Uncanny Min/ajorities: On Tertullian’s Bluffing with Numbers

According to highly conjectural estimates, at the beginning of the 4th century Christ religion is a cult practiced by the 10% of the empire’s total population. It is no doubt a minority religion. Furthermore, for most believers, Christian religious identity results in a situational membership that can be neither relevant nor salient in most social settings and contexts of everyday life. Supposing and advertising an imperative idea of religious allegiance, “maximalist” literate believers like Tertullian represent the majority of the extant sources, but they were a tiny minority in their societies. Given its minimal absolute numbers, the only way such a minority of a minority can pass herself off as a social force is by rhetorically turning its objective weakness into a virtual asset. This paper focuses on the rhetorical strategy whereby, throughout his Apology, Tertullian oscillates between majority’s threats and minority’s pleas. The uncanny representation of the social desertion and spatial withdrawal of many hitherto respectable Christians, suddenly acting as an outraged mass of mutineers, turns into a cheering pledge: a curia of virtues and pious people cannot but abide by the rules of the social game, thus deserving a political guarantee for a safe religious life.