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Against the Valentinians

Chapter XXXIX.--Their Diversity of Sentiment Affects the Very Central Doctrine of Christianity, Even the Person and Character of the Lord Jesus. This Diversity Vitiates Every Gnostic School.

Now, concerning even the Lord Jesus, into how great a diversity of opinion are they divided! One party form Him of the blossoms of all the Aeons. ¹ Another party will have it that He is made up only of those ten whom the Word and the Life ² produced; ³ from which circumstance the titles of the Word and the Life were suitably transferred to Him. Others, again, that He rather sprang from the twelve, the offspring of Man and the Church, ⁴ and therefore, they say, He was designated "Son of man." Others, moreover, maintain that He was formed by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who have to provide for the establishment of the universe, ⁵ and that He inherits by right His Father's appellation. Some there are who have imagined that another origin must be found for the title "Son of man;" for they have had the presumption to call the Father Himself Man, by reason of the profound mystery of this title: so that what can you hope for more ample concerning faith in that God, with whom you are now yourself on a par? Such conceits are constantly cropping out ⁶ amongst them, from the redundance of their mother's seed. ⁷ And so it happens that the doctrines which have grown up amongst the Valentinians have already extended their rank growth to the woods of the Gnostics.

Edition Masquer
Adversus Valentinianos

39

[1] de ipso iam domino Iesu quanta diversitas scinditur: hi ex omnium Aeonum flosculis eum construunt: illi ex solis decem constitisse contendunt quos Sermo et Vita protulerunt. inde et in ipsum Sermonis et Vitae concurrerint tituli. isti ex duodecim potius ex Hominis et Ecclesiae fetu ideoque Filium Hominis avite pronuntiatum. alii a Christo et Spiritu Sancto constabiliendae conversitati provisis confictum et inde paternae appellationis heredem. [2] sunt qui Filium Hominis non aliunde conceperint dicendum quam quia ipsum Patrem pro magno nominis sacramento Hominem appellasse se praesumpserit, ut quid amplius speres de dius dei fide cui nunc adaequaris. talia ingenia superfruticant apud illos ex materni seminis redundantia. atque ita insolescentes doctrinae Valentinianorum in silvas iam exoleverunt Gnosticorum.