Apologeticus - Authorship

Authorship

Not much is known about the life of Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullian. Some scholars believe him to have been a presbyter (priest) of the Catholic Church, the son of a Roman centurion, and have him training to be a lawyer in Rome. Others, like David Wright, find that to be highly improbably. “No firm evidence places him in Rome at all, or for that matter anywhere outside of Carthage… It is in the well-educated circles in Carthage,” Wright argues, “that Tertullian most securely belongs”. Sometime after his conversion to the Christian faith, Tertullian left the Catholic Church in favor of the Montanist movement, which he remained a part of for at least 10–15 years of his active life and whose influence can be seen in many of his later works.