Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian, the African Church Father, was born in Carthage and was converted to Christianity about 193. He made early use of his training in rhetoric and Roman law in two apologetic works, Ad Nationes and Apologeticum, written in 197. These owe much to earlier Greek Christian apologies and to the writings of Varro, an Augustan polymath who analyzed religion along Stoic lines; Ad Nationes seems to have been a first draft of the Apologeticum. Tertullian was the first Christian theologian to write in Latin, and most of his works deal with moral and theological issues; all contain elements of polemic either against various aspects of Greco-Roman culture or against Christian heresies. Tertullian's works can be dated by cross-references, allusions to current events, and by his gradual movement toward the ascetic-apocalyptic sect of the Montanists, advocates...