Prescription against Heretics 14
Summary: Within 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.
Latin text · Oehler 2:15–16
Ceterum manente forma eius in suo ordine quantumlibet quaeras et tractes et omnem libidinem curiositatis effundas, si quid tibi videtur vel ambiguitate pendere vel obscuritate obumbrari. Est utique frater aliqui doctor gratia scientiae donatus, est aliqui inter exercitatos, conversatus aliqui tecum curiosus, tecum tamen quaerens novissime ignorare te melius sciet, ne quod non debeas noris, quia quod debeas nosti. Fides, inquit, tua te salvum fecit, non exercitatio scripturarum. Fides in regula posita est; habet legem et salutem de observatione legis: exercitatio autem in curiositate consistit, habens gloriam solam de peritiae studio. Cedat curiositas fidei, cedat gloria saluti. Certe aut non obstrepant, aut quiescant. Adversus regulam nihil scire omnia scire est. Ut non inimici essent veritatis haeretici, ut de refugiendis eis non praemoneremur, quale est conferre cum hominibus qui et ipsi adhuc se quaerere profiteantur? Si enim adhuc vere quaerunt, nihil adhuc certi repererunt, et ideo, quaecunque videntur interim tenere, dubitationem suam ostendunt, quamdiu quaerunt. Itaque tu, qui perinde quaeris, spectans ad eos qui et ipsi quaerunt, dubius ad dubios, incertus ad incertos, caecus a caecis in foveam deducaris necesse est. Sed cum decipiendi gratia praetendant se adhuc quaerere, ut nobis per sollicitudinis iniectionem tractatus suos insinuent, denique ubi adierunt ad nos, statim quae dicebant quaerenda esse defendant, iam illos sic debemus refutare, ut sciant nos non Christo, sed sibi negatores esse. Cum enim quaerunt adhuc, nondum tenent; cum autem non tenent, nondum crediderunt; cum autem nondum crediderunt, non sunt Christiani. At cum tenent quidem et credunt, quaerendum tamen dicunt, ut defendant. Antequam defendant, negant quod confitentur se nondum credidisse, dum quaerunt. Qui ergo nec sibi sunt Christiani, quanto magis nobis? Qui per fallaciam veniunt, qualem fidem disputant? Cui veritati patrocinantur qui eam a mendacio inducunt? Sed ipsi de scripturis agunt, et de scripturis suadent! Aliunde scilicet loqui possent de rebus fidei, nisi ex litteris fidei?
English · Claude translation
For the rest, as long as its form remains in its proper order, you may seek and discuss as much as you like and pour out all your appetite for curiosity, if anything seems to you either to hang in ambiguity or to be overshadowed by obscurity. There is surely some brother, a teacher endowed with the grace of knowledge; there is someone among the well practiced; someone who has lived with you, curious like you, yet, though seeking with you, he will know in the end that it is better for you not to know, lest you come to know what you ought not, since you know what you ought. “Your faith,” it says, “has saved you,” not your practice in the Scriptures. Faith is set in the rule; it has a law, and salvation from keeping the law. Practice, however, consists in curiosity and has its only glory from zeal for skill. Let curiosity give way to faith; let glory give way to salvation. At least let them not make a din, or let them be quiet. To know nothing against the rule is to know everything. Even if the heretics were not enemies of the truth, even if we had not been warned beforehand to shun them, what is the use of conferring with men who themselves admit that they are still seeking? For if they are still truly seeking, they have not yet found anything certain; and so whatever they seem to hold for the time being shows their doubt, as long as they seek. So you, seeking in the same way, looking to those who are themselves seeking, doubtful to the doubtful, uncertain to the uncertain, must necessarily be led, blind by the blind, into the pit. But since, in order to deceive, they pretend that they are still seeking, so as to slip their treatises into us by injecting anxiety, and in the end, once they have gained access to us, at once defend what they said was to be sought, we must refute them in such a way that they know that we deny, not Christ, but them. For when they are still seeking, they do not yet hold anything; and when they do not hold, they have not yet believed; and when they have not yet believed, they are not Christians. But when they do hold and believe, they still say that one must seek, in order to defend it. Before they defend it, they deny it, confessing that they have not yet believed while they are seeking. Those who are not Christians even in their own eyes, how much less in ours? Those who come by deceit, what faith do they argue for? What truth do they champion, who introduce it by a lie? But they deal with the Scriptures and argue from the Scriptures! Of course: from what other source could they speak about matters of faith, except from the writings of faith?
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Luke 18:42 (also 7:50; 8:48) and Matt 15:14. The digital text's “Celerum” and “tenet” are read as “Ceterum” and “tenent”; a missing full stop is supplied before “Qui ergo.”
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letter dropped in the digital text; the subject is plural; letter misread in the digital text; missing full stop in the digital text): Celerum manente → Ceterum manente; nondum tenet; → nondum tenent;; dum quaerunt Qui ergo → dum quaerunt. Qui ergo.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Praescr. 14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/14/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Praescr. 14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/14/).
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