Tertullian’s introduction (short biographical-methodal sketch) maps his Carthaginian, juridical stance and warns listeners both of his rhetorical heat and of his formative importance: he coins Latin theological terms, converts legal metaphors into theological weapons, and channels pastoral anxieties about communal witness (hence his severe-sounding tracts on apparel and veiling). Paired with a Confessions reading (for the inward drama Augustine supplies) and Aquinas (for causal-theological correction), the intro helps the listener place Tertullian: not merely a curmudgeon but a defining stylist whose methods shape Western doctrinal policing and vocabulary. (Matthew 28:19; Colossians 1:18)
Readings:
Introduction to Tertullian (brief biographical & methodological primer)
Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum (On the Prescription of Heretics)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1–2, Question 9, Articles 5–6
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