§ 1.
But we holding the rule of Faith, i.e., that there is one God Almighty, Who created all things by His Word, and adapted them, and made all out of not being to be (as the Scripture saith,1 For by the Word of the Lord the Heavens were established, and all the power of them by the breath of His mouth:2 and again, All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made): yea, not one of all was excepted, but the Father made all by Him, whether visible or invisible, sensible or intelligible, temporal with a view to some œconomy, or everlasting and eternal: not by Angels, nor by any Virtues severed from His own Mind3—for the God of all hath need of nothing:—but both by His Word and His Spirit making and ordering and guiding and giving being to all: He who made the world (for in truth the world consists of all these); He who moulded man, He the God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, above Whom is no other God, nor Beginning, nor Virtue, nor Fulness; He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall shew:—This rule, I say, we holding, very diverse and many as their sayings are, easily convict them of having erred from the Truth. For almost all existing heresies affirm indeed that there is one God, but by a wrong opinion alter Him, becoming unthankful to their Maker, even as the Gentiles by Idolatry. And the work of God they despise, contradicting their own salvation, themselves proving against themselves most bitter accusers, and false witnesses. Who shall indeed rise again in the flesh, though against their will, to acknowledge the power of Him Who raiseth them from the dead: but with the just they will not be numbered, because of their unbelief.
§ 2.
The exposure then and refutation of all the Heretics being so various and manifold, and we intending to speak against them all according to each one’s distinguishing mark; we have thought it necessary first to state the fountain and root of them, that knowing this most sublime Deep of theirs, thou mayest understand the tree, from which such fruits have flowed.