regula,’ she adds that for Tertullian ‘it is entirely impossible to place the regula in any way above
scripture.’” 242 This is because for Tertullian, the rule of faith is not of his own making, as though it
summarizes the Scripture based on good application of hermeneutic rules found outside of Scripture.
As Waszink articulates, the rule of faith came from Jesus himself, and is the Lord’s own summary of
the Scriptures. “This regula is of the greatest significance for Tertullian. For him there can be no
question that it has been handed down whole and entire from Jesus himself as a simple, unified,
definite and determined corpus of doctrine.” 243
A further distinction to be made is that though the regula is a summary of Scripture, the regula
is not itself a revelation from God: “Though the Rule of Faith is the last and highest instance of the
correct knowledge of Divine Revelation and consequently of the legitimate meaning of Holy Scripture,
241
242
243

Ferguson, “Tertullian, scripture, Rule of Faith, and Paul,” in Tertullian and Paul, 30.
Ellen Flessman-Van Leer, Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church (Amsterdam, NL, Van Gorcum, 1953), 178, 194,
180. Quoted in Ferguson, “Tertullian, Scripture, Rule of Faith, and Paul,” 30, ftn. 43.
Robert B. Eno. “Ecclesia Docens: Structures of Doctrinal Authority in Tertullian and Vincent,” Thomist: a speculative
quarterly review 40, no.1 (Jan 1976): 96-115, 103.

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the Scripture remains the source of the Revelation.” 244 In this regard, Waszink here makes an important
observation about Tertullian’s use of the regula. He points out that the regula is quite limited in its
applications, providing “[A] norm for a correct and legitimate interpretation of Holy Scripture only
with respect to the true statements, the veritates, of Biblical revelation which are contained in the
Rule.” 245 Beyond this, the rule of faith is mute, and so other principles are needed for which “[T]he real
exegetical work begins for Tertullian.” 246 Tertullian certainly does this work, and articulates other
principles, which is a large part of why this thesis regards it as inaccurate to regard Tertullian’s use of
the regula as an all-encompassing key for interpreting the Scriptures. If it is true that he views the
regula as a summary of Scripture, then Tertullian’s statement that “we interpret the parables on the
basis of our doctrines” 247 should not be understood as a statement that the regula is a source of
authority that sits outside of Scripture and judges it as a preeminent principle. Rather, the regula should
be read as a synonym for “we interpret the particular Scriptures on the basis of the whole of scripture.”
This reading of Tertullian is, of course, contestable. Albeit, it is also an effective attempt to
express a harmonization of Tertullian’s thought that is frequently dismissed as ‘unsystematic rhetoric.’
This thesis concedes that if we are to introduce Tertullian’s hermeneutics to the lay reader with a few
simple points, it may be best to summarize the rule of faith as the apex of Tertullian’s hermeneutics.
However, in seeking a fuller and more accurate description, this does not represent Tertullian’s
hermeneutic set of tools very well.

244
245
246
247

Waszink, “Tertullian’s Principles and Methods of Exegesis,” 26.
Ibid., 26.
Ibid., 26.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 8.12-9.1.

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3. The Rule of Progressive Revelation

a. Stoic and Biblical Influences
One of the distinctive features of Tertullian’s approach to hermeneutics is his perspective on the
progress of revelation, in that it affects how he foresees the ongoing task of biblical interpretation by
the church. The idea of progress features so prominently in Tertullian’s work that the “[N]otion of
progress is, moreover, an idea dear to Tertullian, for it is found elsewhere in his work, applied to the
whole of civilization.” 248 Kauffman notes how several prominent scholars have concluded that
Tertullian ‘idealized’ the progress of revelation, and attributes this fixation to a lifelong study of
Stoicism. 249 Fredouille argues that Tertullian exhibits the historical consciousness of Roman thought.
“Thus his polemic...led Tertullian to concretely reflect on what we are obliged to call ‘the meaning of
history’ - one of the oldest and most characteristic frameworks, certainly, of Roman thought.” 250
Fredouille regards Tertullian’s view of history as a carefully crafted synthesis of Christian and Stoic
categories of thought, with influence stemming from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. 251
The Stoic connection is difficult to demonstrate, as no explicit Stoic historiography is extant,
although scholars of the Stoic tradition have long recognized that Stoicism does have a distinctive
outlook on history. As Colish writes:
A historian imbued with Stoicism would have a decidedly metahistorical outlook,
reflecting a physics in which change is the paramount reality and in which the deity is
identical with the material world. Historical phenomena, no less than natural
phenomena, would therefore be viewed as manifestations of the immanent divine logos,
at the same time a benevolent providential force and the rational yet ineluctable cause of
historical events. This divine logos ruling history from within would...be governed by a
248
249
250
251

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 246. Translation mine.
Kaufman, “Tertullian on Heresy, History, and the Reappropriation of Revelation,” 176.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 253-4. Translation mine.
Ibid., 256.

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cyclical pattern of disintegration, and reintegration. Just as the cosmos and its natural
laws are, so history would be understood as a temporal extension without limits, a
continuous process of cyclical change in which all stages are equally perfect because
they are equally identified with the divine logos. 252
Fredouille still sees “Roman thought”, particularly Stoic biological categories, as the root of
Tertullian’s thought on historical development. 253 This is difficult to demonstrate conclusively, for
although the similarities are evident, Tertullian never makes an explicit Stoic reference to the origin of
his ideas, and explicitly rejects any attempts at a Stoic-Christian synthesis. Rather, Tertullian gives an
exegetical account of his theology of history, rooted in the parable of the grain of mustard in the fourth
chapter of Mark. While parallels may be found with the “Roman thought” in which he was doubtlessly
steeped, it is far easier to demonstrate and restate Tertullian’s own stated justification for his doctrine as
rooted in the Scriptures. There are crucial differences between a Stoic understanding of history and
Tertullian’s. Tertullian exhibits no sympathies with a cyclical view of history, nor is “perfection” a
quality of the present at all times: “To what faith do these notable facts bear witness, if not to that
which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future integrity
and perfect resurrection?...We have then already settled the principle that the dispensation of the future
state ought not to be compared with that of the present world.” 254 Rather, God in his providence, is
working in history to bring about a perfect resurrection at a future date. Moreover, God is not strictly
immanent in history but transcendent over it and is by no means to be confused with the creation itself:
“We give offence by proclaiming that there is one God...from whom all things comes, and who is Lord
of the whole universe.” 255

252
253
254
255

Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 291.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 290. Translation mine.
Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis, 58.9; 60.4.
Tertullian, De Testimonio Animae, 2.1.

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Another important distinction between Tertullian and Stoicism’s doctrine of progress in history
is the role of the Holy Spirit, whom Tertullian sees as the cause of progress. For Tertullian, the Holy
Spirit has been working with God’s people through the ages. The Holy Spirit has been graciously
teaching a group of people throughout history through varied dispensations of revelation. This is
distinct from the Stoic concept of progress by the individual exercising their will to form disciplined
habits of the soul. “Tertullian underlines the action of the Spirit in the practice of the virtue of
patience...This is Tertullian’s New Testament theology of the virtues, wherein the Spirit is the agent of
the divine energies infused in the Christian.” 256 This fixation on the progress of virtue forms the
structure around how Tertullian interprets the Scriptures, and is a crucial component of Tertullian’s
soteriology.
These are big differences, and so other than a loosely defined preference for the ‘biological
analogy’ of Mark’s mustard grain parable, Fredouille’s contention that Tertullian’s thought is rooted in
Stoic categories is a difficult one to defend. Perhaps the similarity with Stoicism is more about the
dissimilarity between Christianity and other modes of thinking popular in the Roman world at the time,
especially Epicureanism and Platonism. In this respect, Tertullian and the Stoics share an idea of a deity
working within history that his other contemporaries did not. Of the pagan thought popular during
Tertullian’s time, his own theology more closely resembles Stoicism than Epicureanism or Platonism.
However, this does not establish much of a connection in the inspiration of his ideas, which likely
originate from Tertullian’s interpretation of the Scriptures, more than any other source.

256

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 394. Translation mine.

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b. Tertullian’s Framework of Progress
Tertullian’s basic view of history is that God is continually in the process of bringing his people
into greater conformity to his will. This is conceived primarily in moral terms, as God conforms his
people to His own holiness. For Tertullian, history is about the history of salvation. This moral process
is done by means of God putting his people under various administrations of discipline, with varied
prophetic and apostolic administrators, empowered by the Holy Spirit. “[S]ince human mediocrity was
unable to take in all things at once, discipline should, little by little, be directed, and ordained, and
carried on to perfection, by that Vicar of the Lord, the Holy Spirit...What, then, is the Paraclete’s
administrative office but this, the direction of discipline, the revelation of the Scriptures, the
reformation of the intellect, the advancement toward the ‘better things?’ Nothing is without stages of
growth: all things await their season.” 257 This growth is compared to the growth of a man from birth to
maturity in four stages.
Tertullian’s doctrine of the progress of revelation is exegetically defended by the use of Mark
4:28, the parable of the grain of mustard. Commenting on this text he says the following: “So too,
righteousness -for the God of righteousness and of creation is the same- was first in a rudimentary state,
having a natural fear of God: from that stage it advanced, through the Law and the Prophets, to infancy;
from that stage it passed, through the Gospel, to the fervour of youth: now, through the Paraclete, it is
settling into maturity.” 258 Interpreting the Scriptures through the lens of historical dispensations is
nothing peculiar to Tertullian. His distinctive is his narrative about the purpose of God in varying his
revelation from beginnings to the present, which is increasing instruction of discipline.

257
258

Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.6-8.
Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.10.

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c. The Current Age of the Paraclete
Tertullian’s most peculiar doctrine in all this is his understanding of the age of the Paraclete.
This is the stage of maturity in his grain analogy, and is an age that extends the work of the Holy Spirit,
where discipline is perfected beyond what is seen in the texts of the New Testament. The New
Testament is an age of youth, but not maturity. The apex of Tertullian’s doctrine of the progress of
revelation is the current age, as demonstrated by the giving of the Paraclete. “Tertullian’s
mature...eschatology may be summarized as follows: God’s dealing with humanity is based on a
number of ‘eras’ (or ‘dispensations’). The most recent of these is the ‘age of the Paraclete.’” 259
In contrast to ages past, the new age is characterized by the gift of knowledge. “The Spirit
furnished those who entered the new age with gifts, above all the gift of knowledge, a knowledge that
was not, however, in conflict with ordinary human knowledge insofar as normal human knowledge had
not been distorted by the prejudices of the former age.” 260 This knowledge works towards the end of
revealing God’s perfect will: “This current era is the period of time when, through the visions and
sayings of the New Prophecy, the Holy Spirit (Paraclete) has finally revealed to Christians exactly what
is expected of them to live strictly in accordance with God’s highest requirements.” 261
This means that the teaching of the Paraclete also has the authority to revise and expand on New
Testament commands. This is based on a historical development, with the giving of the Paraclete being
a new era. In the following quote, Tertullian derides his opponents for accepting the doctrine of second
marriage, which was the practice of remarrying after one’s spouse dies. Tertullian taught that this was
not acceptable in the current age: “‘Hardness of heart’ reigned until Christ’s time; let ‘infirmity of the
flesh’ be content to have reigned until the time of the Paraclete. The new law abrogated divorce-it had
259
260
261

William Tabernee, “The World to Come: Tertullian’s Christian Eschatology,” in Tertullian and Paul, 276.
Sider, “Literary Artifice and the Figure of Paul in the Writings of Tertullian,” 119.
Tabernee, “The World to Come,” 276.

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somewhat to abrogate; the new prophecy abrogates second marriage, which is no less a divorce of the
former marriage.” 262 The new law is the gospel, and the new prophecy is the age of the Spirit.
This age of the Paraclete is not merely an age of renewed knowledge, it is also one wherein the
Paraclete grants powers of self-control heretofore unavailable to mankind: “The time for its indulgence
was the interval until the Paraclete began his operations, to whose coming were deferred by the Lord
the things which in his day ‘could not be endured;’ which it is now no longer competent for any one to
be unable to endure, seeing that he through whom the power of enduring is granted is not wanting.” 263
Thus, Tertullian sometimes handles the New Testament the same way he handles the Old
Testament. That is, he finds himself defending practices that clearly went above and beyond the
practices on display in the New Testament, and he explained this incongruity on account of a church
that was yet to develop into maturity. Some New Testament practices stand in discontinuity with the
Old Testament, and this is explained in terms of the New Testament being an improvement on the old, a
progression in holiness. In the same way, some of Tertullian’s teachings, like banning second marriage,
are defended on the basis of being progress in holiness over those immature practices permitted in the
New Testament. Tertullian sees some precedent for this principle in the New Testament itself, when
Paul speaks of feeding the congregation “with milk.” (1 Cor 3:2) “What was the subject matter which
led the apostles to write such words? The inexperience of a new and just rising church, which he was
rearing, to whit, ‘with milk,’ not yet with the ‘solid food’ of stronger doctrine; inexperience so great,
that that infancy of faith prevented them from yet knowing what they were to do in regard of carnal and
sexual necessity.” 264

262
263
264

Tertullian, De Monogamia, 14.5.
Tertullian, De Monogamia, 14.7.
Tertullian, De Monogamia, 11.9.

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d. An Example: Food issues
The Scripture’s evolving teaching about food consumption is a good example of Tertullian’s use
of revelatory progress to explain the Biblical text. After the flood, God permitted man to eat meat (Gen
9:3). This is because God saw that man was not able to abstain from eating a single fruit. If man could
not do this simple task, it would be futile to expect him to abstain from meat. God’s intent behind
opening up the panoply of man’s diet was that having more liberty to eat of whatever might please him
should aid to strengthen his self-control: “It was not suitable for man to be burdened with any further
special law of abstinence, who so recently showed himself unable to tolerate so light an interdiction-of
one single fruit, to wit; that, accordingly, having the rein relaxed, he was to be strengthened by his very
liberty.” 265 Later, under the law and prophets, God would re-institute restrictions on diet. Tertullian
regarded the Old Testament fasts from certain foods as preparatory for the age of the Spirit, where
fasting was more often, and more all-inclusive: “…Certain things being prohibited as unclean, in order
that man, by observing a perpetual abstinence in certain particulars, might at last the more easily
tolerate absolute fasts.” 266
These absolute fasts were the fasts of the Age of the Spirit, where Tertullian defends the practice
of frequent fasts within the church: “… Rather, by the virtue of condemning food he was initiating ‘the
new man’ into ‘a severe handling’ of ‘the old,’ that he might show that new man to the devil, again
seeking to tempt him by means of food, to be too strong for the whole power of hunger.” 267
We see here that Tertullian understands the Scriptures as a whole, and in dealing with themes
such as food and fasting, he harmonizes the teachings of the Scriptures through a concept of
progressive education in discipline. “Tertullian thus underlined the close link which united, with his
265
266
267

Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 4.3.
Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 5.1.
Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 8.2.

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theology of history, the exegetical method which he implemented.” 268 This method of interpreting the
Scriptures surfaces frequently in Tertullian’s debates with Marcion, where he defends the Old
Testament as consistent with the New by means of this doctrine of the development of discipline. The
age of the Paraclete is not an age of arbitrary revision of Old Testament commands, but is a progress
towards the salvation of man.

e. The Problem of the Old and the New
Tertullian’s doctrine of progress appears to involve him in a problem. He frequently appeals to
the authority of the ancient in order to establish his arguments. He remarks: “[T]he lateness of
date...marks all heresies...In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force
against all heresies whatsoever-that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in
date.” 269 This argument is crucial in his reasoning against the pagans, where Moses must antedate
Greek thought, which is a corruption of earlier wisdom: “If you happen to have heard of a certain
Moses, I speak first of him: he is as far back as the Argive Inachus; by nearly four hundred years...he
precedes Danaus, your most ancient name; while he antedates by a millennium the death of Priam. I
might affirm too, that he is five hundred years earlier than Homer...” 270
Likewise, this argument is crucial when Tertullian deals with his criteria for truth being found in
the oldest churches established by the apostles. In establishing the churches, it is the earliest churches
which get the benefit of the doubt, and later additions and modifications are what is noted to be heresy:
“[A]ll doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches -those moulds and original sources of the faith
must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the
268
269
270

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 141-2. Translation mine.
Tertullian, Adv. Praxaeus, 2.2-3.
Tertullian, De Apologeticus pro Christianus, 19.3.

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apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God...We hold communion with the apostolic churches
because our doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is our witness of truth.” 271
Tertullian changes his tune however, when developments are in favour of his theological
preferences: “But in all cases it is the later things which have conclusive force, and the subsequent
which prevail over the antecedent.” 272 Thus, not a few scholars have recognized that ‘the old and the
new’ appears to constitute a serious problem in Tertullian’s thought. 273
Fredouille attempts to resolve this difficulty by showing that Tertullian’s ‘new’ grows out of,
and is consistent with the old. 274 The problem, then, is when ‘new’ is so entirely different from the old
that it cannot be shown to have been reasonably built on the old, but is instead an innovation. In
Tertullian’s view, innovation is what constitutes heresy. 275 He argues that his own innovations are not
contradictions of the old by appealing to the ‘newness’ of the age of the Paraclete. Meanwhile, he
denounces his opponents by showing their doctrines are innovations that did not organically grow out
of the old as he claims that his do: “For the abolition of the ancient law we fully admit, and hold that it
actually proceeds from the dispensation of the Creator, -a point which we have already often treated in
the course of our discussion, when we showed that the innovation was foretold by the prophets of our
God.” 276 He understood that the New Testament codes of conduct were “Realized in Christ, but rooted
in the ancient Law and announced long ago by the prophets. He rehabilitated the Old Testament and
insisted on the continuity which united it in the New, without rupture of unity or development, in the

271
272
273
274
275
276

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 21.5-7.
Tertullian, De Baptismo, 13.1.
Sider, “Approaches to Tertullian,” 233.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 293. Translation mine.
Tertullian, De Jejeunio, 13.1.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, 5.2.1.

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image of the fruit of the primitive seed, of which it is the progressive end, but which he remains
organically bound.” 277
In his own words, the connection between the ever-changing commands of God (especially
regarding food) is the development of discipline: “This rationale was constantly kept in the eye of the
providence of God -modulating all things, as he does, to suit the exigencies of the times.” 278 Tertullian
articulates this reasoning as follows: “The rationale has been this, that by a renewed interdiction of
food and observation of precept the primordial sin might now be expiated, in order that man may make
God satisfaction through the self-same causitive material through which he had offended, that is,
through interdiction of food; and thus, in emulous wise, hunger might rekindle, just as satiety had
extinguished, salvation.” 279 The law of God was fully given in paradise, “For the primordial law was
given to Adam and Eve in Paradise, as the womb of all the precepts of God.” 280 and this will be
restored by Christ in the age of the Paraclete. In the interim, the God who gives the law has the
authority to reform the precepts of the law in order to suit the times: “[L]et us not annul this power
which God has, which reforms the law’s precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a
view to man’s salvation.” 281
For Tertullian, the latest age is a restoration of that which was lost in the first age.
[J]ust as Alpha rolls on till it reaches Omega, and again Omega rolls back until it reaches
Alpha, in the same way He might show that in Himself is both the downward course of
the beginning on to the end, and the backward course of the end up to the beginning; so
that every economy, ending in Him through whom it began -through the Word of God,
that is, who was made flesh, -may have an end correspondent to its beginning. And so
truly in Christ are all things recalled to ‘the beginning,’ that even faith returns from

277
278
279
280
281

Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 289. Translation mine.
Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 4.1.
Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 3.4.
Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos, 2.2.
Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos, 2.10.

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circumcision to the integrity of that (original) flesh...and lastly, the whole man into
Paradise, where he was ‘from the beginning.’ 282
Tertullian’s appeals to the ancient and the most recent dispensation does appear to make internal sense
when regarded as a whole. He may appeal to the ancient as the source of truth, because the older the
source, the closer to Paradise it was. The end of all history is the restoration of Paradise, to which the
age of the Paraclete is closest. Thus, the newest dispensation may lay claim to triumphing over
whatever preceded it, because it is the closest to the most Ancient. Viewed this way, the problem of ‘the
old and the new’ may well make sense in Tertullian’s mind. A contemporary reader however, may be
excused for thinking that Tertullian appears to use arguments from the ancient or from the new as
conveniences him. If the above reading is correct, he did not take pains to make his overall position as
clear as he could have. It may likewise be said that the problem of ‘the old and the new’ is not strictly a
problem for Tertullian per se, because in his view of history, the new is a restoration of the old.
Daniélou considers this historical mode of thinking to be one of the most prominent features of
Tertullian’s thought: “What he does, in other words, is to use a historical rather than a logical argument
to connect the faith of Christians in his own period to the principle and foundation of that faith.” 283
Whatever one makes of the arguments he employed, for the purpose of this thesis it can be said
that Tertullian articulated a doctrine of progress that formed a framework by which to interpret the
Scriptures, and this can be profitably conceived as a hermeneutic rule. For him, where one sits in the
history of salvation determines how one should interpret a given command in the Scriptures as the
people of God work towards a restoration of the primordial law given in Paradise.

282
283

Tertullian, De Monogamia, 5.3-4.
Daniélou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea, 181.

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4. The Rule of Discipline
Having seen the importance of the progress of history and revelation for Tertullian, it is worth
considering whether discipline itself may be considered a component of his hermeneutics. For
Tertullian, the moral rectitude of an action functions as a principle on how to interpret passages in
Scripture and to settle interpretive disputes among Christians.

a. The Meaning of Discipline
Ferguson clarifies Tertullian’s use of the word discipline: “Discipline was Tertullian’s word for
practical precepts. He derived his rules for conduct from Scripture, nature or reason, and discipline, that
is ecclesiastical teaching” 284 Thus for Ferguson, ‘practical precepts’ and ‘ecclesiastical teaching’ are
synonymous with what this thesis wants to identify as a component in Tertullian’s hermeneutics.
Tertullian often connects particulars to broad generalities, and thus when speaking of ethical
particulars, these are never far removed from the way he thinks about larger categories such as virtue.
Speaking of the virtue of patience, Tertullian describes the conduct of patience in terms of the broader
category of discipline: “This is the rule, this the discipline, these the works of patience which is
heavenly and true; that is, of Christian patience...” 285

b. Discipline is an Index of Doctrine
The reason for classifying Tertullian’s ‘discipline’ as a tool of hermeneutics is because of the
emphasis he puts on how discipline is a guide to doctrine: “In their discipline we have an index of their

284
285

Everett Ferguson, “Tertullian,” The Expository Times 120, no. 7 (March 2009): 313-321, 318.
Tertullian, De Patientia, 16.1.

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doctrine.” 286 For Tertullian, the lives of the heretics forms a kind of proof that their doctrine, and
thereby their exegesis, is false: “I must not omit an account of the conduct also of the heretics -how
frivolous it is, how worldly, how merely human, without seriousness, without authority, without
discipline, as suits their creed.” 287 At the same time, correct Christian living is seen as an evidence of
where proper exegesis will be found.
The principle of doctrine being an index of discipline is a happy point of consensus among
Tertullian scholars. Discipline is so important for Tertullian that Fredouille writes: “This idea is implicit
in all of Tertullian’s treatises addressing moral problems.” 288 Indeed, Bray sees all of Tertullian’s
writings and theology born of “fundamentally ethical concerns.” 289 Guerra lists “superior moral
behaviour” as third in his list of Tertullian’s “warrants” for reasoning, and Ferguson relates how this
concern over practical ethical matters is fundamental to much of Tertullian’s writing, especially in
regard to Biblical interpretation: 290 “Tertullian’s discussions of Christian practice involved
considerable debate over Biblical interpretation and the relation of Scripture and custom (or tradition).
His writings give numerous glimpses into the intramural controversies among Christians about the
meaning of Scripture on matters of doctrine and on its application to conduct.” 291
We have seen earlier that Tertullian regards exegesis as a moral project: “We are as much bound
to keep the sense of the Lord as his precepts. Transgression in interpretation is not lighter than in
conversation.” 292 We have also noted that the lives of apostles and prophets serve as moral exemplars,
and these exemplars serve as guides for how to read the instructions of the Scriptures correctly.
286
287
288
289
290
291
292

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 43.2.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 41.1.
Fredouille, Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique, 310. Translation mine.
Sider, “Approaches to Tertullian,” 255.
Guerra, “Polemical Christianity: Tertullian’s Search for Certitude,” 109.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 318.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 9.22.

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Coupled together, it is easy to see how Tertullian views well-regulated discipline as a key principle that
both allows the Christian to understand the Scriptures correctly, and confirms that he has understood it
correctly.
This all-pervading emphasis on discipline means that Tertullian can reliably be expected to
interpret the Scriptures in the most demanding, exacting, and ascetically rigorous way possible. Are
Christians permitted to flee during persecution? Certainly not! Are women required to wear the veil?
Of course! In fact, Christians are being out-done by Arabs, whose women veil their entire faces:
“Arabia’s heathen females will be your judges, who cover not only the head, but the face also, so
entirely, that they are content, with one eye free, to enjoy rather half the light than to prostitute the
entire face.” 293 Can a Christian soldier, victorious in combat, wear a laurel wreath? No, for his only
crown is Christ’s. Can a Christian re-marry after their spouse dies? Of course not, and Tertullian wrote
two volumes to his own wife not to re-marry in the event of his death, as if to make his point in no
uncertain terms. How many fasts should Christians partake in? More! And how about those who depart
from these rules of discipline? Well, they should not be regarded as Christians anyways. 294

c. Discipline is Historically Conditioned
As comical as Tertullian’s exegetical outcomes may be at times, it is not that Tertullian
simplistically stakes out the most morally rigorous exegetical hill on which to die. Rather, discipline is
something Tertullian thinks of in a historical framework, as the discipline God requires becomes
increasingly strict over time. This element of progress is crucial to Tertullian’s historical reasoning
about discipline, as seen in Tertullian’s work De Spectaculis: “He does not merely prove,

293
294

Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, 17.4.
Tertullian, The Apology, 46.17.

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propositionally, that the shows are evil; he paints a verbal picture of the history and nature of human
perversity. Nor for the Christian does he marshal a simple list of injunctions and commands: by the
skilful play of scriptural allusion upon scenes recollected from the Shows, he evokes a compelling
image of the nature of Christian life and growth.” 295
This principle takes on various nuances as history progresses, so that the discipline of one era
leads to further discipline in the next era. This starts with the Old Testament, and culminates in
Tertullian’s contemporary time, the age of the Paraclete: “Whereas the reason why the Lord sent the
Paraclete was, that, since human mediocrity was unable to take in all things at once, discipline should,
little by little, be directed, and ordained, and carried on to perfection, by that vicar of the Lord, the Holy
Spirit.” 296 Tertullian defends this doctrine of the development of discipline by means of the Holy Spirit
by appealing to John 16:12. “I have many things to say to you, but ye are not yet able to bear them:
when the Spirit of truth shall have come, He will conduct you into all truth, and will report to you the
supervening (things).” 297 He thus sees this idea as emerging from the Scripture, not imposed upon it
externally.
It should also be noted that Tertullian’s development of discipline is to be understood as a
discipline that seeks to restore what was lost, and is thus related to his doctrine of the fall: “In Christian
living we seek to reform the pattern of behaviour according to the primeval truth. This is the aim of the
praescriptum disciplinae.” 298 This is further demonstration of Tertullian’s historical circle, that progress
is a restoration of what was lost in ancient times.

295
296
297
298

Sider, “On the Shows,” 364.
Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.6.
Ibid., 1.7.
Sider, “On the Shows,” 364.

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d. Discipline and Exemplars
It was noted earlier that apostles and prophets function as exemplars of how believers are to
live. In Tertullian’s thought, the lives of the prophets and apostles are subject to addendums as
discipline increases over time. This arises in Tertullian’s discussion of marriage. Mention is made of
Abraham’s multiple wives, and Tertullian is concerned that Christians should not re-marry after their
spouses die. Dunn comments on how this affects Abraham as an exemplar: “Abraham would have
provided an example that could be imitated had not new discipline been imposed, which Tertullian
found in 1 Cor 7:29.” 299 The relevant verse for Tertullian reads: “[T]he appointed time has grown short.
From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though
they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as
though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.
For the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor 7:29).”
Tertullian’s practice of viewing the prophets and apostles as exemplars whose exemplary
behaviour is subject to amendment within their era of discipline is a good example of his warrants
being held in tension with one another. The prophets are indeed exemplars, but only within the bounds
of the revelation given at the time, subject to later modifications by the Holy Spirit. Thus, Abraham’s
polygamy was sanctioned for the revelation given at that time, but should not be taken as an example to
Christians in the age of the Paraclete, where a stricter discipline is imposed upon them. Therefore, the
rule of discipline, as dictated by the dispensation of the time, is determinative for Tertullian’s exegesis
for how Christians are to read the Scriptures in his era.

299

Dunn, “Tertullian, Paul, and the Nation of Israel,” in Tertullian and Paul, 94.

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5. The Rule of Context
The progress of revelation, and the development of discipline within that revelation leads us to
the next principle of exegesis, that is, the consideration of context. Tertullian regularly excoriates his
opponents for wresting the Scriptures from their context. It is important to observe that Tertullian’s
notion of context was subject to the above-mentioned ages of discipline. To Tertullian, it is anathema to
fail to discern the current historical age, and how that differs from previous ages. Properly discerning
the ages is crucial to how we read and apply the Scriptures. Kaufman notes: “[P]ropositions, and
prescriptions could be appreciated in light of their authors’ intentions, and since God was the ultimate
author of those intentions and orchestrated them progressively, that appreciation shed clues to the
historical rationality of revelation and was indispensable if revelation were to be usefully reappropriated.” 300
Tertullian’s talk about the importance of placing texts within their context is thus buttressed by a
larger context of the revelation of God across history. The Scriptures form a single, unified revelation
which gives Tertullian the freedom to minimize the importance of textual context in some cases. For
instance, he says that despite their regional titles, Paul’s letters are written to all churches: “But of what
consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all?” 301
Any nuance that might arise from commands given to a particular congregation, like Ephesus or
Corinth, are collapsed, for Paul’s epistles are in fact written to all churches. For Tertullian, this is a firm
assertion of the divine authorship of the Scriptures, and divine authorship implies divine intentions
behind localized texts that go beyond the immediate concerns of the localized text. On this basis, the
instructions of the Scriptures can then be immediately applied to Tertullian’s readers.

300
301

Kaufman, “Tertullian on Heresy, History, and the Reappropriation of Revelation,” 177.
Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, 5.17.1.

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Tertullian acknowledged that there are certain commands that transcend all considerations of
context. He enumerates several factors which ordinarily contribute to variables: time, person, and
region. “I will show in Latin also that it behooves our virgins to be veiled from the time that they have
passed the turning point of their age: that this observance is exacted by truth, on which no one can
impose prescription-no space of times, no influence of persons, no privilege of regions.” 302 These three
variables are the conditions that contribute to whether commands were normative for all time, or
merely circumstantial. Thus, there are commands and circumstances that warrant more subtle
interpretations of the Scriptures. On the whole, subtle scriptural ambiguities do not feature strongly in
Tertullian. He would not be Tertullian if he refrained from his customary rhetorical flair in summing up
his sentiments towards those who relativize what he considered to be absolute: “But our Lord Christ
has surnamed himself Truth, not Custom.” 303

6. The Rule of Ecclesiastical Fellowship
Tertullian held a very high view of the importance of the ecclesiastical fellowship. That is, he
held that the church, her bishops, her members, and the saints all walking in disciplined Christian
living, all contributed to the right interpretation of Scripture. In Tertullian we find reference to “the
church as our mother” which he held in contradistinction to a society run by the Julian laws. 304 This
robust view of the church stood in contrast to views of the church that only regarded her immediate
hierarchy of governance to be significant: “the church is not a conclave of bishops, but the

302
303
304

Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.1.
Ibid., 1.2.
Tertullian, De Monogamia, 16.5.

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manifestation of the Holy Spirit.” 305 Tertullian nevertheless gives early testimony to the importance of
ecclesiastical hierarchy, and waxes poetic about the significance of the church of Rome;
Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes
even into our own hands the very authority (of apostles themselves). How happy, is its
church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where
Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s
where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to
his island-exile! 306
The church of Rome drew her significance from the apostles. The importance of certain congregations
was related to apostolic authority. Tertullian explicitly draws the connection between the apostles, their
writings, and the churches they founded. “[R]un over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones
of the apostles are still preeminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read...” 307
However, this authority was not by mere right of apostolic succession, but by their successor’s
adherence to apostolic teaching.
This reverence for fidelity to the apostolic writings is seen even in Tertullian’s references to the
“Pontifex Maximus,” the bishop of bishops in Rome, whom he excoriates for making immoral edicts
that feed the “sensual appetites.” 308 Though Tertullian at times emphasizes apostolic succession and
ecclesiastical hierarchy, especially the bishop of Rome, this is not a slavish historical continuity. Rather,
the historical connection of churches with apostles must also conform to apostolic doctrine and
Christian conduct, from which successors may depart. “Tertullian insisted that the church was
identified by its historical connection with the apostles and adherence to apostolic doctrine.” 309
Speaking of the apostles and the logic of succession, Tertullian writes:

305
306
307
308
309

Tertullian, De Puditicia, 21.17.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 36.2-3.
Ibid., 36.1.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 1.7.
Ferguson, “Tertullian,” 317.

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[A]fter first bearing witness to the faith in Jesus Christ throughout Judea, and founding
churches there, they next went forth into the world and preached the same doctrine of
the same faith to the nations. They then in like manner founded churches in every city,
from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith,
and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become
churches. 310
This applies also to anyone holding clerical office. In a lengthy discussion of the relationship of the
keys of the kingdom, the church, and ecclesial authority, Tertullian elaborates as follows:
For in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to spiritual men that this power will
correspondently pertain, either to an apostle or else to a prophet...“the Church” it is true,
will forgive sins: but it will be the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man; not
the Church which consists of a number of bishops. For the right and arbitrariment is the
Lord’s, not the servant’s; God’s himself, not the priest’s. 311
There must be a daily conforming to the tradition of the faith in order for churches to truly be churches
in Tertullian’s thought. He is lacking a doctrine of ecclesiastical authority that grants unconditional
hereditary powers to the church. Rather, it is the church that must conform to the genuine source of
authority, the apostles. According to Eno: “Tertullian does not yet have any mechanism or structure in
the earthly Church which is itself a God-given authority enabled to judge between truth and falsehood
in doctrine. Offices and structures like the Roman primacy or the council are barely seen in
Tertullian.” 312 In clarifying the importance of ecclesiastical structures for Tertullian’s hermeneutics, it is
important to note that correct interpretations are not the result of conciliar deliberation, nor simple
claims to apostolic authority to interpret the Scriptures.
Apostolic authority itself is not strictly about dogma, but is also subject to ethical criteria: “In
this way all are primitive, and all are apostolic, whilst they are all proved to be one, in (unbroken)
unity, by their peaceful communion, and title of brotherhood, and bond of hospitality, -privileges which
310
311
312

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 20.4-5. Emphasis mine.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 21.16-17.
Eno, “Ecclesia Docens: Structures of Doctrinal Authority in Tertullian and Vincent,” 105.

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no other rule directs than the one tradition of the selfsame mystery.” 313 For Tertullian, Christian living
is a proof that a church is conformed to apostolic doctrine.
Lastly as pertains to the rule of ecclesiastical fellowship, Tertullian writes of his warm reverence
for church councils: “Besides, throughout the provinces of Greece there are held in definite localities
those councils gathered out of the universal churches, by whose means not only all the deeper questions
are handled for the common benefit, but the actual representation of the whole Christian name is
celebrated with great veneration.” 314
This passage is significant not just as evidence that Tertullian was not a withdrawn spiritual
fideist as some claim, 315 but even in the above cited work, which is a defence of Montanist practices on
fasting, Tertullian speaks of the beauty and importance of ecclesiastical councils. There still is no
explanation of the mechanism of authority of these councils, nonetheless he held them in high esteem.
In Tertullian’s thought, there is an ongoing process of discernment that the church practices in
coming to a right interpretation of the Scriptures. It is not by the decrees of popes, nor councils, but it is
nonetheless ecclesiastical and communal in nature. This process is spelled out in the first three chapters
of De Velandis Virginibus. Therein, Tertullian first states that the rule of faith is the immovable starting
point of doctrinal discussion: “This law of faith being constant, the other succeeding points of
discipline and conversation admit the “novelty” of correction; the grace of God, to wit, operating and
advancing even to the end.” 316 The Holy Spirit then takes this foundation, and builds on it “little by
little”, because “human mediocrity was unable to take in all things at once.” Within this purview of the
Spirit’s tasks is “the direction of discipline, the revelation of the scriptures, the reformation of the

313
314
315
316

Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 20.8-9.
Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 13.6.
Gilson, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, 10-11.
Tertullian, De Velandis Virginibus, 1.5.

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intellect, the advancement towards better things. Nothing is without stages of growth: all things await
their season.” 317
Tertullian then brings his ecclesiology, proposing that the practices of those churches founded
by apostles be taken as models for proper custom. The authority of custom of earlier churches should
be preferred to customs of churches founded later. After these considerations, “[A]s generally happens
in all cases of various practice, of doubt, and of uncertainty, examination ought to have been made to
see which of two so diverse customs were the more compatible with the discipline of God.” 318
Tertullian then begins advancing his arguments for why the specific issue of veiled virgins is more
compatible with the discipline of God.
The above demonstrates Tertullian’s conception of the work of the Holy Spirit in interpreting
the Scriptures through the church, through a method of establishing which customs are the will of God
by granting liberty to either practice until “[T]he power of discerning began to advance, so that the
licence granted to either fashion was becoming the mean whereby the indication of the better part
emerged.” 319 These chapters are a fascinating discourse that spell out the means by which the Holy
Spirit works out the proper interpretation of the Scriptures. Through the means of granting liberty of
practice within the church until the wiser course of action becomes apparent, Christians discern the will
of God.
Scriptural interpretation then, in Tertullian, is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is not merely a
grammatical and logical process, nor a matter of conciliar deliberation, nor an authoritative claim to
apostolic heritage. Exegesis is practicing the faith, the Spirit using the means of liberty in the church to
bring out by lived experience the true discipline which God wants lived among his people. For all of
317
318
319

Ibid., 1.6; 1.8.
Ibid., 2.4.
Ibid., 3.2.

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Tertullian’s rigour, the current age of the Paraclete is not an age of static commands that will not
develop or progress. Rather, the age of the Paraclete is an age of refinement of discipline, where
customs are tested in the fire of practical experience. In this dialectic of various Christian practices,
diversity of Christian living is tolerated until it is discerned which way is best.

7. The Rule of Tradition
Tertullian makes a few comments in his writings about the authority of custom and tradition.
For Tertullian, custom and tradition are related terms, one flowing naturally out of the other: “If no
passage of scripture has prescribed it, assuredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition,
has confirmed it.” 320 Here custom is used to describe the practice of not wearing a victory laurel.
In the controversy over whether or not there was an esoteric extra-scriptural tradition to which
his opponents appealed, Tertullian vehemently rejected any notion of tradition that did not arise from
apostolic teaching, especially as demonstrated by communion with churches founded by apostles.
“Like Irenaeus, Tertullian defines tradition as that which derives from the teaching of the apostles.” 321
Tertullian wrote: “It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have
now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not
ipso facto proceed from falsehood. We hold communion with the apostolic churches because our
doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is our witness of truth.” 322
This must be born in mind when reading Tertullian’s later statements on custom in his book De
Velandis Virginibus, wherein he argues that it has become clear, in the course of allowing liberty to
wearing the veil or not, that wearing the veil is the will of God. Tertullian does not have in mind a
320
321
322

Tertullian, De Corona, 3.2.
Daniélou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea, 182.
Tertullian, De Prescriptio, 21.6-7.

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process of discerning new teaching that is outside of practices already present in apostolic churches and
the Scriptures. The esoteric tradition of Tertullian’s enemies is to be distinguished from common, or
Scriptural tradition.
However, it should not be ignored that Tertullian holds to a number of traditions that he admits
go beyond the explicit text of Scripture. He mentions that the practice of baptism is followed by having
those baptized partake of milk and honey, and then refraining from bathing for a week. He also
mentions the baptized making a pledge before being thrice immersed: “[M]aking a somewhat ampler
pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel.” 323 Tertullian thus puts his own extra-scriptural
practices in plain view, and remarks on them as follows: “If, for these and other such rules, you insist
on having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth as the
originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer.” 324
Tertullian’s readers may thus find him arguing for an apparently convenient view of tradition.
Tradition, and the customs that follow from tradition are admitted to the table, but only such traditions
that meet the following criteria: they must be traditions established in churches that hold apostolic
communion, as evidenced by their adherence to the rule of faith, as well as their historical lineage to
the apostles. Tertullian’s arguments for tradition, which include many appeals to reason and Scripture,
are admitted to have no explicit scriptural witness. They are confirmed by their appearance in apostolic
churches, and by reason. “[I]f reason too is God’s gift, you may then learn, not whether custom has to
be followed by you, but why.” 325
Traditions are also amenable by direct revelation of the Holy Spirit. Though not an entirely
clear passage, Tertullian seems to argue that a revelation of the Paraclete may confirm or correct
323
324
325

Tertullian, De Corona, 3.3.
Tertullian, De Corona, 4.1.
Tertullian, De Corona, 4.7.

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traditions. In a lengthy argument about the correct hour for stations of prayer and fasting, Tertullian
makes brief reference to the role the Holy Spirit may play in confirming or correcting traditions: “[O]f
those things which are observed on the ground of tradition, we are bound to adduce so much the more
worthy of reason, that they lack the authority of Scripture, until by some signal celestial gift they be
either confirmed or else corrected.” 326

8. The Rule of Grammar and Logic
In the above analysis we have covered Tertullian’s more explicit theological principles that
influence his handling of the Scriptures. Beyond this, this thesis would like to draw attention to a few
simple literary characteristics of Tertullian’s hermeneutics. That is, his appeal to rules of grammar and
logic that distinguish his approach from allegorical readings that were prevalent among some of his
contemporaries.
For simplicity, in seeking to paint a broad picture of how Tertullian uses the Scriptures, these
hermeneutical tools of Tertullian will be categorized under the heading “grammar and logic.” This
section is making no attempt to capture comprehensively all of the literary, grammatical and logical
tools Tertullian brings to the fore. A few of the more salient examples will suffice to demonstrate some
of these more mundane aspects of Tertullian’s hermeneutics.
Tertullian regularly appeals to internal consistency. He insists that if an interpretation renders
the Scriptures internally inconsistent, it must be false. “[I]n as much as it is easier to believe that that
one passage should have some explanation agreeable with the others, then that an apostle should seem
to have taught principles mutually diverse.” 327 This is both a testament to Tertullian’s conviction of the

326
327

Tertullian, De Jejuniis, 10.5.
Tertullian, On Monogamy, 11.8.

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unity and divine authorship or the Scriptures as his conviction that two mutually exclusive things
cannot both be true at the same time, and is a testament to how strongly Tertullian internalized the law
of non-contradiction.
Heresy is characterized by certain exegetical practices, says Tertullian, most notably exalting
obscure passages over plentiful and clear ones: “But this is the usual way with perverse and ignorant
heretics; yes, and by this time even with psychics universally: to arm themselves with the opportune
support of some one ambiguous passage, in opposition to the disciplined host of sentences of the entire
document” 328
One principle to which Tertullian frequently appeals is repetition. That is, he scorns his
opponents for taking their stand on a single verse or two, and exhorts his readers to subject single
obscure texts to the certitude that comes from multiple texts buttressing an idea. “Yield up, by this
time, to so many and such sentences, the one passage to which you claim. Paucity is cast into the shade
by multitude, doubt by certainty, obscurity by plainness.” 329
Tertullian is an advocate of plain language. He expresses contempt for allegorical trends
regarding cardinal Christian doctrines: “For some, when they have alighted on a very usual form of
prophetic statement, generally expressed in figure and allegory, though not always, distort into some
imaginary sense even the most clearly described doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, alleging that
even death itself must be understood in a spiritual sense.” 330 For Tertullian, allegorical readings rob
texts of meaning rather than enlighten them. He insists texts be read in a plain sense: “If these
announcements are not understood as they are made, without doubt they signify something else than

328
329
330

Tertullian, De Puditicia, 14.24.
Tertullian, De Puditicia, 17.18.
Tertullian, De Resurectione Carnis, 19.2.

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the sound indicates; and there will be one thing in the words, another in their meanings, as is the case
with allegories, with parables, with riddles.” 331
This strong sense of the literal meaning in Tertullian extends to passages that are best taken as
symbolic, or visionary. For example, Tertullian understands Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones
to be an actual historical event: 332 “To be a sign, the vision must itself have consistency and reality. If
the bones are the image of the reunion of Israel, then they must actually have risen. The historical
reality of the event is important for Tertullian.” 333 This is not to say that Tertullian is unable to see
anything beyond the literal. He does acknowledge figurative language in the Scriptures, and is
comfortable using allegory on rare occasions, such as the following Christological interpretation of
Psalm 45: “If he is not a warrior, and the sword he brandishes is an allegorical one, then the Creator’s
Christ in the psalm too may have been girded with the figurative sword of the Word, without any
martial gear...Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have learned that His arms
are allegorical.” 334
Tertullian is willing to consider allegory when the literal makes no sense to him. His own
argument is articulated by an appeal to what is natural: “Certainly, if nature nowhere allows this, (namely,) to serve as a soldier before developing into manhood, to take ‘the power of Damascus’ before
knowing your father, -it follows that the pronouncement is visibly figurative.” 335 O’ Malley puts it this
way: “His principle, that allegory obtains when the literal sense results in nonsense.” 336 For Tertullian,
figurative language must be based on actual experience and reality, and must contain some reference to
things that actually are.
331
332
333
334
335
336

Tertullian, Scorpiace, 11.4.
Tertullian, De Resurectione Carnis, 30.5.
O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 156
Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, 3.14.5-7.
Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos, 9.6.
O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 158.

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Now if any person should go so far as to suppose that all these passages ought to be
spiritually interpreted, he will yet be unable to deprive them of the true accomplishment
of those issues which must come to pass just as they have been written. For all figures of
speech necessarily arise out of real things, not out of chimerical ones; because nothing is
capable of imparting anything of its own for a similitude, except it actually be that very
thing which it imparts in the similitude. I return therefore to the principles which defines
that all things which have come from nothing shall return at last to nothing. 337
Nevertheless, in practice, there is a subjectivity to his willingness to allegorize some passages,
but not others. Whereas he states the principles of when Scripture is allegorical is based on nature, this
seems to extend to whenever Tertullian feels the human authors of the Scriptures are making a point
that he considers to be bizarre. In Tertullian’s most allegorical moment, he does this with a passage
from 1 Corinthians 15.
‘There is one flesh of man’ (that is, servants of God, but really human), ‘another flesh of
beasts’ (that is, the heathen, of whom the prophet actually says, ‘Man is like the senseless
cattle’), ‘another flesh of birds’ (that is, the martyrs which essay to mount up to heaven),
‘another of fishes’ (that is, those whom the water of baptism has submerged)...Now, if
this language is not to be construed figuratively, it was absurd enough for him to make a
contrast between the flesh of mules and kites...’ 338
It should be emphasized that allegory in Tertullian is exceptional, occurring only a small handful of
times, and often with his target audience in view. O’ Malley notes: “Tertullian employs it with most
confidence in his polemic with Marcion, and in that controversy he justifies its use from the text of
Marcion-Paul, to show the unity of the two testaments.” 339 It is also more rare in works of Tertullian
considered to be controversial. Tertullian is much more free and open in his exegesis when dealing with
literature where internal issues between Christians are at play such as on Baptism, on Penance, and on
Patience. His works that are devoted to more explicit pagan-Christian controversies are far more
cautious in handling the Scriptures. Allegory is by no means Tertullian’s primary instinct, and occurs

337
338
339

Tertullian, Adv. Hermogenes, 34.3-4.
Tertullian, De Resurrectiona Carnis 52.12-14.
O’ Malley, Tertullian and the Bible, 158.

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rarely and strangely enough that it could be considered a kind of lapse from the overall tenor of his
work. It is probably best seen as a device used in opposition to allegorically-minded interlocutors as a
means of defeating them on their own exegetical turf.

Conclusion
Tertullian never wrote an extended treatise on his hermeneutics. Nevertheless, he gives us
glimpses of his hermeneutical principles, often simply and briefly stated, at other times implied. Within
these glimpses, it is possible to discern a general hierarchy of thought, though current scholarship has
not come to a consensus on how to summarize this, and many scholars despair of the project altogether.
This thesis is more hopeful of such a project, and has attempted to put together a picture of Tertullian’s
hermeneutics that accurately represents his thinking vis a vis scriptural interpretation.
If there is a systematic hierarchy, at the apex of this pyramid we find the rule of reason and
nature, that revelation from God accessible to all men, yet corrupted by sin. It is the Scriptures and the
rule of faith that serve to correct these distortions, and according to Tertullian, these are received from
Jesus. The Scriptures and rule of faith are carefully supported by an actual lived-out Christian faith
within apostolic churches. These churches form a crucial bridge between Christ, the apostles, and the
present. This Christian faith is identified above all by discipline, the practice of which distinguishes
those who can properly understand the Scriptures and those who can not. Below this, we find
supporting arguments from tradition and custom, which are in turn buttressed by arguments from nature
and reason and may be supplemented or corrected by direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. All of this
is seen to operate within the flow of history, as God directs man back to the paradise from which he
fell, restoring the ancient communion which was lost due to sin. God is given the liberty to impose
upon his creatures varying economies of discipline, of which the current age of the Paraclete is leading
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the church into a perfect maturity. There is an inner circularity to Tertullian’s historical thought. His
reasoning is not a syllogism that begins with a foundational principle and extrapolates the rest from that
foundation. History began well, and the closer a source is to that beginning, the more authoritative it is.
At the same time, history is returning to that original paradise, and so the most recent developments are
an improvement over the corruptions of the past.
Tertullian’s foundational principles, and their hermeneutic implications exist in Tertullian’s
thought as intersecting warrants held in tension with one another. Tertullian should probably not be
seen as advocating a strict hierarchy of principles with mutually exclusive definitions. Many of these
principles have significant conceptual overlap, and are best seen as a network of principles, some with
more gravitas than others according to Tertullian’s rhetorical needs of the moment.
Where some scholars see a morass of rhetorical opportunism, this thesis has attempted to make
a case that Tertullian has a basic theological and hermeneutical system in mind, even if it has apparent
contradictions. Much of what determines his exegesis is an eclectic symposium of ideas that, though
fluctuating in and out of view for his rhetorical needs, are held together with remarkable consistency
throughout his varied treatises. This compilation of principles forms a unique system of hermeneutics
that justifies Tertullian’s use of, and interpretations of the Scriptures. His core ideas may not garner
much sympathy from modern readers. He may not have done the best job of judiciously applying his
hermeneutics to all verses and topics equally. However, this should not obfuscate the fact that Tertullian
did attempt to articulate his hermeneutics and apply them to various contemporary doctrinal and ethical
concerns. For a writer who has been accused of going mad in his later years, there does appear to be a
method to his madness.

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