Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
On his manner of life, and on the shape his life takes: There is another of these men, most skilled, who by these means has led astray many men and not a few women, drawing them to himself as to one supremely learned and possessed of the greatest power from the invisible and unspeakable regions -- mixing juggling tricks together with the wickedness of those called magicians, and by these means claiming to perform wonders. What Mark does, and the things done by him: Taking a cup mixed with wine, pretending to give thanks over it, and drawing out at great length the words of invocation, he makes it appear purple and red, so that it is thought that Grace, from the powers that are above all things, drips her own blood into that cup through his invocation, and that those present greatly desire to taste of that cup, so that the Grace which is invoked through this magician may drip into them as well. Again, handing cups he has mixed over to the women, he directs them to offer the thanksgiving themselves in his presence. And when this has been done, he brings out another cup, much larger than the one over which the deceived woman herself had made the eucharist, and pours across from the smaller one -- the one over which the eucharist was made by the woman -- into that larger one, saying as he pours: May Grace, who is before all things, inconceivable and unspeakable, fill your inner man, and multiply in you her own knowledge, sowing the mustard seed in good soil. And saying certain things of this sort, and driving the poor woman into a kind of frenzy, he would appear to work wonders, when the larger cup was filled from the smaller, so that it even overflowed from it.
It is also to be understood that he has a certain demon as his familiar spirit, through whom he himself appears to prophesy, and through whom he makes as many as he judges worthy to be sharers of his Grace prophesy as well. He devotes himself chiefly to women, and especially to those who are well-born, richly clothed in purple, and very wealthy, whom he often tries to draw away, saying to them flatteringly: I wish you to share in my grace, since the Father of all continually beholds your angel before his face. The place of your greatness is among us: we must come together into one. Receive grace first from me and through me. Adorn yourself as a bride awaiting her bridegroom, that you may be what I am, and I what you are. Establish the seed of light in your bridal chamber. Receive a bridegroom from me, and take him to yourself, and be taken up in him. Behold, grace has descended upon you: open your mouth and prophesy. And when the woman answers, I have never prophesied, and I do not know how to prophesy, he, uttering certain invocations again, says to the astonishment of the woman being seduced -- for why, one might ask, should this higher order of things be entrusted only to the richer and more noble women, as we have seen these portions and images of the angels being handed to them -- Open your mouth and speak whatever comes, and you will prophesy. And she, deceived and elated by these words, her soul growing heated with the expectation that she is about to prophesy, and her heart beating far more than it ought, grows bold and speaks delirious things, whatever happens to come, vainly and rashly, since she is inflamed by this spirit -- as one better than we would say of such matters -- and she thinks the thing has actually happened to her, and gives thanks to Mark for having shared his grace with her; and she is eager to reward him, not only by giving him a share of her substance -- whereby he has amassed a great store of wealth -- but also by union of her body, desiring to be joined to him in every way, that she may descend with him into the one. Now some of the most faithful women, who have the fear of God and are not to be seduced, whom he likewise attempted to lead astray as he did the rest, bidding them prophesy -- these, blowing upon him and pronouncing curses against him, separated themselves from this madman, who pretended to breathe forth something divine, knowing for certain that prophecy is not put into men by Mark the magician, but that those into whom God from above has sent his grace have received prophecy given by God, and speak then, and there, when and where God wills -- not when Mark commands. For that which commands is greater and more masterful than that which is commanded, since the one rules, while the other is subject. If, then, Mark commands, or anyone else -- as is customary at their banquets, where they all cast lots and command one another in turn to prophesy -- and they prophesy according to their own desires, then the one who commands will be greater and more masterful than the prophetic spirit itself, though he is merely human -- an impossibility. Rather, whatever spirits take orders from these men, and speak only when it pleases them to speak, are earthbound and feeble; while the reckless and shameless ones are dispatched by Satan for the seduction and destruction of those who do not keep the firm faith which they received from the beginning through the Church. Moreover, he also works love-charms and philters, so as to do outrage to the very bodies of these women -- this same Mark, with certain women, though not with all. And these, having very often turned back to the Church of God, have confessed, and declared that they were violated in body by him, and that, inflamed as it were with desire, they loved him greatly -- so much so that a certain deacon of ours in Asia, who had received him into his house, fell into this very calamity. For his wife, a woman of beauty, was corrupted in mind and body by this magician, and followed him for a long time; and afterward, when the brethren with great labor had converted her back, she spent her whole life in confession, weeping and lamenting over the corruption she had suffered from this magician. And certain of his disciples too, going about in these same circles, seducing many foolish women, have corrupted them, accounting themselves so perfect that no one, they think, could possibly equal the greatness of their own knowledge -- not even were one to invoke the name of Paul,
or Peter, or indeed any other of the apostles. Rather they hold that they themselves have come to know more than all, and that they alone have drunk deep of the greatness of that knowledge which is the unspeakable power. And they say that they themselves exist in a height above every power, and therefore act with complete freedom, having no fear in anything at all. For, they say, it is through the redemption that they become incomprehensible and invisible to the judge. And if he should nevertheless seize them, they, standing before him armed with this redemption, are to say: O assessor of God, and of that mystic Silence, you greatnesses whom I ever behold, using you as guide and leader they draw their forms upward -- for that bold Silence, led on by a phantasm, for the good of the Forefather sent us forth as images of those on high, so that now the intention of those above may, as it were, stand in attendance upon a dream in their defense. But do you, as one who knows the reckoning of both our natures, present yourself as sole judge before the assessor. And the Mother, hearing this at once, places upon them the Homeric helmet of Hades, so that they slip past the judge unseen and undetected; and immediately, snatching them away, she leads them into the bridal chamber and restores them to their own bridegrooms. Saying and doing such things, they have led astray many women even in these regions of ours around the Rhône -- women who, having their consciences seared as if with a hot iron, react in various ways: some indeed make open confession of what befell them, while others, ashamed of this very thing, quietly withdraw into silence, having despaired altogether of the life of God; some have abandoned the faith completely, while still others waver between the two courses and, as the proverb has it, exist neither within nor without, having this alone as the fruit of that seed sown by the so-called sons of knowledge.