Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Those, then, who lay hold of impious doctrines, leading others astray as well, not even handling the divine words well but perverting them corruptly, neither themselves enter into the kingdom of the heavens nor allow those whom they have deceived to attain the truth. But since they do not themselves possess the key of the entrance, but rather a false one, and, as common usage calls it, a counterfeit key, by which they do not throw open the outer door, as we do through the tradition of the Lord, but cutting through a side window and secretly digging through the wall of the church, overstepping the truth, they install themselves as guides initiating the souls of the ungodly into mysteries. As for the fact that they built their human factions at a later date than the catholic church, that needs no lengthy proof. For the Lord's own teaching, delivered at his coming and starting under Augustus and Tiberius Caesar, reached completion partway through Augustus's reign, whereas that of his apostles, running at least to Paul's ministry, was finished under Nero; it was only afterward, around the reign of the emperor Hadrian, that the inventors of the heresies emerged, and their activity stretched onward into the era of Antoninus the elder - so it was with Basilides, though he names Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter, as his own instructor, or so they boast. In the same way they claim Valentinus sat under Theudas as a pupil, and this same man had once known Paul.
For Marcion, having arisen in the same age as these, associated with the younger men as an old man consorting with them. After him Simon listened to Peter's preaching for a short while. Since these things are so, it is plainly evident that, in contrast to the most ancient and truest church, these later sects, and those even further removed from it in time, have been innovated as counterfeit deviations. From what has been said, then, I think it has become clear that there is one true church, the one that is in reality ancient, into which those who are righteous according to purpose are enrolled. For since God is one and the Lord is one, for this reason also that which is supremely honorable is praised for its singularity, since it mirrors that single, primary principle. To the nature of the One, accordingly, belongs the one church as its allotted share, the very church that the heresies try to tear into pieces. According to substance, then, and according to conception, and according to origin, and according to preeminence, we say that only the ancient and catholic church exists, gathering into "the unity of one faith" - the faith grounded in the covenants that belong to it, or rather in the single covenant granted across separate ages - through the purpose of the one God, by means of the one Lord, drawing together those already marked out, whom God chose in advance, aware before he laid the world's foundations that they would prove righteous. But the church's preeminence, like the principle underlying its makeup, rests on its oneness, exceeding every other thing, with nothing resembling or matching it.
These matters, then, are for later discussion as well. Of the heresies, some are named from a person, as that from Valentinus and Marcion and Basilides, even though they boast of putting forward the opinion of Matthias - for the teaching of all the apostles was one and the same, and so too was their tradition. Others are named from a place, as the Peratics; others from a nation, as that of the Phrygians; others from an activity, as that of the Encratites; others from particular doctrines, as that of the Docetists and that of the Haematites; others from suppositions and things they have honored, as the Cainists and those called Ophians; and others from the practices they have lawlessly pursued and dared to commit, as those of the Simonians called Entychites.
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