"Interpolare Scripturas": Osservazioni sul problema dell'integrità del testo biblico a partire da Tert. praescr. 38

Tertullian's heresiological argumentation, as it emerges from his treatise "Prescriptions Against Heretics", revolves around the question of the integrity of the Scriptures, in whose text the identity of Christians is rooted, versus the versions manipulated by heretics that constitute their captious rewritings. Through the analysis of praescr. 38 and the scrutiny of the articulated meaning of "interpolatio", it is therefore possible to understand the importance of the textual structure of the Scriptures for Tertullian's theological discourse: it is on the logical-syntactic construction of the text, first and foremost, that his interpretations and refutations hinge. Accordingly, a closer examination of the expression "adicere dispositiones non comparentium rerum" (praescr. 38,10) highlights the key term "dispositio", which combines the grammatical and rhetorical component with the theological conceptualisation of the Trinitarian configuration of God and his action in the history of human beings.