By Water & Blood

Prologue

Fourth Discourse of the Heretical Evil-Fable.

On Arius. On Eudoxius. On Eunomius and Aetius. On the Psathyrians, and the others who descend from the heresy of Arius. On the Macedonians. On the Donatists. On the Meletians. On Apollinaris. On the Polemians, and the other Apollinarians. On the Audianians. On the Messalians, that is, the Euchites and Enthusiasts. On Nestorius. On Eutyches.

That most of the ill-named heresies have been handed over to Valentinus’s primal gods, the Depth and Silence, has been made clear in the books already written. Cities and villages freed from them also bear witness to the account.

But the father of the lie, whom the Lord fittingly called a murderer of men (for he is always plotting against human souls), has crafted other devices of assault. For perceiving that what those pupils of his said about the God of all seemed abominable to everyone, and that the arguments concerning the economy had not gained persuasiveness—some asserting that bare divinity appeared, others that the economy was accomplished by bare humanity devoid of divinity—he mixed an impiety free from either extreme.