The Writings of Tertullian, Volume 2

Anti-Heretical Writings

De: Tertullian

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Before Christian Doctrine Was Defined, It Was Contested
The great anti-heretical writings of Tertullian, modernized for today’s reader and presented with their full historical and theological force.

• Doctrinal boundaries under fire: the early church defining truth against competing gospels
• Christological clarity: fierce defense of the real incarnation and bodily resurrection
• Trinitarian precision in conflict: early language forged in the heat of controversy
• Martyrdom and faithfulness: theology tested under the threat of death

This volume gathers Tertullian’s major anti-heretical works from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, presented in clear, contemporary English for today’s reader. These writings arise from a period when Christian doctrine had not yet been formally codified and the church was forced to define its faith through sustained conflict with rival teachers operating from within its own ranks.

At the threshold of the collection stands The Prescription against Heretics, a work that redefines the very rules of theological debate. Here Tertullian argues that heresy has no right to appeal to Scripture at all, because Scripture belongs to the apostolic churches that alone preserve the true rule of faith. The question shifts from isolated proof texts to authority, succession, and the public inheritance of the gospel.

That principle is tested most fully in The Five Books against Marcion, a monumental defense of the unity of God and the continuity of Old and New Testaments. Against Marcion’s attempt to sever Christ from the Creator, Tertullian defends the coherence of redemption, law, prophecy, and gospel as a single divine work. Against Hermogenes answers a different threat, rejecting the claim that pre-existent matter limits God’s creative power and reaffirming creation from nothing as an article of Christian confession.

In Against the Valentinians, Tertullian dismantles the elaborate mythologies of Gnostic speculation with irony and precision, exposing both their internal contradictions and their distance from apostolic sobriety. The dispute then sharpens around the person of Christ himself in On the Flesh of Christ, where the reality of the incarnation is defended against every attempt to dissolve it into mere appearance. This defense finds its full counterpart in On the Resurrection of the Flesh, one of the most important early Christian affirmations of bodily resurrection, written against philosophical contempt for the material body.

Trinitarian controversy takes center stage in Against Praxeas, where Tertullian resists a teaching that confused the persons of Father and Son. In the pressure of this debate, some of the church’s earliest and most durable Trinitarian language is forged. The volume closes with Scorpiace, a bracing defense of martyrdom written against those who weakened the demand for public confession under persecution.

Modernized for today’s reader, these writings preserve Tertullian’s polemical edge while removing the barriers of archaic English. Together they reveal a Christianity learning to define itself from within, under the pressure of doctrinal fracture, philosophical challenge, and the ever-present cost of public faith.

This volume includes:
The Prescription against Heretics
The Five Books against Marcion
Against Hermogenes
Against the Valentinians
On the Flesh of Christ
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
Against Praxeas
Scorpiace

This revision was prepared through an AI-assisted process, combining digital tools with traditional editorial work.