Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Having, in the four books already published to you, beloved, refuted all the heretics and exposed their teachings, and having overthrown those who devised irreligious opinions — some points drawn from each one's own doctrine as they left it in their own writings, others from the reasoning that proceeds from the demonstrations taken as a whole — and the truth having been shown, and the manifest proclamation of the Church made clear, which the prophets indeed proclaimed beforehand, as we have shown, which Christ fulfilled, and which the Apostles handed down, from whom the Church, receiving it, alone preserves it well throughout the whole world and has handed it on to her children; and all the questions which are raised against us by the heretics having been resolved, and the teaching of the Apostles explained, and the further matters which were both said and done by the Lord through parables having been set forth — in this fifth book of the whole work, which concerns the exposure and overthrow of falsely called knowledge, we shall attempt to draw demonstrations from the remaining teaching of our Lord and from the apostolic epistles, just as you asked of us, we obeying your request, so as both to refute and to bring back to the Church of God, and also to strengthen the understanding of the newly baptized, that they may keep a stable faith, well preserved as they received it from the Church, and may in no way be turned aside by those who strive to teach them ill and lead them away from the truth. You, however, and all who are to read this writing, ought to read all the more carefully what has been said beforehand by us, so that you may know the very arguments against which we direct our contradictions. For in this way you will both rightly contradict them and, being prepared, will receive from us arguments against them — casting away their opinions, like refuse, by means of the heavenly faith, and following only the true and steadfast Master, the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord: who, because of his immense love, became what we are, that he might make us to be what he himself is. Christ alone was able to teach us divine things and to redeem us; and he it was who, that he might restore us — not in appearance but in reality — took flesh from the Virgin Mary by the working of the Holy Spirit: against the vanities of Valentinus and of Ebion.
For there was no other way by which we might have come to know the things of God, had not our Master, being the Word, taken on manhood. For no one else was able to make known to us the Father's realities, save his own proper Word. For who else has grasped the Lord's mind? Or who else became his counselor? Nor again might we have come to know in any other manner, except by beholding our Master and, through hearing, taking in his voice, so that, becoming imitators of his deeds and doers of his sayings, we might share fellowship with him — drawing increase from him who is perfect and precedes all creation, we who have only now been fashioned by him alone who is good and best and who holds the gift of incorruptibility, into that likeness directed toward him. We were indeed marked out beforehand, that we should become what we were not yet, according to the Father's foreknowledge; but having been made the starting-point of what takes form, we received, in the times appointed beforehand, through the Word's ministry — who is complete in every respect, being the mighty Word and true man — being ransomed by his blood according to reason, he gave himself in redemption on behalf of those carried off into captivity. And because apostasy unjustly ruled over us, and though we belonged by nature to almighty God, it estranged us against nature, turning us into its own followers — the Word of God, mighty in all things and never falling short in his justice, turned justly also against that very apostasy, ransoming from it what was his own; not by force, in the manner apostasy had at the beginning held sway over us, insatiably grasping what was not its own, but through persuasion, as befit God to win over rather than compel, so as to secure what he willed; so that neither should justice be trampled, nor should God's ancient handiwork perish.
Since, then, the Lord bought us back at the cost of his own blood, laying down his soul in place of ours and offering his flesh in place of ours, and pouring forth the Father's Spirit to bring about the joining and fellowship of God and man — drawing God down to men through the Spirit, and in turn lifting man up to God through his incarnation, and, truly and steadfastly, in his coming, granting us incorruptibility through fellowship with God — all the heretics' teachings have crumbled. For empty are those who claim he appeared only in semblance. For these events did not occur as mere appearance, but in truth's very substance. But if, while not truly man, he appeared as man, then neither did the Spirit of God truly remain what he actually was, since the Spirit cannot be seen, nor was there any truth whatsoever in him, for he would not have been what he seemed to be. We have already stated that Abraham and the rest of the prophets beheld him prophetically, foretelling by vision what was to come. If, then, even now he appeared in such a manner, not being in reality what he seemed, then it was merely a prophetic vision granted to men, and one must still wait for another coming of his, in which he will be such as he was seen prophetically now. But we have shown that to claim he was seen only in appearance amounts to saying he took nothing from Mary. For he could not truly have possessed blood and flesh, by which he ransomed us, unless he had recapitulated in himself Adam's ancient handiwork. Empty, therefore, are those who follow Valentinus in teaching this, so as to shut out the salvation of the flesh and reject the handiwork wrought by God.
Empty also are the Ebionites, who do not admit into their souls the union of God and man through faith, but cling to the old leaven of their birth; nor are they willing to grasp that the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary, and that the might of the Most High overshadowed her, covering her as with a cloud: for which reason the holy one born from her is God's own Son, the Highest's offspring, begotten of the Father of all, who brought about his incarnation and disclosed a new sort of generation; so that, just as through the earlier generation we inherited death, so through this generation we might inherit life. These people, then, spurn the mingling of the heavenly wine, and want there to be only the world's water, refusing to admit God into their own blend; persisting instead in the state Adam was in, when he was overcome and cast out of paradise — failing to consider that just as, from the start of our formation in Adam, the breath of life that came from God, joined to the thing formed, gave man animation and showed him a rational animal, so too, in these last days, the Word belonging to the Father, together with God's Spirit, was joined to that same ancient substance formed in Adam, and thereby rendered man alive and whole, fit to receive the Father in his perfection: with the result that, just as we all perished in the man of soul, so we might all be granted life in the man of spirit. For Adam never at any point escaped his Maker's grasp, that One to whom the Father spoke thus: "Let us fashion man after our image, in our likeness." And for this reason, at the close, not by fleshly will, nor by any human will, but by the Father's good pleasure, his hands brought a living man to completion, so that Adam might turn out fashioned after the image and resemblance of God.