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But more importantly, whether by memory or by reference to a physical text, Polycarp is following in a long tradition, exampled by both Christ Himself and His apostles, of citing to the word of God as the dispositive authority in any contest of ideas about God and Christian truth.

But, that knife cuts two ways. The heretics were not ignorant of Holy Scripture. As much as I find snip quotes sometimes tedious, I will submit:

A new reformation was therefore necessary. Marcion felt himself entrusted with this commission, and the church which he gathered recognized this vocation of his to be the reformer. 35 He did not appeal to a new revelation such as he presupposed for Paul. As the Pauline Epistles and an authentic "evangelion of the Lord" were in existence, it was only necessary to purify these from interpolations, and restore the genuine Paulinism which was just the Gospel itself.

Marcion From Adolf Von Harnack, History of Dogma

But when I want to win my case, what do I do? I use the authority of my office to cite to the real authority, statutory law and the case law that interprets it. I am recognizing in that act that the true authority does not rest in my office, but in legal truth (such as it is).

Was not Marcion doing exactly this? And it worked, requiring several ecumenical councils over hundreds of years to continue to refute the heresy and preserve the chain of orthodoxy (right belief).

Is it fair to say that the Holy Scripture is "statutory law" and the councils are "case law"?

From your "snippet:"

it was only necessary to purify these from interpolations,

No, this is not the same as citing to Scripture for authority, and objectively so. Marcion's "interpolations" correspond more closely to the undertaking of higher criticism, where no text is presumed to be authentic, but more like an archeological gradient that must be brushed away to get a little closer to (but never actually arriving at) the "authentic" text.

Put another way, Marcion attacked the received text as inauthentic. That is the opposite of appeal to it's authority. It is analogous to the serpent in the garden hissing, "has God said ..." to insinuate doubt into holy writ, not confidence in the same.

But even Christ during His temptation was not offput by Satan's own misquoting of Scripture, but fires Scripture right back at him, because Scripture handled truthfully becomes a mighty weapon in the hand of the believer, and I for one am not willing to lay it down:

Eph 6:14-17 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; (15) And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; (16) Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. (17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Peace,

BTW, I clicked your link and it went nowhere. Puzzling ..

And yes, I note your observation about statutory versus case law. There is some merit to the analogy you propose, but to be fully consistent, you would then also have to recognize that case law is mutable and can change course, but the statutes are fixed by the legislature, which in our analogy would be the Supreme Legislator, God Himself. Which is why at any point a good attorney will know when he/she should challenge a precedent case law as a misinterpretation of the statute, just as Jesus challenged the precedents of the Jewish magisterium. Sometimes that is the only right way to proceed, though it can lead to considerable resistance.

Peace,