Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
However the error is supposed to have happened, error in any case reigned only so long as there were no heresies. Liberating truth was waiting for a few Marcionites and Valentinians. Meanwhile the gospel was wrongly preached, wrongly believed, so many countless multitudes received a mistaken baptism, so many deeds of faith accomplished in error, so many powers, so many gifts wrongly worked, so many priesthoods, so many ministries wrongly discharged, and finally so many martyrdoms wrongly crowned! But if not wrongly, and not in vain, then what sense does it make for the works of God to run ahead of the God to whom they belonged being known? For Christians to exist before Christ was found? For heresies to exist before the true doctrine? No — in everything, truth precedes its image; the copy follows after the reality. It is absurd enough, besides, to hold that heresy came first in doctrine — especially since it is that very doctrine which foretold the heresies to come, and warned against them. To the church of that doctrine it is written — or rather, that very doctrine writes to its own church: 'Even if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached, let him be accursed.'