Sunday, December 2, 2012

Tertullian Used Irenaeus For Information About Marcion

"One of his largest works was a refutation of Marcion in five books; two other works, the De Carne Christi and the De Resurrectione Mortuorum were also anti-Marcionite. Other works were directed against the followers of Valentinus and Apelles. These men did not of course have to be present in Carthage to draw the fire of Tertullian, who was familiar with the work of Irenaeus and may have drawn on it for precise knowledge of the teachings of the various heretics." [James Boykin Rives, Religion and authority in the territory of Roman Carthage p. 195]

On the other side there is also this from a 1943 Journal of Biblical Literature article:

Tertullian's "doctrinal" and "polemic" (i. e., anti-heretical) writings owe much to Irenaeus. Goodspeed very wisely abstains from an attempt to relate Tertullian's outstanding polemic work Against Marcion, which from beginning to end exhibits the author's characteristic genius, to Irenaeus' hypothetical work of the same title.


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