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Tertullian, a lay theologian from Carthage, North Africa,was perhaps the most important theologian in the Western Church at the end of the second century. He had been trained in Stoic philosophy, rhetoric and possibly law, when he converted to Christianity in Rome, at the age of 40. He returned to North Africa, and used his literary skill to defend the Christian community against their persecutors.
Tertullian set the North African church on a rigorous and uncompromising path. He believed that once a seeker has found the truth, it is time to stop any further seeking, and simply to believe that truth. He vigorously opposed mixing the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition into Christian theological thinking, or using Greek or Roman concepts to help understand the truths of Christianity. He condemned "all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition." (Against Heretics) Such attempts led him to the rhetorical question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" He believed that Christians should rely only on the bible as a source for their thinking.
Tertullian was, however, very much a practicing theologian. He was the first theologian to articulate the theology of the Trinity, and was an early proponent of the idea of an "inherited flaw" in the human soul. In both instances he held that he was merely delving into the meaning of the Bible, and not bringing in foreign pagan Greco-Roman elements.
TertullianŐs moral rigorism led him out of the orthodox church towards the end of his life, and into the Montanist movement. That same moral rigor continued to shape the North African church after his death. Both Cyprian and the Donatists drew from his attitudes, both to culture, in rejecting Greco-Roman thinking, and in their veneration of the persecuted martyrs.
This page was based on the following sources, which you can consult for more detailed information:
Start with the Tertullian homepage at http://www.chieftainsys.demon.co.uk/tertullian/
The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity , edited by John McManners (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993) pp 49-50
Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity (New York: Harper & Row, 1984) I: 73-75 Both have good summaries of TertullianŐs life, work and influence.
For his Writings, start with http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/ and find his name in their index.