Irenaeus — Against Heresies IV.33

1. A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiving the Spirit of God , who was from the beginning, in all the dispensations of God , present with mankind , and announced things future, revealed things present, and narrated things past — [such a man] does indeed judge all men , but is himself judged by no man. For he judges the Gentiles , who serve the creature more than the Creator, Romans 1:21 and with a reprobate mind spend all their labour on vanity. And he also judges the Jews , who do not accept of the word of liberty, nor are willing to go forth free, although they have a Deliverer present [with them]; but they pretend, at a time unsuitable [for such conduct], to serve, [with observances] beyond [those required by] the law, God who stands in need of nothing, and do not recognise the advent of Christ , which He accomplished for the salvation of men , nor are willing to understand that all the prophets announced His two advents: the one, indeed, in which He became a man subject to stripes, and knowing what it is to bear infirmity, Isaiah 53:3 and sat upon the foal of an ass, Zechariah 9:9 and was a stone rejected by the builders, and was led as a sheep to the slaughter, Isaiah 53:7 and by the stretching forth of His hands destroyed Amalek; Exodus 17:11 while He gathered from the ends of the earth into His Father's fold the children who were scattered abroad, Isaiah 11:12 and remembered His own dead ones who had formerly fallen asleep, and came down to them that He…

2. Moreover, he shall also examine the doctrine of Marcion , [inquiring] how he holds that there are two gods, separated from each other by an infinite distance. Or how can he be good who draws away men that do not belong to him from him who made them, and calls them into his own kingdom? And why is his goodness, which does not save all [thus], defective? Also, why does he, indeed, seem to be good as respects men, but most unjust with regard to him who made men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his possessions? Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice , if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood? And why did He acknowledge Himself to be the Son of man , if He had not gone through that birth which belongs to a human being? How, too, could He forgive us those sins for which we are answerable to our Maker and God? And how, again, supposing that He was not flesh, but was a man merely in appearance, could He have been crucified, and could blood and water have issued from His pierced side? John 19:34 What body, moreover, was it that those who buried Him consigned to the tomb? And what was that which rose again from the dead?

3. [This spiritual man] shall also judge all the followers of Valentinus , because they do indeed confess with the tongue one God the Father , and that all things derive their existence from Him, but do at the same time maintain that He who formed all things is the fruit of an apostasy or defect. [He shall judge them, too, because] they do in like manner confess with the tongue one Lord Jesus Christ , the Son of God , but assign in their [system of] doctrine a production of his own to the Only-begotten, one of his own also to the Word, another to Christ , and yet another to the Saviour; so that, according to them, all these beings are indeed said [in Scripture to be], as it were, one; [while they maintain], notwithstanding, that each one of them should be understood [to exist] separately [from the rest], and to have [had] his own special origin, according to his peculiar conjunction. [It appears], then that their tongues alone, forsooth, have conceded the unity [of God], while their [real] opinion and their understanding (by their habit of investigating profundities) have fallen away from [this doctrine of] unity, and taken up the notion of manifold deities — [this, I say, must appear] when they shall be examined by Christ as to the points [of doctrine] which they have invented. Him, too, they affirm to have been born at a later period than the Pleroma of the Æons , and that His production took place after [the occurrence of] a degeneracy or apostasy ; and they maintain…

4. He will judge also the Ebionites ; [for] how can they be saved unless it was God who wrought out their salvation upon earth? Or how shall man pass into God , unless God has [first] passed into man? And how shall he (man) escape from the generation subject to death, if not by means of a new generation, given in a wonderful and unexpected manner (but as a sign of salvation ) by God — [I mean] that regeneration which flows from the virgin through faith ? Or how shall they receive adoption from God if they remain in this [kind of] generation, which is naturally possessed by man in this world? And how could He (Christ) have been greater than Solomon, Matthew 12:41-42 or greater than Jonah, or have been the Lord of David, Matthew 22:43 who was of the same substance as they were? How, too, could He have subdued Matthew 22:29 ; Luke 11:21-22 him who was stronger than men, who had not only overcome man, but also retained him under his power, and conquered him who had conquered, while he set free mankind who had been conquered, unless He had been greater than man who had thus been vanquished? But who else is superior to, and more eminent than, that man who was formed after the likeness of God , except the Son of God , after whose image man was created? And for this reason He did in these last days exhibit the similitude; [for] the Son of God was made man, assuming the ancient production [of His hands] into His own nature, as I have shown in the immediately preceding book.