As 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 -- unless 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's 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 "seeking," therefore be in that which is our own, and from those who are our own: and concerning that which is our own, -- that, and only that, [1993] which can become an object of inquiry without impairing the rule of faith.

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Footnotes:

[1989] Extranea.

[1990] Although Tertullian calls her "anus," St. Luke's word is gune not graus.

[1991] Instrui potest.

[1992] Unde destruitur.

[1993] Idque dumtaxat.