Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
You see, then, most beloved, the contrivance by which they deceive themselves, wresting the Scriptures and striving to make their fiction stand upon them. For this reason I have set down their own artifices and expressions, so that from these you may weigh the malice behind their invention and the depth of their error. To begin with, had it been John's aim to display that Ogdoad above, he would certainly have preserved the sequence of the emission, and would have set down the first foursome — since it is, as they say, the more honorable — in the very first place among the names, and would then have added the second, so that the order of the Ogdoad might be shown through the order of the names; and he would not, after so long an interval, as though he had forgotten and only afterward remembered, have named the first foursome last of all. Then again, wishing to indicate the conjunctions, he would not have passed over the name of the Church; rather, either in the other conjunctions he would have been content with naming only the males, since the females could equally be understood along with them, so as to preserve a single consistency throughout — or, if he was enumerating the conjunctions of the rest, he would certainly have made known the consort of Anthropos (that is, of Man), and would not have left us to guess at her name by divination.
Manifest, then, is the perversion of their exposition. For John, proclaiming one almighty God and one only-begotten Christ Jesus, through whom, he says, all things came to be, means by these titles the Word of God — he the Only-begotten, he the maker of all things, he the true light enlightening every man, he the fashioner of the world, he the one who came to his own, he the very one who took on flesh and made his dwelling among us. But these men, twisting the exposition to suit their own plausibility, will have it that one being was the Only-begotten by way of emission, whom indeed they also call the Beginning; another, they hold, was the Savior; another was the Word, son of the Only-begotten; and another was the Christ sent forth for the correction of the Pleroma. Each of these sayings they wrench away from the truth, and abusing the names, they turn them to serve their own argument — so that, according to them, John, in speaking of such great matters, gave no mention at all of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if he spoke of the Father, and Grace, and the Only-begotten, and Truth, and the Word, and Life, and Anthropos, and the Church, then according to their argument he spoke of the first Ogdoad, in which there was not yet a Jesus, not yet a Christ, John's own master. But that the apostle spoke not of their syzygies but of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he also knows to be the Word of God, he himself makes plain. For, recapitulating concerning that Word which had been spoken of in the beginning, he goes on to explain: "And the Word took on flesh, and made his home among us." Yet according to their argument it was not the Word that took on flesh — for the Word, they say, never even came outside the Pleroma — but rather one formed out of all the Aeons together, one later than the Word, namely the Savior. Learn, then, you senseless men, that Jesus, who suffered for us, who dwelt among us, is himself the very Word of God. For if some other of the Aeons had been made flesh for our salvation, one would have to suppose the apostle spoke of that other. But if it is the Word of the Father who descended, the very one who also ascended, the only-begotten Son from the one God, made flesh for men according to the Father's good pleasure — then John spoke not of some other being, nor of the Ogdoad, but of the Lord Jesus Christ. For, according to them, it was not the Word that was principally made flesh at all. For they say that the Savior put on an animate body, fitted for this by an arrangement of ineffable providence, so that it might become visible and tangible. But that flesh is the old formation made by God from clay, according to Adam — which John showed to be truly the Word of God made flesh. And so their first and firstborn Ogdoad is dissolved. For when it is shown that the Word, and the Only-begotten, and Life, and Light, and Savior, and Christ, the Son of God, are one and the same, and that this same one was made flesh for us, then the framework of their Ogdoad is destroyed. And once this is undone, their whole argument collapses — for it is under a false name that they, dreaming, slander the Scriptures in order to fabricate their own system.
After this they string together words and names taken here and there, according to their own reckoning, into that which is against nature — doing just as those who set themselves any controversial theme they please and then try to piece it together out of verses of Homer, so that the simple suppose that Homer composed those verses for that improvised declamation, and many are led astray by the artful stringing together of the verses, wondering whether perhaps Homer really did compose them so. For example — nothing hinders our recalling this case too, since the method in both instances is the same — as when someone, writing of Hercules sent by Eurystheus, strings verses together thus: "When he had spoken thus, he sent forth from the threshold, weeping, unconquered Hercules, no stranger to great deeds, son of Eurystheus, of the line of Sthenelus and Perseus, to fetch from Erebus the hound of dark Dis to the light. And he went, like a lion reared fierce in the mountains, through the midst of the city; and all his friends departed together, both old men, and boys, and maidens not yet wed, weeping greatly, as though he were going to his very death. Hermes and gray-eyed Pallas sped him on his way; for they knew how grief would drive his brother." Who among the simple would not be carried away by such verses, and suppose that Homer really composed them for this subject? But one who knows his Homer will recognize the verses, yet will not recognize the story — knowing that some of these lines were spoken of Ulysses, others of Hercules, others of Priam, and others still of Menelaus and Agamemnon. And if one takes them and restores each to its own book, he will do away with the story now before us. So too, once a man has received, through baptism, these names and expressions and parables that are drawn from the Scriptures, he will recognize the words, but he will not recognize their blasphemous argument. For even if he recognizes the gems, he will not accept a fox in place of the royal image. But by returning each saying to its proper place and setting it back within the body of truth, he shall expose their fiction and show it to be without substance. Since, then, this drama lacks redemption, so that one who unravels their play may bring in a word of destruction, we thought it well first to show the points on which the very fathers of this fable disagree among themselves — as men who spring from a variety of spirits of error. For from this too one may carefully learn both the firm truth proclaimed by the Church, from the Showing itself, and the falsehood invented by these others.