TERTULLIAN

born c. 155, /160, Carthage [now in Tunisia] died after 220, , Carthage Latin in full Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus important early Christian theologian, polemicist, and moralist who, as the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin, was instrumental in shaping the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity. Additional reading For a complete listing of Tertullian's works, see Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 2, pp. 246319 (1953), with extensive bibliography. Editions of his work appear in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 20 (1890), a Corpus Christianorum, 2 vol. (195354), the latter with bibliography. English translations of all his works are in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 and 4 (186970, reprinted 1957). Modern English translations of individual treatises are by Ernest Evans, William P. Le Saint, and others in the various series of translations of the Fathers. For continuing bibliography, see the annual listing in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Bibliographia Patristica. For a more recent study that considers anew the evidence of his life and the chronology of his writings, disputing the opinions of many modern scholars, see Timothy D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (1971).