Quote in context
Tertullian on Athens and Jerusalem
Tertullian · On the Prescription of Heretics 7
“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?”
Plain English
Tertullian is not making a geography point. "Athens" means speculative Greek philosophy and the academy; "Jerusalem" means the apostolic faith received in the Church.
Why it matters
The line became a famous warning against letting fashionable intellectual systems rewrite Christian doctrine.
Who said it
Tertullian
c. 155 – c. 220 · Born in Carthage · North Africa
Tertullian wrote in Latin when everyone else wrote in Greek. That single fact made the Western church possible. He invented the Latin theological vocabulary — 'Trinity,' 'person,' 'substance,' 'sacrament,' 'New Testament' as a phrase. Augustine and every Western theologian after stand on words he coined. Late in life he joined the Montanists, a charismatic-prophetic movement Rome rejected, which is why he's not sainted. But his vocabulary stuck. You can't say what Christianity teaches without using his words.
Book of the day
Against Marcion
TertullianA reading pick tied to today's figure, quote, era, or event. The classic Latin attack on Marcion's rejection of the Old Testament and two-god theology.
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