TERTULAN. Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullian, c. A.D. 160-c. 240, was born probably at Carthage, the son of a centurion in the service of the proconsul of Africa. He became an advocate in the Roman Law Courts and is usually identified with the jurist Tertullian. Converted to Christianity c. 195, he became an instructor to catechumen at Carthage. He gradually became attracted to the Montanist heresy, and c. 212 or 213 he broke with the church. There is no evidence that he returned before he died. Married, he confessed that he committed adultery repeatedly. He is still regarded as the greatest Christian writer in the West before Augustine, and thirty-one authentic treatises are extant. Whether he became a priest is still a matter of dispute. His tract, De monogamia, written c. 217 for the Montanists, stigmatizes all second marriages as adultery. In direct contrast with this tract and in opposition to it is Ad uxorem, written earlier, c. 200, addressed to his wife. Here he asserts that second marriage is no sin (NCE XIII:1019-1022).

Jankyn's anthology contains one of Tertullian's tracts, WBP 676, most likely De monogamia, which is against second marriages. [Alisoun³: Jankyn²]