You are still missing the point.
If you want to convince ANYONE that Tertullian said something, then present a quote from Tertullian and cite the source of the quote so your reader can follow the example of the Bereans and look it up for themselves to verify if what you claim is true. When you just make a statement like “Tertullian said that the church in Rome told him that” and offer nothing to support your statement, then it becomes an unverified rumor and YOUR PERSONAL OPINION.
Since you have no real interest in actually backing up any of your claims with something that can be verified, I have no interest in wasting more time discussing your unsupported opinions.
Tertullian heard directly from Bigfoot that Peter told Clement that the Apostle John was abducted by a UFO and would be returned just in time to found the Mormon Church ... and I don’t need to cite any sources either because the Invisible Church knows the truth. (Go ahead, feel free to try and prove me wrong).
Here’s the reference. So much for unverified rumors and personal opinions.
Tertullian - “Against Heresies”
Chapter 32:
“None of the Heretics Claim Succession from the Apostles. New Churches Still Apostolic, Because Their Faith is that Which the Apostles Taught and Handed Down. The Heretics Challenged to Show Any Apostolic Credentials.”
“But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records [2181] of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs [2182] ] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,--a man, moreover, who continued stedfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit [2183] their registers: “[2184] as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. [2185] In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive [2186] something of the same kind. For after their blasphemy, what is there that is unlawful for them (to attempt)? But should they even effect the contrivance, they will not advance a step. For their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man; because, as the apostles would never have taught things which were self-contradictory, so the “apostolic men would not have inculcated teaching different from the apostles, unless they who received their instruction from the apostles went and preached in a contrary manner. To this test, therefore will they be submitted for proof [2187] by those churches, who, although they derive not their founder from apostles or apostolic men (as being of much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily), yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine. [2188] Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two [2189] tests by our apostolic church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic. But in truth they neither are so, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they admitted to peaceful relations and communion by such churches as are in any way con “such churches as are in any way connected with apostles, inasmuch as they are in no sense themselves apostolic because of their diversity as to the mysteries of the faith. [2190]”
Excerpt From
Ante-Nicene Fathers: Fathers of the Early Church (Complete)
Philip Schaff
Religion & Spirituality · 2024
books.apple.com
