Prescription against Heretics 37

If this is so, so that the truth is adjudged to us, as many as walk by that rule which the church has handed down from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God, then the reasoning of our proposition stands, which lays down that heretics are not to be admitted to a challenge concerning the Scriptures, since we prove, without the Scriptures, that they have nothing to do with the Scriptures. For if they are heretics, they cannot be Christians, since they do not have from Christ what, having pursued it by their own choice, they accept the name of heretics for. So, not being Christians, they acquire no right to Christian writings, and to them it may rightly be said: Who are you? When and from where did you come? What are you doing on my property, since you are not mine? By what right, Marcion, are you cutting down my wood? By what license, Valentinus, are you diverting my springs? By what authority, Apelles, are you moving my boundary markers? The possession is mine. Why are the rest of you sowing and grazing here at your own pleasure? The possession is mine; I have possessed it long; I possessed it first; I have firm title deeds from the very owners whose property it was. I am the heir of the apostles. As they provided in their will, as they committed it in trust, as they adjured, so I hold it. You, certainly, they have always disinherited and disowned as strangers, as enemies. And why are heretics strangers and enemies to the apostles, if not from the difference of doctrine, which each one has either brought forth or received by his own choice against the apostles?