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Life

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. He was a scholar with an excellent education. He wrote at least three books in Koine Greek. In them, he refers to himself, but none of them are extant.

Some sources describe him as Berber. 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. Tertullian's own understanding of his ethnicity has been questioned. He referred to himself as Poenicum inter Romanos (lit. ' Punic among Romans ') in his book De Pallio and claimed Africa as his patria. According to church tradition, Tertullian was raised in Carthage and was thought to be the son of a Roman centurion. Tertullian has been claimed to have been a trained lawyer and an ordained priest. Those assertions rely on the accounts of Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, II, ii. 4, and Jerome 's De viris illustribus (On famous men) chapter 53. Jerome claimed that Tertullian's father held the position of centurio proconsularis ("aide-de-camp") in the Roman army in Africa.

Further, Tertullian has 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. Although Tertullian used a knowledge of Roman law in his writings, his legal knowledge does not demonstrably exceed what could be expected from a sufficient Roman education. The writings of Tertullianus, a lawyer of the same agnomen, exist only in fragments and do not explicitly denote a Christian authorship. Finally, any notion of Tertullian being a priest is also questionable. In his extant writings, he never describes himself as ordained in the church and seems to place himself among the laity.

His conversion to Christianity perhaps took place about 197–198 (cf. Adolf Harnack, Bonwetsch, and others), but its immediate antecedents are unknown except as they are conjectured from his writings. The event must have been sudden and decisive, transforming at once his own personality. He writes that he could not imagine a truly Christian life without such a conscious breach, a radical act of conversion: "Christians are made, not born" (Apol., xviii). Two books addressed to his wife confirm that he was married to a Christian wife.

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. "e are left to ask whether Saint Cyprian could have regarded Tertullian as his master if Tertullian had been a notorious schismatic. 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."

In the time of Augustine, a group of "Tertullianists" still had a basilica in Carthage, which within the same period passed to the orthodox church. It is unclear whether the name was merely another for the North African Montanists or that it means that Tertullian later split with the Montanists and founded his own group.

Jerome says that Tertullian lived to old age. By the doctrinal works he published, Tertullian became the teacher of Cyprian and the predecessor of Augustine, who in turn became the chief founder of Latin theology.