Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
On the Prescription of Heretics
Tertullian's c. 203 'De Praescriptione' — apostolic-rule polemic against heresy, refusing to debate Scripture with heretics
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On the Prescription of Heretics (Pre-Montanist) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | not engaged |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | not engaged |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
On the Prescription of Heretics
c. 203. Tertullian was in his mid-40s, before his Montanist break.
Space
On the Prescription of Heretics
Carthage (Roman North Africa).
Matter
On the Prescription of Heretics
Single polemical treatise (~80 pages in standard translation). Form is sustained legal-rhetorical argument: introduction setting up the praescriptio framework, then application to specific heretical positions.
Observer
On the Prescription of Heretics
Pre-Montanist Tertullian. The observer is the leading Latin-Christian theologian of his generation, articulating the proto-Catholic position on the apostolic-succession criterion.
Energy
On the Prescription of Heretics
Patristic-heresiological energies. The treatise is the most concentrated Tertullian work on the question of heresy.
Information
On the Prescription of Heretics
Single treatise (~44 chapters). The 'Athens / Jerusalem' question (ch. 7) and the apostolic-succession argument (chs. 21-22) are the most-cited individual passages.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Founding text of Christian heresiology; locus classicus of 'Athens vs Jerusalem'. The treatise's apostolic-succession argument became the founding charter of the Catholic argument for the apostolic-succession criterion of orthodoxy; the 'Athens vs Jerusalem' formulation has been continuously cited (sometimes with sympathy, sometimes critically) across two millennia of Christian-philosophical engagement.