Abstract

‘What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What accord is there between the Academy and the Church? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who has himself taught that the Lord must be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with those who have brought forward a Stoic, or Platonic or dialectic Christianity. As for us, we need not be concerned to know anything but Jesus Christ, in quest of anything but the Gospel. Inasmuch as we have faith, we need not believe anything else.’ Such are the thoroughly uncompromising terms in which, about the year 200, Tertullian defined an entirely negative relationship—what he at least considered the utter incompatibility—of Christianity and pagan philosophy