| Excerpts From Tertullian’s Description of Heretics Tertullian, classified as an apologist in the late second century, wrote the following within the context of dealing with early heresies such as Gnosticism. Mentioned specifically are Marcion and Valentinus. Though Tertullian himself later became a convert to Montanism (a source of early divisions), he wrote some thought-provoking pieces in defense of the Scriptures and the apostles. The quoted sections are just small excerpts of his writing, from "The Prescriptions against the Heretics": ... False exegesis injures truth just as much as a corrupt text. Baseless assumptions naturally refuse to acknowledge the instrument of their own refutation. They rely on passages which they have put together in a false context or fastened on because of their ambiguity. What will you accomplish, most learned of biblical scholars, if the other side denies what you affirmed and affirms what you denied? True, you will lose nothing in the dispute but your voice; and you will get nothing from their blasphemy but bile. ... Let them prove that they are the new apostles, let them tell us that Christ has come down a second time, taught a second time, was crucified a second time, dead a second time, raised a second time. It was on that basis that he used to make apostles and give them the power to perform the same signs as himself. I want to see their miracles produced, though I must admit that their greatest miracle is the topsy-turvy way they imitate the apostles. They brought the dead to life. These heretics put the living to death. ... One man perverts Scripture with his hand, another with his exegesis. If Valentinus seems to have used the whole Bible, he laid violent hands on the truth with just as much cunning as Marcion. Marcion openly and nakedly used the knife, not the pen, massacring Scripture to suit his own material. Valentinus spared the text, since he did not invent scriptures to suit his matter, but matter to suit the scriptures. Yet he took more away, and added more, by taking away the proper meanings of particular words or by adding fantastic arrangements.... We must not doubt, therefore, that the spiritual wickedness from which heresy comes were sent by the devil, or that heresy is not far from idolatry, since both are of the same author and handiwork. Either they invent another god against the Creator or, if they confess one Creator, their teaching about him is false. Every falsehood about God is a kind of idolatry. I must not leave out a description of the heretics’ way of life -- futile, earthly, all too human, lacking in gravity, in authority, in discipline, as suits their faith. To begin with, one cannot tell who is a catechumen and who is baptized. They come in together, listen together, pray together. Even if any of the heathen arrive, they are quite willing to cast that which is holy to the dogs and their pearls (false ones!) before swine. The destruction of discipline is to them simplicity, and our attention to it they call affectation. They are in communion with everyone everywhere. Differences of theology are of no concern to them as long as they are all agreed in attacking the truth.... (trans. by Greenslade), Early Latin Theology |