{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030278.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030278.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030278.htm","text":"Chapter XII.\u2014A Proper Seeking After Divine Knowledge, Which Will Never Be Out of Place or Excessive, is Always Within the Rule of Faith.\nAs for us, although we must still seek, and that always, yet where ought our search to be made? Amongst the heretics, where all things are foreign 1989 and opposed to our own verity, and to whom we are forbidden to draw near? What slave looks for food from a stranger, not to say an enemy of his master? What soldier expects to get bounty and pay from kings who are unallied, I might almost say hostile\u2014unless forsooth he be a deserter, and a runaway, and a rebel? Even that old woman 1990 searched for the piece of silver within her own house. It was also at his neighbour\u2019s door that the persevering assailant kept knocking. Nor was it to a hostile judge, although a severe one, that the widow made her appeal. No man gets instruction 1991 from that which tends to destruction. 1992 No man receives illumination from a quarter where all is darkness. Let our \u201cseeking,\u201d therefore be in that which is our own, and from those who are our own: and concerning that which is our own,\u2014that, and only that, 1993 which can become an object of inquiry without impairing the rule of faith.\nAlthough Tertullian calls her \u201canus,\u201d St. Luke\u2019s word is \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ae not \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c2.\n249:1991 249:1992 249:1993","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: A Prop...","type":"page"}