ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the intricacies of Tertullian's arguments, establishing his place in the world of second-century rhetoric, his local surroundings, and the format in which he normally presented his ideas. The influence of rhetoric must be fully acknowledged in order to understand how and why Tertullian chose to discuss the unborn child in his writings. Scholars focusing upon Tertullian have long recognised that he is best interpreted as an author of rhetoric. It is often said that by Tertullian's period, Latin rhetoric had more or less given way to the Greek literary phenomenon known as the Second Sophistic movement. The low rate of survival for second-century Latin sources perhaps owes more to the selective interests of medieval copyists, rather than an actual decline in Latin letters. Tertullian's home province of North Africa had an especially strong tradition of education in Latin rhetoric.
