[Uncle Chip]

So they consign Tertullian to purgatory and deny him "sainthood" and yet quote him as a source for that legendary Petrine Bishopric in Rome that we have heard so much about all these many years. What does that say about what they really think about Tertullian and his writings?. Perhaps becoming a Montanist was his Penance for his sins of rhetoric embellishment?

[wmfights]

"So they consign Tertullian to purgatory and deny him "sainthood" and yet quote him as a source for that legendary Petrine Bishopric in Rome that we have heard so much about all these many years."
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Somewhere along the line institutional "group think" took over and any and all dissent was to be destroyed. It's easy to understand in the context of the threat from the Marcionites, Ebionites and especially the Gnostics, but the consequences are pretty dramatic in that the one thing guiding the behavior (a desire to protect orthodoxy) led to the opposite outcome.