Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
EXPOSITION OF THE PREACHING OF THE FAITH. — The Church, though dispersed across the entire world, all the way out to earth's furthest bounds, received from the apostles and from their disciples this single faith: in God the Father, ruler of all, who fashioned heaven and earth and sea and all things held within them; and in one Christ Jesus, God's Son, who took on flesh for the sake of our deliverance; and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God, and the coming, and the birth from the Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into the heavens of the beloved Jesus Christ our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to sum up all things and to raise again all the flesh of the whole human race [an editorial note here compares this passage to a fuller, more explicit creedal formula used elsewhere against the Gnostic fictions, running: "I believe in God the Father almighty, and in Christ Jesus his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into the heavens, sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh"] — so that before Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Savior and King, in keeping with the invisible Father's good pleasure, every knee should bend — of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth — and every tongue confess him, and that he should execute righteous judgment upon all: sending the spiritual forces of wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, and the impious and unjust and lawless and blasphemous among men, into everlasting fire; but to the just and equitable, who have kept his commandments and remained steadfast in his love — a few from the very outset, others from when they turned back — granting life as a gift, bestowing incorruption in place of a reward, and clothing them with everlasting glory. AN ANSWER TO THOSE WHO SAY THAT ONE CAN SPEAK OF THIS FAITH WITH MORE OR LESS PRECISION. Having received this preaching and this faith, as we said before, the Church, though dispersed across the whole world, carefully guards it, as though dwelling in one house; and believes these things alike, as though having one soul and one heart, and preaches, teaches, and hands them down harmoniously, as though speaking with a single voice. Though the tongues spoken across the world differ from one another, still the substance of what is handed down remains one and the same. And the churches founded in Germany believe and hand down nothing different, nor do those established among the Iberians, nor among the Celtic peoples, nor in the eastern lands, nor within Egypt's borders, nor across Libya, nor those established in the middle regions of the world; but just as the sun, God's creature, is a single thing found the world over, so too the light — the preaching of the truth — shines everywhere and illumines all men who wish to arrive at recognition of what is true. And no one among those who preside over the churches, however greatly gifted he may be in eloquence, will say anything different from this — for no one is above his master — nor will one weak in speech diminish the tradition. For since the faith is one and the same, he who can say much about it does not add to it, nor does he who can say little diminish it. IN WHAT SENSE IT MAY BE SUPPOSED THAT SOME HAVE MORE, AND OTHERS LESS, KNOWLEDGE. Now that some know more or less, according to their capacity for understanding, does not mean that the substance of the faith itself is thereby changed, so that another God is imagined besides the Maker and Fashioner and Nourisher of this universe (as though he were not sufficient for us), or another Christ, or another Only-begotten; but it means this: that one may search out more fully the things spoken in parables and bring them into agreement with the substance of the truth; and may set forth the instrument and dispensation of God enacted for the human race; and may explain why God showed himself long-suffering both toward the apostasy of the transgressing angels and toward the disobedience of men; and why the one and the same God made some things temporal and others eternal, some heavenly and some earthly; and why, though invisible, he appeared to the prophets of God not in one form but variously to different ones; and why many covenants were given to the human race, and may teach what is the character of each of the covenants; and why God shut up all things in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all; and may give thanks for the reason God's own Word took on flesh and underwent suffering; and may proclaim why the Son of God's arrival happened in the last times, that is, at the end, and not at the beginning; and may unfold whatever is set down in the Scriptures concerning the end and the things to come; and may not be silent as to how God made the despaired-of nations joint heirs, sharers of the one body, and participants together with the saints; and may proclaim how this mortal flesh will put on immortality, and the corruptible incorruption; and how he who was not a people became a people, and she who was not beloved became beloved; and how there are more children of her who was desolate than of her who has a husband. [Here the apparatus notes variant readings among the manuscript witnesses.] But it is not in these and similar matters that anyone, going beyond the Creator and Maker — who is the mother of these and of those [i.e., of things visible and things invisible] — would discover an Enthymesis of an erring Aeon, and arrive at such blasphemy; nor in the notion that above this again there is a Pleroma, at one time of thirty, at another of countless multitudes of Aeons — as those say who are truly, by the divine sentence, deserted, calling themselves teachers — since the Church, being one and universal throughout the world, holds one and the same faith.