The Prescription Against Heretics.

 Chapter I.—Introductory. Heresies Must Exist, and Even Abound They are a Probation to Faith.

 Chapter II.—Analogy Between Fevers and Heresies. Heresies Not to Be Wondered At: Their Strength Derived from Weakness of Men’s Faith. They Have Not th

 Chapter III.—Weak People Fall an Easy Prey to Heresy, Which Derives Strength from the General Frailty of Mankind. Eminent Men Have Fallen from Faith

 Chapter IV.—Warnings Against Heresy Given Us in the New Testament. Sundry Passages Adduced. These Imply the Possibility of Falling into Heresy.

 Chapter V.—Heresy, as Well as Schism and Dissension, Disapproved by St. Paul, Who Speaks of the Necessity of Heresies, Not as a Good, But, by the Will

 Chapter VI.—Heretics are Self-Condemned. Heresy is Self-Will, Whilst Faith is Submission of Our Will to the Divine Authority.  The Heresy of Apelles.

 Chapter VII.—Pagan Philosophy the Parent of Heresies. The Connection Between Deflections from Christian Faith and the Old Systems of Pagan Philosophy.

 Chapter VIII.—Christ’s Word, Seek, and Ye Shall Find, No Warrant for Heretical Deviations from the Faith. All Christ’s Words to the Jews are for Us, N

 Chapter IX.—The Research After Definite Truth Enjoined on Us. When We Have Discovered This, We Should Be Content.

 Chapter X.—One Has Succeeded in Finding Definite Truth, When He Believes. Heretical Wits are Always Offering Many Things for Vain Discussion, But We a

 Chapter XI.—After We Have Believed, Search Should Cease Otherwise It Must End in a Denial of What We Have Believed. No Other Object Proposed for Our

 Chapter XII.—A Proper Seeking After Divine Knowledge, Which Will Never Be Out of Place or Excessive, is Always Within the Rule of Faith.

 Chapter XIII.—Summary of the Creed, or Rule of Faith. No Questions Ever Raised About It by Believers.  Heretics Encourage and Perpetuate Thought Indep

 Chapter XIV.—Curiosity Ought Not Range Beyond the Rule of Faith. Restless Curiosity, the Feature of Heresy.

 We are therefore come to (the gist of) our position for at this point we were aiming, and for this we were preparing in the preamble of our address (

 Chapter XVI.—Apostolic Sanction to This Exclusion of Heretics from the Use of the Scriptures. Heretics, According to the Apostle, are Not to Be Disput

 Chapter XVII.—Heretics, in Fact, Do Not Use, But Only Abuse, Scripture. No Common Ground Between Them and You.

 Chapter XVIII.—Great Evil Ensues to the Weak in Faith, from Any Discussion Out of the Scriptures. Conviction Never Comes to the Heretic from Such a Pr

 Chapter XIX.—Appeal, in Discussion of Heresy, Lies Not to the Scriptures. The Scriptures Belong Only to Those Who Have the Rule of Faith.

 Chapter XX.—Christ First Delivered the Faith. The Apostles Spread It They Founded Churches as the Depositories Thereof. That Faith, Therefore, is Apo

 Chapter XXI.—All Doctrine True Which Comes Through the Church from the Apostles, Who Were Taught by God Through Christ. All Opinion Which Has No Such

 Chapter XXII.—Attempt to Invalidate This Rule of Faith Rebutted. The Apostles Safe Transmitters of the Truth. Sufficiently Taught at First, and Faithf

 Chapter XXIII.—The Apostles Not Ignorant. The Heretical Pretence of St. Peter’s Imperfection Because He Was Rebuked by St. Paul. St. Peter Not Rebuked

 Chapter XXIV.—St. Peter’s Further Vindication. St. Paul Not Superior to St. Peter in Teaching. Nothing Imparted to the Former in the Third Heaven Enab

 Chapter XXV.—The Apostles Did Not Keep Back Any of the Deposit of Doctrine Which Christ Had Entrusted to Them. St. Paul Openly Committed His Whole Doc

 Chapter XXVI.—The Apostles Did in All Cases Teach the Whole Truth to the Whole Church. No Reservation, Nor Partial Communication to Favourite Friends.

 Chapter XXVII.—Granted that the Apostles Transmitted the Whole Doctrine of Truth, May Not the Churches Have Been Unfaithful in Handing It On? Inconcei

 Chapter XXVIII.—The One Tradition of the Faith, Which is Substantially Alike in the Churches Everywhere, a Good Proof that the Transmission Has Been T

 Chapter XXIX.—The Truth Not Indebted to the Care of the Heretics It Had Free Course Before They Appeared. Priority of the Church’s Doctrine a Mark of

 Chapter XXX.—Comparative Lateness of Heresies. Marcion’s Heresy. Some Personal Facts About Him. The Heresy of Apelles. Character of This Man Philumen

 Chapter XXXI.—Truth First, Falsehood Afterwards, as Its Perversion. Christ’s Parable Puts the Sowing of the Good Seed Before the Useless Tares.

 Chapter XXXII.—None of the Heretics Claim Succession from the Apostles. New Churches Still Apostolic, Because Their Faith is that Which the Apostles T

 Chapter XXXIII.—Present Heresies (Seedlings of the Tares Noted by the Sacred Writers) Already Condemned in Scripture.  This Descent of Later Heresy fr

 Chapter XXXIV.—No Early Controversy Respecting the Divine Creator No Second God Introduced at First. Heresies Condemned Alike by the Sentence and the

 Chapter XXXV.—Let Heretics Maintain Their Claims by a Definite and Intelligible Evidence. This the Only Method of Solving Their Questions. Catholics A

 Chapter XXXVI.—The Apostolic Churches the Voice of the Apostles. Let the Heretics Examine Their Apostolic Claims, in Each Case, Indisputable. The Chur

 Chapter XXXVII.—Heretics Not Being Christians, But Rather Perverters of Christ’s Teaching, May Not Claim the Christian Scriptures. These are a Deposit

 Chapter XXXVIII.—Harmony of the Church and the Scriptures. Heretics Have Tampered with the Scriptures, and Mutilated, and Altered Them.  Catholics Nev

 Chapter XXXIX.—What St. Paul Calls Spiritual Wickednesses Displayed by Pagan Authors, and by Heretics, in No Dissimilar Manner. Holy Scripture Especia

 Chapter XL.—No Difference in the Spirit of Idolatry and of Heresy. In the Rites of Idolatry, Satan Imitated and Distorted the Divine Institutions of t

 Chapter XLI.—The Conduct of Heretics: Its Frivolity, Worldliness, and Irregularity. The Notorious Wantonness of Their Women.

 Chapter XLII.—Heretics Work to Pull Down and to Destroy, Not to Edify and Elevate. Heretics Do Not Adhere Even to Their Own Traditions, But Harbour Di

 Chapter XLIII.—Loose Company Preferred by Heretics. Ungodliness the Effect of Their Teaching the Very Opposite of Catholic Truth, Which Promotes the F

 Chapter XLIV.—Heresy Lowers Respect for Christ, and Destroys All Fear of His Great Judgment. The Tendency of Heretical Teaching on This Solemn Article

 [Chapter XLV.] On the present occasion, indeed, our treatise has rather taken up a general position against heresies, (showing that they must) all be

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Chapter XIV.—Curiosity Ought Not Range Beyond the Rule of Faith. Restless Curiosity, the Feature of Heresy.

So long, however, as its form exists in its proper order, you may seek and discuss as much as you please, and give full rein to149    Omnem libidinem effundas, “pour out the whole desire for.” your curiosity, in whatever seems to you to hang in doubt, or to be shrouded in obscurity. You have at hand, no doubt, some learned150    Doctor, literally, “teacher.” See Eph. iv. 11; also above; chap. iii. p. 244. brother gifted with the grace of knowledge, some one of the experienced class, some one of your close acquaintance who is curious like yourself; although with yourself, a seeker he will, after all,151    This seems to be the more probable meaning of novissime in this rather obscure sentence. Oehler treats it adverbially as “postremo,” and refers to a similar use of the word below in chap. xxx. Dr. Routh (and, after him, the translator in The Library of the Fathers, Tertullian, p. 448) makes the word a noun, “thou newest of novices,” and refers to Tertullian’s work, against Praxeas, chap. xxvii., for a like use. This seems to us too harsh for the present context. be quite aware152    Sciet. that it is better for you to remain in ignorance, lest you should come to know what you ought not, because you have acquired the knowledge of what you ought to know.153    See 1 Cor. xii. 8. “Thy faith,” He says, “hath saved thee”154    Luke xviii. 42. not observe your skill155    Exercitatio. in the Scriptures. Now, faith has been deposited in the rule; it has a law, and (in the observance thereof) salvation. Skill,156    Exercitatio. however, consists in curious art, having for its glory simply the readiness that comes from knack.157    De peritiæ studio. Let such curious art give place to faith; let such glory yield to salvation. At any rate, let them either relinquish their noisiness,158    Non obstrepant. or else be quiet. To know nothing in opposition to the rule (of faith), is to know all things. (Suppose) that heretics were not enemies to the truth, so that we were not forewarned to avoid them, what sort of conduct would it be to agree with men who do themselves confess that they are still seeking? For if they are still seeking, they have not as yet found anything amounting to certainty; and therefore, whatever they seem for a while159    Interim. to hold, they betray their own scepticism,160    Dubitationem. whilst they continue seeking. You therefore, who seek after their fashion, looking to those who are themselves ever seeking, a doubter to doubters, a waverer to waverers, must needs be “led, blindly by the blind, down into the ditch.”161    Matt. xv. 14. But when, for the sake of deceiving us, they pretend that they are still seeking, in order that they may palm162    Insinuent. their essays163    Tractatus. upon us by the suggestion of an anxious sympathy,164    Or, “by instilling an anxiety into us” (Dodgson).—when, in short (after gaining an access to us), they proceed at once to insist on the necessity of our inquiring into such points as they were in the habit of advancing, then it is high time for us in moral obligation165    Jam debemus. to repel166    Refutare. them, so that they may know that it is not Christ, but themselves, whom we disavow. For since they are still seekers, they have no fixed tenets yet;167    Nondum tenent. and being not fixed in tenet, they have not yet believed; and being not yet believers, they are not Christians. But even though they have their tenets and their belief, they still say that inquiry is necessary in order to discussion.168    Ut defendant. Previous, however, to the discussion, they deny what they confess not yet to have believed, so long as they keep it an object of inquiry. When men, therefore, are not Christians even on their own admission,169    Nec sibi sunt. how much more (do they fail to appear such) to us! What sort of truth is that which they patronize,170    Patrocinantur. when they commend it to us with a lie?  Well, but they actually171    Ipsi. treat of the Scriptures and recommend (their opinions) out of the Scriptures! To be sure they do.172    Scilicet. From what other source could they derive arguments concerning the things of the faith, except from the records of the faith?

CAPUT XIV.

Hanc regulam a Christo institutam nullas apud nos habere quaestiones, nisi quas haereses inferunt, et quae haereticos faciunt.

Haec regula a Christo, ut probabitur, instituta, nullas habet apud nos quaestiones, nisi quas haereses inferunt, et quae haereticos faciunt. Caeterum, manente forma ejus in suo ordine, quantum libet quaeras et tractes, et omnem libidinem curiositatis effundas; si quid tibi videtur, vel ambiguitate pendere, vel obscuritate obumbrari, est utique frater aliquis 0027B doctor gratia scientiae donatus, est aliquis inter exercitatos conversatus, aliquis tecum, curiosius tamen, quaerens; novissime, ignorare melius est, ne quod non debeas noris, quia quod debeas nosti Fides, inquit, tua te salvum fecit (Luc., XVIII, 42); non exercitatio Scripturarum. Fides in regula posita est: habes 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 0027C adhuc certi repererunt ; et ideo, quaecumque videntur interim tenere, dubitationem suam ostendunt, 0028A quamdiu quaerunt. Itaque tu qui perinde quaeris, spectans ad eos qui et ipsi quaerunt, dubius a dubiis, incertus ab incertis, caecus a caecis in foveam deducaris necesse est (Matth., XV, 14). Sed, cum decipiendi gratia praetendunt se adhuc quaerere, ut nobis per sollicitudinis injectionem tractatus suos insinuent; denique, ubi adierint ad nos, statim, quae dicebant quaerenda esse, defendunt: jam 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, 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 0028B nec sibi sunt christiani, quanto magis nobis? Qui per fallaciam veniunt, qualem fidem disputant? Cui veritati patrocinantur, qui eam a mendacio inducunt ?