and wickedly expound, do these (heretics) attempt to prove their assertions, but also from the law and the Prophets. For as there are in these many parables and allegories which may be forced into various meanings, them they craftily fit to their own purpose, and thus draw from the truth those who have not a firm faith in one God, the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ.” Adv. Hær. L. 1. c. iii. p. 17. “Such being their positions, which the Prophets never preached, nor Christ taught, nor the Apostles delivered, they boast their own superior knowledge, and attempt to make it seem credible; forming, as it were, a rope of sand, by adducing some words from the parables or sayings of the Prophets, or of Christ, or of the Apostles; but so as to violate the arrangement and order of the Sacred Writings, and, as far as in them lies dissolve the whole connection of truth.” This he illustrates by examples, Ibid. c. viii. p. 35. Afterwards, speaking of the same heretics, he observes, that they agree not in any opinion among themselves : “so varying are their notions drawn from the Scriptures ; and when a discourse has been read, shaking their heads with great gravity, they pronounce that its secret meaning is above the capacity of all, and that silence is the proof of wisdom. When, therefore, they shall be agreed among themselves on what they draw from the Scriptures, it will be our time to refute them. Meanwhile, thinking wrongfully, and not agreeing in the meaning of the same words, they convict themselves; but we, having one true and only God for our master, and making his words the rule of truth, always speak alike of the same things ; all acknowledging one God, the Creator of the Universe, who sent his Prophets, and in the latter times, manifested his Son, to confound the incredulous, and draw forth the fruit of justice.” L. iv. c. xxxv. p. 277.
TERTULLIAN, L. C. “And why are heretics aliens and
