Tertullian sometimes wrote in Latin and is regarded as the first of the Latin fathers. He was a brilliant and outstanding rhetorician, full of enthusiasm and rugged eloquence. He was a born debater with a supreme command of language: "When we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by God (...) I hear that there has been an edict set forth, and a peremptory one too. The Sovereign Pontiff! - the Bishop of Bishops...