Against Praxeas 20

But we must still take pains to beat back their arguments, if they pick out anything from the Scriptures for their opinion, refusing to look at the rest, which itself keeps the rule, and that without prejudice to the oneness of the Godhead and the condition of the monarchy. For just as in the Old Testament they hold to nothing but “I am God, and there is no other besides me,” so in the Gospel they cling to the Lord's answer to Philip, “I and the Father are one,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” To these three passages they want the whole instrument of both Testaments to give way, when the fewer ought to be understood according to the more. But this is the peculiarity of all heretics. For because there are only a few things they can find in the forest, they defend the few against the many and take up the later against the earlier. But the rule established for every matter from the beginning, in the earlier and the more numerous passages, lays down the law for the later ones too, and for the fewer.