Chapter I.—An Account of Contemporaneous Heresy.938    Matt. xiii. 3–8; Mark iv. 3–8; Luke viii. 5–8.    [Elucidation IV.]

A lengthened conflict, then, having been maintained concerning all heresies by us who, at all events, have not left any unrefuted, the greatest struggle now remains behind, viz., to furnish an account and refutation of those heresies that have sprung up in our own day, by which certain ignorant and presumptuous men have attempted to scatter abroad the Church, and have introduced the greatest confusion939    The word Mary seems interpolated. Miller’s text reads it after ἐν μεσότητι. The passage would then be rendered thus: “that is, Him who through the intervention of Mary (has been born into the world) the Saviour of all.”    [1 Cor. xi. 19. These terrible confusions were thus foretold. Note the remarkable feeling, the impassioned tone, of the Apostle’s warning in Acts xx. 28–31.] among all the faithful throughout the entire world. For it seems expedient that we, making an onslaught upon the opinion which constitutes the prime source of (contemporaneous) evils, should prove what are the originating principles940    Τὸ ἀσφαλὲς: Cruice reads, on the authority of Bernays, ἀφελὲς, i.e., the simplicity.    [The Philosophumena, therefore, responds to the Apostle’s warnings. Col. ii. 8; 1 Tim. vi. 20; Gal. iv. 3, 9; Col. ii. 20.] of this (opinion), in order that its offshoots, becoming a matter of general notoriety, may be made the object of universal scorn.

[6] Πολλοῦ τοίνυν τοῦ κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων γενομένου ἡμῖν ἀγῶνος, μηθέν γε ἀνεξέλεγκτον καταλιποῦσι, περιλείπεται νῦν ὁ μέγιστος ἀγών, ἐκδιηγήσασθαι καὶ διελ[έ]γξαι τὰς ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἐπαναστάσας αἱρέσεις, δι' ὧν τινες ἀμαθεῖς καὶ τολμηροὶ διασκεδαν[ν]ύειν ἐπεχείρησαν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, μέγιστον τάραχον κατὰ πάντα τὸν κόσμον [ἐν] πᾶσι [τ]οῖς πιστοῖς ἐμβάλλοντες. δοκεῖ γοῦν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχηγὸν τῶν κακῶν γενομένην γνώμην ὁρμήσαντας διελέγξαι τίνες αἱ ταύτης ἀρχαί, ὅπως εὔ(γν)ωστοι αἱ ἐκφυάδες αὐτῆς ἅπασι γενόμεναι καταφρονηθῶσι.