# Christ reigns now -- Tertullian



## MW (Jul 8, 2014)

In Tertullian's Answer to the Jews, chap. 7, we find a wonderful description of the way in which Christ reigns now.



> For who could have reigned over all nations but Christ, God's Son, who was ever announced as destined to reign over all to eternity? For if Solomon reigned, why, it was within the confines of Judea merely: from Beersheba unto Dan the boundaries of his kingdom are marked. If, moreover, Darius reigned over the Babylonians and Parthians, he had not power over all nations; if Pharaoh, or whoever succeeded him in his hereditary kingdom, over the Egyptians, in that country merely did he possess his kingdom's dominion; if Nebuchadnezzar with his petty kings, from India unto Ethiopia he had his kingdom's boundaries; if Alexander the Macedonian he did not hold more than universal Asia, and other regions, after he had quite conquered them; if the Germans, to this day they are not suffered to cross their own limits; the Britons are shut within the circuit of their own ocean; the nations of the Moors, and the barbarism of the Gætulians, are blockaded by the Romans, lest they exceed the confines of their own regions. What shall I say of the Romans themselves, who fortify their own empire with garrisons of their own legions, nor can extend the might of their kingdom beyond these nations? *But Christ's Name is extending everywhere*, *believed everywhere*, *worshipped by all the above-enumerated nations*, *reigning everywhere*, *adored everywhere*, *conferred equally everywhere upon all*. *No king*, *with Him*, *finds greater favour*, no barbarian lesser joy; no dignities or pedigrees enjoy distinctions of merit; to all He is equal, to all King, to all Judge, to all God and Lord. Nor would you hesitate to believe what we asseverate, since *you see it taking place*.


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## RamistThomist (Jul 9, 2014)

Is this the early Tertullian or the later Tertullian?


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## MW (Jul 9, 2014)

See tertullian.org under Adversus Iudaeos and Apologeticum. There are different views on the work and dating requires historical reconstruction. It is thought some parts of the Apology might be drawn from chaps. 1-8, which would make it earlier than the Apology.


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## RamistThomist (Jul 10, 2014)

armourbearer said:


> See tertullian.org under Adversus Iudaeos and Apologeticum. There are different views on the work and dating requires historical reconstruction. It is thought some parts of the Apology might be drawn from chaps. 1-8, which would make it earlier than the Apology.



That makes sense, since it would distance him from his later Montanist heresy (though I've always suspected that Montanism was already a temptation for Tertullian).


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