Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
REFUTATIONS OF THE FOLLOWERS OF VALENTINUS. I. And those who refuse to believe that the God above all fashioned, within his own domain, things various and unlike by means of the Word, exactly as he willed it, being Lord of all — but instead claim that angels, or some power apart from God and unaware of him, made this universe — such men, then, not believing the truth but wallowing in falsehood, have lost the bread of true life, falling into emptiness and into the depth of a shadow; like Aesop's dog, who let go the bread and lunged at its shadow, and so lost his meal. And from the Lord's own words it is easy to show one who confesses one Father, both Maker of the world and Fashioner of man — the one announced by the Law and the Prophets — and rejects a second, unknown one, teaching that this same one is God above all, and himself granting, through himself, to the Father the adoption of sons, which is eternal life, bestowed upon all the righteous.
But since they love to bring accusation, and shake even what is free of reproach as though it were blameworthy, heaping upon us a multitude of parables and questions, we have thought it good first to question them in turn about their own doctrines, and to show what in them is not plausible, and to cut down their rashness; and after that to bring forward the Lord's own sayings — so that they may not merely be free to propose questions, but, being unable to answer by reason the things asked of them, and seeing their own argument come undone, either they may turn back to the truth, humble themselves, cease from their manifold fancy, and be saved by appeasing the God whom they have blasphemed; or, if they persist in the vainglory that has taken hold of their minds beforehand, they will at least be shown to have changed their own argument.