¹ Tertullian, De carne Christi 5.4. Latin text from Tertullian's Treatise on the Incarnation, ed. and trans. Evans, Ernest (London: SPCK, 1956)Google Scholar, 18 (my translation). The word prorsus is not found in the best manuscripts—the Codex Agobardinus or the Codex Trecensis—but is in Corpus Cluniacense, from which the first printed edition of Tertullian was produced in 1521.

² Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 7, in Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, ed. Migne, J. P. (Paris, 1857–1912), vol. 2, col. 20Google Scholar.

³ Décarie, Vianney, “Le Paradoxe de Tertullien,” Vigiliae Christianae 15, no. 1 (1961): 23–31 Google Scholar; Barnes, Timothy David, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, esp. 210; Sider, Robert D., “ Credo quia absurdum?,” Classical World 73, no. 7 (1980): 417–419 Google Scholar; González, Justo L., “Athens and Jerusalem Revisited: Reason and Authority in Tertullian,” Church History, 43, no. 1 (1974): 17–25 Google Scholar; Guerra, Anthony, “Polemical Christianity: Tertullian's Search for Certitude,” The Second Century 8, no. 2 (1991): 109–124 Google Scholar; Osborn, Eric, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), esp. 48–64Google Scholar; Götz, Ignacio L., Faith, Humor, and Paradox (Westport: Praeger, 2002), 25–27 Google Scholar; Ferguson, Everett, “Tertullian,” Expository Times 120, no. 7 (2009): 313–321 Google Scholar.

⁴ Tertullian, De carne Christi 10, in Evans, Tertullian's Treatise on the Incarnation, 38: “Et hic itaque causas requiro.”

⁵ Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 5.1, in Tertullian: Adversus Marcionem, ed. and trans. Evans, Ernest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972)Google Scholar, 509: “Qui nihil interim credam, nisi nihil temere credendum.”

⁶ Tertullian, De anima 16, in Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, vol. 1, col. 672: “Est et illud ad fidem pertinens, quod Plato bifariam partitur animam, per rationale et inrationale. Cui definitioni et nos quidem applaudimus, sed non ut naturae deputetur utrumque. Naturale enim rationale credendum est, quod animae a primordio sit ingenitum, a rationali uidelicet auctore.”

⁷ Tertullian, De poenitentia 1, in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 76, ed. Bulhart, V. and Ph. Borleffs, J. W. (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1957)Google Scholar, 321: “Ceterum a ratione eius tantum absunt quantum ab ipso rationis auctore. Quippe res dei ratio quia deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providit disposuit ordinavit nihilque non ratione tractari intellegique voluit.”

⁸ Osborn, Tertullian, 238–241; Colish, Marcia L., The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 2:16–17 Google Scholar.

⁹ Décarie, “Le Paradoxe de Tertullien.”

¹⁰ Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23, 1400a6–8, in Complete Works of Aristotle, trans. W. Rhys Roberts, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2), 2:2231; Moffatt, James, “Aristotle and Tertullian,” Journal of Theological Studies 17, no. 66 (1916): 170–171 Google Scholar.

¹¹ See, for example, Sider, Robert Dick, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971)Google Scholar; Ayers, R. H., Language, Logic and Reason in the Church Fathers (Hildersheim: Olms, 1979), 31–32 Google Scholar.

¹² Osborn, Tertullian, 28.

¹³ Décarie, “Le Paradoxe de Tertullien,” 30: “La formule classique: credo quia absurdum (même corrigée en quia ineptum) ne représente pas la pensée de Tertullien.”

¹⁴ Roger Pearse, “Witnesses to the Influence of Tertullian,” The Tertullian Project, accessed July 30, 2015, http://www.tertullian.org/witnesses/witnesses.htm.

¹⁵ Rhenanus, Beatus, ed., Tertullianus Quintus Septiuius Florens Opera (Basel, 1521)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Giry, Louis, trans., De la Chair de Jésus-Christ, et de la Résurrection de la chair, ouvrages de Tertullien (Paris, 1661)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ For examples, see Hall, Joseph, The Contemplations upon the History of the New Testament (London, 1661), 380–381 Google Scholar; Simon, Richard, Histoire critique du texte du Nouveau Testament (Rotterdam, 1689), 171Google Scholar; Leslie, Henry, A Treatise of the Authority of the Church (Dublin, 1637), 33–34 Google Scholar; Grantham, Thomas, Presumption no Proof; or, Mr. Petto's Arguments for Infant-Baptism Considered and Answered (London, 1687), 2Google Scholar; Arwaker, Edmund, The Ministration of Publick Baptism (London, 1687), 25Google Scholar; Featley, Daniel, The Romish Fisher Caught and Held in his Owne Net (London, 1624), 341–342 Google Scholar; Chillingworth, William, The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation (Oxford, 1638), 110Google Scholar; Falkland, Lucius, A Discourse of Infallibility (London, 1660), 159Google Scholar; Dury, John, Good Counsells for the Peace of Reformed Churches (London, 1641), 30Google Scholar; Sergeant, John, Sure-footing in Christianity (London, 1665), 102Google Scholar.

¹⁸ A reference to the specific De carne passage appears in a Latin commentary by the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana (1535–1624), commenting on 1 Cor. 26–28, in Scholia in Vetus et Novum Testamentum (Paris, 1620), 825Google Scholar.

¹⁹ The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, Robert, vol. 2, 1661 (London: Folio Society, 1996)Google Scholar, January 27, 1664, p. 8; Reusch, Franx Heinrich, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher (Bonn, 1883), 1:178Google Scholar.

²⁰ Browne, Thomas, Religio Medici [1643], in The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Sayle, Charles, (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1912), 1:16Google Scholar.  Francis Bacon had earlier said something similar, but without reference to Tertullian. See the translation of De augmentis scientarium in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, James, Ellis, Robert, and Heath, Douglas, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882), 9:346Google Scholar: “The more discordant and therefore incredible the Divine mystery is, the more honor is shown to God in believing it.”

²¹ The earliest reference seems to be Vinke, Peter, ΤΗΣ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ ἜΛΕΓΧΟΣ; or, The reason of faith briefly discuss'd (London, 1659), 28Google Scholar. There is a 1632 reference, in English, in a sermon of Sibbes, Richard: “Whereas one saith I believe because it is impossible, and too farre above reason” (Christs exaltation purchast by humiliation [London, 1639], 164)Google Scholar. But it is not clear that this is a reference to Tertullian. I am grateful to Dolly MacKinnon for drawing my attention to this reference.

²² Thomas Elborow directly links Tertullian's credo and the learning of the creed: A guide to the humble; or, An Exposition on the Common Prayer (London, 1675), 16Google Scholar.

²³ Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Beveridge, Henry (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 1: 9–10 Google Scholar.

²⁴ Freke, William, A Vindication of the Unitarians, Against a Late Reverend Author on the Trinity (London, 1687), 25Google Scholar.

²⁵ For exceptions, see Warmstry, Thomas, Suspiria Ecclesiae & reipublica Anglicanae (London, 1648), 509Google Scholar; Pierce, Thomas, A Decad of Caveats to the People of England of General Use in All Times (London, 1679), 436–437 Google Scholar; Long, Thomas, An Answer to a Socinian Treatise, Call'd The Naked Gospel (London, 1691), 39Google Scholar; Hopkins, Ezekiel, An Exposition on the Lord's Prayer with a Catechistical Explication Thereof (London, 1692), 296–297 Google Scholar; Vinke, The Reason of Faith, 28; Brownrig, Ralph, Twenty Five Sermons (London, 1664), 262Google Scholar. Significantly, all except Vinke and Brownrig reproduce the Tertullian quotation accurately.

²⁶ More, Henry, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (London, 1660), 459Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, Edward, Origines sacrae (London, 1662), 184–185 Google Scholar; Taylor, Jeremy, Symbolon theologikon, (London, 1674), 231Google Scholar; Norris, John, An Account of Reason & Faith in Relation to the Mysteries of Christianity (London, 1697), 255Google Scholar; Boyle Papers, 1:70, in Boyle on Atheism, ed. MacIntosh, J. J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 358Google Scholar; Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 4.18.11, ed. Nidditch, Peter H. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 696Google Scholar. For other negative assessments of the maxim, see Bury, Arthur, Not Fear, but Love (London, 1683), 46Google Scholar; Freke, William, A Vindication of the Unitarians (London, 1687), 25Google Scholar; Pett, Peter, preface to The Happy Future State of England (London, 1688)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Tillotson, John, A Sermon Concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature and the B. Trinity (London, 1693), 29Google Scholar.

²⁸ Smith, Thomas, Two Compendious Discourses (London, 1699), 12Google Scholar. For further examples, see Burgess, Anthony, Vindiciae legis (London, 1646), 76Google Scholar; Pendlebury, Henry, A Plain Representation of Transubstantiation (London, 1687), 44Google Scholar; Tillotson, John, “The Possibility of the Resurrection Asserted and Proved,” in The Works of Dr. John Tillotson (London, 1820), 8:326–328 Google Scholar.

²⁹ Some argued that Catholics were enthusiasts: Wharton, Harry, The Enthusiasm of the Church of Rome Demonstrated (London, 1688)Google Scholar.

³⁰ Kennett, White, A Letter from a Student at Oxford (London, 1681), 6–7 Google Scholar.

³¹ Jenyns, Soame, A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion (Dublin, 1786), 148Google Scholar.

³² Descartes, Meditations 4, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. Cottingham, John, Stoothoff, Robert, and Murdoch, Dugald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 2:37–43 Google Scholar.

³³ Descartes, Discourse 3, in Philosophical Writings, 1:122, 125.

³⁴ Harrison, Peter, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 105–108 Google Scholar; cf. Harrison, Peter, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 26–28 Google Scholar. See also Sorkin, David, The Religious Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 11–14 Google Scholar.

³⁵ Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Malcolm, Noel (Oxford: Clarendon, 2012), 2:102Google Scholar, cf. 3:576, 1142.

³⁶ Stillingfleet, Edward, A Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion (London, 1665), 203Google Scholar.

³⁷ Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 4.17.24, p. 687.

³⁸ Ibid. See also A Third Letter for Toleration, in The Works of John Locke, in Nine Volumes, 12th ed. (London: 1823) 6:152Google Scholar, 407; Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, ed. Fowler, Thomas, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1901), 6Google Scholar; Locke: A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, in Works of John Locke, 7:296. Revealed truths, for Locke, are “above reason” but not “against reason” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 4.18.9–10, pp. 695–696).

³⁹ Tomkins, Martin, A Sober Appeal to a Turk or Indian (London, 1722), 31Google Scholar; Addison, Joseph, Maxims, Observations, and Reflections: Moral, Political, and Divine (London, 1719–1720), 38Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ For the use of the paradox in anti-Trinitarian arguments and responses, see Nye, Stephen, Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity (London, 1693)Google Scholar; Sherlock, William, An Answer to a Late Dialogue (London, 1687)Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, Edward, The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation, 2nd ed. (London, 1688)Google Scholar, passim; Tillotson, Sermon Concerning the Unity of the Divine, 29–35; Whitby, Daniel, A Short View of Dr. Beveridge's Writings (London, 1711), 52Google Scholar. For the credo and miracles, see Thoughts on Miracles in General (London, 1767), 74Google Scholar.

⁴¹ In 1666, Jesuit author Jacques Noüet, writing in support of transubstantiation, reproduced the paradox in Latin and French, attributing to Marcion the view that doctrine of the Incarnation is “absurde, inconcevable & impossible”: La Presence de Iesus-Christ dans le Tres-Saint Sacrement (Paris 1666), 38Google Scholar. In 1681, Jacques Goussault offered a positive account of the paradox, giving the Latin original and a poetic reflection on it: Poësies et Pensées Chrétiennes (Paris, 1681), 88Google Scholar. Claude Lion, of the French Oratory, also cited the paradox in 1685, explaining its context and stressing that ineptus should be understood in terms of indignitas: Sermons sur les principaux mistères de Nostre Seigneur et de la Sainte Vierge (Lyon, 1685), 215–216 Google Scholar.

⁴² Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, 5th ed. (Amsterdam, 1740), 4:645Google Scholar: “Disons aussi que la Foi du plus haut prix est celle qui sur le témoignage divin embrasse les Véritez le plus opposees a la Raison.” The éclaircissements make their first appearance in the second edition of the Dictionnaire (1702).

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Matytsin, Anton, “Reason and Utility in French Religious Apologetics,” in God in the Enlightenment, ed. Bulman, William J. and Ingram, Robert R. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 63–82 Google Scholar, esp. 66–67.

⁴⁵ See, for example, Le Febvre, Julien Jacques, Bayle en petit (Douai, 1737)Google Scholar; Hayer, Jean-Nicolas-Hubert, La Religion vengée, ou Réfutation des auteurs impies (Paris, 1752), vol. 3, esp. 314Google Scholar. Cf. Duguet, Jacques Joseph, Traite de la croix de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Paris, 1733), 9:118–119 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ My emphasis. “Le celebre passage de Tertullien (de carne Christi) mortuus est Dei Filius, credibile est, quia ineptum est; & sepulcus revixit, certum est quia impossible [sic], est une saillie, qui ne peut être entendue que des apparences d'absurdité”: Essais de Théodicée, 2nd ed. (1710; Amsterdam, 1714), 60Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophiques (London, 1676), 1:204Google Scholar: “La foi consiste . . . à croire les choses parcequ'elles sont impossibles.”

⁴⁸ [Voltaire], Le Dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers par Mr. St. Hyacinte (Amsterdam, 1767), 18Google Scholar: “C'est pourtant ce ridicule que St. Augustin a trouvé divin; il disoit, je le crois parce que cela est absurd, je le crois parce que cela est impossible.” (It is, however, this very ridicule that Augustine thought divine. He said: I believe because it is absurd, I believe because it is impossible).

⁴⁹ A possible source of confusion is one of Augustine's remarks in a passage discussing Christ's resurrection that bears a superficial resemblance to the paradox ( City of God 22.5, Loeb Classical Library 411, trans. McCracken, George E. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957], 7: 188–189 Google Scholar): “If it is incredible, it is also certainly incredible that an incredible thing has thus been believed.” (Si autem res incredibilis credita est, etiam hoc utique incredibile est, sic creditum esse quod incredibile est).

⁵⁰ Voltaire, “Economy de Paroles,” in Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, 2nd ed. (London, 1771–1772), 5:62Google Scholar: “St. Augustin parle par économie quand il dit, Je crois parce que cela est absurde. Je crois parce que cela est impossible.” Cf. Voltaire's correspondence with D'Alembert, Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire avec des remarques etc. by sundry: Tome XXIV, Correspondence (Paris, 1832), 134Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Up until this point, the Essay had been known only from a few reviews and Locke's own brief French digest. See Bonno, Gabriel, La culture et la civilisation britanniques devant l'opinion française de la Paix d'Utrecht aux Lettres philosophiques (1713–1734) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1948), 80–96 Google Scholar; Hampton, J., “Les traductions françaises de Locke au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue de littérature compare 29 (1955): 240–251 Google Scholar.

⁵² Locke, John, Essai philosophique concernant l'entendement humain, trans. Coste, Pierre (Amsterdam, 1700), 903Google Scholar.

⁵³ Voltaire, Lettres Philosophique, ed. Taylor, F. A., 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961), 44Google Scholar: “Nos mystères ont beau être contraires à nos démonstrations, ils n'en sont pas moins révérés par les philosophes chrétiens, qui savent que les objets de la raison et de la foi sont de différente nature.” See also Gabriel Bonno, “The Diffusion and Influence of Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding in France before Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 91, no. 5 (1947): 421–425 Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Le Grande Dictionaire François-Latin (Rouen, 1609), 6, 491Google Scholar. Consequently, in early modern French, absurde and inepte could be used synonymously. I am grateful to the anonymous reader of Church History for this latter point. For examples, see Le Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé, s.v. “inepte,” accessed January 27, 2017, http://atilf.atilf.fr/.

⁵⁵ Traité De La Chair De Iésus-Christ, trans. Giry, Louis (Paris, 1661), 24Google Scholar: “Le Fils de Dieu est mort, c'est une chose que je trouve croyable, parce qu'elle résiste au sens humain. Le Fils de Dieu ayant ésté mis dans le tombeau est resuscité! Je croy que cela est vray parce que c'est une chose qui paroist impossible.” The 1844 edition reproduces these words (with some modernized spellings): Traité De La Chair De Jésus-Christ, trans. Charpentier, M., (Paris, 1844), 290Google Scholar. Les Pères de L’Église, trans. de Genoude, Eugène-Antoine (Paris, 1841), 6:399Google Scholar: “Le Fils de Dieu est mort: il faut le croire, parce que cela révolte ma raison: il est ressuscité du tombeau où il avait été enseveli; le fait est certain, parce qu'il est impossible.” In contrast, the twentieth-century French edition in the Sources Chrétiennes series uses “absurde”. Tertullien, La Chair du Christ, trans. Mahé, Jean-Peirre (Paris: Cerf, 1975), 1:229Google Scholar, but also offers explanations of how the passage should be interpreted, 1:183–184.

⁵⁶ Janin, Jules, Histoire de la littérature dramatique (Paris, 1853), 2:154Google Scholar. Other authors attribute the paradox to “un docteur,” “les docteurs de Rome,” and “un père de l’église.” Augustine was a doctor of the church; Tertullian was not. There is also an attribution to Blaise Pascal. Louis-Aimé Martin, The Education of Mothers of Families; Or, The Civilisation of the Human Race, trans. Lee, Edwin (London, 1842), 188Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Voltaire, “Original Sin,” in Philosophical Dictionary Part 4, in The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version; A Critique and Biography by John Morley, trans. Fleming, William F. (New York: E. R. DuMont, 1901), vol. 6Google Scholar, Online Library of Liberty: A Collection of Scholarly Works About Individual Liberty and Free Markets, accessed December 18, 2015, http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/355#Voltaire_0060-06_1378.

⁵⁸ English works typically ascribe authorship to Tertullian, presumably drawing upon the earlier Anglophone sources. However, the traces of Voltaire's influence on English letters are discernable into the nineteenth century, particularly in the periodical literature and in works translated from French and German. See, for example, The London Magazine (1828): 77; Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal 74 (1850): 400; Dublin Review 107 (1890): 64; Schleiden, Matthias Jacob, Principles of Scientific Botany (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1849), 232Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Salgues, J. B., Mélanges inédits de littérature de J. B. de La Harpe (Paris, 1810), 258Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Planche, Gustave, Salon de 1831 (Paris, 1831), 13Google Scholar: “Je crois, parce que cela est absurde; je crois, parce que je ne comprends pas; je crois parce que je ne sais pas; parce que d'autres se sont chargés de savoir et de comprendre pour moi.”

⁶¹ Décembre-Alonnier, Dictionnaire populaire illustré d'histoire, de géographie, de biographie, de technologie, de mythologie, d'antiquités, des beaux-arts et de littérature, 2nd ed.(Paris, [1861]), s.v. “Dogme,” 2:846.

⁶² Blanc, Auguste, Histoire des conspirations et des exécutions politiques (Paris, 1846), 2:65Google Scholar.

⁶³ See n50. For the Morning-Chronicle reference see Journal des débats et des décrets, October 15, 1804, p. 2.

⁶⁴ Bailleul, Jacques-Charles, Dictionnaire critique du langage politique, gouvernemental, civil, administratif et judiciaire de notre époque (Paris, 1842), 652Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Franck, Adolphe, Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques (Paris, 1845)Google Scholar, s.v. “Foi,” 2:433.

⁶⁶ See for example, Buchez, Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin, Essai d'un traité complet de philosophie, du point de vue du catholicisme et du progress (Paris, 1840), 3:54Google Scholar; Renan, Ernest, Études d'histoire religieuse (Paris, 1857), 410Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ de Flotte, Gaston, Bévues parisiennes, les journaux, les revues, les livres (Marseille, 1860), 92–93 Google Scholar; de Flotte, , Bévues parisiennes, série 2 (Marseille, 1868), 165, 204Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Examples of Italian references, all identifying Augustine as the source, include: Castellazzo, Luigi, Tito Vezio, ovvero Roma cento anni avanti l'era cristiana racconto storico (Firenze, 1867), 363Google Scholar; Trombetta, Paolo, Donatello (Rome: Ermanno Loescher & Company, 1887), 161Google Scholar; La Rassegna Nazionale 83 (1895): 422. For an attempt to correct the common misattribution see: La Cività cattolica (Rome, 1860), 8:474Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Krug, Wilhelm Traugott, Allgemeines Handwörterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1827), 1:461Google Scholar. Other German sources include Rebmann, Andreas Georg Friedrich, Ein Gemählde menschlicher Sitten, Vorurtheile, Thorheiten, Laster, etc. etc. (Leipzig, 1795), 268–269 Google Scholar; Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, October 1825, 2; Magazin für philosophische, medizinische, und gerichtliche Seelenkunde (Wurzburg, 1839), 4:25Google Scholar. All attribute the saying to Augustine except Rebmann, who identifies the author as “a monk with a burnt brain.”

⁷⁰ See, for example, Maunter, Thomas, The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, (London: Penguin, 2000)Google Scholar, s.v. “credo quia absurdum,” 116; Dictionary of Philosophical Terms: English-German, ed. Waibl, Elmar and Herdina, Philip (London: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar, s.v. “credo quia absurdum (est),”  84; Stone, Jon R., The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (New York: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar, s.v. “credo quia absurdum (est),” 146; Bunnin, Nicholas, ed., Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)Google Scholar, s.v. “Fideism,” 255; Penelhum, Terrence, “Fideism,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Quinn, Philip L. and Taliaferro, Charles (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 379Google Scholar; Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, ed. Dent, Susie, 19th ed. (Edinburgh: Chambers, 2012)Google Scholar, s.v. “credo quia impossibile, an alternative version is credo quia absurdum est,” 322. Older dictionaries and handbooks include: Büchmann, Georg, Geflügelte worte: Der citatenschatz des deutschen volks (Berlin, 1872)Google Scholar, s.v. “Credo quia absurdum,” 171 (includes the correct Latin original); Wilhelm Windelband, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1903), 184Google Scholar; The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words and Phrases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892)Google Scholar, s.v. “Credo quia impossibile” (“ascribed to S. Augustine, but may be based on Tertullian”), 293.

⁷¹ Blackburn, Simon, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar, s.v. “credo quia absurdum est,” 88.

⁷² Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion (London: Hogarth Press, 1928), 49–50 Google Scholar.

⁷³ Weckovicz, T. E. and Weckovicz, H. P. Liebel, The History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990), 38Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ King, D. Brett, Woody, William Douglas, and Viney, Wayne, A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2016), 80Google Scholar. Cf. Bret, George Sidney, A History of Psychology (1921; repr., London: Routledge, 2002), 197Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ Colvin, Stephen S., “The Common-Sense View of Reality,” The Philosophical Review 11, no. 2 (1902): 139–151, 143Google Scholar: “In the last period of Greek philosophy the human race sought refuge in divine certainty, typified by Tertullian's credo quia absurdum.” There followed medieval philosophy with its “dogmatism and poor logic.” Cf. Hales, Steven D., This is Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 65Google Scholar; Lundskow, George, The Sociology of Religion: A Substantive and Transdisciplinary Approach (London: Sage, 2008), 4–5 Google Scholar; Wilson, Robert, Astronomy through the Ages (London: Taylor and Francis, 1937), 30Google Scholar: Tertullian represents “the fundamental conflict between the Christian religion and science which was to continue for centuries.” Cf. Barnes, Michael Horace, Understanding Religion and Science: Introducing the Debate (London: Continuum, 2010), 1, 16Google Scholar. For philosophical dictionary references, see n61.

⁷⁶ Cassirer, Ernst, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 180Google Scholar. Cf. An Essay on Man (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1944), 72Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ See, for example, Brooke, John Hedley, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Numbers, Ronald L., ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Harrison, Territories of Science and Religion.

⁷⁸ Draper, John William, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (New York: Appleton, 1898), 45Google Scholar. Draper does not specifically reference the credo.

⁷⁹ White, A. D., History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (London: Macmillan, 1896), 2:230Google Scholar; Darwin, Charles, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (London: Collins, 1958), 57Google Scholar; Huxley, Thomas Henry, “Agnosticism,” in The Nineteenth Century 25, no. 144 (February 1889): 169–194 Google Scholar, esp. 176; Huxley's article is reproduced in Huxley, Collected Essays (London: Macmillan, 1894), 5:224Google Scholar. See also Seeley, John Robert, Natural Religion (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882), 77Google Scholar; “Religion and Physical Science,” The Nineteenth Century and After 52 (1902): 954Google Scholar; Shoman, Shlomo, Art, Myth and Deviance (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2006), 25Google Scholar, in which Augustine is credited with the credo.

⁸⁰ Weber, Max, “Science as a Vocation,” in The Vocation Lectures (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004), 29Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Dawkins, Richard, The Devil's Chaplain (New York: Mariner Books, 2004), 139Google Scholar; Hitchens, Christopher, God is not Great (New York: Twelve, 2007), 260Google Scholar; Coyne, Jerry A., Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (New York: Viking, 2015), 68Google Scholar. Interestingly, Dawkins and Coyne both correctly cite the original. But Dawkins goes on to give the standard “because it is absurd” version, while Coyne also immediately glosses the original thus: “to believe in something because it is absurd.” Cf. Boghossian, Peter, A Manual for Creating Atheists (Durham: Pitchstone, 2013), 34–35 Google Scholar.

⁸² Jung, C. G., Psychological Types, trans. Adler, Gerhard and Hull, R. F. C. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 12–16 Google Scholar. Cf. Labhardt, A., “Tertullien et al philosophie ou la recherche d'une ‘position pure,’” Museum Helveticum 7, no. 3 (1950): 159–180 Google Scholar; Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” 29–30.

⁸³ Gilson, Etienne, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939), 10–15 Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Augustine takes nisi credideritus, non intelligetis from Isa. 7:9 (Septuagint). Cited inter alia in De libero arbitrio 1.2; De magistro 1.1; De doctrina christiana 2.12.17.  Fides quaerens intellectum was the original title of Anselm's Proslogion.

⁸⁵ Kretzmann, Norman, “Reason in Mystery,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 25 (1989): 15–39 Google Scholar, esp. 20. For similar divisions which reference Tertullian's credo, see Skirbekk, Gunnar and Gilje, Nils, A History of Western Thought: From Ancient Greece to the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2001), 116Google Scholar; Navia, Luis E., The Adventure of Philosophy (Westport: Praeger, 1999), 137Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Plantinga, Alvin, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 54 (1980): 49–63 Google Scholar; Wolterstorff, Nicholas, “The Reformed Tradition,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Quinn, Philip and Taliaferro, Charles (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 165–170 Google Scholar. This position should not be confused with fideism.

⁸⁷ Edelstein, Dan, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ See, for example, Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1962)Google Scholar; Harrison, Territories of Science and Religion; Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions; Nongbri, Brent, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Bossy, John, “Some Elementary Forms of Durkheim,” Past and Present 95 (1982): 3–18 Google Scholar; Lash, Nicholas, The Beginning and End of ‘Religion’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.