TERTUL'LIAN (Lat. Tertullianus). QUIN TUS SEPTteIUS FLORENS (horn before 100. died after 220). One of the earliest Latin Church Fathers. a prolific writer, and the creator of ecclesiastical Latinity. He was born in Car thage, of heathen parentage. and trained for the profession of the law, which lie practiced in Rome. Becoming a convert to Christianity shortly before the end of the second century, he returned to Carthage, lie was made pres byter and spent the rest of his life. About the year 203 Tertullian became a Alontanist. and he was thenceforth unsparingly severe in his views of ecclesiastical discipline and in his judgments upon the alleged moral laxity of the `psychics,'as Ile called the members of the Catholic Church. No other figure in the early Church stands out so distinctly as does this Carthaginian lawyer priest. His intensity of character, alert intel lect, blunt speech, keen satire, dialectical skill, moral strenuousness, and bitter partisanship, all combine to render him a marked personality. It was no doubt largely the result of his train ing that the expression of Tertullian's views was made in such a form as to imprint upon Western theology a legalistic character which it never lost, and which, through Augustine, passed over into Protestantism, He enjoys the further distinction of being the first to formulate in Latin the principles by which Catholic o•tho doxy could infallibly be known. His Prescription of Heretics, for the clearness with which it enunciates these principles, has not improperly been described as 'a classic.' Were it not for his Alontanist errors, Tertullian would rank among the greatest of the Latin Fathers. The
time and circumstances of his death are un known ; there is no trace of, him after about the year 220.
Among his many writings, the best known is the .1 poloyy, written probably in 197. It is a splendid vindication of the Christians against the attacks and false charges of the heathen world. His polemical zeal was further directed against Jews and heretics, e.g. in his To the Kations, Against the .Jells, Against J!ureion, Against the Valentinians, and Against Praxras, the last named being especially valuable for the history of doctrine. He wrote many tracts on subjects connected with morals and chnrelt dis cipline, e.g. On Baptism, Penance, Prayer, Pa tience, Idolatry, and Shows. His characteristic strictness comes out even more strikingly in such works as those on IVomei's Apparel, The Veiling of Virgins, .lhnoynm1/, The Exhortation to Chas tity, and Fasting. Consult: Rainy, The Ancient Catholic Church (New York, 1902) ; Simcox, History of Latin. Literature (London, 1883) ; Cruttwell, Literary History of Ecn•ly Christian ity (ib., 1893) ; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hi.sto•y of Roman Literature, translated by Warr (ib., 1900) ; Ebert, Geschie/te dcr Litteratur des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1889). The Works of Tertullian are published in the Corpus rum Erctesia.stieornm Latino•aa,n tom. xx., ed. by Beifferscheid and Wissowa (Vienna, 1890) ; an English translation will be fond in The Ante-Yicene Library, American ed., vole. iii. and iv. (New York, 18,95 et seq.).