Why Tertullian is the Coolest Theologian of the Ancient Church

Tertullian is my favorite ancient father of the scriptures. He must have been like the Donald Trump of the ancient church - radical, outrageous, and out of bounds. His furious outbursts and emotional writings are something to behold. He was the original St. Nicholas punching Arius in the face, but he did it with his writing!  Some of the cool things about Tertullian worth mentioning are as follows:

• “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” You’ve heard it before. It was coined by Tertullian.

• Tertullian was the first “born again” Christian.  Yes, I know Evangelicals think all real Christians were "born again," but Tertullian left the cultural Christianity of his day (i.e., the "catholic church" - here, meaning "universal church") and fell in with the Montanist movement whose leader, a David Koresh type, thought himself to be the incarnation of the Holy Spirit who spoke using two prophetesses. How very Eastern of him!

Building on this, it's not surprising-though I have never seen this connection made-that one of his beliefs mentioned in de carne Christi was that the Holy Spirit was an incarnation being. Much like God inhabiting Jesus, so Tertullian thought the Holy Spirit inhabited the dove when it appears to fall on Jesus during John’s baptism in the gospel.

Tertullian also had one of the most unique readings of Paul's mention of the mysterious "baptism of the dead" (a hallmark of Mormonism and the small and mostly forgotten modern-day Apostolic Catholic Church). Tertullian's interpretation of Paul here seemed ahead of its time for its cleverness in an age when exegesis seemed to come out of the mythology of one's cultural surroundings.  For Tertullian, who admitted that this practice of baptizing the dead was no longer around during his own days,  Paul’s motive for such a practice had to have been because the resurrection of the body was so important to salvation in Christ, that baptism of the dead was a way of sanctifying the dead to their bodies. When you think of funerary practices, there is always theology involved. During the medieval ages, Christians were to be buried facing Jerusalem. The worst thing an enemy could do was dismember or mutilate a body which could not then be given a proper burial (as if God could not reconstitute the body because he couldn't find a stray hand or limb!). It wasn't until the modern era that cremation became acceptable for some Christian Churches (because think of the mess God would have to deal with trying to find all those ashes to reconstitute a human body at the great resurrection!)

Tertullian also hated sports. He really hated sports! But the sport of his day was the gladiatorial games. He believed its brutality and violence was immoral, unbecoming of a Christian professing the Christian life. Football or MMA anyone?

Tertullian also gets early credit for using the word "trinitas" or Trinity.

And finally in every depiction, Tertullian always looks like Maimonides to me. Or is it Maimonides who looks like Tertullian?

If you ever get the chance, pick up Tertullian, read, and experience a Christianity you might not be familiar with.