Tertullian, Father of Western Christianity’s “Answer to the Jews”

The idea of supersessionism or replacement theology appears in the treatises of the earliest Christian apologists and Church Fathers and became a notable characteristic of early Christian thought. It appears in the early 2^nd century in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho and was further developed by authors from all around the Christian world like Irenaeus of Lyons, Melito of Sardis, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom and others who shaped the theology of their disciples and followers over the centuries.

While some scholars have identified the Jew here as Rabbi Tarfon, many consider the dialogue to be a literary fiction. See discussion in Maren R. Niehoff, “A Jew for Roman Tastes: The Parting of the Ways in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho from a Post-Colonial Perspective,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 27.4 (2019), 549–578.

The Latin adversus is generally translated as “against” but it can also mean “towards”, or “in answer to”, terms which would not have an aggressive or belligerent connotation as discussed by Yann Le Bohec, Les Juifs dans l’Afrique romaine (Bordeaux: Memoring, 2021), 76.

Translations of Adversus Iudaeos follow Geoffrey D. Dunn, Tertullian [The Early Church Fathers] (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 63–104, with adjustments.

See for instance, Timothy Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 92. For critique of this view, see discussion in: Judith Lieu, “History and Theology in Christian Views of Judaism,” in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. Judith Lieu, John North, and Tessa Rajak (London: Routledge, 1994) 86–87; Catherine Setzer, “Jews, Jewish Christians, and Judaizers in North Africa,” Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs, ed. Virginia Wiles, Alexandra Brown and Graydon F. Snyder (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1997), 185–200. See a summary of the discussions in Geoffrey D. Dunn, Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos; A Rhetorical Analysis (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2008).

John Lund, “A Synagogue at Carthage? Menorah-lamps from the Danish Excavations,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 8 (1995): 245–262; Richard F. Docter et al., eds., Karthago: Die Ergebnisse der Hamburger Grabung unter dem Decumanus maximus, Hamburger Forschungen zur Archäologie 2 (Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 2007).

Tertullian likely intends to echo the gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says:

^{Matt. 6:16} “And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ^6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ^6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Translation follows Sydney Thelwall, “De Jejuniis, adversus psychicos (On Fasting, against the materialists),” in Tertullian: Complete Works, (Delphi Classics, 2018), with modifications (accessed via the Internet Archive), 1954. [The book is a collection of out of copyright translations from a century ago.]

Tertullian, On Prayer 22.8; On the veiling of the virgins 11.3.

Translation follows Sydney Thelwall, trans., “De Corona Militis (On the Soldier’s Garland),” and “De Oratione (On Prayer),” in Tertullian: Complete Works, 1756, with modifications.

If the interpretation of Tertulian’s assertions in his texts is really that he witnessed to veiled Jewish virgins in Carthage, this might testify to a non-rabbinic Jewish stream that was to be found in his direct surroundings but that disappeared and is not attested otherwise. Claude Aziza, Tertullien et le judaïsme (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1977) 20-22, finds a clue to Tertullian’s Jewish inspiration in rabbinic parallels and mentions that Tertullian (On the veiling of the virgins 17) refers to the women veiled in Arabia in the same way as the rabbis do in m. Shabbat 6.6. A different approach to Tertullian’s thoughts on veiling, appears in Rebecca Scharbach, “Voiler les matrones et dévoiler les vierges: pratiques juives et exégèse chrétienne dans la Carthage du III^e siècle” [Veiling Matrons and Unveiling Virgins: Jewish Practices and Christian Exegesis in Third-Century Carthage], ASDIWAL: Revue genevoise d’anthropologie et d’histoire des religions [Geneva Review of Anthropology and History of Religions] 5 (2010): 131–137. The same kind of remarks may apply to Tertullian’s dealing with ritual bathing; see Claudia Setzer, “Jews, Jewish Christians, and Judaizers in North Africa,” in Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs, ed. Robin Scroggs, Virginia Wiles, Alexandra Brown and Graydon F. Snyder (Valley Forge: Trinity Pr Intl, 1997), 185–200 [p. 190].

The prophecy to which Matthew is referring is not in the Hebrew Bible but see the description of Samson as a nazirite (netzir; Judg 13:5, 7) and the references in Isaiah to the coming “branch” (netzer) of Jesse (Isa 11:1), which Christians have interpreted as a prophecy about Jesus (cf. Isa 60:21). See The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed, Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 6.

Translation follows Peter Holmes, “Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion),” in Tertullian: Complete Works, 969.

See Stephanie Binder, Tertullian, On Idolatry and Mishnah Avodah Zarah: Questioning the Parting of the Ways Between Christians and Jews, Jewish and Christian Perspectives 22 (Leiden: Brill, 2012) for the proximity of Tertullian’s treatise on idolatry to Mishnah Avodah Zarah. Tertullian’s exegesis, his turns of expression and the questions he broaches, as the well as the solutions he offers, are marked with Jewish characteristics. However, surveying when his style is close to Jewish patterns would go beyond the framework of this presentation. Claude Aziza, Tertullien et le judaïsme suggests that before he chose to convert to Christianity, Tertullian weighed becoming a Jew. His affinities with Judaism found their way in the kind of Christianity he advocated.

Binder, Tertullian, 120–121.

On “common Judaism”, see, among others, Alan Mendelson, “Did Philo Say the Shemah? And Other Reflections”, in Judaism: Practice and Belief, ed. Ed P. Sanders, The Studia Philonica Annual Studies in Hellenistic Judaism 6 (1994) 160-71; Louis Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), 420; and David Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994) on the role of the Patriarch. Concerning the Sabbath as a fast day and special ways of tithing see Ranon Katzoff, “נוצרים חדשים וחברוּת ישנה” [New Christians and Old Fellowships (Havurot) (I Corinthians 7:12–14)],” in במשעולי עבר יהודי: מחקרים וזיכרונות לכבודו של ד"ר צבי גסטוירט [Along the Paths of Jewish History. Research and Reminiscences in Honor of Dr. Zvi Gastwirth], ed. Zion Ukashy et al. (Jerusalem, 2006) 143–153; Ranon Katzoff, “The Laws of Rabbi Eliezer in Ancient Rome,” in Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Professor Shamma Friedman, ed. David Golinkin et al., (Jerusalem, 2007) 344–357; Robert Goldenberg, “The Jewish Sabbath in the Roman World up to the Time of Constantine the Great,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 19.1 (1979); 414–447.

For some discussions of the significance of circumcision in this period, see Malka Z. Simkovich, “Abraham as the Great (Un)Circumciser,” TheTorah (2013); eadem, “Queen Helena of Adiabene and Her Sons in Midrash and History,” TheTorah (2018), Part 3: The Circumcision of Izates and Munbaz; Alexandria Frisch, “Persecuting Circumcision,” TheTorah (2023); Lawrence Hoffman, “Circumcision,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2^nd ed., ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford University Press, 2017), 673–674.

See, as well, his explanations on the Shabbat in Against Marcion II.21. The idea that Shabbat is a taste of the world to come is found in b. Berachot 57b. For the ancient Jewish-Christian polemic about whether Joshua violated Shabbat in his conquest of Jericho, and whether that proves that Shabbat was always less significant than Jewish tradition implies—as Tertullian argues later in this chapter—see Zev I. Farber, Images of Joshua in the Bible and Their Reception, BZAW 457 (De Gruyter, 2016), 438–440.

Tertullian uses the names “Hebrews,” “Israelites” and “Jews” to talk about the same people. In general, Hebrews refers to the protagonists of the biblical narrative, Jews refers Tertullian’s Jewish contemporaries, and Israelites is more fluid and does not reveal the author’s intentions.

Dunn, Tertullian’s Adversus Iudaeos.

While the Roman Empire was tolerant of certain foreign cults or ancient religions, it was intolerant of those that were perceived to undermine the Roman political system or its religious practices, particularly new religious movements that were seen as potentially dangerous to imperial unity and control and perceived as a threat to civil order. See for instance, John Scheid, Rites et religion à Rome (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2019); James B. Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire (Malden MA : Blackwell, 2007); Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Ralph Martin Novak, Christianity and the Roman Empire – Background Texts (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001).

Tertullian appears to be among the first Christian authors (together with Clemens of Alexandria and both of them in anti-Marcionite contexts) to use in writing the expression “New Testament” to designate the corpus of Christian Scriptures.

The context of this comment is Jesus’ apparent prohibition against divorce unless the woman has been unchaste (Matt 5:31–32), which Tertullian limits, by aligning with examples from the Old Testament. Editor’s note: See Eve Levavi Feinstein, “When Is a Man Allowed to Divorce His Wife?” TheTorah (2018).

See the very detailed study by Thomas P. O’Malley, Tertullian and the Bible (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1967).

Translation follows Sydney Thelwall, “Apologeticus pro Christianis (Apology for the Christians),” in Tertullian: Complete Works, 393–394.

Tertullian plays on the status of eldest and youngest. This might be partly based on Esau’s selling of his birthright to his youngest brother, but also on an inversion of the roles of both brothers as they are taken for granted in Jewish exegesis (Jacob = Jews – Esau = Rome or/and Christians. See Daniel Boyarin’s attempt to settle the logic of the Christian interpretation of which of the twins is the youngest in view of the rabbinical approach seeing Esau as the eldest and Jacob as the youngest: Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 2-6. Editor’s note: For Esau as the ancestor of Rome in Jewish interpretation, see Malka Z. Simkovich, “Esau the Ancestor of Rome,” TheTorah (2018).

Bezalel Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 206–253.

A Roman historian (ca. 56 – ca. 120) who wrote in Latin.

Translation follows Sydney Thelwall, trans., “Apologeticus pro Christianis (Apology for the Christians),” in Tertullian: Complete Works, 382, with modifications.

Pompey (106 B.C.E. – 48 B.C.E.) is the Roman general who captured Jerusalem from the Hasmoneans in 63 B.C.E. See discussion in Nadav Sharon, “An Ancient Precedent for the Yom Kippur War?” TheTorah (2017).

Exodus 3:22; 11:2; 12:35–36. Editor’s note: See Leonard Greenspoon, “Despoiling the Egyptians: A Concerning Jewish Legacy?” TheTorah (2017).

Numbers 21:8–9.

See Stéphanie É. Binder, Tertullien et moi (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2022).