Freely Received, Freely Given

Once the school of Valentinus has been overthrown, the whole crowd of heretics goes down with it. Every argument I have brought against their Pleroma, and against whatever they set beyond it, tells against the rest of them as well: that the Father of all is shut in and hemmed round by what lies outside him, if in fact anything lies outside him; that on their theory a man is forced to imagine many Fathers, many Pleromas, many makings of worlds, one set beginning where another leaves off, on every side; that all these beings stay inside their own borders and never meddle in anyone else’s, since they have no common concern and no fellowship with one another at all; and that there is no other God over all things, but that the name belongs to the Almighty alone. All of that will tell in just the same way against the school of Marcion, and of Simon, and of Menander, and against whoever else there may be who, like them, cuts the creation we belong to off from the Father. [a]

Then there are the arguments I used against those who allow that the Father of all does indeed contain all things, but say that the creation we belong to was not formed by him — that it was formed by some other power, or by angels who know nothing of the Propator, and that he sits ringed round by the vast reach of the universe the way a center sits inside a circle, or a stain inside a piece of cloth. I showed there that it is not even a likely supposition that any being other than the Father of all formed the creation we belong to. Those same arguments tell against the followers of Saturninus, Basilides and Carpocrates, and the rest of the Gnostics, who say much the same thing. And what I said about the emanations, and the Aeons, and the supposed falling away, and the unsteadiness of their Mother, overturns Basilides just as thoroughly, and everyone who is falsely called a Gnostic: men who simply repeat the same opinions under other names, but who go further than the first group in dragging into their own system things that lie right outside the truth. What I said about numbers will apply as well to everyone who helps himself to what belongs to the truth in order to prop up a scheme of this kind. And everything I said about the Creator — the Demiurge — to show that he alone is God and Father of all, along with whatever I may still say in the books that follow, I direct against the heretics as a whole.

The more moderate and reasonable among them you will win over and convince, so that they stop speaking against their Creator, their Maker, their Sustainer and their Lord, and stop tracing his origin back to a defect and to ignorance. But the fierce, the frightening, the ones past reasoning with — those you will drive far away from you, so that you no longer have to put up with their idle chatter.

This also refutes the followers of Simon and of Carpocrates, and any others who are said to work miracles: people who do not do what they do by the power of God, nor in any connection with the truth, nor for anyone’s good, but in order to ruin and mislead, by magical tricks and by deception of every kind. They do more harm than good to the people who believe them, at least on the point where they lead them astray. They cannot give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf. They cannot chase off every sort of demon — none, in fact, except the ones they have sent into someone themselves, if they can even manage that much. They cannot cure the weak, or the lame, or the paralyzed, or anyone disabled in any other part of the body, as has often been done for bodily illness. They cannot supply an effective remedy for the accidents that come at a man from outside. And as for raising the dead — as the Lord raised them, and as the apostles did by prayer, and as has often been done among the brothers when there was need for it, the whole church in that place asking for it with much fasting and prayer, so that the dead man’s spirit came back and he was given to them in answer to the prayers of the saints — they are so far from being able to do that, that they do not even believe it can be done. They hold that the resurrection from the dead is nothing more than coming to know the truth they preach.

So then: among them there is error, and there are influences that pull people off the road, and magical illusions are worked in front of people’s eyes with contempt for God. But in the church there is sympathy, and compassion, and steadiness, and truth, to help people and to hold them up — and these are not only supplied without a fee and without payment, but we ourselves spend what is ours for other people’s benefit, and since those who are cured very often do not own the things they need, they get them from us. Given all that, these men are shown beyond doubt to be complete strangers to the divine nature, to the kindness of God, and to every excellence of the Spirit. What they are full of is deceit of every kind, a spirit that has fallen away from God, the working of demons, and the phantoms of idol-worship. In truth they are the forerunners of that dragon who, by a deception of the same sort, will sweep a third of the stars out of their places with his tail and throw them down to the earth. We ought to run from them as we would from him; and the greater the show they are said to put on, the more carefully we should watch them, as men who have been given a larger share of the spirit of wickedness. Set that prophecy beside the daily practice of these men, and anyone will find that their way of going about things and the demons’ are one and the same.

Then there is that godless opinion of theirs about conduct — that they are obliged to have experience of every kind of act, even the most disgusting. The Lord’s own teaching refutes it. With him, not only is the adulterer rejected but the man who wants to commit adultery; and not only is the man who actually murders held guilty, to his own ruin, of having killed another, but so is the man who is angry with his brother without cause. He ordered his disciples not merely to stop hating people but to love their enemies; not merely to stop swearing falsely but not to swear at all; not merely to stop slandering their neighbors but never even to call anyone “Raca” or “fool,” since otherwise they were in danger of the fire of Gehenna; not merely to stop striking, but when they were struck themselves to turn the other cheek to the men who abused them; not merely to stop holding on to what belonged to others, but when their own was taken from them not to demand it back from the men who took it; not merely to stop injuring their neighbors and doing them harm, but when they were wronged themselves to be patient, and to show kindness to the men who wronged them, and to pray for them, so that a change of heart might save them. We are to copy nothing at all of other people’s arrogance, lust and pride. [h]

So: the man these people boast of as their Master, the one they say had a soul far better and more finely strung than other people’s, did in fact give earnest orders that certain things be done, as good and excellent, and that certain other things be kept away from — not only in the doing of them but even in the thoughts that lead to the doing — as wicked, ruinous and disgusting. How, then, can they escape disgrace, when they claim that a Master of that kind was better and more finely strung than other men, and then plainly teach the opposite of what he taught? And again: if there were really no such thing as good and evil, and certain acts were counted righteous and certain others unrighteous only in human opinion, he would never have taught what he did teach. The righteous will shine out like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. But the unrighteous, and those who do not do the works of righteousness, he will send away — into everlasting fire, where their worm will not die and the fire will not be put out.

They go on to say that they are obliged to have experience of every kind of work and every kind of conduct, so that if it is possible they may get through the whole of it in one appearance in this life and pass straight over into the state of perfection. Yet they are never once found putting themselves to the things that wait on excellence — the things that are hard work, that bring honor, that take real skill, and that everyone agrees are good.

For if a man really must go through every work and every kind of activity, then he ought first of all to learn all the arts: every one of them, whether they are matters of theory or of practice, whether they are gained by going without or mastered by labor and drill and sticking at it. Music of every kind, for instance, and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and all the studies that occupy the mind. Then the whole science of medicine, and the knowledge of plants, so as to know which of them are prepared for a man’s health. The art of painting and of sculpture, work in bronze and in marble, and the crafts that go with them. Then every kind of farm work, veterinary work, herding, and the various skilled trades, which are said to run through the whole round of human effort. Then everything belonging to life at sea, athletic training, hunting, soldiering and ruling — and as many others as there may be, of which they could not learn a tenth part, or even a thousandth, in a whole lifetime of hard work.

The fact is that they try to learn none of these, though they insist they must have experience of every kind of work. They turn aside instead to indulgence, to lust, and to disgusting acts, and so they stand condemned by their own doctrine as soon as it is tested. Since they have none of the excellences just listed, they will pass into destruction by fire. These men boast of Jesus as their Master while in practice they are copying the philosophy of Epicurus and the indifference of the Cynics — and they call Jesus their Master, when he turned his disciples away not only from evil deeds but from evil words and evil thoughts, as I have already shown.

Again, they claim that their souls come from the same sphere as Jesus’ and are like his — sometimes even that they are better; and that they were produced, as he was, to do work that benefits people and sets them on a firm footing. But they are found doing nothing of the same kind, or anything like it, or anything that will even bear comparison with what he did. And if they have in fact managed anything remarkable by magic, they are trying to lead foolish people astray by a trick, since they bring no real benefit and no blessing to the people over whom they claim to exercise such power. They bring forward boys who are not yet of age, deceive their eyes, and put on displays that stop the moment they start and do not last even an instant; and so they are shown to be like, not Jesus our Lord, but Simon the magician. And this too is certain. The Lord rose from the dead on the third day, showed himself to his disciples, and was taken up into heaven while they watched. These men die, and do not rise, and show themselves to nobody. That proves that their souls are in no way like the soul of Jesus.

If they answer that the Lord too did his works only in appearance, we will send them to the writings of the prophets and prove from them both that all these things were foretold of him and did actually happen — happen in reality, not in appearance — and that he is the only Son of God. That is why his true disciples, who receive grace from him, do such works in his name for other people’s good, each according to the gift he has received from him. Some drive out demons, really and truly, so that those who have been cleansed of the evil spirits often believe and join the church. Others have foreknowledge of what is coming: they see visions and speak prophecies. Others heal the sick by laying hands on them, and they are made well. And, as I said, the dead have even been raised and have stayed on among us for many years.

What more shall I say? It is not possible to name how many gifts the church throughout the whole world has received from God in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and puts to work day after day for the good of the nations — deceiving nobody and taking payment from nobody for it. She received freely from God, and freely she serves.

She does nothing by calling on angels, or by incantations, or by any other wicked, prying art. She directs her prayers to the Lord who made all things, in a spirit that is pure, honest and straightforward, and she calls on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and in that way she has been accustomed to work miracles for people’s good, and not to lead them astray. If, then, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ even now brings benefits, and cures thoroughly and effectively everyone anywhere who believes in him, while the name of Simon does not, nor Menander’s, nor Carpocrates’, nor any other man’s at all, it is plain that when he was made man he entered into fellowship with his own creation, and did all things truly, by the power of God, according to the will of the Father of all, as the prophets had foretold. But what those things were will be set out when I come to the proofs to be found in the prophetic writings.