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Works Irenaeus of Lyon (130-202) Contra Haereses Against Heresies
Against Heresies: Book IV
Chapter XXXIII.--Whosoever confesses that one God is the author of both Testaments, and diligently reads the Scriptures in company with the presbyters of the Church, is a true spiritual disciple; and he will rightly understand and interpret all that the prophets have declared respecting Christ and the liberty of the New Testament.

5.

He shall also judge those who describe Christ as [having become man] only in [human] opinion. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or how can they receive anything stedfast from Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and not a verity? And how can these men really be partaken of salvation, if He in whom they profess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely imaginary being? Everything, therefore, connected with these men is unreal, and nothing [possessed of the character of] truth; and, in these circumstances, it may be made a question whether (since, perchance, they themselves in like manner are not men, but mere dumb animals) they do not present, 1 in most cases, simply a shadow of humanity.


  1. We here follow the reading "proferant:" the passage is difficult and obscure, but the meaning is as above.  ↩

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Against Heresies
Gegen die Häresien (BKV) Compare
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Introductory Note to Irenaeus Against Heresies

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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