Prescription against Heretics 18

Summary: A doubter who watches such a dispute leaves more uncertain, since each side accuses the other of corrupting Scripture.

Latin text · Oehler 2:17–18

Ille vero, si quis est cuius causa in congressum descendis scripturarum, ut eum dubitantem confirmes, ad veritatem, an magis ad haereses deverget? Hoc ipso motus, quod te videat nihil promovisse, aequo gradu negandi et defendendi adversa parte, statu certe pari, altercatione incertior discedet, nesciens quam haeresin iudicet. Haec utique et ipsi habent in nos retorquere. Necesse est enim et illos dicere a nobis potius adulteria scripturarum et expositionum mendacia inferri, qui proinde sibi defendant veritatem.

English · Claude translation

And as for the person, if there is one, for whose sake you go down into a contest over the Scriptures, to strengthen him in his doubt: will he incline to the truth, or rather to the heresies? Moved by this very fact, that he sees you have gained nothing, since the other side denies and affirms with equal footing and certainly on an equal standing, he will go away from the wrangling more uncertain than before, not knowing which he should judge to be heresy. For they too can of course turn these same things back on us. They must say that it is rather we who introduce adulterations of the Scriptures and false interpretations, since they defend the truth for themselves just as we do.

About this passage

Source

Oehler 2:17–18 · Franz Oehler, ed., Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani quae supersunt omnia, vol. 2 (Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1854), 3–46 · Latin text: Franz Oehler (Oehler 2), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Oehler 2. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Latin text of Oehler, vol. 2 (1854); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Heresy, Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Tertullian, Praescr. 18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/18/).

Plain text

Tertullian, Praescr. 18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/18/).