How they love one another

We don’t take the gifts and spend them on feasts, drinking-bouts, or fancy restaurants. Instead we use them to support and bury poor people, to supply the needs of boys and girls who have no means and no parents. We support the elderly confined now to their homes. We also help those who have suffered shipwreck. And if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons—for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church—they then become the nurslings of the confession they hold [as we take them in to help them]. Primarily it is the acts of love that are so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. “See,” they say, “how they love one another” (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39).

By Tertullian

[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #124 in 2017]

Tertullian was a third century church leader and writer from North Africa.
Next articles

Unusual character

The Epistle to Diognetus describes the extraordinary character of early Christians

Unknown

Food, Did you know?

fruitcakes, red eggs, jell-O, Christian fish, and communion machines

Thanks to those who contributed tidbits, including Kristen Roth Allen, Elesha Coffman, Suzanne Estelle-Holmer, Martha Manikas-Fo

Letters to the editor, CH 125

Readers respond to Christian History

Editor's note: Food

If you took food out of your church’s weekly activities, many of those activities would look very different—or they’d simply disappear.

Jennifer Woodruff Tait
Show more

Subscribe to magazine

Subscription to Christian History magazine is on a donation basis

Subscribe

Support us

Christian History Institute (CHI) is a non-profit Pennsylvania corporation founded in 1982. Your donations support the continuation of this ministry

Donate

Subscribe to daily emails

Containing today’s events, devotional, quote and stories