Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But their arguments still need to be broken down, effort must be given to it, if they excerpt anything from the scriptures to suit their own opinion, refusing to look at everything else, which itself likewise keeps the rule, and indeed with the union of the godhead and the ring of the monarchy kept safe. For just as in the Old Testament they hold to nothing but "I am God and besides me there is no other," so in the Gospel they hold fast to what the Lord told Philip in reply, "I and the Father are one thing," and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father too," and "I dwell in the Father, and the Father dwells in me." [2] They want the whole instrument of both testaments to give way to these three little clauses, when it is proper for the fewer to be understood in light of the many. [3] But this is characteristic of all heretics. Because there are only a few passages to be found in the thicket, they defend the few against the many, and take up the later against the earlier. But the rule, established from the beginning for every matter, sets a precedent in the earlier things over the later ones — and certainly in the more numerous ones over the fewer.