Preface

§ 1.

In sending out to thee,¹ dearly-beloved, this fourth Book of our treatise of the Discovery and Refutation of Knowledge falsely so called, we intend, according to our promise, to establish our previous statements by the words of our Lord: that thou also, as thou didst desire, mightest receive from us every way means of confuting all the Heretics; and beating them back altogether, mightest not suffer them to plunge themselves further into the deep of error, nor to be choked in the sea of ignorance; but rather, turning them towards the Harbour of Truth, mightest so cause them to receive their own salvation.

For which cause they who have been before us,² yea, and much better men than we, were nevertheless unable to dispute against the Valentinians, as not knowing their system: which we in our first Book have very diligently expounded unto thee: wherein also we have shewn how their doctrine gathers up in one all the Heretics.

Wherefore in the second Book again we have used them as a mirror in which the whole of our refutation might be discerned.³ For they who duly dispute with these, dispute with all who have bad views: and the refuters of these refute every heresy.

§ 2.

But whosoever would convert them, must carefully acquaint himself with their rules or arguments: it being impossible for one to cure any sick persons, not knowing the ailment of the same.

Accordingly,⁴ in the book before this we have set forth the sentence of the Apostles upon them all; how that, far from having any such idea,⁵ they who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word of Truth, did even proclaim to us to shun the aforesaid opinions, foreseeing by the Spirit the future deceivers of the simpler ones.

§ 3.

For no creed is so blasphemous as theirs:⁶ who, as we have shewn, speak of the Maker and Framer, Who is One God, as the produce of decay and defection. And they blaspheme our Lord also, cutting off and dividing Jesus from Christ, and Christ from the Saviour, and the Saviour again from the Word, and the Word from the Only Begotten. And as they affirm the Creator to have been the produce of decay or defection, so Christ also, and the Holy Ghost, by their teaching, were produced because of Decay: and the Saviour is a kind of growth from those Æons, who were the produce of Decay: lest anything of theirs should be without blasphemy.

And whereas at that time the apostate Angel caused by the Serpent the disobedience of men, and thought himself hidden from the Lord;—on which account God attributes to him the form and title aforesaid;—now, because they are the last times, the evil extends itself to men also, not only causing them to become Apostates, but training them up to be blasphemers of their Maker by many contrivances; I mean by all the aforementioned Heretics.

For all these,⁷ issuing from different places, and teaching different doctrines, concur however in the same blasphemous intent; inflicting a deadly wound, in that they teach blasphemy against God our Maker and Nourisher, and do away with⁸ Man’s Salvation. By Man, I mean him who is a mixture of soul and flesh, formed after the likeness of God, and moulded by His Hands, to wit, by the Son and the Holy Ghost: unto Whom also He said,⁹ Let us make Man.

This then is the purpose of him who grudges us Life: to make men unbelievers in their own salvation, and blasphemers of God Who formed them. For when all Heretics have said all, with their utmost gravity, in the end they come to this, that they blaspheme the Maker and deny the Salvation of God’s work; which work is the Flesh: for the sake whereof the Son of God wrought all His providential purpose, as we have shewn in many ways; and have made it evident that none other is called God by the Scriptures, but only the Father of all, and the Son, and those who have the adoption.

§ 4.

For as the Serpent beguiled Eve, promising her what he had not himself, so these also, pretending greater knowledge and unspeakable mysteries, and promising that admission which they talk of within the Pleroma, plunge those who trust them into death, rendering them Apostates from their Maker.