Primary source · Latin
The Prescription Against Heretics
Tertullian of Carthage · c. AD 200
What this text is
Tertullian's legal masterstroke: the scriptures belong to the church by right of possession, and the heretics have no standing to argue from them — 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?'
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Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Chapter 7 — Athens and Jerusalem
QuidWhatergothenAthenisto AthensetandHierosolymis?to Jerusalem?quidwhatacademiaeto the Academyetandecclesiae?to the Church?
Public-domain translations
Peter Holmes (ANF, 1885)
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?… Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon. Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition!
Manuscript witnesses
Corpus Cluniacense manuscripts
9th c. onwardDe praescriptione at the head of the anti-heretical corpus.
Rigault edition (Paris)
1634The early modern edition drawing on manuscripts since lost.
Provenance
Carthage, c. AD 203
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Tertullien: Traité de la prescription contre les hérétiques (SC 46)R. F. Refoulé, 1957Critical edition with French translation.
- Tertullian (The Early Church Fathers)Geoffrey D. Dunn, 2004Introduction with fresh translations.