Prescription against Heretics 2
Summary: Like fever, heresies should be avoided rather than admired; they are strong only against weak faith, as a boxer wins only against a weak opponent.
Latin text · Oehler 2:4–5
Febrem denique inter ceteros mortiferos et cruciarios exitus erogando homini deputatam neque quia est miramur, est enim, neque quia erogat hominem, ad hoc enim est. Proinde haereses ad languorem et interitum fidei productas si expavescimus hoc posse, prius est ut expavescamus hoc eas esse, quae dum sunt, habent posse, et dum possunt, habent esse. Sed enim febrem ut malum et de causa et de potentia sua, ut notum est, abominamur potius quam miramur et, quantum in nobis est, praecavemus, non habentes abolitionem eius in nostra potestate. Haereses vero mortem aeternam et maioris ignis ardorem inferentes malunt quidam mirari quod hoc possint quam devitare ne possint, cum habeant devitandi potestatem. Ceterum nihil valebunt, si illas tantum valere non mirentur. Aut enim dum mirantur, in scandalum subministrantur, aut quia scandalizantur, ideo mirantur quasi quod tantum valeant ex aliqua veniat veritate. Mirum scilicet, ut malum vires suas habeat; nisi quod haereses apud eos multum valeant qui in fide non valent. In pugna pugilum et gladiatorum plerumque non quia fortis est vincit quis, aut quia non potest vinci, sed quoniam ille qui victus est nullis viribus fuit: adeo idem ille victor, bene valenti postea comparatus, etiam superatus recedit. Non aliter haereses de quorundam infirmitatibus habent quod valent, nihil valentes, si in bene valentem fidem incurrant.
English · Claude translation
Fever, for example, is assigned among the other deadly and tormenting ends for the destruction of man, and we are not astonished that it exists, for it does exist, nor that it destroys a man, for that is what it exists for. Likewise, if we are terrified that heresies, produced for the weakening and death of faith, have this power, we should first be terrified that they exist at all; for while they exist they have the power, and while they have the power they exist. But fever, as an evil both in its cause and in its power, as is well known, we loathe rather than admire, and, so far as we can, we guard against it, since its removal is not in our power. Yet heresies, which bring eternal death and the burning of a greater fire, some prefer to admire for having this power rather than to avoid, so that they may not have it, though they do have the power to avoid them. Otherwise they will have no strength, if people are not astonished that they are so strong. For either people are led on into stumbling while they admire them, or because they stumble, they admire them, as though their great strength came from some truth. A marvel, of course, that evil should have its own strength! Except that heresies are very strong among those who are not strong in faith. In a fight of boxers and gladiators, a man often wins not because he is strong or because he cannot be beaten, but because the one who was beaten had no strength at all; so true is this that the same victor, matched afterwards against a truly strong man, even goes away defeated. In the same way heresies have their strength from the weaknesses of some, and have no strength if they run up against a faith that is truly strong.
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Tertullian, Praescr. 2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/2/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Praescr. 2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/2/).
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