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Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Chapter...

Ante-Nicene FathersPatristicsTertullian

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This is an early Christian apologetic text, almost certainly from Tertullian (likely the *Apology* or *Apologia*, c. 197 CE), working within the tradition of Latin patristic rhetoric. Its central argument is that the Hebrew scriptures and Christian revelation predate all Greek philosophy, and that whatever truth the philosophers possessed was drawn from sacred sources — which they then corrupted, distorted, or plagiarized without acknowledgment. Tertullian catalogs the contradictory philosophical views on God's nature, the world's creation, and the soul's immortality as evidence that speculative reason, unanchored by divine revelation, produces only fragmentation and error. He extends this claim to pagan parallels with Christian doctrine — a final judgment, hellfire, paradise — arguing these imitate Christian originals rather than the reverse, invoking the logic that a shadow cannot precede the body that casts it. A distinctively polemical move is his use of philosophical disagreement as proof of philosophy's unreliability, while simultaneously using the existence of pagan analogues to Christian teachings as proof of Christianity's prior authority. The text is addressed to a Roman audience skeptical of Christianity, making the case that Christian doctrines deserve more credence than the philosophies Romans already accept.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Chapter...

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