Today, I came across an article written by a well-known historian of science Peter Harrison. In it, Harrison traces the origin of the expression Credo quia absurdum (est)/ I believe because it is absurd that is unfortunately connected to Tertullian. Tertullian was a North African Church Father who lived during the 2nd and early part of the 3rd century. He is one of the most important early Christian authors whose works represented a major force in the rhetorical battle between orthodox Christianity and various so-called heresies. Besides that, Tertullian is a father of Latin theology: he was the first one who translated the major theological concepts from Greek to Latin (φύσις = natura; πρόσωπον = persona, etc.)

But he had the misfortune to be best remembered for something he never said: Credo quia absurdum est. Patristic scholars have long pointed out that Tertullian never said anything like that. As a historian of early Christianity, I knew that. It really doesn’t take a lot to understand that Tertullian would never argue that faith is believable because it is absurd. I’ve read some of his works back when I was writing my Master’s degree – he was a guy who emphasized the importance of reason and arguments. For him, the author of Reason is God itself who ordained the world by it. The human soul has the capacity to reason precisely because God impressed the reason upon it. The fact is that the original statement from Tertullian was a passing remark (in his work De Carne Christi) about the Son of God’s crucifixion being stranger than fiction. In that context he writes: credibile est, quia ineptum est… certum est, quia impossibile/ It is credible, because it is foolish… It is certain because it is impossible. But, as you can see: his statement has nothing to do with reason and faith. Tertullian talks here about the incredible idea of the crucifixion of the Son of God: No one would make up a Son of God who would die for his creatures. This indeed was a revolutionary idea and because of that, Tertullian argues that it just might be true. And by arguing in that way, Tertullian is actually following a principle set forth centuries earlier by Aristotle: “We may argue that people could not have believed them if they had not been true or nearly true. And that they are more likely to be true because they are incredible”. Furthermore, his statement is a part of his polemic against gnostics who believed that Christ was never fully human.

All of this is known among the scholars of Early Christianity. The real value of Harrison’s article lies in the fact that he meticulously traces back the history of the use of this phrase. He shows how the whole thing was an Enlightenment propaganda – one of the ways in which the authors from the 18^th century tried to contrast the Age of Reason against the Age of Faith (Christianity). Printed editions of Tertullian’s works began appearing with some frequency in the early sixteenth century. The first important author was Thomas Browne who cited the Tertullian’s paradox in 1643. Harrison shows how Browne’s citation had a major influence on a subsequent interpretation of the paradox. In the work entitled Religio Medici Brown states: I can answer all the Objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, ‘certum est quia impossibile est’. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point.

The major shift happened precisely here. While Tertullian’s paradox was originally written in the context of Jesus’ death (Son of God who died for others), Browne’s interpretation is more in tune with the general sense of personal faith and the relationship between faith and reason. Also, whereas Tertullian says It is certain, because it is impossible’, Browne conflates the two elements of the paradox and says something much more like I believe, because it is impossible. As Harrison explains, all of the subsequent quotations of Tertullian’s paradox would be put into the framework of reason and faith. To put it more bluntly, the original context was lost. Henceforth, Tertullian’s words were misinterpreted. It is amazing that virtually all of Browne’s contemporaries took the citation in the form Browne presented. Nobody questioned it. So, for example, Henry More ridiculed Tertullian because of his support of blind faith. As a way of proving that, More cited (you guessed it!) Browne’s interpretation. If Thomas Browne introduced the paradox to Anglophone readers, the Huguenot author Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) and famous Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) performed this service for French readers. Bayle reproduced the Tertullian’s paradox in his work Dictionnaire historique et critique – a work that had a major influence on Enlightenment philosophers. The main theme of the work, as Harrison points out, is the idea that philosophy and reason are the only available tool that can guide us towards the truth. Faith is, on the other hand, a motherload of superstition and ignorance. Bayle even suggested that the highest form of faith is that which embraces those truths most opposed to reason. It was on this occasion that French philosopher quoted Tertullian’s paradox as Certum est quia impossibile. Voltaire made two important steps that Harrison traces back.

1. He was the first author who put the paradox on the lips of Augustine – even though Augustine never stated anything similar!
2. Voltaire was also the first one who conjoined I believe with because it is absurd.

Harrison explains in detail why Voltaire’s misattribution was either careless or calculated. He liens more towards the latter. Augustine was, unlike Tertullian who later in his life defected from the Catholic Church, central to the Christian tradition! He is still considered one of the most important theologians in the history of Christianity. Since Voltaire’s concern was to critique the Christian religion in general, Augustine served his purpose in a way that Tertullian could not. A number of authors in the 18th and 19th centuries were to follow Voltaire in fathering the saying upon Augustine, and the frequency of this misattribution serves as a measure to the extent of Voltaire’s influence. Harrison explains that eventually, Tertullian came to be identified as the true source of the paradox, but Voltaire’s enduring contribution was to link absurdity to religious belief. But the main point is that the original context and meaning were lost forever. Tertullian’s paradox originally meant as a way of proving the real death of Jesus Christ, became a way of proving that faith has nothing to do with reason – an idea that Tertullian would never approve. Of course, this is only a summary of Harrison’s article. Harrison presents a more detailed study with numerous references to primary sources. It is an article worth reading!

I recently read another article (Yeah, I do live a crazy life!) by an American sociologist Christian Smith whose area of expertise is the sociology of religion. He made a simple observation that had never crossed my mind before. During my graduate studies, I’ve read a lot of things about secularization (from the classic works by Peter Berger on…) and I’ve always thought of secularization in the terms of separation between the Church and state. In my mind, secularization was consistently envisaged as a process by which religion (state-sponsored Catholicism) was losing its power and influence. But Smith argued that the major area of conflict (as a basic part of secularization) was the monopoly on education and knowledge. It is in the context of this struggle (“Who has a monopoly on knowledge and education?”) that the secular forces have created a narrative according to which the Church (and faith) is something that belongs to a dark past marked by ignorance, absurdity, and superstition. Reading Harrison’s article, I can see that this injustice done to Tertullian and his paradox was a small, but important, part of that struggle.