‘We also are religious and our religion is simple’, objected the Roman proconsul to the martyr Speratus, at his trial near Carthage on 17 July 180. ‘If you will listen calmly’, replied Speratus, ‘I shall tell you the mystery of simplicity.’ Tertullian was not the only African who liked paradox. Speratus claims simplicity for Christians rather than pagans. He counters the accusation that Christians are secret and sinister, by asserting that their secret is simplicity. He draws on the New Testament account of the mystery of salvation. The writer to the Ephesians had been concerned to tell the nations of the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light ‘the economy of the mystery which has been hidden from all ages in the God who created all things’ (Eph. 3.9). The church declares to heavenly powers the manifold (πολυποíκιλος) wisdom of God (Eph. 3.10), which is the divine mystery. The end of salvation, the vision of Christ and the church present a great mystery (Eph. 5.32).

Tertullian's lust for simplicity, supported by superlatives, persists throughout his work and is a good place to begin a study of his thought. A fine exposition, which begins ‘Tertullien déconcerte’, goes on to insist that Tertullian took a simple and total choice when he became a Christian and that his complexity comes from his earlier intellectual formation; whether a study of his thought begins from either simplicity or complexity, it will discover a profound unity.