Tertullian was born during the latter half of the second century and raised in the cultured pagan

environment of Carthage where he was well trained in

rhetoric and possibly in law. He converted to Christianity as an adult and devoted himself thence to apologetic, polemical and moral writings, all of which
display his characteristic brilliance and intolerance. He was the first major Christian thinker to write in Latin discourse. According to Jerome, he was a
presbyter, but it is more likely that he was never more than a catechist or teacher. He became a Montanist and initially advocated it within the context of the
church, but he eventually left the church when he became convinced that it would not recognize this New Prophecy, with its assertion of direct inspiration, its
declaration of the end, and its puritanical and revivalist ethic. Thereafter he condemned the church as unspiritual and so as compromised by worldliness.

Tertullian had a tendency to set the believer's relationship to God on a legal footing: the Gospel was the new law. God is, therefore, preeminently a lawgiver
and judge; the Christian should not only fulfill the precepts but also the counsels of the law if possible in order to become holy and righteous before God.
Tertullian was the first to speak of God as one substance (substantia) in three persons (personae), as a unity of substance but trinity of persons, although he
had a decidedly subordinationist view of the relationship of Son to Father. There was time when the Son or Word was existent only latently in the Father,
when it had no independent being; it was expressed or invested with such being with a view to the divine act of creating the universe. So in the Father resides
the plenitude of deity; in the Son is only as much as is consistent with its derived position. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. The
Word assumes flesh for our salvation and this is the last stage of its coming to full personal existence. Tertullian spoke regularly of Jesus Christ as two
substances united but unmixed in one person, again, as with his statements on the Trinity, contributing to later creedal language. He held that the Son would
finally abdicate his independent being that God be all in all once again.

Tertullian wrote treatises on many aspects of chastity. His view may best be described in contrast with those of Callistus, Bishop of Rome, who was probably
the object of his scorn in On Chastity. Callistus proclaimed the right of the bishop to grant forgiveness after suitable penance to those who had committed
grave sins. Callistus was faced with the question of whether he should bring sinners back by exercising clemency or whether by severity he should drive them
back into paganism.

He chose clemency. By this way alone, he believed. could the church be led out of separation from the world. For Tertullian, this was an abomination and he
greeted Callistus' policy of clemency with indignation. He was prepared to consign the world to perdition and save only the elect. The church must be
"without spot or wrinkle" and separated from the world. Thus were the lines of the classic argument on the doctrine of the church laid down.

Tertullian – does not meet the definition of a father –an ecclesiastical writer – doesn’t meet the criteria, had antiquity – had orthodoxy but left - had when he
was a Catholic – but became Montanists – not a saint – does not have approval as a Church Father.

Tertullian – his trajectory away from unity of church and church doctrine – very learned author to understand - to help us understand Christians during his
time

The beliefs of Montanism are presented by an orthodox historian as follows:

 The belief that the prophecies of the Montanists superseded and fulfilled the doctrines proclaimed by the Apostles.

 The encouragement of ecstatic prophesying,[7] contrasting with the more sober and disciplined approach to theology dominant in orthodox
Christianity at the time and since.

 The view that Christians who fell from grace could not be redeemed, also in contrast to the orthodox Christian view that contrition and confession
could lead to a sinner's restoration to the Church.

 Their prophetesses abandoned their husbands.[8] In contrast to the Montanists, the Church emphasized chastity and forbid divorce and remarriage
(unless the first marriage was not valid).

 Some of the Montanists were also "Quartodeciman" ("fourteeners"), preferring to celebrate Easter on the Hebrew calendar date of 14 Nisan,
regardless of what day of the week it landed on. Mainstream Christians held that Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following 14
Nisan. (Trevett 1996:202) However, it should be observed that uniformity in this matter had not yet been fully achieved in the Catholic Church
when the Montanist movement began; Polycarp, for example, was a quartodeciman, and St. Irenaeus convinced the Pope to refrain from making
the issue of the date of Easter a divisive issue. Later, the Catholic Church established a fixed way of calculating Easter according to the Julian (and
later the Gregorian) calendar.


Montanus provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine, which the Catholic Church did not permit to its deacons and priests. [9]

 Their prophets dyed their hair, stained their eyelids, and were allowed to play with tables and dice and lend on usury. [10] At that time, dyed hair and
eye make-up was used by harlots; the Catholic Church forbid it. The Church also forbid usury.