render themselves heretics and apostates from the truth, and show themselves patrons of the serpent and of death.
Chap. xxiv.—Recapitulation of the various arguments adduced against Gnostic impiety under all its aspects. The heretics, tossed about hy every blast of doctrine, are opposed by the uniform teaching of the church, which remains so always, and is consistent with itself.
1. Thus, then, have all these men been exposed, who bring in impious doctrines regarding our Maker and Framer, who also formed this world, and above whom there is no other God; and those have been overthrown by their own arguments who teach falsehoods regarding the substance of our Lord, and the dispensation which He fulfilled for the sake of His own creature mian. But [it has, on the other hand, been shown], that the preaching of the church is everywhere consistent, and continues in an even course, and receives testimony from the prophets, the apostles, and all the disciples—as I have proved—through [those in] the beginning, the middle, and the end,[1] and through the entire dispensation of God, and that well-grounded system which tends[2] to man's salvation, namely, our faith; which, having been received from the church, we do preserve, and which always, by the Spirit of God, renewing its youth, as if it were some precious deposit in an excellent vessel, causes the vessel itself containing it to renew its youth also. For this gift of God has been entrusted to the church, as breath was to the first created man,[3] for this purpose, that all the members receiving it may be vivified; and the [means of] communion with Christ has been distributed throughout it, that is, the Holy Spirit, the earnest of incorruption, the means of confirming our faith,
- ↑ Literally, "through the beginnings, the means, and the end." These three terms refer to the prophets, the apostles, and the church catholic.
- ↑ The Latin is "solidam operationem," which we know not how to translate, in accordance with the context, except as above.
- ↑ This seems to be the meaning conveyed by the old Latin, "quemadmodum aspiratio plasmationi."
