Against Heresies: Book III
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
All these people have been exposed for introducing impious doctrines about our Maker and Creator, who also formed this world, and above whom there is no other God. Those who spread falsehoods about the nature of our Lord and the plan He completed for the sake of His creation, humanity, have been defeated by their own arguments.
On the other hand, it has been shown that the preaching of the Church remains consistent everywhere, stays steady, and is supported by the prophets, apostles, and all the disciples, as I have demonstrated, through the beginning, the middle, and the end, and through the entire plan of God.
This well-founded system aims for humanity's salvation, namely, our faith, which we have received from the Church and preserve. This faith is continually renewed by the Spirit of God, like a precious treasure in an excellent vessel, causing the vessel itself to also renew. This gift of God has been entrusted to the Church, just as breath was given to the first man, so that all who receive it may be given life. The means of communion with Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of incorruption, the means of confirming our faith, and the ladder to God, have been distributed throughout it. "For in the Church," it is said, "God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers," and all the other ways through which the Spirit works.
Those who do not join with the Church miss out on these and deprive themselves of life through their misguided views and disgraceful behavior. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, along with every kind of grace; and the Spirit is truth.
Therefore, those who do not partake in Him are neither nurtured into life from the mother's breasts nor do they enjoy the purest fountain flowing from the body of Christ.
Instead, they dig for themselves broken cisterns out of earthly ditches and drink tainted water from the mud, fleeing from the faith of the Church to avoid being corrected, and rejecting the Spirit to avoid being instructed.
Separated from the truth in this way, they justifiably linger in all kinds of error, being tossed around by it, thinking differently about the same things at different times, and never reaching a solid understanding, as they are more eager to be wordsmiths than followers of the truth. They are not built upon the one rock, but upon the sand, which contains many stones.
Therefore, they imagine many gods and always have the excuse of searching for truth (because they are blind), but they never succeed in finding it.
They blaspheme the Creator, the one who is truly God, who also gives the power to find the truth, imagining that they have discovered another god beyond God, or another Pleroma, or another way.
As a result, the light that comes from God does not shine on them, because they have dishonored and despised God, considering Him insignificant, since, due to His love and infinite kindness, He has made Himself accessible to human understanding (knowledge not of His greatness or essence—for no one has measured or grasped that—but in this sense: that we should know that He who made, formed, and breathed life into them, and sustains us through creation, establishing all things by His Word and uniting them by His Wisdom—this is the only true God).
Yet they fantasize about a non-existent being above Him, hoping to be seen as having discovered the great God, who, they claim, no one can recognize as interacting with humanity or directing worldly matters: essentially, they envision the god of Epicurus, who does nothing for himself or others, exercising no providence at all.