Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

276 THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.whence they all spring. Thus all are the first,and all apostolical, while all being the one proveunity: whilst there is between them communicationof peace, and the title of brotherhood, andthe token of hospitality.38 And no other principlerules these rights than the one tradition of thesame sacrament/'39Here is the summing up of what Irenasus hadsaid with the force, brevity, and incisiveness whichcharacterise Tertullian. Further on he rejects anyappeal on the part of heretics to scripture :" If the truth be in our possession, as many aswalk by the rule which the Church has handed^^down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ,and Christ from God, the reasonableness of ourproposition is manifest, which lays down that here-tics are not to be allowed to enter an appeal toscriptures, since without scriptures we prove themto have no concern with scriptures. For if theyare heretics, they cannot be Christians, inasmuchas they do not hold from Christ what they followby their own choice, and in consequence admitthe name of heretics.40 Therefore not being Chris-tians, they have no right to Christian writings. Towhom we may well say, Who are you ? when did38 Tertull. de Prase. 19, 20.39 The word here stands evidently for the whole body of Christiantruth, rites, and discipline, the communication of which was a sacra-mentum.40 That is, he opposes the word choosers to the word Christians;the one signifying those who believe what they choose, the other thosewho believe what Christ taught.