Against Heresies: Book III

SINCE THE TRADITION FROM THE APOSTLES EXISTS IN THE CHURCH AND REMAINS WITH US: let us return to the Scriptural evidence provided by those apostles who wrote the Gospel. They recorded the teachings about God, showing that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, with no lies in Him. As David also prophesied His birth from a virgin and resurrection from the dead, "Truth has sprung out of the earth." The apostles, being disciples of the truth, are free from falsehood; just as lies do not align with the truth, darkness cannot coexist with light.

The presence of one excludes the other.

Therefore, our Lord, being the truth, did not speak lies. He would never acknowledge as God anyone originating from a defect, especially not the God of all, the Supreme King, and His own Father, portraying an imperfect being as perfect, an earthly being as spiritual, or someone outside the Pleroma as being within it. Neither did His disciples mention any other God or call any other Lord, except the one who was truly the God and Lord of all, contradicting these vain sophists who claim that the apostles crafted their doctrine to match the understanding of their audience, giving answers based on the opinions of their questioners—telling fables for the blind based on blindness, for the dull based on dullness, and for those in error based on their error.

To those who believed the Demiurge alone was God, they preached him; but to those who could understand the unnameable Father, they revealed the unspeakable mystery through parables and riddles. In this way, the Lord and the apostles acted not to promote the truth, but according to hypocrisy, giving knowledge as individuals were able to understand it.

Such behavior does not belong to those who heal or give life; it is more like the actions of those who cause diseases and increase ignorance. The law is much more truthful, declaring everyone cursed who leads a blind person astray. The apostles, tasked with finding the lost and becoming sight for the blind and medicine for the weak, certainly did not speak to them based on their current beliefs but rather based on revealed truth. No person would act rightly if they advised blind men, about to fall over a cliff, to continue their dangerous path as if it were safe.

OR: what doctor seeking to heal would prescribe medicine based on the patient’s whims instead of what is needed? The Lord Himself declares that He came as the physician for the sick, saying, “Those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” How, then, shall the sick be strengthened, or how shall sinners come to repentance? Is it by continuing in the same ways, or rather by undergoing a significant change and reversal of their former way of living, which brought them much sickness and many sins? But ignorance, the mother of these, is dispelled by knowledge.

Therefore, the Lord imparted knowledge to His disciples, using it to heal those who suffered and to deter sinners from sin. He did not speak to them based on their original ideas or answer in line with the opinions of His questioners but according to the doctrine leading to salvation, without hypocrisy or favoritism.

THIS IS ALSO MADE CLEAR FROM THE WORDS OF THE LORD: who truly revealed the Son of God to those of the circumcision— Him who had been foretold as Christ by the prophets; meaning, He presented Himself, who had restored liberty to people, and gave them the inheritance of incorruption. Again, the apostles taught the Gentiles to abandon useless idols made of wood and stone, which they imagined to be gods, and to worship the true God, who created and made all of humanity, and through His creation, nourished, increased, strengthened, and preserved them; and that they should look for His Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed us from apostasy with His own blood, so that we would also be a sanctified people—who shall also descend from heaven in His Father’s power, and pass judgment on all, and who shall freely give the good things of God to those who have kept His commandments. He, appearing in these last times as the chief cornerstone, has gathered into one and united those that were far away and those that were near; meaning the circumcision and the uncircumcision, expanding Japhet, and placing him in the dwelling of Shem.