"In the latter part of the second and in the former part of the third century there flourished at Carthage the famous Tertullian, the first Latin writer of the church whose works are come down to us. All his writings betray a sour, monastic, harsh, and severe turn of mind. "Touch not, taste not, handle not," might seem to have been the maxims of his religious conduct. The abilities of Tertullian, as an orator and a scholar, are far from being contemptible, and have doubtless given him a reputation to which his theological knowledge by no means entitles him...

In this work Tertullian defends Christianity, demanding legal toleration and that Christians be treated as all other sects of the Roman Empire. His most famous apologetic work, written in Carthage in the summer or autumn of AD 197.