Tertullian: the Courage to Stir Up, part 2

Christians are called to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. They are also part of the "Church militant", engaged in a spiritual conflict against dark forces, both spritual and institutional. To break through these, and to pierce the dullness and oppression which can sometimes settle on Christians, requires "breakthrough people". This is primarily, but not exclusively, the work of 'the apostles and prophets' [1 Corinthians 12:28]. Tertullian was certainly one of these. He saw what was dulling the Church's edge and confronted it, appealing to each heart to part with its idols. Away with mottled Christianity! , he wrote; in other words, be one thing or the other.

Some recent commentators have called Tertullian a bigot. He was indeed no lamb, and we may wince at some overblown stances, e.g. his almost gleeful account of the torments of the lost in hell. But we must understand the debating codes of his time and not judge solely by today's. For example, Tertullian was fond of paradox. He will often push an issue to its purest form, in order to see the real nature of the thing under examination. He did not value the 'fruitful ambiguity' of the heretic. For him, something is true if Christ taught it, the apostles passed it on, and it is found in the Scriptures. It is therefore fixed and pretty much non-negotiable. One of his works (none of which is especially long) has 186 references to the word 'truth'.

In our day, it is not uncommon among Protestants in the West to look with grudging admiration at the Pope for knowing exactly where the Roman Catholic Church stands and not deviating from it, however great the flak, while liberals in other denominations seek to nuance and reinterpret things. Bigotry? More likely, the same dogged commitment to truth as Tertullian held. He too laid down the express rule that no speculation outside the ‘Rule of Faith’ was permissible.

We see this most starkly in Tertullian's writings against heretics, which did a lot to strengthen the cause of orthodoxy. One writing is called, rather opaquely, "The Prescription of Heretics." This is an older meaning of 'prescription'. It meant the cutting short of a question by the refusal to hear the adversary's arguments, on the ground that key points are already in place which cut the ground from under his feet. So, for Tertullian, it is of no use to listen to heretics' arguments or refute them, for we have a number of antecedent proofs that they do not deserve a hearing.

This, then, is 'permitted bigotry,' and it gives him the solid ground and the confidence to lay into any who deviate from it or hold unbiblical opinions. In our day, scientific atheism insists that any and every point of belief should be proven, and many Christians perform various contortions to try to do so. There is something refreshing in Tertullian's assurance, for example about the Resurrection: it is true precisely because it is impossible. The end of the matter.

The Poor Have Faces

As we have seen from previous posts, Basil of Caesarea was adamant that the hoarding of personal wealth was unnatural and a crime against compassion and justice. For him, the issue was both logical and clear:

"If we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who don't have enough, no-one would be rich and no-one would be poor."
(Homily on I Will Tear Down My Barns)

Basil wasn't alone in saying these things at the end of the 4th century. John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa were equally outspoken. What makes Basil stand out, however, is his humanity. To others, rich and poor were more of a moral dilemma, an issue (albeit of vital importance) without faces. You can resonate with their arguments, value their prophetic courage in offending the powerful, but remain strangely unmoved inside.

With great rhetorical skill, Basil gives the poor an identity as people. In various sermons and homilies he paints verbal pictures: the street urchins huddled in doorways, the old man gone blind through neglect and starvation, the agonised mother forced to sell a child into slavery to pay off a debt.

It was this gut-level compassion that also stirred Basil to do something practical: the building of the Basiliad outside Caesarea, a complex which included a poor-house, hospice, and hospital, and was regarded at the time as one of the wonders of the world.

This page offers some thoughts and practical considerations of how the vision of the Basiliad could affect our Christian discipleship today.

Labours Of Love

Since 2001 her face has been on every Bank of England £5 note, but who was Elizabeth Fry?

She was born into a banking family in Norwich, England, in 1780. When she was 18, she heard a Quaker preacher speaking and she was converted. She joined a Quaker assembly, where a woman had a prophecy for her: "You are born to be a light to the blind, speech to the dumb and feet to the lame."

Immediately she was moved to charitable acts. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday School to teach children to read.

Marriage took her to London, and motherhood kept her so busy that after 12 years she lamented: "I fear my life is slipping away to little purpose." How wrong she was!

Another Quaker minister told her of the horrifying conditions in the capital's prisons. Fry went to the infamous Newgate jail to see for herself. She found hundreds of women and their children living violent lives in unsanitary conditions and sleeping on the floor without bedding.

Fry sprang into action. Immediate practical needs had to be met. She enlisted local women to make clothes for the children. She got permission to start a school for prison children. She founded an organisation of women who would visit prisoners, pray and read scriptures with them, and provide them with materials to sew and knit goods which could be sold to give them some income.


But more visionary action was required if lasting change was to happen. Fry took to spending some nights in the jail and invited members of the aristocracy to come and do so too, to experience at first had the inhumane conditions. Her brother-in-law, a Member of Parliament, also promoted her work in government circles.

The atmosphere at Newgate changed so noticeably that Fry's model was followed in other towns and even abroad. She became well known. She was the first woman ever to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee, leading to a series of prison reforms in the 1820s. Queen Victoria admired her and made donations.

Fry's work didn't stop there. Even while raising 11 children and suffering from what today would be called post-natal depression, she established a night shelter for the homeless in London; campaigned for more humane treatment of orphans; raised awareness of the plight of newly-released prisoners with nowhere to go; began an outreach ministry to sailors and founded a school for nurses. It was nurses trained at Fry's school who went with Florence Nightingale to the Crimea.

She was incensed at the transportation of women prisoners to Australia. The night before they left, there were always riots in the prisons. The women would reach Australia penniless and with dependent children, leaving prostitution as the only option for many. Elizabeth lobbied parliament and personally visited all deportees, giving them materials for making clothes on the voyage which they could sell on arrival.

Together with her husband, Fry also agitated against capital punishment. At that time, upwards of 200 crimes were punishable by death. After initial indifference in high circles, they gained the ear of Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, who met with them and started the process of penal reform.

Elizabeth’s motives in all these activities were avowedly Christian. Her faith was the centre of all she did. Quakers allowed anointed women to preach, and Elizabeth did so. It is said that her voice carried such emotion that hard hearts would weep.

"Let us cleave to God in spirit," she exhorted, "and make it the first business of our lives to be conformed to His will and live to His glory, whether prosperity or adversity be our portion, and though our years pass away like a brief tale. Through His unbounded love, the blessings of the Most High will rest upon us."

Fry proved it. The prophecy was fulfilled absolutely. Called "the Angel of Mercy" in her lifetime, when she died in 1845 over a thousand people lined the way to her grave, to honour the passing of a truly great woman.