by Jeffery Kingry
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 3, September 30, 1988

Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullian was born about A.D. 150-155 in Carthage, modern-day Tunisia. His father was a Roman Centurion in a North African unit of the Roman Empire. Young Tertullian was raised and educated in Carthage, a city of culture and education surpassed only in importance by Rome. He did so well that he was sent to become a lawyer in Rome. While in Rome, he witnessed the persecution of the Christians and their execution in the Colosseum for their faith. He was impressed by the determination of the martyrs and their unquenchable loyalty to Jesus as the Messiah. He was converted and baptized around 170-175 A.D. He returned to Carthage and quickly rose to a position of some power and influence among the churches there. The brethren loved him because he was a very good debater and a prolific writer. He wrote widely circulated treatises, defending Christianity from its intellectual critics, both pagan and gnostic. He wrote an excellent little tract on baptism (though some of his views about when a convert should be baptized would be very controversial among the brethren today). He was afraid of unconverted Jews, pagans, and gnostics sneaking in to destroy the church purposely). He spoke out strongly against Christians attending the Circuses where men and animals were killed or brutalized, and participation by Christians in idolatrous practices.

On balance, it should be said that Tertullian developed some very peculiar ideas in his old age. He became so moralistic in his approach to Christianity that he condemned women as being unlawful in wearing cosmetics, jewelry of any kind, dyeing their hair, wearing any color other than "earth colors," wearing a uniform or a toga, and prescribed the Pallium as the only dress a godly Christian should wear. [A Latin word for "cloak" -- fdc.] His argument was based upon Paul's wearing of a pallium (II Timothy 4:13), a seamed garment like that worn by Roman Catholic priests today, with arms, long hem, and tied at the waist with a rope (he was opposed to belts and buckles as being too military and worldly). He wrote against Christians in the Roman Army, specifically with Christians wearing the "Chaplet," or "De Corona" in Latin, a crown of leaves given as a symbol of honor or rank in the ancient world. His argument was that the only crown the Christian could wear was the one God would give on the last day. He became so enamored with his own judgment in these matters of liberty that he left the brethren and followed a "charismatic" movement of the age, the Montanists, who believed that God gave them a latter-day revelation of His second coming. All the Montanists moved to Phyrgia, Asia Minor, where the New Jerusalem was supposed to descend. The Montanists held strict and long fasts, forbade Christians from fleeing persecution or martyrdom, marriage discouraged, and second marriages were prohibited because they thought the final judgment was at hand. Tertullian became so "bold" that he even left the Montanists behind. No one knows where or when he died, probably around 220 A.D. Apparently, no one would claim him in his old age.

But, one of the topics that Tertullian addressed concerned a controversy among some of the brethren about 180-190 A.D. Apparently, in interpreting I Corinthians 11, some of the brethren took the position that the order of subjection that Paul enjoined was not between "women" and "men," but between "wife" and "husband." Or, putting it another way, unmarried Christians did not have to wear the covering that Paul enjoined in the text. Tertullian's tract described the situation in his day and some of the attitudes that brethren expressed on the subject. I thought it might be interesting to synthesize some of these things for our readers.

Tertullian's Position: The Custom Argument

One of the arguments put forth in the second century was that wearing the covering was merely a matter of local custom. Some brethren objected to wearing the veil, arguing that it was a pagan and barbaric practice, not "customary" in the cultured Greek world. Tertullian responds this way:

"Our observance must be exacted by truth on which no one can impose prescription—no space of times, no influence of persons, no privilege of regions. For these are the sources, whether from ignorance or simplicity, that custom finds its beginning, and then is successively confirmed into an usage—and as an usage the practice is maintained in opposition to truth. Our Lord has surnamed Himself "Truth," not "Custom" (John 14:6)."

Granting their contention, for the sake of argument, he asks, "What custom shall we follow, then?" His observation is interesting, as it did in the age in which he lived.

"Throughout Greece and its barbaric provinces, the majority of the churches keep their virgins covered. This is the same practice in Africa [Carthage was considered a "Boston" in its day -- jwk]. I mention this in case some ascribe the practice to Gentilehood ... I have chosen to use as models those churches established by the Apostles or Apostolic men. These churches have a ’custom’ to appeal to, just as those who choose not to veil their virgins ... but not even between customs (of apostolic churches versus modern churches) have those chaste teachers chosen to examine."

Tertullian describes the growing attitude that existed in the quickly apostatizing church.

"Until recently, among us, either practice was, with comparative indifference, admitted to communion. The matter had been left to choice, for each virgin to veil herself or expose herself, just as she had equal liberty as to marrying, which itself was withal neither enforced nor prohibited. Truth had been content to make an agreement with Custom, in order that under the name of custom it might enjoy itself even partially. But, when the power of discerning began to advance ... immediately the adversary of the better part emerged, and set to work...'We are scandalized,' they say, 'because others walk otherwise than we do!' And, they prefer being 'scandalized' to being modest. A 'scandal,' if I mistake not, is an example not of a good thing, but an evil, tending to sinful edification. Good things scandalize none but an evil mind. If modesty, if bashfulness, if contempt of worldly glory, anxious to please God alone, are good things, let women who are 'scandalized' by such good learn to acknowledge their own evil. What if the incontinent are 'scandalized' by the self-controlled? What if the polygamist is 'scandalized' by the faithful wife of one man? ... Are therefore chaste virgins to be, for the sake of their less virtuous sisters, to be dragged into the assembly, blushing at being unveiled, being invited, as it were to a rape? ... yet the suffering of carnal violence is the less evil, because it comes from a natural office. But, when the spirit itself is violated in a virgin by the abstraction of her covering, she has learned to lose what she used to keep. O sacrilegious hands, which have the hardihood to drag off a dress dedicated to God! ... Arise therefore. Truth, arise, and as it were burst forth from Thy patience! No custom do I wish Thee to defend; for by this time even that custom under which Thou didst enjoy They own liberty is being stormed! Demonstrate that it is Thyself who art the coverer of virgins. Interpret in Person Thine own Scriptures, which Custom understandeth not; for if she had, she never would have had an existence."

You can understand, with such strong passion and imagery as this, why Tertullian got on some of the brethren's nerves. He certainly wasn't an "ear-scratcher."