Introduction to This Volume
How this book is arranged
This is the fifth volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume opens with the shorter works of Clement of Alexandria, and then begins the writings of Tertullian of Carthage.
Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.
The translations
The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.
In this volume
Tertullian wrote at Carthage in North Africa from about AD 197 to about AD 220 and was the first great Christian author in Latin. His writings run through the whole life of the African church: its defence before the Roman magistrates, its fight against false teaching, and its rules for worship and daily conduct. They are divided between this volume and the two that follow.
The first part of this volume gathers the writings in defence of the faith and on martyrdom, beginning with the Apology, which he addressed to the rulers of the Roman provinces. The second part gathers his teaching on the soul, on the flesh of Christ and on the resurrection of the body, which he wrote against the Gnostic denial of the flesh.
Later in life Tertullian joined the Montanists, a movement that claimed fresh prophecy and a stricter discipline. Some works in this volume, such as On Flight in Persecution, come from that later period; the introduction to each work notes what is known.
Dates and authorship
Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.