Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
PREFACE. Inasmuch as certain men, in refutation of the truth, bring in false words and endless genealogies, which — as the Apostle says — promote controversies rather than the edification of God that is in faith; and by a plausibility deceitfully contrived they lead astray the minds of the less experienced and take them captive, falsifying the words of the Lord and making themselves evil interpreters of things well said; and overturn many, drawing them in under the pretext of a 'knowledge' of him who established and ordered this universe — as though they had something loftier and greater to reveal than he who made heaven and earth and all things in them — persuasively they entice the more simple by their skill in words toward a manner of inquiry, but wickedly destroy them, in that they make their own opinion blasphemous and impious toward the Maker, being unable to distinguish the false from the true.
Error, indeed, is never displayed in its own naked form, lest, once exposed, it be at once seized; but craftily arraying itself in an attractive dress, it contrives, absurd as it is even to say, to appear — through outward semblance — more true than the truth itself to the more simple-minded, who are thus deceived. Of this very thing it has been well said by one better than ourselves: that only a skilled person can judge a precious stone and expose the fraud practiced in it; for when copper is mixed with silver, who, if untrained, could readily detect it? So too, lest by our own negligence some be carried off like sheep by wolves, failing to recognize them because of the sheep's clothing they wear outwardly — men against whom the Lord warned us, who speak things resembling ours but mean things unlike them, and who are, as they themselves acknowledge, disciples of Valentinus — having met with some of them and grasped their teaching, I have set myself to disclose to you, my dearest friend, their most monstrous and deepest mysteries, which not everyone grasps, since not everyone has purified the mind; so that, knowing them, you may make them plain to all who are with you, and urge them to keep themselves from the depths of folly and of blasphemy against God. And to the extent our powers allow, we shall set forth concisely and clearly the doctrine of those who now teach otherwise — I mean the followers of Ptolemaeus, a flower, as it were, of the Valentinian school — and give others, according to our modest ability, the means to overturn it, by showing that what they teach has no stability and does not accord with the truth. We are neither practiced writers nor students of rhetorical art; but love compels us to make plain to you and to all with you what until now lay hidden, but by the grace of God has now come into the open. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed, and nothing hidden that shall not be known. [A short stretch of the transmitted text is unreadable and is omitted rather than supplied by guess.] Not by persuasive artifice, then, which we do not possess, but simply, truly, and without polish, you will receive what has been written to you in love, and will yourself increase it within you, being more capable than we, taking it as seed and starting-point from us; and in the breadth of your understanding you will make much fruit grow from what we have said only in brief, and will powerfully press upon those with you the things we have set forth but weakly. And just as we labored, when you long ago sought to learn their teaching, not merely to make it known to you but also to give you the resources for exposing its falsity, so you in turn will render the same service effectively to others, according to the grace given you by the Lord, so that no one need any longer be pulled off course by their persuasion, which goes as follows.