The North African theologian and apologist Tertullian (ca. 160-ca. 220) was the founder of Latin Christian theology. The first major Christian writer to use the Latin language, he gave to Latin Christian thought a decidedly legal stamp. Born Quintus...

Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens(C. 160 a,...

TERTULLIAN (160?–225?), Quintus Septimius Florens, first Christian theologian to write extensively in Latin. An African, Tertullian laid the foundations for Western theology through the range of issues he addressed and his precise formulations....

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian, (ca. 160–235)[1] was a church leader and prolific author of Early Christianity. He also was a notable early Christian apologist. Tertullian, a Romanized African,[2] was born, lived and...

Must we keep dragging out Tertullian's Quid Athenae Hierosolymis?--"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"--as the quintessence of narrowness and intellectual intolerance (A.J. Conyers, "Rescuing Tolerance," August/September)? We fail thereby to do justice to a trenchant question and to an able and engaging...

By David Rankin. New York: Cambridge University 1995. Pp xvii + 229. $54.95. Rankin, of Trinity Theological College in Brisbane, carries forward into ecclesiology some recent appreciative scholarship on Tertullian. His thesis is clear, important, and closely argued: Tertullian maintained throughout his...

In the following essay, Barnes argues that Tertullian's Scorpiace was composed in 203-04, rather than during his post-207 Montanist period, as many scholars have contended.

In the following excerpt, Osborn observes the essential importance of simplicity, founded on the perfection of Christ, in Tertullian's thought.

In the following excerpt, Le Saint discusses and compares Tertullian's two treatises on the subject of Christian penitence—De pudicitia and De paenitentia.