c. 197–220

Tertullian: "What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?"

Tertullian regarded Greek philosophy as the parent of heresies: mixing philosophy with revelation leads to unfaithfulness to revelation. "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church?" After Jesus Christ and the gospel neither subtle disputes nor speculations are needed. Of the crucifixion he wrote: "It is credible, because it is absurd." González and Lane warn against seeing him as an irrationalist; Lane remarks that Tertullian's debt to Stoicism was greater than he admitted. In addition, he began to develop a Latin theological terminology.