Tertullian: Quotes about the world

“If we rejoice with the world, there is reason to fear that with the world we shall grieve too. But when the world rejoices, let us grieve; and when the world afterward grieves, we shall rejoice.”

Tertullian

Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_III/Apologetic/On_Idolatry/Of_the_Observance_of_Days_Connected_with_Idolatry Chapter 13, On Idolatry

Fear , World

“The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.”

Tertullian

Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_III/Apologetic/On_Idolatry/Wide_Scope_of_the_Word_Idolatry, Chapter 1

World

“Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.”
Quippe res dei ratio quia deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providit disposuit ordinavit, nihil [enim] non ratione tractari intellegique voluit. [3] Igitur ignorantes quique deum rem quoque eius ignorent necesse est quia nullius omnino thesaurus extraneis patet. Itaque universam vitae conversationem sine gubernaculo rationis transfretantes inminentem saeculo procellam evitare non norunt.

Tertullian

De Paenitentia (On Repentance), 1.2-3

Life , God , World , Universe

“We are not Indian Brahmins or Gymnosophists, who dwell in woods and exile themselves from ordinary human life. We do not forget the debt of gratitude we owe to God, our Lord and Creator; we reject no creature of His hands, though certainly we exercise restraint upon ourselves, lest of any gift of His we make an immoderate or sinful use. So we sojourn with you in the world.”

Tertullian

Source: Apologeticus pro Christianis, Chapter 42

Life , God , World , Exercises

“We [ Christians] have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings; nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us than affairs of state. We acknowledge one all-embracing commonwealth—the world.”

Tertullian

Source: Apologeticus pro Christianis, Chapter 38

World , Parting