Tertullian

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

Lived

c. 155–c. 220

Era

The fathers

Where

Carthage, North Africa

Tradition

The apostolic communities

The first great Christian writer in Latin

A Carthaginian of formidable rhetorical training who wrote the first substantial body of Christian theology in Latin, and in later life joined the rigorist Montanist movement in protest at what he saw as laxity in the church.

Why it matters

He gave Latin theology its vocabulary, coining or fixing trinitas, persona and substantia — the words the doctrine of the Trinity is still stated in. He argued that the state has no business compelling belief, which is the earliest clear statement of religious liberty. His temperament is inseparable from his achievement: much of what is quotable in him is also unfair, and he ended outside the church he had armed.

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.