Preface
1. My dear friend, we are sending you, as we promised, this fourth book of the work entitled The Exposé and Refutation of the False Knowledge. In it we shall confirm by the Lord’s discourses what we have already said. Then you, too, as you requested, will receive from us the means, from every source, for confounding the heretics, and when you have completely beaten them back, you will not allow them to continue longer in the “profundity” of error or to drown in the sea of ignorance; rather, you will turn them back to the harbor of Truth and make them receive their salvation.
2. Whoever wishes to convert them must, however, carefully know their systems. Surely, it is not possible for one to heal those who are ill if one is ignorant of the ailment of the one who is ill. Wherefore those who lived before us, and were indeed better than we, were nevertheless not able satisfactorily to refute the followers of Valentinus, because they did not know their system, which we very carefully handed down to you in the First Book. There, too, we have shown that their doctrine is a summary of all heretics. For that reason, in the Second Book, we have used them as a mirror for the entire refutation, because whoever disproves these heretics as he ought disproves all who are evil-minded; and whoever refutes these refutes all heresy.
3. Really, their system is the most blasphemous of all, since they assert that the Creator and Maker who, as we have shown, is the one God, was emitted from the fall or degeneracy. Moreover, they blaspheme against Our Lord, too, cutting off and dividing Jesus from Christ, and Christ from Savior, and Savior, in turn, from Word, and Word from Only-begotten. And just as they asserted that Maker was produced from Degeneracy, so they taught too that Christ and Spirit were produced for the sake of the Degeneracy, and that Savior is the fruit of the Aeons that were emitted from Degeneracy. The result is that there is nothing among them that is not blasphemous. So, in the preceding Book we have shown what the doctrine of the apostles is in regard to all these points. They not only did not hold anything of the kind—they who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word of Truth. On the contrary, since through the Spirit they foresaw those who would mislead the more simple-minded, they announced in advance that we should flee from such doctrines.
4. Indeed, as the serpent deceived Eve, promising her what he did not have, so these men, too, offer greater knowledge and unspeakable mysteries and promise a reception, as they assert, with the Fullness, but plunge them to death, since they make those who believe in them rebel from him who created them. Even at that time the rebel angel, by means of the serpent, brought about the disobedience of men and then thought he was hidden from the Lord. For that reason, God gave him the same shape and name. Now, however, since these are the last times, evil is spread among men, which makes them not only apostates but also blasphemers of the Fashioner by means of many machinations, that is, through all the heretics who have been mentioned. All these, though they start out from different regions and teach different doctrines, agree in the same intention of blasphemy, by teaching blasphemy against God our Creator and Nourisher, and by denying salvation to man. Thus they inflict on men a deadly wound.
Humanity is, however, a mixture of soul and flesh who has been formed according to God’s likeness and fashioned by his hands, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, to whom he also said, Let us make man. So the intention of the one [the Devil] who envies our life is to make men disbelieve their salvation, and to become blasphemers against God the Fashioner. For whatever all the heretics have said with the greatest solemnity ultimately comes to this: that they blaspheme the Maker and deny salvation to God’s handiwork, that is, to flesh, on account of which God’s Son made the entire Economy, as we have shown in many ways. We have also made clear that no other is called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption.