Tertullien

Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus , known as Tertullien , born between 150 and 160 with Carthage (current Tunisia) and deceased towards 230 - 240 with Carthage, is a Latin writer of language E resulting from a Berber family pagan. It converts with the Christianisme at the end of the 2nd century and becomes the emblematic figure of the Christian community of Carthage. Theology N, Father of the Church, prolific author, Catechumen, his influence will be large in the Christian Occident.

He is however a very discussed character because on the one hand, he fights actively against the pagan worships and is regarded as the largest Christian theologist of his time (one owes him the term of trinity) and, on the other hand, he joined the movement heretic montanist at the end of his life.

Biography

Of his life, one knows only well little thing. Certain biographical elements are in some of its works but also at Eusèbe de Césarée (Hist. eccl. II, II. 4) and Jerome (Of viris illustribus, chap 53).

It is born in Carthage between 150 and 160. His/her father, Centurion in a legion of the Roman army: the troop proconsulaire, dies very early. Excel pupil, it studies the Rhétorique, the Jurisprudence, the Histoire, the Poésie, the Science S and the Philosophie. Become lawyer and professor of rhetoric, he is promised with a brilliant career.

It is towards 197 - 198 that it converts with Christianity. It seems that he is allured by the spirit of Sainteté which he finds with the Christians, by their humility, their abnegation vis-a-vis persecutions and the height of the evangelic doctrines . This one is sudden and decisive. He will say later: “one is not born Christian, one becomes it” (Apol, xviii). Adversary of paganism and intransigent moralist (cf his treaties on the woman, the marriage, chastity or the fast), he is the first Latin author to try a synthesis between Christianity and pagan philosophy.

He marries a Christian woman. Perhaps it became priest. But it is the year 207 which marks a turning in its life with its adhesion with the montanism. Breaking with the traditional Church, its positions become more rigorous. Paradoxically, it fights with even more eagerness the Hérésie S gnostic S which undermine Christendom at the 3rd century and it inspired much Cyprien de Carthage.

He dies in Carthage towards 230-240.

Theology and morals

At the end of the 2nd century and at the beginning of the III {{E}}, Tertullien inaugurates the Christian literature of Latin Langue and, with him, begins a Théologie in this language. At the time of its general audience of the May 30th 2007, the Pope Benoit XVI, in the series of the Catechesis S which he usually pronounces at the time of his audiences, made a communication on this Père of the Church, whose “work bore decisive fruits, that he would be unforgivable to underestimate. ” The pope insisted on the essential theological contributions contained in the writings of Tertullien, in particular his writings with character Apologétique, which are most famous. They express, according to him, two principal intentions: to refute the serious charges of the pagan with regard to the new religion and to spread the message evangelic by the dialog with the culture of time. Sovereign pontiff underlined, in connection with the Holy Trinity: “Moreover, Tertulien takes an immense step in the development of the Dogme trinitaire: it gave us in Latin the adequate language to express this great mystery, by introducing the terms “a substance” and “three people”. In the same way, it also developed much the language which expresses correctly the mystery of the Christ, Sons of God and true man. ”

Marcel Simon ( the Civilization of Antiquity and Christianity , Paris, 1972) declares that:

The contribution of Tertullien in the christologic controversies and trinitaires is important. Its conclusions are connected on more than one point with those which will formulate later large the Concile S Eastern. He affirms the unit of God. It does not divide but is distributed in 3 numerically distinct people, in a trinity which does not compromise of anything the unit. Each person of this trinity, being same substance, is God. The Christ is at the same time God and man, composed of 2 substances linked without merging, in only one person. But beside these properly speculative aspects, some other aspects of the thought of Tertullien reflect the legal mentality of the Romains and its own training of lawyer. He insists on concepts as those of merit and satisfaction. The moral straightness of its control is worth with the man of the merits in comparison with God. Contrary, if it acts badly, it becomes debtor in front of God and he owes satisfaction. Although it passed to the heresy montanist, Tertullien is really the founder of Latin theology and contributes to print to him, with respect to Greek theology , some of its features originaux.

Criticisms

Nicolas Malebranche, in a famous of its book Of the research of truth , critical passage at Tertullien excesses of imagination. It thus grants “more memory than of judgment, more penetration to him and of extended from imagination, than of penetration and of extended from spirit” ('' Of the Research of the truth '', delivers second, left 3, ch. III). Malebranche, however rather admiring of the Apologetic of Tertullien and its Regulation , particularly sees in the work Coat , the expression of this nasty trick which the spirits in prey with a put out of order imagination have.

Works

AD will martyras
Apologétique
Of the flesh of Jesus-Christ
Of the crown of the soldier
Of the escape during persecution
Of the monogamy
Of patience
Of penitence
Of the regulation
Of the pudicity
Of the ornament of the women
Of the spectacles
Of the baptism
Of the fast, or Against psychic the
Of the coat
Exhortation with chastity

Random links: