Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
An overturning of Basilides' fabrication of the heavens. Basilides himself too, in addition to what has already been said, is compelled by his own rule to speak not merely of three hundred and sixty-five heavens, successively made one after another, but of some immense and innumerable multitude of heavens, always being made, and being made still, and destined to go on being made, and that this fabrication of heavens never fails — one made in the likeness of another, and the third similarly, and all the rest that follow after it; and concerning this heaven which belongs to us, which he also calls the last, it is necessary that from its outflow another be made resembling it, and from that again another, and that this never fails — neither the outflowing of those already made, nor the makings of heavens still to come — but that they run on into an unmeasured and undetermined number of heavens. A demonstration that the prophets, who spoke what is contained in the prophets... And the rest, too, who are falsely called Gnostics, who say that the prophets uttered their prophecies as coming from different gods, will easily be refuted by this: that all the prophets proclaimed one God and Lord, and him as the one who fashioned heaven and earth together with everything they contain, and that they signified the coming of his Son — as we shall demonstrate from these very Scriptures in the books that follow.
But if certain people object, on the ground of the Hebrew language, to the various names set down in the Scriptures — such as Sabaoth, and Eloe, and Adonai, and whatever others of this kind there are — striving thereby to demonstrate a plurality of divine powers and deities, let such persons be taught that every one of these names and titles refers to a single, identical being. For the word Eloe, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies God, and Eloeuth, in that same Hebrew language, signifies that which contains all things. And Adonai sometimes signifies 'nameable and admirable,' and sometimes, with the letter delta doubled and an aspiration — that is, Addonai — it signifies 'the one who defines and separates the earth from the water.' Likewise the word rendered 'Sabaoth' signifies 'voluntary,' but written with the Greek omega, as in Sabaoth, it signifies 'the first heaven'; and by the same token it signifies a predetermined measure, while when contracted with the short Greek omicron, as in Iaoth, it signifies 'the one who grants deliverance from evils.' All these are designations belonging not to different beings but, as in Latin, to one and the same — as when we say 'Lord of powers,' and 'Father of all,' and 'almighty God,' and 'Most High,' and 'Lord of the heavens,' and 'Creator,' and 'Maker,' and other names like these: these do not belong to different beings, but are the names and titles of one and the same being, through which the one God and Father who contains all things, and who bestows existence upon all things, is made known. Since, then, the preaching of the apostles, and the teaching of the Lord, and the proclamation delivered through the prophets, together with the sayings handed down by the apostles, all concur with what has been stated, and all praise God the Father — and do not speak of one and then another, nor of all things as coming from many different sources rather than from the one and the same Father, who fits all things to the nature and disposition of what lies beneath him — and since visible and invisible things alike, and altogether all things whatsoever that have been made, come not from angels, nor from some other power, but from God the Father alone, I consider that this has now been shown sufficiently, and that by so many proofs the one God and Father, maker of all things, has been demonstrated. But lest we seem to avoid the proof that comes from the Lord's own Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves suggest this very truth much more plainly and clearly, in the Hebrew text, where it reads: Sing to God, sing a psalm to him in his name, Jah... Jah is his name; father of orphans, judge of widows is God in his holy place. And it should be noted that this name is displayed here, as it were, in its own proper seat, so much so that Symmachus and the second version, in Origen's Hexapla, retain this name even in Greek. But if these matters seem too difficult, let it suffice to hold to the author's main purpose, who demonstrates that, though God has various names, this does not mean that various gods are thereby indicated. To those, however, who do not distort his meaning, we shall furnish proofs from the divine Scriptures in the volume that follows this one, rendering to all who love the truth their proper book of proofs drawn from these Scriptures.