TRV
Tertullian
Ante-Nicene · to AD 325 · 3,450 passages across 56 books
Commentary
Romans 13:13
· 2 passages
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
Which alliance the apostle withal was aware of; and hence, after premising, "Not in drunkenness and revels," he adjoined, "nor in couches and lusts."
Whether, moreover, the apostle had any acquaintance with xerophagies-(the apostle) who had repeatedly practised greater rigours, "hunger, and thirst, and fists many," who had forbidden "drunkennesses and revellings" -we have a sufficient evidence even from the case of his disciple Timotheus; whom when he admonishes, "for the sake of his stomach and constant weaknesses," to use "a little wine," from which he was abstaining not from rule, but from devotion-else the custom would rather have been beneficial to his stomach-by this very fact he has advised abstinence from wine as "worthy of God," which, on a ground of necessity, he has dissuaded.
Romans 13:14
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
On the ground of continence the priests likewise of the famous Egyptian bull will judge the "infirmity" of Christians. Blush, O flesh, who hast "put on" Christ! Suffice it thee once for all to marry, whereto "from the beginning" thou wast created, whereto by "the end" thou art being recalled! Return at least to the former Adam, if to the last thou canst not! Once for all did he taste of the tree; once for all felt concupiscence; once for all veiled his shame; once for all blushed in the presence of God; once for all concealed his guilty hue; once for all was exiled from the paradise of holiness; once for all thenceforward married.
Romans 14:4
Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
For `to his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art thou, to judge another's servant? ' `Remit, and remission shall be made to thee.
Romans 14:13
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
And thus my mind has been thrown into confusion, in the fear that, having exhorted you myself to perseverance in single husbandhood and widowhood, I may now, by the mention of precipitate marriages, put "an occasion of falling" in your way.
Romans 14:17
· 2 passages
For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
And if he has "delivered you the keys of the meat-market," permitting the eating of "all things" with a view to establishing the exception of" things offered to idols; "still he has not included the kingdom of God in the meat-market: "For," he says, "the kingdom of God is neither meat nor drink; " and, "Food commendeth us not to God"-not that you may think this said about dry diet, but rather about rich and carefully prepared, if, when he subjoins, "Neither, if we shall have eaten, shall we abound; nor, if we shall not have eaten, shall we be deficient," the ring of his words suits, (as it does), you rather (than us), who think that you do "abound" if you eat, and are "deficient if you eat not; and for this reason disparage these observances.
For a defiled spirit cannot be acknowledged by a holy Spirit, nor a sad by a joyful, nor a lettered by a free.
Romans 14:20
For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
But further: when writing to the Romans, the apostle now gives you a home-thrust, detractors as you are of this observance: "Do not for the sake of food," he says, "undo the work of God.
Romans 15:5
Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
For God is "jealous," and is One who is not contemptuously derided -derided, namely, by such as flatter His goodness-and who, albeit "patient," yet threatens, through Isaiah, an end of (His) patience.
Romans 15:12
And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.
But when the same prophet represents to us even nations sometimes estimated as "the small dust of the balance," and as "less than nothing, and vanity," and sometimes as about to hope and "trust in the name" and arm of the Lord, are we at all misled respecting the Gentile nations by the diversity of statement? Are some of them to turn believers, and are others accounted dust, from any difference of nature? Nay, rather Christ has shone as the true light on the nations within the ocean's limits, and from the heaven which is over us all.
Romans 16:16
· 2 passages
Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.
But when is peace more to be concluded with brethren than when, at the time of some religious observance, our prayer ascends with more acceptability; that they may themselves participate in our observance, and thereby be mollified for transacting with their brother touching. their own peace? What prayer is complete if divorced from the "holy kiss? " Whom does peace impede when rendering service to his Lord? What kind of sacrifice is that from which men depart without peace? Whatever our prayer be, it will not be better than the observance of the precept by which we are bidden to conceal our fasts; for now, by abstinence from the kiss, we are known to be fasting.
What prayer is complete if it is divorced from the holy kiss?
Titus 1:1
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
By means of these organs, indeed, we are to enjoy flowers; but if he declares that those who make idols will be like them, they already are so who use anything after the style of idol adornings. "To the pure all things are pure: so, likewise, all things to the impure are impure; " but nothing is more impure than idols.
Titus 1:5
For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
Thence, therefore, among us the prescript is more fully and more carefully laid down, that they who are chosen into the sacerdotal order must be men of one marriage; which rule is so rigidly observed, that I remember some removed from their office for digamy.
Titus 1:6
· 3 passages
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
Should we not rather recognize, from among the store of primitive scriptural precedents, those that correspond with the gospel order of things respecting discipline? By this means we convey to the new community the typical requirements of antiquity. In the old law I find the pruning knife applied to the license of repeated marriage.… Among us the prescript is more fully and more carefully laid down, that they who are chosen into the sacerdotal order must be men of one marriage. This rule is so rigidly observed that I remember some removed from their office for bigamy.
Come, now, you who think that an exceptional law of monogamy is made with reference to bishops, abandon withal your remaining disciplinary titles, which, together with monogamy, are ascribed to bishops. Refuse to be "irreprehensible, sober, of good morals, orderly, hospitable, easy to be taught; "nay, indeed, (be) "given to wine, prompt with the hand to strike, combative, money-loving, not ruling your house, nor caring for your children's discipline,"-no, nor "courting good renown even from strangers.
How detrimental to faith, how obstructive to holiness, second marriages are, the discipline of the Church and the prescription of the apostle declare, when he suffers not men twice married to preside (over a Church ), when he would not grant a widow admittance into the order unless she had been "the wife of one man; " for it behoves God's altar to be set forth pure.
Titus 1:12
· 2 passages
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
Comic poets deride the Phrygians for their cowardice; Sallust reproaches the Moors for their levity, and the Dalmatians for their cruelty; even the apostle brands the Cretans as "liars." Very likely, too, something must be set down to the score of bodily condition and the state of the health.
Your Jupiter too, stolen in his infancy, was unworthy of both the home and the nutriment accorded to human beings; and, as he deserved for so bad a child, he had to live in Crete. Afterwards, when full-grown, he dethrones his own father, who, whatever his parental character may have been, was most prosperous in his reign, king as he was of the golden age.
Titus 3:1
Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
Therefore, as to what relates to the honours due to kings or emperors, we have a prescript sufficient, that it behoves us to be in all obedience, according to the apostle's precept, "subject to magistrates, and princes, and powers; " but within the limits of discipline, so long as we keep ourselves separate from idolatry.