tertullian
A Treatise on the Soul
A wide-ranging study of the soul, its origin, its nature, and what happens to it after death.
Against All Heresies
A short catalogue of the teachings the early church rejected, appended to Tertullian's works.
Against Hermogenes
An argument that God created from nothing, against the claim that matter is eternal.
Against Marcion: Book I
The opening book, on Marcion's division of the Creator from the God of the gospel.
Against Marcion: Book II
A defence of the Creator's justice and goodness, read from the Old Testament itself.
Against Marcion: Book III
An argument that the Christ who came is the Christ the prophets foretold.
Against Marcion: Book IV
A close reading of Marcion's edited Gospel, showing it still bears witness to the Creator.
Against Marcion: Book V
The same argument carried through Marcion's collection of Paul's letters.
Against Praxeas
The work in which the word Trinity first enters Latin theology, on three persons of one substance.
Against the Valentinians
A witty description of the Valentinian system, letting its complexity speak for itself.
An Answer to the Jews
A reading of the prophets, made to show that the promised Messiah has already come.
Appendix
Pieces transmitted with Tertullian's works, including verse of another and later hand.
De Fuga in Persecutione
A treatise arguing that a Christian should not purchase safety by flight or by bribe.
On Baptism
The earliest surviving treatise on baptism, on the water, the rite, and who should receive it.
On Exhortation to Chastity
A letter to a widowed friend, commending the single life rather than a second marriage.
On Fasting
A defence of stricter fasting, written in Tertullian's later and more rigorous years.
On Idolatry
A searching look at how idolatry reaches into trades, festivals, and ordinary public life.
On Modesty
A late and severe treatise on the discipline of the church toward grave sin.
On Monogamy
A case that one marriage is the Christian pattern, and that a second is best foregone.
On Patience
A treatise on patience, written by a man who admits he possesses little of it.
On Prayer
An early exposition of the Lord's Prayer, with counsel on how and when Christians should pray.
On Repentance
On repentance before baptism and after it, and on the church's discipline of the penitent.
On the Apparel of Women
Two books on dress and adornment, calling for a simplicity that lets character show.
On the Flesh of Christ
A defence of Christ's real human flesh, against those who thought it only appeared so.
On the Pallium
A playful piece defending Tertullian's own change of dress, and with it a change of life.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
A sustained defence of the resurrection of the body, and not of the soul alone.
On the Veiling of Virgins
A case that the custom of veiling should reach unmarried women as well as married.
Scorpiace
An antidote against the sting of those who told Christians that martyrdom was unnecessary.
The Apology
Tertullian's great defence of Christians before the magistrates, brilliant, indignant, and quotable.
The Chaplet
On a soldier who refused the garland, and on the unwritten customs Christians keep.
The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas
The prison diary of a young Carthaginian mother and her companions, one of the most moving of all martyr acts.
The Prescription Against Heretics
Tertullian's case that the Scriptures belong to the church, and that novelty is itself a mark against a teaching.
The Shows
On the arena, the theatre, and the circus, and why Tertullian believed Christians should stay away.
The Soul's Testimony
A short argument that ordinary human speech betrays an instinctive knowledge of one God.
To His Wife
Two affectionate letters to his wife about what he hopes she will do if he dies first.
To Scapula
An open letter to a persecuting governor, warning him plainly and appealing to him courteously.
To The Martyrs
A word of encouragement to Christians in prison awaiting trial, sent from outside the walls.
To the Nations: A Fragment Concerning the Execrable Gods of the Heathen
A surviving fragment on the gods of the nations and the stories told about them.
To the Nations: Book I
An answer to the popular charges against Christians, and a turning of them back on the accusers.
To the Nations: Book II
An examination of Roman religion drawn from the Romans' own writers.