Early Church · 180

Against Heresies: Book Two

Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-202)

The second book of Against Heresies turns from exposition to refutation, subjecting the Valentinian system to sustained logical scrutiny and showing that its own internal premises lead to absurdity. Irenaeus argues that there can be only one God who created all things freely by his Word, that the Gnostic Pleroma and its emanating Aeons are self-contradicting fictions, and that the heretics have borrowed their framework wholesale from pagan philosophy while dressing it in Christian names. Written around 180 AD in Gaul, this is the earliest surviving systematic refutation of Gnosticism, remarkable for its philosophical rigor and its insistence that ignorance and humility before God are the marks of true faith.

2 hrs total · 35 chapters