“The soul and the body were created together in the same instant and as if at a single brush stroke. They were thrown into the same mould, says Tertullian, a great theologian who dared to think.”

— Julien la Mettrie (1745), Treatise on the Soul (pg. 43)

“The earliest doctors of Christianity had no other idea of the soul that that it was material. Tertullian, Arnobius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Justin, Irenaeus, have never spoken of it other than as a corporeal substance. It was reserved for their successor, at a great distance of time, to make the human soul, and the soul of the world, pure spirits; that is to say, immaterial substances.”

— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pgs. 50-51)

“Some theologians have frankly confessed that the theory of creation was founded on an hypothesis supported by very little probability, and which had been invented some centuries after Jesus Christ. An author, who endeavored to refute Spinoza, assumes that Tertullian was the first who advanced this opinion against another Christian philosopher who maintained an eternity of matter.”

— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pg. 240)

“The first reaction to truth is hatred.”

— Tertullian (c.220AD)

“Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.”

— Tertullian (c.220AD)

“Wherefore will ye trouble yourself, seeking after the law of god, whilst ye have that which is common to all the world, and which is written on the tablets of nature.”

— Tertullian (c.220AD), The Crown Knight (De Corona Militis) [1]

“The son of god died; it must need be believed because it is absurd. He was buried and rose again; it is certain because it is impossible.”

— Tertullian (c.220AD) [2]