Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
WHAT IS THE OPINION OF CERDO. A certain Cerdo, moreover, taking his starting point from the followers of Simon, came to Rome during the time of Hyginus, the ninth in line of bishops counting down from the apostles, and he taught that the God announced through the Law and the Prophets is a being distinct from him who fathered our Lord Jesus Christ. The one, he said, can be known; the other cannot. The one is righteous, the other benevolent. [Note on Nicolaus: they cite a certain saying of that man, misunderstanding it — but that distinguished man meant that one ought to hold the pleasures in check, and thereby subdue the appetites of the flesh; whereas these men, like goats let loose, give themselves over to pleasures and pass their lives in luxury and self-indulgence, their souls sunk in the mire of vice — for they follow their own decree of pleasure, not that of the apostolic man, etc. Compare also Book III: their writings circulate under the name of Ialdabaoth, a 'Gospel of Perfection,' and prophetic books of Barnoria (see Epiphanius, Panarion 26); these belong rather to the Ophites and Barbelognostics. Hence, although Irenaeus does not mention their doctrines, we may conjecture from Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics, that they are the same as those professed by these Gnostics — see chapter 30.] WHAT MARCION TAUGHT. Succeeding him, Marcion of Pontus expanded upon this teaching, reviling without restraint the God announced through the Law and the Prophets, calling him the source of evils, a lover of warfare, unsteady in his verdicts, and at odds even with himself. He taught that Jesus descended from that Father who exists above the God who fashioned the world; that he appeared in Judea during the days of the governor Pontius Pilate, procurator under Tiberius Caesar, wearing human shape, to those dwelling in Judea; and that he abolished the prophets, the Law, and every deed of that God who fashioned the world — the one Marcion also styles the Cosmocrator. Beyond this, having cut up the Gospel according to Luke, stripping out everything written concerning the Lord's birth, and excising much from the record of the Lord's own words where he is quite openly shown acknowledging the framer of this universe as his own Father — Marcion convinced his followers that he was more trustworthy than the apostles who had transmitted the Gospel, handing them not the Gospel itself but a mutilated remnant of it. In the same fashion he also cut up the letters of the apostle Paul, stripping out whatever the Apostle had plainly stated about the God who fashioned the world — namely, that this same God fathered our Lord Jesus Christ — together with whatever the Apostle drew from the prophetic writings...
He taught that salvation belongs only to souls — to those, that is, who had learned his doctrine — while the body, since it is taken from the earth, is, he said, incapable of sharing in salvation. And to this blasphemy against God he added yet another, truly speaking as the mouthpiece of the devil and saying everything contrary to the truth: that Cain, along with men of his stamp, the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and others resembling them — indeed every nation that had gone about in wickedness of every sort — were rescued by the Lord upon his descent into the underworld, for they ran to him and he took them up into his kingdom; but that Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and the rest of the righteous, and the patriarchs who belonged to Abraham, together with all the prophets and those who had pleased God, did not share in salvation — as that serpent who was in Marcion proclaimed. For, he said, because they knew that their God was always testing them, and supposed on this occasion too that he was testing them, they did not run to Jesus nor believe his proclamation; and for this reason, he said, their souls remained [below].
But against this man — since he alone has openly dared to mutilate the Scriptures, and shamelessly, beyond all others, to revile God — we shall reply separately, and, God helping us, we shall overturn him from his own writings, the words of the Lord and the Apostles which he himself employs. For now we have of necessity called him to mind, so that you may know that all who in any way adulterate the truth and injure the Church's proclamation are disciples and successors of Simon the Samaritan magician. Though they never openly confess whose pupils they are, out of fear of leading others astray, they nevertheless teach his doctrine: putting forward the name of Christ Jesus as a bait, while variously introducing the impiety of Simon, they kill many, wickedly scattering their opinion abroad under a good name, and through the sweetness and comeliness of that name offering men the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the prince of apostasy.