Speaking of the Latin translation of the New Testament as found in Tertullian he says: 'Although single portions of this, especially passages which are translated in several different ways, may be due to Tertullian himself, still it cannot be doubted that in by far the majority of cases he has followed the text of a version received in his time by the Africans and specially the Carthaginian Christians, and made perhaps long before his time, and that consequently his quotations represent the form of the earliest Latinized Scriptures accepted in those regions' [Endnote 320:2].
Again: 'In the first place we may conclude from the writings of Tertullian, that remarkable Carthaginian presbyter at the close of the second century, that in his time there existed several, perhaps many, Latin translations of the Bible ...

Tertullian himself frequently quotes in his writings one and the same passage of Scripture in entirely different forms, which indeed in many cases may be explained by his quoting freely from memory, but certainly not seldom has its ground in the diversity of the translations used at the time' [Endnote 321:1].

On this last point, the unity of the Old Latin version, there is a difference of opinion among scholars, but none as to its date.

Thus Dr.Tregelles writes: 'The expressions of Tertullian have been rightly rested on as showing that he knew and recognised _one translation_, and that this version was in several places (in his opinion) opposed to what was found "in Graeco authentico." This version must have been made a sufficiently long time before the age when Tertullian wrote, and before the Latin translator of Irenaeus, for it to have got into general circulation.

This leads us back _towards_ the middle of the second century at the latest: how much _earlier_ the version may have been we have no proof; for we are already led back into the time when no records tell us anything respecting the North African Church' [Endnote 321:2].