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8 . "For us there is no need of curiosity since Christ Jesus; nor of inquiry since the Gospel. When we do believe, we do not desire to believe anything besides. For this we believe from the first, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides. I come therefore to that point which even our brethren adduce for entering on curious inquiry, and which heretics urge for bringing on curious doubt. It is written, say they, "Seek and ye shall find." Let us remember on what occasion the Lord uttered this saying. In the very first beginning, I trow, of His teaching, when it was doubted by all men whether He was the Christ, and when as yet not even Peter had pronounced Him the Son of God, when even John had ceased to be assured concerning Him. With reason therefore was it then said, "Seek and ye shall find", at a time when He was yet to be sought, who was not yet acknowledged. And this as regards the Jews: for to them pertains the whole language of this reproach, as having wherein they might seek Christ. "They have," he says, "Moses and Ellas," that is, the law and the prophets which preach Christ: agreeably to which, also, in another place, he saith openly: "Search the Scriptures, in which ye hope for salvation, for they speak of me." This will be (the meaning of), "Seek and ye shall find", for it is manifest that the words which follow also relate to the Jews, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The Jews had been in past times with God; afterwards, being cast out because of sins, they began to be shut out from God. But the Gentiles never were with God, except as a "drop from a bucket, and as dust from the thrashing-floor (Isaiah 40:15), and were always without. How then shall he who was always without (the door), knock at the place where he never was? . . . Again, "Ask, and ye shall receive", suits him, who was aware from whom to petition, from whom also something had been promised; from the God, that is, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom the nations knew not, any more than of any promise from Him. And therefore He spoke to Israel, "I was not sent, saith He, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 15:24) He had not as yet cast to dogs the children's bread: He had not as yet commanded them to go into the way of the Gentiles: since it was in the end that He ordered them to go and teach, and baptize the nations and that they should presently receive the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, who should guide them into all truth. And this therefore tendeth hitherwards. But if the Apostles, the appointed teachers of the Gentiles, were themselves even to receive the Paraclete as a teacher, the saying, "Seek, and ye shall find", was much more out of place as respects us, to whom the doctrine was to present itself without seeking through the Apostles, and to the Apostles themselves through the Holy Spirit. All the sayings in deed of the Lord were set forth for all men: they have passed down to us through the ears of the Jews; but most of those sayings, being directed towards particular persons, formed not for us a special admonition, but an example.

9. "I now of my own accord withdraw from this position: be it said to all, "Seek, and you shall find;" yet even then it is right to contend for the meaning with some guide of interpretation. No divine saying is so loose and wide that the words alone are insisted on, while the real drift of the words is not determined. But in the outset I lay down this: That there is doubtless some one definite thing taught by Christ, which the nations ought by all means to believe, and therefore to seek, that they may, when found, believe. Moreover, the search after a thing taught, which is one and definite, cannot be endless: thou must "seek" until you find, and believe when you have found; and there is nothing more, but to guard what you have believed. Because you believe this moreover, there is nothing else that should be believed, and therefore nothing else sought after, inasmuch as you have found and have believed that which was taught by him, who does not command you to seek any thing besides that which He taught. If any one doubts what this is, it will be proved that what was taught by Christ is with us.

10. . . ."For the rest, if because so many other things also have been taught by others, we are on that account bound to seek so far as we are able to find, we shall always be seeking, and shall never believe at all. For where will be the end of seeking? where the resting-point in believing? where the completion of finding? With Marcion? But Valentinus also propounds, "Seek and ye shall find". With Valentinus? But Apelles also will urge me with this declaration: and Hebion and Simon, and all in their turn, have no other means by which, insinuating themselves into my favor, they may join me to their party. I shall therefore be nowhere, while I everywhere meet with, "Seek and ye shall find".

11. . . ."Thus, going away from my faith, I am found to be a denier of it. Let me say once for all; no one seeks, except he who never had possession, or hath lost it. The old woman had lost one of ten pieces of silver, and therefore sought it; but when she found it, she ceased to seek. The neighbor had no bread, and therefore knocked; but as soon as it was opened unto him and he received, he ceased to knock. The widow asked to be heard by the judge, because she was not admitted; but as soon as she was heard, she persisted no farther. There is therefore a limit both to seeking, and to knocking, and to asking.

12. "Even though we ought to be yet and for ever seeking, still, where ought we to seek? Among the heretics? where all is foreign and adverse to our truth? whom we are forbidden to come nigh? What servant expects food from a stranger, not to say an enemy, to his master? What soldier looks for bounty and pay from unallied, not to say hostile, kings, unless he be a downright deserter, and a runaway, and a rebel? Even that old woman sought for the piece of silver in her own house; even he that knocked, did so at a neighbor's door; even that widow appealed to, not an adverse, though a hard judge. No one can thence be instructed, whence comes his destruction: no one is thence enlightened, whence comes darkness. Let us seek therefore in our own, and from those who are our own, and concerning our own: and that only which, without touching the rule of faith, can be brought into question."

[Then follows n. 13, the creed as then received and professed at baptism.]

14. "This rule, taught, as will be proved, by Christ, has no questions raised about it amongst us, save those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics.

But so long as its form remains in its own proper order, thou mayest seek and discuss as much as thou pleasest, and exhaust all thy longing after curious inquiry; if anything seem to thee either to hang in doubt, or to be shaded with obscurity, there is doubtless some brother, a doctor endowed with the grace of knowledge; there is some who has been familiar with those who are well practised; some one like thyself, curiously inquiring, yet, like thee, seeking. Thou newest of novices, it is better for thee to be ignorant, lest thou know what thou oughtest not, for what thou oughtest to know, thou knowest. Thy faith, He says, hath made thee whole (Luke 18:42), not thy exercises in the Scriptures. Faith is fixed in a rule: thou hast a law, and from the keeping of the law, salvation; but this exercising (of thyself in the Scriptures) consists in curiosity, having glory only from a zeal for skilfulness. Let curiosity yield to faith; let glory yield to salvation. At all events, either let them not clamor in opposition, or let them be still. To know nothing contrary to the rule, is to know everything. Even though heretics were not enemies of the truth, even though we were not forewarned to avoid them, what sort of act is it to confer with men who themselves profess that they also are still seeking? For if they are still really seeking, they have as yet found nothing certain, and consequently whatsoever in the meanwhile they may seem to hold, they show their own doubtfulness, as long as they are seeking. Thou, therefore, who likewise art seeking, looking to those who are themselves also seeking, the doubting led by the doubtful, the unassured by the unassured, the blind by those who are blind, must needs be led into the pit. But when, for the sake of deceiving, they pretend that they are still seeking, that they may, by instilling anxiety into us, palm their conceits upon us; and when, moreover, as soon as they have gained access to us, they maintain those points which they said ought to be questions, then ought we so to account of them, that they may know that we deny, not Christ, but them. For as long as they are still seeking, they have not laid hold; and as long as they have not laid hold, they have not as yet believed, they are not Christians. But when they do indeed hold a thing and believe it, and yet, in order that they may maintain it, say that it must be inquired into, before they maintain it, they deny that which, by making it matter of inquiry, they confess that they do not as yet believe. Those therefore who are not Christians, even in their own eyes, how much less in ours! What must the faith be which those argue for, who come to us by means of deceit? What the truth which those support, who introduce it with a lie?

15. "But these very persons treat of the Scriptures, and argue out of the Scriptures. That is they might speak of the things of the faith out of other sources besides the writings of the faith. We come therefore to the question before us: for this we were ordering, and this we were preparing in this prefatory discourse, that we might henceforward battle the point on which the adversaries challenge us. They put forward the Scriptures, and by this their boldness they forthwith move some; but in the actual encounter they weary the strong, catch the weak, send away the wavering without a doubt. We therefore interpose this first and foremost position: that they are not to be admitted to any discussion whatever touching the Scriptures. If these be their weapons of strength, in order that they may possess them, it ought to be known to those in the Church — where the Scriptures belong, lest others be admitted who have no wisdom of the Scriptures.

16. "It might be that I advanced this, prompted by distrust of my cause, or from a desire of entering on the debate in some other way, unless there were clear reason for it; first and chiefly this, that our faith owes obedience to the Apostle, when he forbids us to enter upon questions, to lend our ears to new sayings, to deal with an heretic "after one admonition", not after a disputation. . . . The next reason is, because an encounter of the Scriptures can avail nothing except to lead to a sheer turning of the stomach or of the brain.

17. "This heresy does not receive certain of the Scriptures; and the some that it does receive, it receives not entire; by adding to and taking from them, it turneth about according to the plan of its own purpose; and if to a certain extent it furnishes them entire, nevertheless, by devising diverse expositions, it changeth them. An adulteration by the sense imposed is as much opposed to the truth as a corruption by the pen. Their various presumptions must needs be loath to recognize those things whereby they are refuted. They rely on what they have falsely composed, or have derived from some ambiguity. What wilt thou gain, O thou most practised in the Scriptures, when, if thou affirm anything, it is denied; and, on the other hand, if thou denys anything, it is affirmed? And thou indeed wilt lose nothing but thy breath in the dispute; thou wilt gain nothing but vexation from their blasphemy.

18. "But he, if such there be, for whose sake thou descendest to an encounter of the Scriptures, that thou mayest strengthen him when wavering, will he incline more to truth or to heresies? Being moved by the very fact that he seeth that thou hast not advanced a whit, being on an equal footing in denying and affirming, on a different side, yet, questionless, in a like position, he will go away still more unsettled by the dispute, not knowing which to judge the heresy. Of course they too have it in their power to retort these things upon us. For they also, who in like manner affirm that the truth is with them, must needs say that the corruption of the Scriptures and the falsities in the expositions of them have been rather introduced by us.

19. "Therefore there must be no appeal to the Scriptures, nor must the contest be constituted in these, in which the victory is either none, or doubtful, or too little doubtful. For even though the debate on the Scriptures should not so turn out, as to confirm each party, the order of things required that this question should be first proposed, which is now the only one to be discussed, "To whom belongs the very faith; whose are the Scriptures; by whom, and through whom, and when, and to whom was that rule (discipline) delivered whereby men become Christians?" For wherever both the true Christian rule and faith shall be shown to be, there will be the true Scriptures, and the true expositions, and all the true Christian traditions."

37. "If these things be so, so that the truth be adjudged to us, as many as walk according to that rule which the Church has handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God, the reasonableness of our proposition is manifest; which determines that heretics are not to be allowed to enter upon an appeal to the Scriptures, whom we prove, without the Scriptures, to have no concern with the Scriptures. For if they be heretics, they cannot be Christians, in that they have not from Christ that, which having followed of their own choosing, they admit the names of heretics. Then, not being Christians, they have no right to Christian writings. Whence are heretics aliens and enemies to the Apostles, except from the diversity of doctrine which each one, at his own pleasure, either brought forward, or received in opposition to the Apostles?

38. "The adulteration therefore both of the Scriptures and of the expositions of them, must be thither referred, where difference of doctrine is found. Those, who had the purpose of teaching differently, necessity compelled to dispose differently the means, (instruments) of teaching. For they would not otherwise have been able to teach in a different way, unless they held in a different way the means whereby they taught. As they could not have succeeded in corrupting the doctrine without corrupting its instruments, so the genuine doctrine could not have come to us, and from us, without the genuineness of those means whereby the doctrine is handled. For what is there in our (instruments) contradictory to us? What have we introduced of our own, that we should, by taking away, or adding, or changing, remedy something detected to be contrary to what was in the Scriptures? What we are, that are the Scriptures from their beginning; of them we were, before there was anything different to what we are, before they were interpolated by you. But since every interpolation is to be believed to be of the later date (as having for its cause rivalry, which is never either prior to, or of one household with, that which it rivaleth), it is quite as incredible to any man of sense that we should be thought to have introduced a corrupt text into the Scriptures, we who are from the first, and the first, as it is that they have not introduced it, they who are both later and adverse (to them). One man alters the Scriptures with his hand, another their meaning by his exposition. For though Valentinus seems to make use of the entire document (instrument), he does not less lay hands upon the truth, though with more cunning skill than Marcion. For Marcion, without disguise, and openly, used the knife, not the pen, since he made havoc of the Scriptures to suit his own matter. But Valentinus spared them, because he did not invent Scriptures to fit his matter, but his matter to fit the Scriptures, and yet he took away more and added more, in taking away the proper meaning of each particular word, and adding systems of things not to be seen therein.

39. [He then shows that the works of the poets had been similarly perverted. Thus, "Hosidius Geta extracted from Yirgil the tragedy of Medea;" a relative of Tertullian's "made out of the same poet the Table of Cebes;" patch work compilations from Homer, called "Homeric Centones," were frequent.]

"And assuredly the divine literature is more fruitful in furnishing materials for every kind of subject. Nor am I afraid to say even, that the Scriptures themselves were so disposed by the will of God, that they might minister materials to heretics, when I read that "there must be heresies" (1 Corinthians 11:19), which without the Scriptures cannot be."

40. The next question will be, from whom is the interpretation of the sense of those words which contribute to heresies? Why, from the Devil, whose province it is to pervert the truth, who in the mysteries of idols, rivals even the very things of the mysteries of God. He, too, baptizes,"(*)

(*) Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and the primitive writers generally, trace numerous resemblances between Christian and Pagan doctrines and practices. Perhaps a more satisfactory answer could not be given to similar coincidences urged against our religion, than would be furnished by a collection of such passages.

41 "The heretics will have the overthrow of discipline to be simplicity; and the care of it amongst us they call pandering. They huddle up a peace also with all everywhere. For it makes no matter to them, although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire together in their siege against the one truth. All are puffed up; all promise knowledge."

42. "But what shall I say concerning the ministry of the word; seeing that their business is, not to convert the heathens, but to subvert our people? This is the glory which they rather catch at, if, perchance, they may work the fall of those who stand, not the raising up of those that are fallen; since their very work comes not of the building of their own, but of the pulling down of the truth. They undermine ours, that they may build their own. Take from them the law of Moses and the prophets, and God the Creator, they have no cause to complain; so it comes to pass that they more easily effect the ruin of standing buildings than the building up of fallen ruins. In these works alone do they act humbly, and smoothly, and submissively; but they know no reverence even towards their own chiefs. And this is why there are commonly no schisms amongst heretics; because when there are any, they appear not; for schism is their very unity. I speak falsely, if they do not differ among themselves even from their own rules, seeing that each one forthwith moulds, according to his own pleasure, the things which he hath received; even as he who has delivered them to him, framed them according to his own pleasure. The progress of the matter is a confession of its nature, and of the manner of its birth. The same thing was allowed to the Valentinians as to Valentinus, the same to the Marcionites as to Marcion,— to change the faith according to their own pleasure. Finally, all heresies, when thoroughly examined, are found in many things differing from their founders. Most of them have not even churches: without a mother, without a settlement, destitute of a faith, outcasts, and homeless, they wander to and fro."

[He thus concludes:]

"And now indeed I have argued against all heresies in general, that they ought to be forbidden by fixed, and just, and necessary rules, to bring Scripture into their disputes."

De Praescriptione Haereticorum; The prescription of heretics by Tertullian
See also Apology of Tertullian; Apolog. n. 47 p. 37.
The Faith of Catholics, Volume 1, Page 130-131, 355-364