The Works of Tertullian of Carthage
Tertullian of Carthage
Two roads lead here — the one that argued with Rome and the one that argued with the heretics. Thirty-one volumes of a man who never once wondered whether he had gone too far.
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.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Thirty-one treatises — the whole surviving Tertullian, and the first real body of Christian writing in Latin. Very deep Stamina.
Apology, Prescription, five books against Marcion, Against Praxeas: Tertullian spent his life refuting people, and was extraordinarily good at it. It hits nearly as hard as anything you can carry — held just under Irenaeus, because Tertullian’s late break with the church cost him standing that Irenaeus kept.
Uneven, honestly. The Apology is secured by dozens of manuscripts; several other works hang on one damaged ninth-century codex, and a few titles that were still readable in that codex are simply gone now.
Athens and Jerusalem. The blood of the Christians. Certain because impossible. Few writers have been quoted more, and quotability is speed.
Thirty-one of Tertullian’s books survive. They are the first large body of Christian writing in Latin, and he coined much of its vocabulary, including trinitas, the word for Trinity. In Against Praxeas he mocks the teaching that the Father himself became man: “In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered.” He died among the Montanists, outside the church.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 22 | Trinitas | Theology Proper | Argument | 75 | 100% | 10 |
| 26 | Certain Because Impossible | Rationality | Argument | 90 | 90% | 5 |
| 28 | Distinction, Not Division | Theology Proper | Argument | 75 | 100% | 10 |
| 32 | Testimony of the Soul | Presupposition | Argument | 80 | 100% | 3 |
| 34 | Three in Degree | Theology Proper | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |
| 38 | Your Injustice, Our Proof | Rationality | Argument | 70 | 95% | 10 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
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.
“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.
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.
“Observe also the Spirit speaking of the Father and the Son, in the character of a third Person: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.””
Tertullian, Against Praxeas 11 (trans. Peter Holmes, ANF 3, public domain); cf. Psalm 110:1.public domain
In the gameAgainst Praxeas, answered with grammar rather than mystery: in scene after scene of Scripture there is one who speaks, one who is spoken to, and one who is spoken about, and no amount of costume-changing makes those the same person.
Tertullian reads Psalm 110: the Lord said to my Lord. One speaks, one is spoken to, and the Spirit speaks the verse. Three persons and one God, and Tertullian coined the word trinitas for it.
Tertullian answers with grammar, not mystery. In Psalm 110 one speaks, one is spoken to, and the Spirit speaks the verse. Three persons in one God is what the text shows, not a sum that fails.
Tertullian reads Psalm 110: the Lord said to my Lord. One actor in a mask cannot speak to himself as another person. Scripture shows three who speak to one another.
Tertullian shows that Israel’s own Scriptures speak of more than one person. In Psalm 110 one speaks, one is spoken to, and the Spirit speaks the verse.
“The Son of God was crucified. There is no shame [in believing this], because it is indeed shameful. And the Son of God died. It is surely to be believed, because it is absurd. And having been buried, he rose again. It is certain, because it is impossible.”
Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 5, as quoted in The History of Apologetics, p. 98 — the actual Latin is certum est, quia impossibile, NOT the later credo quia absurdum. Short excerpt used under fair use.in copyright · fair use
In the gameNobody invents a god who dies ashamed. Tertullian takes the most embarrassing thing in the story and argues that the embarrassment is the evidence — the reasoning Aristotle used, aimed at a cross.
Tertullian points to the part nobody would invent: the Son of God dying in shame. A story made up to impress people would have left that out.
“My assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other… on the ground of Personality, not of Substance—in the way of distinction, not of division.”
Tertullian, Against Praxeas 9, 12 (trans. Peter Holmes, ANF 3, public domain).public domain
In the gameThree is a count of persons, not of gods. Tertullian says the Father, the Son and the Spirit are distinct from one another and are never divided, because they share one substance.
Calvin defends Tertullian’s Against Praxeas in the Institutes (1.13.28) and quotes it himself: the Father and the Son, each in his own name and person.
Tertullian met this objection around A.D. 213. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are three persons, distinct from one another, and they are not divided, because they are one substance. Three persons is not three gods.
“Whenever the soul comes to itself, as out of a surfeit, or a sleep, or a sickness, and attains something of its natural soundness, it speaks of God… O noble testimony of the soul by nature Christian!”
Tertullian, Apology 17.5–6 (trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain). The words he lists are “God is great and good,” “God sees,” “I commend myself to God.”public domain
In the gameNobody coaches a man startled awake, or a woman who has just heard bad news. Tertullian listens to what people say when they are not being religious at all, and finds the same word in every mouth.
“All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect.”
Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2 (trans. Peter Holmes, ANF 3, public domain).public domain
In the gameAround A.D. 213 Praxeas was teaching in Rome that the Father and the Son are one person. Tertullian answered with the terms the Latin church used from then on: one substance, three persons, set in order.
Calvin says he is glad to use Tertullian’s word “economy” from this same treatise (Institutes 1.13.6): an order in God that leaves his one being undivided.
Tertullian gave the church its terms for this in Latin, around A.D. 213: one substance, one condition, one power, and three persons in order within it. What is counted as three is the persons. What is one is the substance.
“Go zealously on, good presidents, you will stand higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish, kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent.”
Tertullian, Apology 50 (trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3, public domain) — the sentence just before “the blood of Christians is seed.”public domain
In the gameKill us, torture us, grind us to dust — go on. Tertullian invites the whole sentence, because the size of it is the case for the defence. Nobody needs that much force to punish a real crime.
