Tertullian on Christian Converts and Clashes with the Pagan World
In: Religious Polemics and Encounters in Late AntiquitySearch for other papers by Anni Maria Laato in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
Tertullian marked the boundaries between Catholic Christians and others—pagans, heretics, and Jews—in relation to doctrine (lex credendi), religious practices (lex orandi), and everyday life (lex agendi) in an unusually strict way. His eagerness to pinpoint differences could be explained as coming from his uncompromising personality, the threatened minority position of the Christians in Carthage in his time, and his responsibility to instruct newly-converted Christians. In this article, it is argued that the main reason for his strictness was, however, his fundamental principle in the light of which he believed that all beliefs and actions must be evaluated, namely that Christians must worship the one true God wholeheartedly and avoid idolatry in everything. In this article, several examples of concrete expressions of belief, religious practices and life will be analysed, and it will be shown that this principle steered his teaching.