Apology

Tertullian, Apology (Apologeticum)

Tertullian of Carthage

A defense lawyer’s brief, addressed to the men who could have him killed. He spends half of it explaining what Christians actually do, and the other half asking who the real cannibals are.

Catch rate: 95 / 255
Base research: 110
Stat total: 262

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina62

Contend70

Defend68

Popularity62

Total262

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 62

The Apology is complete, substantial, and has never dropped out of use in eighteen hundred years. A deep pool of argument to draw on.

Contend 70

This is the great Latin defense of the faith — addressed to the governors of the empire by a trained rhetorician who does not dither. It argues with real force.

Defend 68

Well secured. The Apology survives in more copies than anything else Tertullian wrote, thirty-nine of them, and it was even translated into Greek, which almost no Latin book was. A text preserved that well is hard to shake.

Popularity 62

Most people who have never read a word of Tertullian can still quote him about the blood of the Christians. Quick to the debate floor.

Cited for this book

Tertullian wrote his Apology around 197, addressed to the governors of the Roman provinces. It defends Christians as loyal citizens who worship the one God, who made the universe out of nothing. More old copies of it survive than of anything else he wrote, and Eusebius quoted from a Greek translation.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Apology→
Lv 22

Tertullian’s Corpus

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Turn the Charge	Ethics	Argument	60	100%	15
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
6	We Sojourn With You	Ethics	Argument	52	100%	20
8	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
11	Heard Before Condemned	Rationality	Argument	60	100%	15
13	The Blood Is Seed	Ethics	Argument	65	100%	10
15	Fashioned Out of Nothing	Theology Proper	Argument	64	100%	15
16	We Pray for Caesar	Rationality	Argument	55	100%	20
17	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
19	Sarcasm	Rationality	Argument	60	95%	15
50	Speak Latin	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“Crucify us — torture us — condemn us — destroy us! Your iniquity is the proof of our innocence.”
Tertullian, Apology 50, in Arbesmann, Daly & Quain, Tertullian: Apologetical Works and Minucius Felix: Octavius (Fathers of the Church, 1950), 125 — as quoted in The History of Apologetics, p. 92. Short excerpt from an in-copyright translation, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Turn the Charge

EthicsArgument · power 60 · 100% accurate

In the gameTertullian quits playing defense. The people accusing Christians of devouring infants are the people filling the arena — so he hands the charge back, addressed. Frequently drops the foe’s Contend.

Strong against

×2"Haters of Mankind"an argument · why?

Tertullian hands the charge back. The crowds cheering in the arena are the ones who hate mankind. The Christians are the ones dying there.

“So we sojourn with you in the world, abjuring neither forum, nor shambles, nor bath, nor booth, nor workshop, nor inn, nor weekly market, nor any other places of commerce. We sail with you, and fight with you, and till the ground with you.”
Tertullian, Apology 42 (trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).public domain

We Sojourn With You

EthicsArgument · power 52 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe charge is that these people are no use to a city. Tertullian answers by listing where you can find them: your forum, your baths, your workshops, your ships, your army. The argument is five words long.

“What is there more unfair than to hate a thing of which you know nothing, even though it deserve to be hated?”
Tertullian, Apology 1 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).public domain

Heard Before Condemned

RationalityArgument · power 60 · 100% accurate

In the gameTertullian asks the governors for one thing before anything else: do not sentence what you have not troubled to hear. A hatred that will not look closer at its object has already told you something about itself.

“We become more numerous every time we are hewn down by you: the blood of Christians is seed.”
Tertullian, Apology 50, in Arbesmann, Daly & Quain (Fathers of the Church, 1950), 125 — as quoted in The History of Apologetics, p. 92. Commonly misquoted as “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Short excerpt from an in-copyright translation, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Blood Is Seed

EthicsArgument · power 65 · 100% accurate

In the gameTertullian’s real sentence, not the popular misquote. It is a warning to Rome: every persecution makes the church grow. Hits harder when the book is nearly spent.

Strong against

×2Mischievous Superstitionan argument · why?

Tertullian’s point: every time Rome killed Christians, there were more of them. People do not die in their thousands for a fad they could escape with one word.

“The object of our worship is the One God, He who by His commanding word, His arranging wisdom, His mighty power, brought forth from nothing this entire mass of our world, with all its array of elements, bodies, spirits, for the glory of His majesty.”
Tertullian, Apology 17.1 (trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).public domain

Fashioned Out of Nothing

Theology ProperArgument · power 64 · 100% accurate

In the gameSixteen chapters of taking Rome’s case apart, and then Tertullian finally says what he is FOR. One God, who made the whole mass of it out of nothing, for no reason but his own glory.

“Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish.”
Tertullian, Apology 30 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).public domain

We Pray for Caesar

RationalityArgument · power 55 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe charge was disloyalty. Christians would not burn incense to the emperor, but they prayed every day for his life, his armies, his senate and his peace, to the only God who could grant them.

Strong against

×2The True Wordan argument · why?

Tertullian answered the charge of disloyalty: Christians pray every day for the emperor, his armies and his empire. They refuse only to worship him.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake? The body of your god is first consecrated on the gibbet… We lay our heads upon the block; before the lead, and the glue, and the nails are put in requisition, your deities are headless.”
Tertullian, Apology 12 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).public domain

Sarcasm

RationalityArgument · power 60 · 95% accurate

In the gameSay the argument back to it, straight-faced and in full, until the shape of it does the refuting. Often finds the telling stroke — and occasionally goes too far and misses.

Read it: Your Deities Are Headless

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.

“What is there more unfair than to hate a thing of which you know nothing, even though it deserve to be hated?”
Tertullian, Apology 1 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).

“You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake?… We lay our heads upon the block; before the lead, and the glue, and the nails are put in requisition, your deities are headless.”
Tertullian, Apology 12 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain). One continuous passage; the ellipsis is a clause on consecrating the god on the gibbet.

“So we sojourn with you in the world, abjuring neither forum, nor shambles, nor bath, nor booth, nor workshop, nor inn, nor weekly market, nor any other places of commerce. We sail with you, and fight with you, and till the ground with you.”
Tertullian, Apology 42 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).

“Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest.”
Tertullian, Apology 30 (trans. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain).

Notes

Carthage, around 197, addressed to the governors of the provinces — a legal brief in the shape of a speech, and Tertullian had the training to write one.

Chapter 1 is the whole strategy in a sentence. He is not asking to be liked. He is asking to be heard first and hated afterwards, if it comes to that.

Chapter 12 is the sarcasm, and look at how it is built: the same cross, the same nails, the same axe — used on Christians, and used on the statues you call gods. He does not add a word of comment. He just lays the two side by side.

Then chapters 30 and 42, which are the answer to the real charge. Christians were not accused of bad theology; they were accused of being useless to the empire. So: we pray for the emperor, and we are in your markets and your armies already.