Apology by Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

First published:Apologeticus, 197 c.e. (English translation, 1642)

Edition used:The Fathers of the Church, vol. 10, Tertullian: Apologetical Works and Minucius Felix—Octaviuis, edited by Roy J. Deferrari. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1950

Genre: Nonfiction

Subgenres: Church history; instructional manual; theology

Core issues: Catholics and Catholicism; daily living; faith; justice; religion; theology

Overview

Tertullian, a highly educated Roman citizen and lawyer from Carthage in North Africa, converted to Christianity in 193 c.e. because he was so impressed by the behavior and faith shown by Christian martyrs. He was convinced that the one true religion was Christianity, not one of the various philosophical systems and cults then widely practiced in the Roman Empire. Tertullian thought that if he could explain the content of Christian belief to other educated non-Christian Romans, they would see the truth of Christianity, convert, and cease to persecute Christians. Tertullian, not a man of moderate temperament, offers a fiery defense of Christianity in his Apology. He not only advocates forcefully in favor of Christianity but also seeks to discredit traditional Roman polytheism and emperor worship, calling them nothing more than idolatry and baseless superstitions.

Apology, in the Latin sense of apologia, means to explain, which is what Tertullian does in his Apology. Speaking to Romans very similar to himself in culture and education, he explains why all the accusations of atheism, incest, and cannibalism against Christianity were ludicrous and why Christians should be thanked rather than persecuted for expounding the truth to their fellow citizens. He argues that Christianity was a benefit rather than a liability to the Roman Empire and that only bad emperors would persecute a good religion.

Tertullian was writing at the close of the second century c.e. when Christianity, though a fragile and discontinuous presence in the Roman Empire, had begun to come to the attention of Roman authorities who regarded it as just another unauthorized organization with potentially dangerous overtones. The authorities suppressed it as seditious and prosecuted members of the quasi-secret society for treason. They neither knew nor cared about Christianity as a belief system; it was not a recognized religion and therefore was banned.

Arguing like the lawyer he was, Tertullian examines the accusations made against Christianity and Christians. He demonstrates the moral integrity of Christians who are exercising their liberty of conscience, an idea Romans claim to value. According to traditions of Roman justice, Christians must be found guilty of crimes before they can be punished. Try as they might, the accusers of Christianity have neither the legal nor logical grounds to substantiate their accusations. Christians cannot be atheists because they believe in a deity. Every other ethnic and geographical group within the empire is allowed to worship particular deities, which Tertullian claims are nothing more than human mental and physical creations. He asks why Christians alone are forbidden to worship their deity, which he claims is above all tribal and geographical deities.

Christians do not engage in cannibalism and incest in their agape or fellowship meals together. Tertullian gives a rather complete description of early worship services and meetings that took place in members’ homes: Christians met to read Scripture, sing hymns of praise to God, agree to treat one another with honesty and charity, and share a meal together. When Christians say they love one another, Tertullian explains, they mean as friends and members of a community. Because Christians had to meet in secret for fear of persecution, outsiders accused Christians of engaging in various sexual perversions. When Christians commemorated the Last Supper by sharing the body and blood of Christ with one another, their accusers took this quite literally and thought Christians were practicing cannibalism. Tertullian debunks this false understanding as well.

Tertullian also defends Christians against the charge of treason, based on the idea that the continued existence of Christianity is a threat to the continued existence of the Roman Empire. Accusers tried to claim that Christianity was offensive to the gods and that all the bad events in the empire were signs of the gods’ displeasure. Therefore, Christianity must be eliminated for the good of the empire. In answering this charge, Tertullian reviews a number of negative events in recent history and explains their causes, which are revealed to be something other than the existence of Christianity. He challenges the accusers to actually prove, rather than merely state, a causal connection between Christianity and negative events. Tertullian gives an account of the prayers used in Christian worship services, prayers offered not only for the emperor but also for the members of the government and for peace throughout the empire.

Tertullian further writes that Christians voluntarily assume a code of conduct that requires them not to harm one another or engage in any socially destructive behavior and to provide social services for the poor and vulnerable among them. Tertullian challenges those in authority to investigate charges against Christians in an unbiased manner. He asserts that the governors will find that Christians, far from being a threat to society, are unlikely to be on the wrong side of the law because they hold themselves to high moral standards. Christianity forbids its members from joining secret political and religious organizations, engaging in frivolous lawsuits that waste the governors’ time, and attending the public spectacles and athletic contests that often degenerate into violence and riots. Governors will conclude they would rather have a larger Christian population to govern, Tertullian argues.

Christian Themes

The predominant theme of Tertullian’s Apology is that Christianity is not only a true religion but also the truth, unlike all the different idolatrous religions and manmade philosophies known throughout the Roman Empire. Christianity is not just one more religious option; it replaces all other religions and philosophies. Despite superficial similarities between those religions and aspects of Christianity, those other religions are inherently false because they originate from human minds, not from God. It was the insistence on the divine origination of Christianity that caused Tertullian to hurl his famous question at the accusers of Christianity: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What does all the knowledge of this world matter when one should live life for the sake of eternal salvation?

Tertullian was not a systematic thinker or theologian. His writings were controversial, both within the Christian community and in wider non-Christian circles in the empire. The Apology is addressed to non-Christian Roman governors, so there is no doctrinal development in it. Nonetheless, the Apology was quickly translated into Greek for the benefit of Christians in the Eastern Roman Empire. They modeled their defense of Christianity after Tertullian’s Apology.

In later writings, Tertullian returned to ideas mentioned in passing in the Apology. His “Letter to Scapula” discusses in detail the fact that religious belief cannot be coerced and that only bad officials seek to compel assent. His writings against heretics, “Against the Heathens” and “Against the Valentinians,” reinforce his contention that other religions are merely human constructs. The respect due to believers who die as martyrs is detailed in “Scorpiace,” and the reasons Christians are forbidden to attend public festivities forms the basis for “Spectacles.”

There is little evidence that Tertullian’s logically rigorous defense of Christianity made any difference to Roman authorities. Persecution of Christians continued for another hundred years until Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Toleration in 312 c.e. Regardless of the effectiveness of his explanation and defense of Christianity, Tertullian is considered the father of Latin theology because he provided the theological vocabulary for later Latin Christian writers.

Sources for Further Study

Barnes, Timothy. Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995. In addition to a discussion of the important points of Tertullian’s theology, Barnes provides an in-depth presentation of Tertullian’s contribution to the development of a specifically Christian Latin.

Osborn, Eric. Tertullian: First Theologian of the West. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Osborn analyses the influence of Tertullian’s vocabulary and theology on later Latin Christian writers, despite the fact that Tertullian spent the last years of his life outside the mainstream Christian community.

Sider, Robert, ed. Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2001. This volume contains selections from many of Tertullian’s writings and serves as a good introduction to the range of topics on which Tertullian wrote.