Tertullian, a Great Trial to the Church

The case is the same with Tertullian. For as Origen holds by far the first place among the Greeks, so does Tertullian among the Latins. Who was more learned than he, who more at home in knowledge, whether divine or human? With an astonishing breadth of mind he took in all philosophy. He knew all the schools of philosophers, and the founders and defenders of the schools, and he was familiar with all their rules and practices and with their various histories and studies. Was not his genius of such unrivaled strength and force that there was hardly any obstacle he set himself to overcome that he did not either pierce by sharpness or crush by weight? [a]

As for his style, who can praise it enough? It was knit together with such force of argument that it compelled agreement even where it failed to persuade. Almost every word was a maxim, and every maxim a victory. Men like Marcion, Apelles, Praxeas and Hermogenes know this, as do the Jews, the pagans, the Gnostics and the rest, whose blasphemies he overthrew with his many weighty volumes as if with so many thunderbolts.

Yet this man too, for all I have said, this Tertullian, I say, held too loosely to catholic teaching, that is, to the universal and ancient faith. Far more eloquent than faithful, he changed his belief, and proved true what the blessed confessor Hilary writes of him, that “by his later error he took away from the authority of his approved writings.” He too was a great trial in the church. But I do not wish to say more about Tertullian. I will add only this. Against the command of Moses, he claimed that the new frenzies of Montanus, which arose in the church, and those mad dreams of new doctrine dreamed by mad women, were true prophecies. So he deservedly brought on himself and his writings the words: “If a prophet arises among you … you shall not listen to the words of that prophet.” Why? “Because the Lord your God is testing you, to see whether you love him or not.”