Adversus Valentini, & similium gnosticorum haereses, libri quinque

frequently mentions him. Basil the Great, having drawn testimonies from IRENAEUS once and again, proves the divinity of the Holy Spirit against its attackers. Cyril of Jerusalem adorns his catechetical lectures with his eloquence. Eusebius seems never to have sufficiently praised Irenaeus's piety, erudition, labors undertaken for the Christian religion, writings, and finally his most brave martyrdom in his Ecclesiastical History. The Egyptian Fathers and those of the Alexandrian council, over which the great Athanasius presided, taught in their writings that Christ assumed not only human flesh, but also a soul, following Clement, Irenaeus, Apollinarius, and Serapion. What more? Tertullian mentions them with praise. Justin Martyr and distinguished Philosopher responds that the answer and dissolution of questions put to him by the orthodox must be sought and received from the writings of this our IRENAEUS.

FURTHERMORE, since even the most holy martyrs of Gaul, in a letter given to the most blessed Eleutherius, Roman Pontiff and martyr, adorn and preach the holiness of his life and his eminent virtues with many praises—as we shall recite in his life a little later—and since he now testifies before God and his angels in heaven by the double aureola golden crown of reward he reported and obtained, namely of martyrdom and of a doctor: there is no reason for us to dwell longer on his description.

IT IS BETTER, therefore, that we now also respond to those who indicate that the description and refutation of the ancient Gnostics established by IRENAEUS in these books pertains either nothing or very little to these our times: and therefore that their publication and reading is not greatly necessary. Truly these good men are hallucinating, and are very much deceived, thinking that the things which are now introduced throughout Europe by many Sectaries—such as Anabaptists, Schwenkfeldians, Arians, Samosatenians, Tritheists, and Antitrinitarians—are no less absurd, portentous, adverse, perverse, and diverse than those which were formerly fabricated and preached by the Valentinians and their like.

WHAT of the fact that even the Lutherans and Calvinists, having received the inheritance of their impieties from Simon Magus as if from a parent, learned from him to tear apart Saint Peter with horrendous insults, to oppose themselves to the same in his successor the Roman Prelate, to spoil man of free will, to attribute justice to faith alone, and that no reward is laid up in heaven for just works? Do not Beza, Musculus, and Calvin even now involve and contaminate themselves in the sacrileges of those who, with fictions of the Depths, the Forefather, and the Fullness of Aeons, devised many gods? Beza, distinguishing the divine Essence into three really; Musculus, dividing the persons of the Trinity among themselves by grade, form, and species; Calvin, wishing these names to be

entirely buried? Moreover, the Poles, in a public Synod, prohibiting their ministers from calling upon them in sermons from then on? The Hugnostics A wordplay combining "Huguenot" and "Gnostic" of Gaul also, containing that they are three spirits, three causes, and three principles of things? Truly the Sacramentarians those who denied the real presence in the Eucharist precede and surpass by many miles Ebion, who said it was entirely impossible for God that a Virgin should conceive by his help and give birth inviolate, by openly preaching that she was necessarily violated in childbirth: and that fifteen points (which we have noted elsewhere) fabricated by themselves are altogether impossible for God. So also they precede the wickednesses of Marcion, who brought in a God as the author of theft and war, and handed over the holy men of the Old Testament to the lower regions, by shouting that all sins, both of men and of demons, happen by God's will, decree, impulse, and work: and that as many as have not embraced Calvinist dogmas thus far have perished as idolaters and slaves of the Antichrist. The Gnostics commented that Christ learned his letters under a certain human teacher: the Hugnostics say he subjected himself to all the ignorance of men, asserting that he spoke improperly and absurdly in his sermons, neither proving his points solidly, nor responding appositely, nor concluding well enough by arguing. The former trifled that he sometimes fell into such tropias changes of state or turnings that he cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me": the latter blaspheme with an open throat that he doubted his own salvation, felt the wrath of the Father, underwent all the punishments of the damned, and finally erupted into voices full of desperation. The former said the lower regions were nothing other than the calamities of this world: the latter repute as mere fables what has been defined by Theologians until now concerning the receptacles of these places; and they impiously as well as ignorantly refer the frequent words for the lower regions in the Bibles always to the tombs in which the bodies of the dead are buried. The former despised the Martyrs, and also calumniated the Apostles, as if they were imperfect and had taught imperfectly: the latter do not blush nor fear to call the same men, even after receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit, as having led an Epicurean life, and furthermore as despisers of God, apostates, idolaters, superstitious, full of stupid zeal, deformers of the Gospel, and oppressors of the grace of Christ and Christian liberty. The former rejected certain Gospels and mutilated others: for the latter, the last chapter of Mark, the history of Christ's bloody sweat described by Luke, and the first eleven verses of the eighth chapter of John, suffer in their faith; and Matthew twists the testimonies of the prophets against their own sense: all of them, however, speak improperly, commit solecisms, and relate many things abruptly without context: finally, they narrate some things out of superstition, which Christ, accommodating himself to the rudeness of superstitious men, tolerates and approves. Certain Gnostics performed and taught promiscuous intercourse: the Hugnostics praise incestuous ones, teach and practice polygamy, and altogether [despise] continence.