Against Heresies: Book III

Chapters

2. Chapter 1:—The apostles did not begin to preach the Gospel, or to put anything in writing until they were blessed with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. They preached only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

3. Chapter 2: The Heretics Do Not Follow Either Scripture or Tradition.

4. Chapter 3: Disproving Heretics through the Continuous Line of Bishops in Various Churches

5. Chapter 4: The Only True Doctrine is Found in the Catholic Church, the Sole Holder of Apostolic Doctrine. Heresies Are Recent Developments and Do Not Originate from the Apostles.

6. Chapter 5: Christ and His Apostles Authentically Preached About One God, The Father, As The Creator Of All Things, Unaffected By The Bias Of Their Audience.

7. Chapter 6 - The Holy Spirit, throughout the Old Testament, referred to no other God or Lord, except the true God.

8. Chapter 7:—Response to a Criticism Based on St. Paul's Words (2 Cor. 4:4). St. Paul Sometimes Uses Words Out of Their Grammatical Order.

9. Chapter 8:—Response to a Challenge, Based on Christ's Words (Matt. 6:24). Only God Should Truly Be Referred to as God and Lord, for He is Eternal, Without Beginning or End.

10. Chapter 9: The One True God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, as Prophesied by the Prophets and Stated in the Gospel, Supported by Evidence from the Gospel of St. Matthew.

11. Chapter 10: Evidence for the Previous Discussion, Taken from the Gospels of Mark and Luke.

12. Chapter 11—Continued Evidence, Taken from the Gospel of St. John. There are Exactly Four Gospels, No More, No Less. Mystical Reasons for This.

13. Chapter 12: Doctrine of the Remaining Apostles.

14. Chapter 13—Refuting the belief that Paul was the only apostle who knew the truth.

15. Chapter 14: If Paul knew any secrets unknown to the other apostles, Luke, his constant companion and fellow-traveler, would certainly have known about them; nor could the truth have been hidden from him, as he is the sole source of our knowledge about mankind.

16. Chapter 15: Debunking the Ebionites, who undermined the authority of St. Paul, based on writings from St. Luke, which must be accepted in its entirety. Revealing the hypocrisy, deceit, and arrogance of the Gnostics. The knowledge and practice of the apostles and their disciples.

17. Chapter 16: Evidence from the Apostolic Texts That Jesus Christ Was One and the Same, The Solely Born Son of God, Fully God and Fully Human.

18. Chapter 17: The Apostles Teach that it was not Christ or the Savior, but the Holy Spirit, who Descended Upon Jesus. The Reason for this Descent.

19. Chapter 18: Continuing the Previous Argument. Evidence from St. Paul's Writings and Our Lord's Words, Asserting that Jesus and Christ are not Separate Entities; Nor Can It Be Claimed That the Son of God Simply Became a Man Without Purpose

20. Chapter 19: Jesus Christ was not simply a man, naturally conceived through Joseph, but was truly God, birthed by the supreme Father, and truly a man, born of the Virgin.

21. Chapter 20: —God displayed His patience, kindness, mercy, and power to save through man's downfall. Therefore, man is extremely ungrateful if he does not recognize God's grace, forgetting his own fate and the blessings offered to him.

22. Chapter 21: Defending the prophecy in Isa. 7:14 against the misinterpretations of Theodotion, Aquila, the Ebionites, and the Jews. The authority of the Septuagint version. Arguments showing that Christ was born to a virgin.

23. Chapter 22: Christ took on real flesh, conceived and born from the Virgin.

24. Chapter 23: Arguments Against Tatian, Showing that it was in Line with Divine Justice and Mercy for the First Adam to be the First to Partake in the Salvation Offered to All by Christ.

25. Chapter 24: Summarize of the various arguments presented against Gnostic disrespect under all its forms. The heretics, swayed by every new teaching, are challenged by the consistent and unchanging teachings of the Church.

26. Chapter 25: This world is governed by the providence of a single God, who possesses unlimited justice to punish the wicked, and infinite kindness to bless the devout, and confer upon them salvation.

🎧 Against Heresies: Book III

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Chapter 2: The Heretics Do Not Follow Either Scripture or Tradition.

WHEN THEY ARE PROVEN WRONG BY THE SCRIPTURES: they turn around and accuse the same Scriptures of being incorrect or lacking authority, claiming they are ambiguous and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. They argue that the truth was not delivered through written documents but by spoken word. Therefore, Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those who are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." Each of them claims this wisdom to be their own invention, suggesting that the truth resides sometimes in Valentinus, sometimes in Marcion, then in Cerinthus, later in Basilides, or even in any other opponent, all of whom could say nothing concerning salvation. Each of these individuals, being entirely of a corrupt nature and distorting the system of truth, is not ashamed to promote themselves.

2. But, again, when we refer them to the tradition that originates from the apostles and is preserved through the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, claiming they are wiser not only than the presbyters but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. They argue that the apostles mixed the law with the words of the Saviour, and that not only the apostles but even the Lord Himself spoke at times from the Demiurge, at other times from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma. However, they claim to have knowledge of the hidden mystery, clearly, purely, and without error: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator in a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these people now agree with neither Scripture nor tradition.

SUCH ARE THE ADVERSARIES WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH: my dear friend, who, like slippery serpents, try to escape at every point. Therefore, they must be opposed at every point, in case, by cutting off their retreat, we might succeed in turning them back to the truth. For, while it is not easy for a soul influenced by error to repent, it is not entirely impossible to escape from error when the truth is presented alongside it.