Tertullian (/tərˈtʌliən/; Latin: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; c. 155 – c. 220 AD[1]) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa.

[11] Scant reliable evidence exists regarding Tertullian's life; most knowledge comes from passing references in his own writings.

Roman Africa was famous as the home of orators, and that influence can be seen in his writing style with its archaisms or provincialisms, its glowing imagery and its passionate temper.

[12][13] The linguist René Braun suggested that he was of Punic origin but acknowledged that it is difficult to decide since the heritage of Carthage had become common to the Berbers.

[16] Jerome claimed that Tertullian's father held the position of centurio proconsularis ("aide-de-camp") in the Roman army in Africa.

[a] Tertullian has also been thought to be a lawyer, based on his use of legal analogies and on an identification of him with the jurist Tertullianus, who is quoted in the Pandects.

[20] In his middle life (about 207), he was attracted to the "New Prophecy" of Montanism, but today most scholars reject the assertion that Tertullian left the mainstream church or was excommunicated.

Since no ancient writer was more definite (if not indeed fanatical) on this subject of schism than Saint Cyprian, the question must surely be answered in the negative.

By the doctrinal works he published, Tertullian became the teacher of Cyprian and the predecessor of Augustine, a key figure of western theology.

Tertullian's writings cover the whole theological field of the time – apologetics against paganism and Judaism, polemics, polity, discipline, and morals, or the whole reorganization of human life on a Christian basis; they gave a picture of the religious life and thought of the time which is of great interest to the church historian.

Like other early Christian writers Tertullian used the term paganus to mean "civilian" as a contrast to the "soldiers of Christ".

In his work against Marcion, which he calls his third composition on the Marcionite heresy, he gives its date as the fifteenth year of the reign of Severus (Adv.

Hermogenem, De praescriptione hereticorum, and Scorpiace were written to counteract Gnosticism and other religious or philosophical doctrines.

Tertullian was the first to disprove charges that Christians sacrificed infants at the celebration of the Lord's Supper and committed incest.

The five books against Marcion, written in 207 or 208, are the most comprehensive and elaborate of his polemical works, invaluable for gauging the early Christian view of Gnosticism.

[31][c] He says that all things of the Father belong also to the Son, including his names, such as Almighty God, Most High, Lord of Hosts, or King of Israel.

Kelly stated: "Tertullian followed the Apologists in dating His 'perfect generation' from His extrapolation for the work of creation; prior to that moment God could not strictly be said to have had a Son, while after it the term 'Father', which for earlier theologians generally connoted God as author of reality, began to acquire the specialized meaning of Father of the Son.

"[35] As regards the subjects of subordination of the Son to the Father, the New Catholic Encyclopedia has commented: "In not a few areas of theology, Tertullian's views are, of course, completely unacceptable.

Thus, for example, his teaching on the Trinity reveals a subordination of Son to Father that in the later crass form of Arianism the Church rejected as heretical.

[37][38][39] Tertullian advises the postponement of baptism of little children and the unmarried, he mentions that it was customary to baptise infants, with sponsors speaking on their behalf.

[44] He believed that the people who committed grave sins, such as sorcery, fornication and murder, should not be let inside the church.

[46] Tertullian did not have a specific listing of the canon; however, he quotes 1 John, 1 Peter, Jude, Revelation, the Pauline epistles and the four Gospels.

[58] He believed in historic premillennialism: that Christians will go through a period of tribulation, to be followed by a literal 1000-year reign of Christ.

[68] There exists differences of opinion on Tertullianists; Augustine seems to have believed that Tertullian, soon after joining the Montanists, started his own sect derived from Montanism, while some scholars believe that Augustine was in error, and that Tertullianists was simply an alternative name of North African Montanism and not a separate sect.

[69][70] Tertullian was an advocate of discipline and an austere code of practise, and like many of the African fathers, one of the leading representatives of the rigorist element in the early Church.

His views may have led him to adopt Montanism with its ascetic rigor and its belief in chiliasm and the continuance of the prophetic gifts.

Geoffrey D. Dunn writes that "Some of Tertullian's treatises reveal that he had much in common with Montanism ... To what extent, if at all, this meant that he joined a group that was schismatic (or, to put it another way, that he left the church) continues to be debated".

He praised the unmarried state as the highest (De monogamia, xvii; Ad uxorem, i.3) and called upon Christians not to allow themselves to be excelled in the virtue of celibacy by Vestal Virgins and Egyptian priests.

He even labeled second marriage a species of adultery (De exhortatione castitatis, ix), but this directly contradicted the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.

[77] Tertullian's writings are edited in volumes 1–2 of the Patrologia Latina, and modern texts exist in the Corpus Christianorum Latinorum.