Tertre, Jacques (as a priest Jeax Baptiste) du, a French missionary, was born at Calais in September, 1610. After travelling for some time, he returned to France, ami entered the Dominican order at Paris in 1635. Five years after he was sent as a missionary to the American islands, returned to France in 1658, and died at Paris in 1687. He published Ilistnire Generale des Antilles Iluhitees par les Francois (1667-71, 4 vols. 4to). See Iloefer, Xuuv. Biog. Generale, s. v.
Tertullian(us), Quintus Septijiius Florens, is the most ancient of the Latin fathers whose works are now extant, and one of the tnost notewtirthy personages belonging to the early Church. Our knowledge of his personal history is extremely limited. He was born at Carthage in A.D. 160, or near that date, his father be- ing a Roman centurion in the service of the proconsul of Africa. His natural endowments were great, and they were supplemented by a comprehensive course of studies whose fruit appears in the wealth of histori- cal, legal, philosophical, physical, and antiquarian ele- ments contained in his writings. He was destined for the civil service of the empire, and was accordingly traine<l in Roman jurisprudence and the art of forensic eloquence (comp. Euscbius, //. F. ii, 2, where Tertullian is described as one of the most highly esteemed Ro- mans— not as Rutinus renders it, "one of the most dis- tinguished writers of the Latin Church" — ''inter nostros scriptores admodum clarus"). His mode of argumen- tation and terminology everywhere reveal the legal turn of his mind, and his writings in many places throw^ light on disputed points of the Roman civil law.
Tertullian was converted to Christianity when be- tween thirty and forty years of age, and he immediate- ly became its fearless champion against pagans, Jews, and heretics, especially Gnostics. He was the first re- ligious teacher after the apostles who attained to a clear recognition of the mighty contrast between sin and grace, and who presented it in all its force to the mind of the Church. He was married (see his tract Ad Uxorem), but nevertheless entered the ranks of the clergy. Jerome says that he was first a presbyter of the Catholic Church, but his own writings do not deter- mine whether he was a member of the spiritual order prior to his lapse into Montanism or not. It is certain, however, that he sojourned for a time in Rome (see De Cullu Fern. c. 7 ; Eusebius, //. E. ii, 2).
The transition to Montanism occurred a few years after Tertullian's conversion, and about A.D. '202. The act doubtless had its origin in his eccentric disposition and rigorous moral views, which predisposed him to re- gard that heresy with favor and to dislike the Roman Churcli. Jerome attributes it to personal motives ex- cited by the jealousy and envy of the Roman clergy, and modern writers have ascribed it to disappointed ambition. We know, however, that the penitential discipline of the Church was administered at Rome with exceeding laxity, and that such indifference was an abomination in the eyes of Tertidlian (F/iilosophu- mena [ed. Miller, Oxon. 1851], ix, 290). Assuredly he
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did not regard IMontanus as the Paraclete. He recog- nise.tl in the latter simply an inspired organ of the Spir- it. He, rather than JMontanns, became the head of the Montanistic party in Africa, giving to their nndefined views a theological character and a conceded influence over the life of the Church, and establishing it on fonn- dations suthciently tirm to enable it to protract its be- iniT down to the oth century. He died in old age, be- tween A.D. "iiO and "240. The assertion that he re- turned to the Catholic Church before he died is some- times made, but cannot be substantiated, and the con- tinued existence of the sect of Tertullianists would seem to contradict the assumption (see Neander, Tertull. [2d ed.], p. 462; August. De I/cer. H. 86). It is a signifi- cant fact, and an argument in behalf of the liberal in- terpretation of ancient Church history for which Prot- estantism contends, that it was precisely this great de- fender of Catholic orthodoxy against Cnostic heresy wlio was a schismatic to such a degree that he has nev- er been included by the Church of Kome among the number of her saints, or among that of the pah-es as distinguished from the mere scriptores ecclesiastici.
As a writer, Tertullian was exceedingly' fresh and vigorous, but also angular, abrupt, and impetuous. He possessed a lively imagination, a fund of wit and satire, as well as of acquired knowledge, and considerable depth and keenness; but he was deficient in point of logical clearness and self-possession, as well as of moderation, and of a thorough and harmonious culture. He was a speculative thinker, though tiie bitter opponent of phi- losophy. His aspiring mind sought in vain for ade- quate language in which to express itself, and struggled constantly to force the ideas of Christianity within the forjns of the Latin tongue. His style thus became ex- ceedingly forcible, nervous, vivid, concise, and pregnant. His adversaries were assailed without mercy and with all the weapons of truth and of art, and nearly always appear in his writings in ridiculous plight. He was the direct opposite to Origen, holding tlie extreme position of realism on the borders of materialism. He was, fur- thermore, the pioneer of orthodox anthropology and soteriology, the teacher of Cyprian, and forerunner of Augustine, in the latter of whom his spirit was repro- duced in twofold measure, though without its eccen- tricities and angularities. It is possible, also, to trace resemblances between him and Luther with respect to native vigor of mind, profound earnestness, unregulated passion, polemical relentlessness, etc.; but the father lacked the childlike amiability of the Reformer, who was both a lion and a lamb.