160–220

Tertullian of Carthage – founder of Latin theology

Tertullian, a Carthaginian with a brilliant rhetorical and probably legal education, came to Christ as an adult (before 197) and became the first major Christian writer in Latin. North Africa, not Rome, was the cradle of Latin theological language.

In the Apology (197) and the Prescription against Heretics he defended the faith before pagans and denied heretics the right to interpret Scripture. Around 207 he joined the Montanists because of their moral strictness. This was not a break with orthodoxy, but it set him apart from the "psychic" Christians and gave rise to his own group of "Tertullianists." In the Montanist period he wrote the treatise Against Praxeas, aimed at the modalist Praxeas, and introduced into Latin the terms "Trinity," "substance" and "person."