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Contre les Valentiniens

V.

J'engagerai la discussion avec les dogmes fondamentaux des maîtres primitifs et non avec les chefs hypocrites de ces disciples qui vont où on les mène. On ne nous accusera pas non plus, comme on le fait, d'avoir inventé à plaisir ces matières que des personnages, remarquables par leur sainteté et leurs lumières, non-seulement nos devanciers, mais contemporains des hérésiarques eux-mêmes, ont exposées et réfutées dans de lumineux traités: témoin Justin, philosophe et martyr; témoin Miltiade, le champion des églises; témoin Irénée, savant investigateur de toutes ces doctrines; témoin notre Proculus, vierge jusque dans sa vieillesse et honneur de l'éloquence chrétienne. Fasse le ciel que je les égale dans toutes les œuvres de la foi de même que dans celle-ci! Ou bien, si ces hérésies n'existent en aucune manière, de sorte qu'il faille les imputer à ceux qui les combattent, le mensonge retombera sur l'Apôtre qui les a signalées. Mais non; si elles existent, elles n'existent pas différentes de ce qu'elles sont représentées. Quelle est la plume assez désœuvrée pour imaginer des chimères quand elle a les matériaux?

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Against the Valentinians

Chapter V.--Many Eminent Christian Writers Have Carefully and Fully Refuted the Heresy. These the Author Makes His Own Guides.

My own path, however, lies along the original tenets ¹ of their chief teachers, not with the self-appointed leaders of their promiscuous ² followers. Nor shall we hear it said of us from any quarter, that we have of our own mind fashioned our own materials, since these have been already produced, both in respect of the opinions and their refutations, in carefully written volumes, by so many eminently holy and excellent men, not only those who have lived before us, but those also who were contemporary with the heresiarchs themselves: for instance Justin, philosopher and martyr; ³ Miltiades, the sophist ⁴ of the churches; Irenaeus, that very exact inquirer into all doctrines; ⁵ our own Proculus, the model ⁶ of chaste old age and Christian eloquence. All these it would be my desire closely to follow in every work of faith, even as in this particular one. Now if there are no heresies at all but what those who refute them are supposed to have fabricated, then the apostle who predicted them ⁷ must have been guilty of falsehood. If, however, there are heresies, they can be no other than those which are the subject of discussion. No writer can be supposed to have so much time on his hands ⁸ as to fabricate materials which are already in his possession.