Prescription against Heretics 38
Summary: Corrupt doctrine requires corrupted Scriptures: Marcion cut the text with a knife, Valentinus kept the text but twisted its meaning; the church's Scriptures are unaltered because its doctrine is original.
Latin text · Oehler 2:35–36
Illic igitur et scripturarum et expositionum adulteratio deputanda est, ubi doctrinae diversitas invenitur. Quibus fuit propositum aliter docendi, eos necessitas coegit aliter disponendi instrumenta doctrinae. Alias enim non potuissent aliter docere, nisi aliter haberent per quae docerent. Sicut illis non potuisset succedere corruptela doctrinae sine corruptela instrumentorum eius, ita et nobis integritas doctrinae non competisset sine integritate eorum per quae doctrina tractatur. Etenim quid contrarium nobis in nostris? quid de proprio intulimus, ut aliquid contrarium ei et in scripturis deprehensum detractione vel adiectione vel transmutatione remediaremus? Quod sumus, hoc sunt scripturae ab initio suo. Ex illis sumus, antequam aliter fuit, antequam a vobis interpolarentur. Cum autem omnis interpolatio posterior credenda sit, veniens utique ex causa aemulationis, quae neque prior neque domestica unquam est eius quod aemulatur, tam incredibile est sapienti cuique, ut nos adulterum stilum intulisse videamur scripturis, qui sumus a principio et primi, quam illos non intulisse, qui sunt et posteri et adversi. Alius manu scripturas, alius sensus expositione intervertit. Neque enim si Valentinus integro instrumento uti videtur, non callidiore ingenio quam Marcion manus intulit veritati. Marcion enim exerte et palam machaera, non stilo usus est, quoniam ad materiam suam caedem scripturarum confecit: Valentinus autem pepercit, quoniam non ad materiam scripturas, sed materiam ad scripturas excogitavit, et tamen plus abstulit et plus adiecit, auferens proprietates singulorum quoque verborum et adiciens dispositiones non comparentium rerum.
English · Claude translation
There, then, must the adulteration of the Scriptures and of their interpretation be reckoned to be, where difference of doctrine is found. Those who purposed to teach otherwise were forced by necessity to arrange the instruments of doctrine otherwise. For they could not have taught otherwise unless they had otherwise that by which to teach. Just as the corruption of doctrine could not have succeeded for them without the corruption of its instruments, so for us the integrity of doctrine would not have been possible without the integrity of those means by which doctrine is handled. For what is there in our Scriptures contrary to us? What have we brought in of our own, so as to remedy by subtraction or addition or alteration something found contrary to it even in the Scriptures? What we are, the Scriptures are, from their beginning. We are from them, before anything was otherwise, before they were interpolated by you. And since every interpolation must be believed to be later, coming as it does from rivalry, which is never earlier than, nor at home with, what it rivals, it is as incredible to any wise man that we, who are from the beginning and first, should seem to have brought an adulterous pen to the Scriptures, as that they, who are both later and hostile, should not have done so. One perverts the Scriptures with his hand, another their sense by his interpretation. For even if Valentinus seems to use the whole instrument, he has nonetheless laid hands on the truth with a craftier mind than Marcion. Marcion openly and plainly used the knife, not the pen, since he made a slaughter of the Scriptures to suit his own material. Valentinus spared them, since he did not devise the Scriptures to suit his material, but his material to suit the Scriptures; and yet he took away more and added more, taking away the proper meanings of individual words and adding arrangements of things that do not appear.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- “Instrument” (instrumentum) is Tertullian's term for the documents of Scripture. The digital text's “cos” and “su(??)m” are read as “eos” and “suam.”
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letter misread in the digital text; uncertain characters in the digital text; the grammar requires suam): cos necessitas → eos necessitas; su(??)m caedem → suam caedem.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Praescr. 38 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/38/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Praescr. 38 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-praescriptione/38/).
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