Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Curiosity Ought Not Range Beyond the Rule of Faith. Restless Curiosity, the Feature of Heresy.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
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
to1999
| 1999 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 learned2000
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,2001
| 2001 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 aware2002
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.2003
“Thy faith,” He says,
“hath saved thee”2004
not observe
your skill2005
in the Scriptures.
Now, faith has been deposited in the rule; it has a law, and (in the
observance thereof) salvation. Skill,2006
however, consists in curious art, having for its glory simply the
readiness that comes from knack.2007
Let such
curious art give place to faith; let such glory yield to salvation. At
any rate, let them either relinquish their noisiness,2008
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 while2009
to hold, they betray their own
scepticism,2010
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.”2011
But when, for the
sake of deceiving us, they pretend that they are still seeking, in
order that they may palm2012
their
essays2013
upon us by the
suggestion of an anxious sympathy,2014
| 2014 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
obligation2015
to repel2016
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;2017
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.2018
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,2019
how much more (do they fail to appear such)
to us! What sort of truth is that which they patronize,2020
when they commend it to us with a lie?
Well, but they actually2021
treat of the
Scriptures and recommend (their opinions) out of the Scriptures! To be
sure they do.2022
From what other
source could they derive arguments concerning the things of the faith,
except from the records of the faith?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
