How Tertullian Preached: Speak to Them by Name, Root It in Christ, Make It Concrete

Tertullian taught the persecuted church of Roman North Africa about a century after the apostles. None of his sermons survive, but several of his treatises were written for the congregation or for people preparing for baptism, and they read like spoken exhortation. We studied six of them, on duties from prayer and patience to facing martyrdom. The shape holds across all of them: speak to the hearers by name, root the duty in God’s character or Christ’s example, then make it concrete.

Who Tertullian was

Tertullian was born in Carthage around 155, trained in rhetoric, and became a Christian as an adult. Thirty-one of his works survive, plus fragments of others. He is the first writer in Latin known to use the word “trinity,” and a line from his Apology, usually quoted as “the blood of the martyrs is seed,” is still repeated in churches today.

He is often called the father of Latin Christianity and the founder of Western theology. Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage a generation later, read him every day. Because no sermons of his survive, the treatises he wrote as exhortation to the congregation and to catechumens stand in for his preaching.

The shape of a Tertullian sermon

He almost always opens by speaking to the people in front of him or about himself. It might be a greeting, a word of praise, or a confession. In On Patience he admits he is the least patient man to be writing on the subject.

He never lets the hearers stay spectators. He addresses them directly with “O” or a title: “O sinner,” “O blessed ones,” “You are too dainty, Christian.” He takes one duty at a time, such as prayer, patience or repentance, and usually grounds it in God’s own character or Christ’s example before he gives a single rule.

Then he proves the point with a catalog of examples and often carries it with one sustained image: little fishes born in the water of baptism, the athlete in training, the tranquil face of Patience herself. He names the strongest objection early and answers it.

The practical part is always concrete, down to posture, timing and what to do with your hands. And he likes to end beyond this life: the resurrection, the return of Christ, Adam “restored… to his own paradise.”

What made his preaching different

What others said

“Every word almost was a sentence; every sentence a victory.”

— Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory (434)

“Give me the master.”

— Cyprian of Carthage, as Jerome reports it, Lives of Illustrious Men 53 (392)

What to take into your own pulpit

Those are the ideas. The guide turns them into ten steps you can follow this week, plus the sermons we studied and a fill-in outline in his shape.

Common questions