§ 1.
As to the first Book which precedes this,1 detecting the knowledge falsely so called; we have therein proved to thee, dearly beloved, concerning the imposture of the Valentinians, that it hath been devised by them in manifold and contradictory ways. We have also set forth the opinions of such as were before them, pointing out how they differ from one another, and much sooner from Truth itself. And the opinion too of Mark the sorcerer, he being one of them, with his deeds, we have set forth very diligently: and whatsoever things they select from the Scriptures and try to accommodate to their own device, we have carefully set down; and the way how by numbers and by the twenty-four letters of the Alphabet, they are busy and bold to maintain their Truth, we have particularly gone through. And their statement that the creature is made after the image of their invisible Pleroma, and all their opinions and doctrines concerning the Artificer of it, we have reported: and have declared the doctrine of their progenitor, Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer, and of all those who came after him. We have stated also the number of those who are of him, being Gnostics; and their differences, and doctrines, and successions we have noted, and the heresies founded by them, we have expounded them all. And we have shewn that they all, taking their beginnings from Simon, have brought into this life impious and irreligious tenets; and their way of Redemption we have declared, and how they initiate such as are made perfect, and their modes of address, and their mysteries. And that there is one only God, the Creator, and that He is not the offspring of Defect, and that neither above Him nor after Him is any thing.
§ 2.
But in this Book we will establish what our own case requires,2 and what the time permits: and we will overthrow the whole of their Rule by its principal heads: and accordingly, this our work being a detection and subversion of their view, we have given that title to the writing which contains it. For the various sorts of hidden communion they speak of must be done away by exposing and overturning those which they affirm openly: and The Deep of whom they talk must submit to have it proved that he neither was at any time, nor is now.