Tertullian the Presbyter

Tertullian the presbyter, now counted the chief of the Latin writers after Victor and Apollonius, came from the city of Carthage in the province of Africa, and was the son of a proconsul, or centurion. He was a man of keen and forceful character. He flourished chiefly in the reign of the emperor Severus and of Antoninus Caracalla, and he wrote many volumes, which we pass over because most people know them well. I myself have seen a certain Paul, an old man of Concordia, a town in Italy, who as a very young man had been secretary to the blessed Cyprian, when Cyprian was already well on in years. He said that he had seen for himself how Cyprian never let a day go by without reading Tertullian, and how he often said to him, “Give me the master,” meaning Tertullian. He was a presbyter of the church until middle life. Afterward, driven by the envy and the insults of the clergy of the Roman church, he fell away to the teaching of Montanus, and he mentions the new prophecy in many of his books. [a] Moreover, he wrote volumes aimed directly against the church: On Modesty, On Persecution, On Fasts, On Monogamy, six books On Ecstasy, and a seventh, which he wrote Against Apollonius. He is said to have lived to a feeble old age and to have written many short works that no longer survive. [c]