who said " "the church was founded on the blood of the martyrs"?

Question

It would help to have the original author/person of the quote as I am trying to write a paper on the subject.

thanks,
Chris

Answer 1

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicized as Tertullian, (ca. 155–230) was a church leader and prolific author during the early years of Christianity. He was born, lived, and died in Carthage, in what is today Tunisia.

Tertullian denounced Christian doctrines he considered heretical, but later in life adopted views that came to be regarded as heretical themselves. He was the first great writer of Latin Christianity, thus sometimes known as the "father of the Latin Church.

Tertullian was the first to break the force of such charges as that the Christians sacrificed infants at the celebration of the Lord's Supper and committed incest; he pointed to the commission of such crimes in the pagan world, and then proved by the testimony of Pliny that Christians pledged themselves not to commit murder, adultery, or other crimes; he adduced also the inhumanity of pagan customs, such as feeding the flesh of gladiators to beasts. The gods have no existence, and thus there is no pagan religion against which Christians may offend. Christians do not engage in the foolish worship of the emperors; they do better, they pray for them. Christians can afford to be put to torture and to death, and the more they are cast down the more they grow; "In the blood of the martyrs lies the seed of the Church" (Apologeticum, 1).

In the De Praescriptione he develops as its fundamental idea that, in a dispute between the Church and a separating party, the whole burden of proof lies with the latter, as the Church, in possession of the unbroken tradition, is by its very existence a guarantee of its truth.

In his Apologeticus, he was the first Latin author to qualify Christianism as the 'vera religio', and symmetrically relegating the classical Empire religion and other accepted cults as mere 'superstitiones'. Tertullian left the Church of Rome late in his life and joined the heterodox Montanists, thus explaining his failure to attain sainthood.

Answer 2

Check out Tertullian, who probably said instead, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church".