Friday, November 21, 2014

Matthew 7:6

Besides which, it must have followed, that, for the man to whom he committed the ministration of the gospel, he would add the injunction that it be not ministered in all places, and without respect to persons, in accordance with the Lord's saying, "Not to cast one's pearls before swine, nor that which is holy unto dogs."  Openly did the Lord speak, without any intimation of a hidden mystery. He had Himself commanded that, "whatsoever they had heard in darkness" and in secret, they should "declare in the light and on the house-tops." [Tertullin De praescriptionibus aduersus haereses omnes 26.1 REFOULE R.F., CCL 1 (1954), (p.207, l.3) BP1]

I must not omit an account of the conduct also of the heretics—how frivolous it is, how worldly, how merely human, without seriousness, without authority, without discipline, as suits their creed. To begin with, it is doubtful who is a catechumen, and who a believer; they have all access alike, they hear alike, they pray alike—even heathens, if any such happen to come among them. "That which is holy they will cast to the dogs, and their pearls," although (to be sure) they are not real ones, "they will fling to the swine."  Simplicity they will have to consist in the overthrow of discipline, attention to which on our part they call brotherly.  Peace also they huddle up432 anyhow with all comers; for it matters not to them, however different be their treatment of subjects, provided only they can conspire together to storm the citadel of the one only Truth. [Tertullian De praescriptionibus aduersus haereses omnes 41.2 REFOULE R.F., CCL 1 (1954), (p.221, l.6) BP1]


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