Alex Fogleman: Tertullian as Catechist

While evidence for pre-Constantinian catechesis is sparse, it has become commonplace to assume that the church's efforts to induct new members into the church in the second and third century were heavily determined by the church's social status as a persecuted minority, resulting in either a socialization or ritual theory of initiation. This paper queries the evidence from Tertullian's works that are most catechetical in nature to see whether they verify this assumption. Primary attention will be given to On Baptismand On Prayer, and it will be argued that Tertullian's catechesis is less concerned with the socialization or ritualization of new believers into an alternative community or counter culture and more attendant to cultivating a spiritual sensibility, pious disposition, and orthodox exposition of the faith. Catechesis, in other words, serves as much a theological function as it does a social or political function. Furthermore, it will be shown how Tertullian’s use of the regula fidei accords with a primarily catechetical and not strictly polemical or apologetic purpose. While it is not the case that socio-cultural factors are negligent for explaining pre-Constantinian catechesis, they are not sufficient to do so fully and can be complemented by more attention to the theological and spiritual dimensions of this important pastoral task.

Jason Robert Combs: (En)gendering Christian Dreams: Tertullian, Authority, and a Visionary Woman in Carthage

In De Anima 9, Tertullian describes a woman in his congregation who regularly experienced dream-visions during church services. After the congregation was dismissed, a small group, which included Tertullian, examined this woman’s dream-accounts to determine their legitimacy. Previous studies of this account have interpreted it within the context of the New Prophecy movement (e.g., Amat, Waszink, Miller, and von Dörnberg) without consideration of the complicated gender dynamics inherent in the passage. From the immediate context, it is not clear whether the practice of examining dream-visions was common for everyone in Tertullian’s congregation or whether it was required for this woman because of her gender. Additionally, it is not clear whether any women participated with Tertullian in examining the dream-visions of the unnamed woman. By contrasting the account in De Anima 9 with Tertullian’s other contemporary dreams accounts (De Spec. 26, De Virg. Vel. 17, De Idol. 15) and situating them within the larger context of gendered dream-practices in the Greco-Roman world (as characterized by Artemidorus, Aelius Aristides, Apuleius, etc.), I show that dream-visions functioned as ambiguous cultural currency that required external authority for legitimization. I demonstrate how gender dynamics complicated the relationship between dreams and their legitimacy depending on a woman’s current social status. I conclude that unauthorized male visionaries in Tertullian’s community would likely undergo a similar interrogation; nevertheless, gender dynamics further limited the opportunities for a woman’s dream to be socially accepted in Christian Carthage.

Nicole Chen: Tertullian’s implicit hypothesis of Scripture in Adversus Marcionem

Karpp (1954) argued Tertullian failed to practice consistently rigorous biblical exegesis, this resulted from the lack of a clear overarching theological perspective. This paper responds to the second part of Karpp’s critique, namely, whether Tertullian had an underlying theological system. I argue Tertullian possessed an implicit hypothesis within Adversus Marcionem, which guided his interpretative strategies. While Litfin (2006) rightly noted that Tertullian had a ‘comprehensive narrative’, he located this in the regula fidei. However, in light of Briggman’s (2015, 2016) helpful distinction between the regula fidei and hypothesis, I offer this corrective: while the creedal regula fidei may have played an important role, it is the rhetorical concept of hypothesis that furnished Tertullian with his theological précis.My paper will be in two parts. The first part expounds on the differences between the regula fidei and hypothesis, establishing why the hypothesis should take priority as Tertullian’s interpretative criterion.The second part analyses his usage of quotations and allusions from Scripture in Adversus Marcionem to show how they reveal his implicit hypothesis. I conclude Tertullian’s polemic against Marcion is thoroughly controlled by ancient rhetoric: his implicit hypothesis provides the criterion by which to discredit Marcion’s theological narrative as ‘heterodox’, which he combines with classical patterns of rhetorical argument, as argued by Sider (1971), to refute Marcion’s theology.

Benjamin Cabe: The Engendered Soul in Apelles and Tertullian

Can a biological male have a female soul? Can a biological female have a male soul? These questions are at the heart of recent controversies surrounding gender theory, and from Christianity they deserve a theological response rooted in a deep engagement with the tradition.However, up to now, relatively little work has been done to address these questions from the perspective of the anthropology and Christology articulated in the patristic era.This paper represents the beginnings of an attempt to remedy this lacuna. It will focus on the debate between Tertullian and Apelles on the engendered soul, which has been for the most part overlooked in modern patristic scholarship. The original catalyst of this debate was whether or not there is an interval between the creation of the soul and the body. However, as I will show, this debate has significant implications for modern gender controversies. Both Tertullian and Apelles come to admit the presence of gender in the soul. But this conclusion was to be consistently rejected by later church fathers, pointing toward a possible patristic consensus regarding the “sexlessness” of the soul.In the final portion of my paper, I will point to the recent writings of Nonna Verna Harrison and Sarah Coakley, who repeat this patristic consensus on the sexlessness of the soul, but also (as I will argue) diverge from it in important ways.

James Dever: Prometheus, Creation, and Christ: Tertullian of Carthage’s Defense of the Christian Narrative

Tertullian of Carthage refers to the God of Christian revelation as the verus Prometheus twice in his oeuvre. In Apol.18.2-3 (ca. 197/8), Tertullian develops what I will identify as a predominantly Roman strand of the development of the Prometheus myth, in which Prometheus is depicted as the creator of the human race. In Marc.1.1.4-5 (ca. 208), he develops the more broadly received Greek iteration of the myth, in which the titan is depicted as suffering punishment for his love of humanity and his opposition to the unjust law of Olympian Zeus. In this essay, I will first analyze Tertullian’s complex negotiation of the various strands of mythic discourse in Apol.and Marc.,accounting for both textual and material-cultural evidence for the prominence of the Prometheus myth in the Roman empire and Tertullian’s theological transformation of it. I will then describe how Tertullian transumes the Roman creation-myth through his evocation of the Greek myth of vicarious suffering in Marc., revealing the fundamental continuity of the act of creation with that of redemption in the Christian narrative. I conclude with an account of how Tertullian’s defense of this narrative requires precisely the account he offers of the quality of Christ’s flesh, as that which renders the mystery of creation more fully visible as a mystery. Christ, the incarnate Word, becomes the hermeneutical key for the figurative exegesis of Scripture, which includes both “instruments” or “testaments” of God’s relationship to the world (see Marc.4.1).

Rick Tomsick: Not Just a Clanging Cymbal: Tertullian’s Credibility by Association with Paul.

In examining the works of Tertullian, the question of his innovative use of language and rhetoric aside, it is intriguing to explore the enduring influence he had on early church doctrine albeit his apparent lack of formal (i.e., ordained) authority in the church. The intrigue is greater considering that his persistent influence on early church doctrine remains despite the later ban on his writings. This short communication proposes a basis for Tertullian’s auctoritas in the church at Carthage, founded on his emulation of Pauline epistles. In the pre-Montanist works at least, there is a similarity in style of Tertullian’s writing, particularly in the disciplinary works and in the anti-heretical treatises aimed at his theological opponents (both living and dead), with the style of Paul himself. I will argue that this was not merely an accidental appropriation (coincidental to his frequent citations to and exegesis of Pauline scriptural references), but to some extent the deliberate attempt to assume for himself an important role in the church, writing with the authority of an apostle to establish his status and credibility. In this way, Tertullian became not only an important interpreter of Paul, but an inventor of de novo arguments in his own right.

Jenny Labendz: Eschatological Laughter: Tertullian and the Rabbis

This paper will examine the role of laughter in the eschatological discourse of Tertullian and the rabbis of Talmud. While the laughter in the biblical verses that inspire some of these later texts appears to reflect merely the release of cathartic anger or scorn at those whom God will punish, along with delight at their downfall, the rabbinic and patristic texts are more complex. Laughter in these sources is connected to dramatic irony, relief, and the fulfillment of delayed laughter. The narrative contexts in which the laughter appears in these sources helps shed light on its significance in and of itself and its relevance to other messages about both this world and the next. Laughter and entertainment have been insufficiently explored in the broader literature on eschatology in ancient sources, and this paper will contribute to a larger project to problematize the standard categories of analysis we apply to early Jewish and Christian eschatology.

Kota Honjo: Tertullian’s Theology based on "the Rule of Faith" (Regula Fidei)

Tertullian is noteworthy among the Church Fathers. In particular, as the first Latin Church Father, he had a great influence on the world of Christianity. As a Christian writer, he faced Roman society and his opponents, and he built the foundation of the Christian faith through his writing activities.Is it possible to detect any large theological changes between the early and late writings from the 31 extant works? Or is there a consistent theological foundation? This paper takes the position that the core of Tertullian's theology is "The Rule of Faith" (regula fidei).Tertullian converted from the Catholic Church to Montanism, and it cannot be denied that his theology also changed. In particular, many scholars are in agreement regarding ethics. However, during both his Catholic and Montanist periods, it is a fact that Tertullian used "The Rule of Faith" as his core theology. Moreover, it can be seen not only in doctrinal matters but also in ethical matters."The Rule of Faith" is a church tradition passed down from Jesus Christ to the apostles, and from the apostles to the church. For Tertullian, the person holding this is a true Christian in terms of both doctrine and morals. Tertullian could defend Christianity, discuss the doctrine problem, argue with opponents, and discuss ethics problems because "The Rule of Faith" was at the core of his theology. His argument was consistent. Thus, as the first Latin Church Father, Tertullian could construct his status as an authority.

Francesco Pieri: Tertullian's insights on Christian initiation

Baptism seems to have been understood during the first Christian generations more as a ritual of aggregation to the community, essentialy based on the imitation of Christ's humility and repentance pattern, rather than a ritual performing a man's ontological transformation. Being the first western treatise entirely devoted to a/this "sacrament", Tertullian's On Baptism allows us to better understand the shift in conciousness and meaning attributed to a ritual system that marked Christianity in the third century.

Richard Tomsick: Unholy reminiscences by Christians in Carthage: Tertullian’s Theology of Alienation

In his earliest disciplinary works, aimed at recent converts and catechumens alike, Tertullian faced the difficult, albeit self-appointed task of creating a rubric of behavior that virtually prohibited Christians from engaging in social and cultural activities of Carthage. In doing so, he announced a new theology of sin based on such activities, and, consequently on the association and participation by Christians in such activities.  If followed, such proscriptions would further isolate the Christian community at a time when alienation (and the identification qua Christian that would follow) was perilous, given recent persecutions.
The fact that Tertullian thought it necessary to create this disciplinary apparatus suggests the widespread ‘misbehavior’ of his audience. I will argue that the new converts, who until recently were adult pagans themselves, did little to modify their behaviors for a variety of reasons.

Questions of his authority aside, I will examine Tertullian’s method of instruction as well as his motivations in defining bright lines for Christian behavior, including his sincere belief in the importance of baptism, and his desire for the salvation of souls.  “Unholy Reminiscences” in the title of this short communication is a reference to a line from ad Martyras, when Tertullian reminded Christians in prison awaiting death that they were at last free from the distractions of society and the memory of sinful activities.

Andrea Villani: Again on Tertullian’s concept of innocence: the non apologetic writings

At the Oxford Patristic Conference 2011 I tried to show the important role played by the concept of "innocence" in Tertullian's apologetic strategy: at the beginning of his Apologeticum, innocence is employed in its etymological meaning of in-nocentia, i.e. non guilty in front of the Roman Law, in order to defend the presence of the Christians within Roman Empire. At the end of the text, however, innocence turns into a Christian ethical virtue. This paper aims at extending the analysis of Tertullian's use of that concept to the non-apologetic corpus, focusing mainly on writings directed to a Christian audience. Which meaning does it assume there and why does Tertullian refers to if so often?

Thomas McGlothlin: Why Are All These Damned People Rising? Paul and the Generality of the Resurrection in Irenaeus and Tertullian

Irenaeus and Tertullian are well known for their vigorous defense of the eschatological resurrection of the flesh, but their respective appropriations of Paul towards this end are strikingly different. This paper seeks to elucidate that difference by focusing on the relationship between the resurrections of the righteous and the wicked. In contrast to John and Revelation, the Pauline epistles never explicitly affirm the resurrection of the wicked; instead, they integrate resurrection into the economy of salvation through union with the resurrected Christ in the Spirit. (Interestingly, Josephus claims that Pharisees affirmed the resurrection of the righteous only.) Irenaeus, drawing heavily on Paul, articulates a highly-developed account of the bodily resurrection of Christians as an effect of their reception of the life-giving Spirit of God. Consequently, many of his arguments for the resurrection of the flesh, such as its reception of the Word in the Eucharist, apply only to Christians. But when he insists that the wicked, too, will be resurrected, he gives no account of how this can happen to those who have not received the Spirit. The struggles of John Behr and Anthony Briggman to explain how for Irenaeus non-Christians can be alive at all become only more acute in explaining the resurrection. Tertullian solves this problem by disconnecting the resurrection of the flesh from reception of the Spirit, correspondingly omitting the Irenaean arguments for the resurrection that only apply to Christians. He thus easily explains the generality of the resurrection but is forced into strained exegesis of Paul.

Ross Ponder: Classifying Christian Dreams: Tertullian’s Taxonomy of Dream-Visions

It is widely assumed that Tertullian’s interest in dream-visions serves as evidence of his Montanism, epitomizing his departure from orthodoxy. This conviction persists in scholarship in spite of serious problems in proving a direct connection between Tertullian’s taxonomy of dream-visions (An. 42-57) and Montanist practices. The purpose of this study, however, is not to deny the possible influence of Montanism on Tertullian, but instead to account for his interest in dream-visions by employing a more dynamic model for diversity in ancient Christianity. The model used in this study attends to the rhetorical context of Tertullian’s oneirology. Rather than focusing on Tertullian’s so-called Montanism, I note the way dream-visions, as part of the social relations of daily life, enabled ancient authors like Tertullian to negotiate multiple identities. Just as Roman authors (e.g., Artemidorus of Daldis) assumed a range of identities distinct from an expert dream interpreter (warrior, traveller, doctor, and researcher), so did Christian authors like Tertullian. Adopting a variety of roles enabled ancient authors to assert superiority over rivals as an authority on dream interpretation. Tertullian’s taxonomy of dream-visions thus offered the earliest surviving Christian account of the phenomenon in antiquity. This study contributes, therefore, to recent patristic studies that have rediscovered Tertullian’s intellectual context of Roman culture.

Christopher Bounds: The Doctrine of Christian Perfection in Tertullian and Cyprian

The Greek Christian literature of the Ante-Nicene period is replete with explicit references and discussions of a type of human perfectibility possible in the present life, especially in the second and third centuries. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen place Christian perfection at the heart of their soteriologies. In contrast the emerging Latin fathers of the third century use the language of human perfection in this world sparingly. However, when they do, they retain many of the ideas found in earlier and contemporary Greek patristic literature.
The purpose of my paper is to examine the use of various forms of perfectio, perficio and perfectus in relationship to humanity in the two leading Latin fathers of the third century: Tertullian and Cyprian. Through a close reading of passages where they use the language of perfection in relationship to humanity, I will show that their teaching centers on three concurrent themes: renewal in the image/likeness of God, fulfillment of Christ's two greatest commandments, and freedom from the power of sin. After exploring their understanding of these ideas, I will note similarities and differences with their Greek counterparts.

Kathryn Thostenson: Serving Two Masters: Tertullian on Marital and Christian Duties

Scholars have often labelled Tertullian a ‘rigorist’ in terms of his seemingly negative position on marriage, highlighting passages where he, in the most extreme case, refers to marriage as little more than ‘legal fornication’ (‘leges uidentur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere’, De exhortatione castitatis, 9.3). While Tertullian is certainly consistent in praising virginity as the highest form of sexual purity, clearly he and many others in his Christian community were married, and some, as the addressee for his De exhortatione castitatis, apparently also considered remarriage after the death of a spouse. Yet second marriage, or digamy (digamia), as Tertullian referred to it, should never be tolerated. Among the reasons Tertullian gives for shunning a second union is his assertion that marriage and the family commitments it requires might hinder Christians in performing their duties for the Christian community and for God. This concern is most explicit in Ad uxorem II, where he is particularly worried about Christian women who might marry non-Christian men (gentiles), and thus risk being barred from participation in Christian activities by unsympathetic husbands.  Yet far from denigrating marriage, Tertullian’s anxiety for those who are forced to ‘serve two masters’ (‘duobus dominis seruire’, Ad uxorem II.3.4) emphasizes the weight he placed on marital obligations.  This paper will explore how Tertullian thought Christians should negotiate dual commitments to faith and marriage, and question how gender influenced his understanding of these obligations.

Geoffrey Smith: Metaphor and Meaning in Tertullian’s Scorpiace

Metaphorical language pervades Tertullian’s Scorpiace, a polemical treatise written in response to so-called “Valentinians” and “Gnostics” who oppose the practice of martyrdom. To sharpen the sting of his polemic, Tertullian makes use of an elaborate arachnid metaphor, in which heretics are likened to scorpions, heresy to venom, and impressionable members of the church to prey. Scholars often handle Tertullian’s metaphorical language in one of two ways: some use it to gauge the extent of his medical knowledge; they ask how familiar Tertullian is with the medical tradition, and to what degree he understands Christian faith and secular medicine to be compatible. Others focus more upon the dispute between Tertullian and his opponents and summarily dismiss his metaphorical language as superfluous rhetoric. This paper takes a different approach, one that does not divorce Tertullian’s metaphorical language from his polemic. By drawing upon the notions of intertextuality and conceptual metaphor, this paper argues that Tertullian’s application of a scorpion metaphor through a rewriting of Nicander’s Theriaca, a Hellenistic treatise on animal toxicology and therapeutics which Tertullian mentions at the beginning of Scorpiace, allows him both to depict the landscape of early Christianity as an anti-bucolic world infested with venomous scorpion/heretics and to aver that heresy poses a threat not only to the minds of Christians but also to their bodies.

András Handl: Tertullian on the Pericope Adulterae (John 7,53-8,11)

The longest and most mysterious New Testament interpolation is without doubt the Pericope Adulterae (PA) in the Gospel of John. Although scholars have puzzled about it for centuries, many questions still remain unanswered.
At first glance, Tertullian does not appear as being very helpful in this matter: not even with a single syllable did he refer to the PA. It is not surprising that his entire work has only been little involved in the discussion because he never addressed the story of the woman caught in adultery. But why? After all, he devoted a complete "treatise" to the topic of adultery and fornication! It is widely recognized that the De pudicitia is composed as a forensic oratory (genus iudiciale) but its implications are only rudimentarily taken into account. A rhetorical analysis shows that if he knew the passage, he could not have afforded to ignore it. Consequently, Tertullian did not remain silent about the PA because of a lack of interest. Rather, the PA was simply unknown in Carthage at his time!
In this talk, I will not only reconsider the reason for the abstinence of the PA in the works of Tertullian, particularly in De pudicita, but also emphasize the importance of the PA`s "Sitz im Leben" at the beginning of the 3rd century AD: The escalated controversy on adultery and fornication in Carthage as well as in Rome, plays a key role for the wider recognition and promotion of the story of the woman caught in adultery.

Anni Maria Laato: Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos literature, and "Killing of the Prophets" accusation

Recent scholarship (Boyarin, Goodman) has challenged older views on how and when the parting of the ways between Jews and Christians took place: contacts were there on different levels, and people as well as influences crossed the border-lines longer than thought.
The purpose of this paper is to give a fresh look at one particular method in Adversus Iudaeos Literature, slander and vilification, and one particular topic, the accusation that the Jews are prophet-killers. This accusation is found already in the Old Testament (e.g. Neh 9, 26-27), and the New Testament (e.g. Mt 23, 29ff; Acts 7, 51-53; Rom 11, 2-4; 1 Thess 2, 14-15), and also in Jewish literature, e.g. Vitae prophetarum. From second century onwards, it becomes standard material in Adversus Iudaeos Literature: Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle of Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Pseudo-Cyprian’s De montibus Sina et Sion, and finally, even Tertullian use it, but in different ways. The very same accusation has different contents and goals depending on who utters it to whom and in which context. As intra-Jewish criticism it is meant as call for repentance, but in Anti-Jewish argumentation it serves different purposes.
Tertullian presents this accusation several times, for example in Adversus Iudaeos 13.20 and De oratione 14. At first sight it seems that in his texts, this claim already has become a conventional slander, used for internal purposes only, but there is reason to look closer at his use of it.

Benjamin Haupt: Tertullian’s Citations of the Epistle to the Galatians: A Case Study

The last exhaustive treatment of Tertullian’s citations of the New Testament was Hermann Rönsch’s in 1871. Since his work was published, many developments have taken place in the text critical analysis of patristic citations and in themselves justify a new study. Another field of research primarily undertaken in Nijmegen had established that early Christian Latin including Tertullian’s was most akin to vulgar Latin and in some ways was a language unto itself, thus referred to as a Sondersprache. Recent work in the Old Latin Gospels and in Tertullian has nuanced and in some places overturned the Nijmegen view by demonstrating that their Latin did at times employ a higher register and that where their Latin was distinctive it was so because of the biblical idiom. These and other developments in the understanding of Roman African Christianity and translation in early Christianity provide the helpful background material to understand the socio-theological setting in which Tertullian did his work. Most recently it has been suggested that Tertullian was translating from a Greek New Testament on the fly when inserting biblical quotations rather than copying these from a Latin New Testament. This hypothesis will be tested for Tertullian’s use of Galatians in order to lay the foundation for an exhaustive new study. Critical editions of Tertullian will be used throughout, and recent work on Old Latin manuscripts and commentaries of Galatians will serve as comparative data.

T.J. Lang: Did Tertullian Read Marcion in Latin?: Grammatical Evidence from the Argument Regarding the Greek of Ephesians 3:9 in the Latin of Against Marcion 5.18.1

In his landmark work on Maricon, Adolf von Harnack was the first modern scholar to propose that Tertullian only knew Marcion's Gospel and Apostolikon in Latin translation. This proposition obtained early support but has been questioned in more recent years, the common conjecture now being that Tertullian himself translated Marcion's Greek into Latin as needed. In deciding this matter scholars have conventionally compared the citations of Marcion reproduced in Tertullian's Against Marcion with corresponding Gospel and Pauline citations elsewhere in Tertullian's corpus and then other extant Latin traditions. This nexus of data is then evaluated in terms of vocabulary and stylistic variation. The results of such a method are, however, largely a matter of how one is predisposed to read the evidence. In this paper I propose that a way forward in this debate is to attend more closely to potential argumentative implications of a Latin versus Greek Vorlage and, specifically, to instances where arguments presented in Tertullian's Latin might unravel if retrojected into Marcion's Greek. I contend that we find a potential "smoking gun" in Against Marcion 5.18.1, where Tertullian's evaluation of Marcion's alleged emendation of Ephesians 3:9 makes sense on Latin terms but mostly disintegrates when considered in Greek. This suggests that either (1) Tertullian is indeed interacting within Marcion in Latin translation (as Harnack originally proposed), and so is developing his arguments accordingly, or (2) he is exploiting the surface of his own Latin translation to persuade his Latin readers, even if by rather disingenuous means.