Chapter I.—An Account of Contemporaneous Heresy.⁹⁵⁷⁹⁵⁷    [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 confusion⁹⁵⁸⁹⁵⁸    [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 principles⁹⁵⁹⁹⁵⁹    [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.