both translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from the criti-
cal Spanish edition of Silverio of Saint Teresa. Saint Teresa
of Ávila (Milwaukee, 1943), by William T. Walsh, is a full
and standard biography of her life, while Marcelle Auclair’s
Saint Teresa of Avila (New York, 1953) combines splendid
scholarship with excellent literary style. John Beevers’s Saint
Teresa of Avila (Garden City, N. Y., 1961) is a fine and in-
sightful short study of her life. E. Allison Peers’s Handbook
to the Life and Times of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the
Cross (Westminster, Md., 1954) provides invaluable infor-
mation about the social and religious milieu in which Teresa
lived.
PETER T. ROHRBACH (1987)TERTULLIAN (160?–225?), Quintus Septimius
Florens, first Christian theologian to write extensively in
Latin. An African, Tertullian laid the foundations for West-
ern theology through the range of issues he addressed and
his precise formulations. Although he became an adherent
of the Montanist sect, his thought exerted much influence
on Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (248–258), and later Latin
authors.
LIFE. Little is known of Tertullian’s life. Data supplied by
Jerome in his Lives of Famous Men (392–393) were apparent-
ly inferred from remarks in Tertullian’s own writings and are
now generally discounted by scholars. Probably born and
reared in Carthage, he received an excellent education and
was considered one of the luminaries of his day. Although
he employed considerable legal jargon and argument in his
writing, he probably cannot be identified with the jurist Ter-
tullianus whose opinions were cited in the Digest and Codex
Justinianus. His extensive legal knowledge would have come
from classical education.
Tertullian converted to Christianity around 193 to 195,
doubtless attracted by the discipline of Christians, especially
their willingness for martyrdom. His unusual gifts, educa-
tion, and commitment quickly propelled him into a position
of leadership, but, contrary to Jerome’s assumption, he was
never ordained a presbyter or elder in the Carthaginian
church, identifying himself several times in his writings as a
member of the laity. He did, however, preach or teach, for
several of his writings are sermons.
Sympathetic by inclination with the rigorous views of
discipline held by the Montanists, a charismatic sect that
originated in Phrygia about CE 170, Tertullian veered toward
that sect as the catholic church in North Africa moved away
from it. For him this entailed no radical shift in views, but
rather a hardening of certain ones held earlier on remarriage,
flight to avoid persecution, and repentance for serious sins—
all of which, as a Montanist, he prohibited absolutely. His
new affiliation notwithstanding, he continued as the chief
spokesman against gnosticism and Marcionism and as the
major theologian in the West until Augustine.
After several years in the Montanist camp Tertullian
separated from them and formed a sect of his own called Ter-
tullianists, which still existed in Augustine’s heyday (c. 400–
430). This schism could well have resulted from the growing
tendency of Montanists to make exaggerated claims for their
founder Montanus, as Tertullian was horrified by any ideas
that were not thoroughly orthodox.
Throughout his career Tertullian belonged to the liter-
ary circles in Carthage. In his writings he cited numerous
classics, perhaps drawn in part from anthologies but certainly
also from works he knew in depth. As a stylist, he surpassed
both Jerome and Augustine. He was a creative and passionate
debater whose erudition and technique place him in the sec-
ond Sophistic movement. The exact date of his death is un-
known.
WRITINGS. Tertullian’s writings, thirty-one of which are ex-
tant, are notoriously difficult to date. They were once neatly
divided into pre-Montanist, or catholic, and Montanist, ac-
cording to “Montanistic” allusions. Recent studies, however,
have demonstrated Montanist leanings not only in Tertul-
lian but in early North African Christianity, hence this meth-
od has been discarded and the dating of many works revised.
The writings range across a wide spectrum, but they can
be conveniently grouped under the headings of apologies for
Christianity, treatises on the Christian life, and antiheretical
works. In the summer of 197, Tertullian drafted two apolo-
gies, To the Nations and Against the Jews, the latter intended
for Christian readers but never completed. Shortly thereafter,
he revised To the Nations and published it as the finely ar-
gued and highly stylized Apology, his best-known work. In
On the Testimony of the Soul he departed from his custom of
citing scriptures and elaborated a purely psychological argu-
ment set out briefly in chapter 17 of the Apology. Years later,
in 212, he reiterated in summary form arguments of the
Apology in an appeal addressed to Scapula, proconsul of Afri-
ca, to halt the persecution of Christians.
Tertullian reflected a characteristic rigorist bent in the
sermons and treatises on Christian life he composed
throughout his brief career; his tone merely became sterner
in Montanist days. In what is probably his earliest writing,
On the Shows, dated 196 or early 197, he explained why
Christians should not attend pagan games, theatrical produc-
tions, or contests. He saw no hope for the person who at-
tended, for “he openly ‘denies,’ who gets rid of the distinctive
mark by which he is known.” To go from church to the
shows is to go “from sky to stye.” In On Idolatry he widened
his prohibitions. Christians had to live with pagans, he said,
but they did not have to sin with them. In On the Dress of
Women, at least part of which was composed in his catholic
years, he urged Christian women to set themselves apart
from pagan women in clothing, adornment, hair style, and
even in the way they walked. About the same time he exhort-
ed Christians in The Martyrs to view prison as a place of
withdrawal from the corrupt world and their imprisonment
as discipline for heavenly citizenship.
In other treatises titled On Baptism, On Prayer, On Re-
pentance, On Patience, and To His Wife—now dated betweenTERTULLIAN 9085