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ca. 155 - 245 AD
Translation from the Ante-Nicene Fathers. For a
complete electronic copy, visit the Christian
Classics Ethereal Library, the New Advent Library. Italics in
the text by John Wijngaards.
Tertullian was a lay theologian in Carthage, North
Africa. His sincerity as a convert wasn mixed with moral rigorism and an
uncompromising stand against worldly standards. This led him to leave the
Church and join the Montanists in 210 AD, and later to found his own sect.
Note. In spite of his lapse from the Church, Tertullian
exercise a great influence on the Latin Fathers who were to follow him.
“As the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin, he was instrumental in shaping
the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity for the next 1,000
years.” (Robert L. Wilken in the Encyclopedia Britannica).
Here are select passages that demonstrate what Tertullian thought about
women.
- Only man, not woman, is the ‘image of
God’.
- Every woman carries the curse of Eve, as originator
of sin.
- Woman is a source of temptation.
- Among heretics, women teach, dispute, heal and,
perhaps, baptize
- Women may not teach, baptize or take on the
priestly ministry
- A woman's head needs to be covered, but not with a
crown
- It is better for a man not to marry, because it is
tainted with concupiscence
Man, not woman, is the ‘image of
God’.
De Cultu Feminarum, book 1, chap. 1. “You (woman) destroyed
so easily God's image, man.”
On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 10. “How, then, would God
have failed to make any such concession to men more (than to
women), whether on the ground of nearer intimacy, as being "His own
image," or on the ground of harder toil? But if nothing (has been thus
conceded) to the male, much less to the female.”
Among heretics, women teach, dispute,
heal and, perhaps, baptize
The Prescription against Heretics, chap. 41 §1. “I must
not omit an account of the conduct also of the heretics-how frivolous it is,
how worldly, how merely human, without seriousness, without authority, without
discipline, as suits their creed.
§2. To begin with, it is doubtful
who is a catechumen, and who a believer; they have all access alike, they hear
alike, they pray alike-even heathens, if any such happen to come among them.
"That which is holy they will cast to the dogs, and their pearls," although (to
be sure) they are not real ones, "they will fling to the swine."
§3.
Simplicity they will have to consist in the overthrow of discipline, attention
to which on our part they call brotherly. Peace also they huddle up anyhow with
all comers;
§4. for it matters not to them, however different be
their treatment of subjects, provided only they can conspire together to storm
the citadel of the one only Truth. All are puffed up, all offer you knowledge.
Their catechumens are perfect before they are full-taught.
§5. The
very women of these heretics, how wanton they are! For they are bold enough to
teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures-it may be even to
baptize.
§6. Their ordinations, are carelessly. administered,
capricious, changeable. At one time they put novices in office; at
another time, men who are bound to some secular employment; at another, persons
who have apostatized from us, to bind them by vainglory, since they cannot by
the truth.
§7. Nowhere is promotion easier than in the camp of
rebels, where the mere fact of being there is a foremost service.
§8.
And so it comes to pass that today one man is their bishop, tomorrow another;
today he is a deacon who tomorrow is a reader; today he is a presbyter who
tomorrow is a layman. For even on laymen do they impose the functions of
priesthood.”
Women may not teach, baptize or take on
the priestly ministry
On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 9. “It is not permitted to
a woman to speak in the church; but neither (is it permitted her) to
teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly
function, not to say (in any) sacerdotal office.”
Note. All that these verses establish is that Tertullian
objected to women being involved in teaching, baptizing and other priestly
ministries. They do not prove a valid ecclesiastical tradition.
Every woman carries the curse of Eve
De Cultu Feminarum, book 1, chap 1. (“Every woman should
be ....) walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every
garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from
Eve,-the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as
the cause) of human perdition.
"In pains and in anxieties dost thou bear
(children), woman; and toward thine husband (is) thy inclination, and he lords
it over thee."
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The
sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of
necessity live too.”
- “You are the devil's gateway:
- you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree:
- you are the first deserter of the divine law:
- you are she who persuaded him (Adam) whom the devil was not
valiant enough to attack.
- You destroyed so easily God's image, man.
- On account of your desert-that is, death-even the Son of
God had to die.”
“And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your
tunics of skins?”
Woman is a source of
temptation.
On the Veiling of Virgins, chap 7. “So perilous a face,
then, ought to be shaded, which has cast stumbling-stones even so far as
heaven: that, when standing in the presence of God, at whose bar it stands
accused of the driving of the angels from their (native) confines, it may blush
before the other angels as well; and may repress that former evil liberty of
its head,-(a liberty) now to be exhibited not even before human eyes. But even
if they were females already contaminated whom those angels had desired, so
much the more "on account of the angels" would it have been the duty of virgins
to be veiled, as it would have been the more possible for virgins to have been
the cause of the angels' sinning.”
It is better for a man not to marry,
because it is tainted with concupiscence
An Exhortation to Chastity, chap. 9. “The Lord Himself said,
‘Whoever has seen a woman with a view to concupiscence has already
violated her in his heart.’ But has he who has seen her with a view to
marriage done so less or more? What if he have even married her?-which he would
not do had he not desired her with a view to marriage, and seen her with a view
to concupiscence; unless it is possible for a wife to be married whom you have
not seen or desired. I grant it makes a wide difference whether a married man
or an unmarried desire another woman. Every woman, (however), even to an
unmarried man, is "another," so long as she belongs to some one else; nor yet
is the means through which she becomes a married woman any other than that
through which withal (she becomes) an adulteress. It is laws which seem to make
the difference between marriage and fornication; through diversity of
illicitness, not through the nature of the thing itself. Besides, what is the
thing which takes place in all men and women to produce marriage and
fornication? Commixture of the flesh, of course; the concupiscence whereof
the Lord put on the same footing with fornication. "Then," says (some one),
"are you by this time destroying first-that is, single-marriage too? "And (if
so), yes not without reason; inasmuch as it, too, consists of that which is the
essence of fornication. Accordingly, the best thing for a man is not to
touch a woman; and accordingly the virgin's is the principal sanctity, because
it is free from affinity with fornication.”
A woman's head needs to be covered, but
not with a crown
Concerning a Crown, chap. 14. “Much less may the Christian
put the service of idolatry on his own head-nay, I might have said, upon
Christ, since Christ is the Head of the Christian man-(for his head) is as free
as even Christ is, under no obligation to wear a covering, not to say a band.
But even the head which is bound to have the veil, I mean woman's, as
already taken possession of by this very thing, is not open also to a
crown. She has the burden of her own humility to bear. If she ought not to
appear with her head uncovered on account of the angels, much more with a crown
on it will she offend those (elders) who perhaps are then wearing crowns above.
For what is a crown on the head of a woman, but beauty made seductive, but
mark of utter wantonness,-a notable casting away of modesty, a setting
temptation on fire?”
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