Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
How, judged by their own rule, those who follow Valentinus outside it are shown to be outside the truth.
Justly, then, does their mother mourn for them, the devisers and inventors of such things; for they have contrived things worthy of their own heads, since their mother herself is outside the Fullness, that is, outside the knowledge of God, and their gathering was formed as a shapeless and formless abortion; for it grasped nothing of the truth, but fell into emptiness and shadow, since their teaching is empty and shrouded in darkness, and Horos did not permit it to enter the Pleroma, for the Spirit did not receive them into rest. For their father, begetting ignorance, worked death in them. These things we do not slander them with; they themselves confirm them, they themselves teach them, they glory in them, they think highly of their mother, whom they claim was brought forth with no father at all — meaning, apart from God — and yet they profess to know the Maker and Fashioner of this universe, who alone is the true God and Lord of all. These things we press upon them, loving them more usefully than they think they love themselves. For the love that comes from us, since it is genuine, is salutary for them, if only they will receive it. It is like a harsh medicine, consuming the diseased and superfluous flesh of a wound; for it does away with their pride and their inflated conceit. Wherefore, in attempting with all our strength to reach out a hand to them, we shall not grow weary. We have deferred, however, beyond what has been said here, to bring forward in the following book the sayings of the Lord, in case, by convicting some of them through the very teaching of Christ, we might be able to persuade them to cease from error of this kind, and to abstain from that blasphemy which is directed against their own Maker, who alone is God — he who is Father to our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory.