Prescription against Heretics

Contents

1. 1Christians should not be astonished that heresies exist and are strong, since they were foretold and serve to test faith.
2. 2Like fever, heresies should be avoided rather than admired; they are strong only against weak faith, as a boxer wins only against a weak opponent.
3. 3The fall of prominent Christians proves nothing for heresy: even Saul, David, Solomon, and an apostle fell; persons are tested by the faith, not the faith by persons.
4. 4Christ and the apostles foretold heresies as wolves in sheep's clothing; they exist so that the approved may be shown, and “test all things” does not justify changing one's faith.
5. 5In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul ranks heresies with schisms and dissensions as evils against unity, so those who turn to heresy are not thereby approved.
6. 6Paul condemns heresy, which means “choice”; Christians may choose nothing of their own but hold to what the apostles received from Christ, even against an angel.
7. 7Heresies draw their questions and doctrines from philosophy; Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem, and after Christ and the gospel no further inquiry is needed.
8. 8“Seek and you will find” was spoken early in Christ's ministry chiefly to the Jews, who had the law and prophets to seek him in; Christians receive the teaching through the apostles.
9. 9Christ taught one definite thing, which is to be sought until found, then believed and kept, with no further seeking.
10. 10Seeking has a matter, a time, and a limit: one seeks what Christ taught until one finds and believes it; otherwise every heretic's appeal would keep one seeking forever.
11. 11No one seeks what he already has; like the woman with the lost coin, the neighbor at night, and the widow, the believer stops seeking once he has found.
12. 12If seeking is still needed, it must be done within the church and without harm to the rule of faith, never among heretics.
13. 13Tertullian states the rule of faith: one Creator God, his Word and Son born of the virgin Mary, crucified, risen, ascended, sending the Spirit, and coming to judge, with the resurrection of the flesh.
14. 14Within the rule of faith one may inquire freely, but faith, not skill in Scripture, saves; heretics who claim still to be seeking are not yet believers, and conferring with them only leads the blind into the pit.
15. 15Since heretics appeal to Scripture, the first question must be to whom the Scriptures belong; those who have no right to them are not to be admitted to argue from them.
16. 16Paul forbids disputing with heretics and allows only a single rebuke, and arguing over Scripture with them achieves nothing.
17. 17Heretics reject, mutilate, or misinterpret Scripture, so arguing from it with them gains nothing.
18. 18A doubter who watches such a dispute leaves more uncertain, since each side accuses the other of corrupting Scripture.
19. 19The first question is not what Scripture says but to whom the faith and the Scriptures belong; where the true faith is, there are the true Scriptures and interpretation.
20. 20Christ sent the apostles, who founded churches in every city; all later churches derive from these and so are apostolic, united in peace, brotherhood, and hospitality by the one tradition.
21. 21Only the preachers Christ sent are to be received, and their teaching is proved by agreement with the churches the apostles founded; the church's communion with those churches is the proof of its truth.
22. 22Heretics say the apostles did not know everything, or did not teach everything to all; but Christ taught them fully and promised the Spirit would lead them into all truth, as Acts shows he did.
23. 23Paul's rebuke of Peter shows no new gospel: Paul was received by the apostles, shared their preaching, and rebuked Peter only for a fault of conduct.
24. 24Paul himself adapted his conduct to circumstances, as Peter did; and what Paul heard in paradise could not be told, so no heresy can claim it as a secret doctrine.
25. 25Paul's charge to Timothy to guard the deposit refers to the teaching he had given openly before many witnesses, not to a secret doctrine.
26. 26Christ commanded the apostles to preach openly, and they feared no one; they did not keep a secret rule of faith for a few that differed from what they taught all.
27. 27Heretics claim that the churches received the apostles' teaching wrongly, citing Galatians and Corinthians; but those churches were corrected, and others Paul praised share the same faith.
28. 28If the churches had erred, their errors would differ; the agreement of so many churches in one faith shows it is tradition, not error.
29. 29If the church had erred until the heretics came, all its baptisms, gifts, ministries, and martyrdoms would have been in vain; but truth comes before its copies, and the true doctrine foretold the heresies.
30. 30Marcion, Valentinus, and Apelles were recent, expelled from the church at Rome, and their own innovations prove them later than the truth; they cannot show apostolic authority or apostolic miracles.
31. 31The parable of the wheat and the weeds shows that what was sown first is true and what came later is false.
32. 32Apostolic churches can show a succession of bishops going back to an apostle, as Smyrna from John and Rome from Peter; newer churches are apostolic by sharing the same doctrine, but heresies pass neither test.
33. 33Many heresies were already present or foreshadowed in the apostles' day and condemned by them: denial of the resurrection, Judaizing, forbidding marriage, endless genealogies, the Nicolaitans, docetism, and Simon's magic.
34. 34No heresy in the apostles' day questioned the Creator; Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus were the first, so they are either condemned with the older heresies or condemned by their lateness.
35. 35The heretics cannot turn these arguments against the church, whose doctrine is earliest and was never condemned but defended by the apostles.
36. 36Anyone may visit the apostolic churches, such as Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, and Rome, where the apostles taught and died; Rome's faith, shared with Africa, is the one from which the heresies broke away.
37. 37Heretics, not being Christians, have no right to Christian Scripture; the church, as heir of the apostles, holds it by lawful title.
38. 38Corrupt doctrine requires corrupted Scriptures: Marcion cut the text with a knife, Valentinus kept the text but twisted its meaning; the church's Scriptures are unaltered because its doctrine is original.
39. 39Just as poets patch new works out of Virgil and Homer, heretics can build their doctrines out of Scripture; God so arranged the Scriptures that heresies might be possible.
40. 40The devil imitates Christian sacraments in pagan mysteries, as in Mithraism, and likewise twists Scripture into heresy, which is a kind of idolatry.
41. 41Heretics live without discipline: no distinction between catechumens and believers, women who teach and baptize, and careless, shifting ordinations.
42. 42Heretics aim to overthrow believers rather than convert pagans; they respect no authority, and their unity is itself schism, since each follows his own choice.
43. 43Heretics associate with magicians and astrologers and deny that God is to be feared; but where God is feared there is order, discipline, and a united church.
44. 44At the judgment heretics will have no excuse, since Christ warned against false teachers; Tertullian ironically imagines Christ recanting his teaching, and closes by promising treatises against particular heresies.