Apostolic Sanction to This Exclusion of Heretics from the Use of the Scriptures. Heretics, According to the Apostle, are Not to Be Disputed With, But to Be Admonished. - ANF03. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian

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Apostolic Sanction to This Exclusion of Heretics from the Use of the Scriptures. Heretics, According to the Apostle, are Not to Be Disputed With, But to Be Admonished.
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Chapter XVI.—Apostolic Sanction to This Exclusion of Heretics from the Use of the Scriptures. Heretics, According to the Apostle, are Not to Be Disputed With, But to Be Admonished.

I might be thought to have laid down this position to remedy distrust in my case,²⁰²⁷

²⁰²⁷ De consilio diffidentiæ.
or from a desire of entering on the contest²⁰²⁸

²⁰²⁸ Constitutionis, “prima causarum conflictio,”—a term of the law courts.
in some other way, were there not reasons on my side, especially this, that our faith owes deference²⁰²⁹

²⁰²⁹ Obsequium.
to the apostle, who forbids us to enter on “questions,” or to lend our ears to new-fangled statements,²⁰³⁰

²⁰³⁰ 1 Tim. vi. 3, 4.
or to consort with a heretic “after the first and second admonition,”²⁰³¹

²⁰³¹ Tit. iii. 10.
not, (be it observed,) after discussion. Discussion he has inhibited in this way, by designating admonition as the purpose of dealing with a heretic, and the first one too, because he is not a Christian; in order that he might not, after the manner of a Christian, seem to require correction again and again, and “before two or three witnesses,”²⁰³²

²⁰³² Matt. xviii. 16.
seeing that he ought to be corrected, for the very reason that he is not to be disputed with; and in the next place, because a controversy over the Scriptures can, clearly,²⁰³³

²⁰³³ Plane, ironical.
produce no other effect than help to upset either the stomach or the brain.
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