1. Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, (and) lived not very lo

 2. Now they seek to exhibit the foundation for their dogma by citing the word in the law, “I am the God of your fathers: ye shall have no other gods b

 3. In this way, then, they choose to set forth these things, and they make use only of one class of passages just in the same one-sided manner that T

 4. Let us, as I said, see how he is confuted, and then let us set forth the truth. Now he quotes the words, “Egypt has laboured, and the merchandise o

 5. But what is meant, says he, in the other passage: “This is God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him?” That said he righ

 6. Let us look next at the apostle’s word: “Whose are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.

 7. If, again, he allege His own word when He said, “I and the Father are one,” let him attend to the fact, and understand that He did not say, “I and

 8. Many other passages, or rather all of them, attest the truth. A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Fat

 9. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to b

 10. God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world. And conceiving the world in mind, and will

 11. And thus there appeared another beside Himself. But when I say another ,

 12. Acting then in these (prophets), the Word spoke of Himself. For already He became His own herald, and showed that the Word would be manifested amo

 13. Now Jeremiah says, “Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived His Word?”

 14. These things then, brethren, are declared by the Scriptures. And the blessed John, in the testimony of his Gospel, gives us an account of this eco

 15. But some one will say to me, You adduce a thing strange to me, when you call the Son the Word. For John indeed speaks of the Word, but it is by a

 16. And these indeed are testimonies bearing on the incarnation of the Word and there are also very many others. But let us also look at the subject

 17.  These testimonies are sufficient for the believing who study truth, and the unbelieving credit no testimony. For the Holy Spirit, indeed, in the

 18. Thus then, too, though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man,

9. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practise piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God.49    [This emphatic testimony of our author to the sufficiency of the Scriptures is entirely in keeping with the entire system of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Note our teeming indexes of Scripture texts.] Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us look; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them.

[9] εἷς Θεός, ὃν οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἐπιγινώσκομεν, ἀδελφοί, ἢ τῶν ἁγίων γραφῶν. ὃν γὰρ τρόπον ἐάν τις βουληθῇ τὴν σοφίαν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἀσκεῖν, οὐκ ἄλλως δυνήσεται τούτου τυχεῖν, ἐὰν μὴ δόγμασιν φιλοσόφων ἐντύχῃ, τὸν αὐτὸν δὴ τρόπον καὶ ὅσοι θεοσέβειαν ἀσκεῖν βουλόμεθα, οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἀσκήσομεν ἢ ἐκ τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ. ὅσα τοίνυν κηρύσσουσιν αἱ θεῖαι γραφαὶ ἴδωμεν, καὶ ὅσα διδάσκουσιν ἐπιγνῶμεν. καὶ ὡς θέλει Πατὴρ πιστεύεσθαι πιστεύσωμεν, καὶ ὡς θέλει Υἱὸν δοξάζεσθαι δοξάσωμεν, καὶ ὡς θέλει πνεῦμα ἅγιον δωρεῖσθαι λάβωμεν. μὴ κατ' ἰδίαν προαίρεσιν μηδὲ κατ' ἴδιον νοῦν μηδὲ βιαζόμενοι τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ δεδομένα, ἀλλ' ἢ ὃν τρόπο[ν] αὐτὸς ἐβουλήθη διὰ τῶν ἁγίων γραφῶν δεῖξαι, οὕτως ἴδωμεν.