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TO THE PHILADELPHIANS.
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| are written only the names of men. Flee therefore the wicked devices and snares of the prince of this world, lest at any time being
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one says there is one God, and also confesses Christ Jesus, but thinks the Lord to be a mere man, and not the only-begotten[1] God, and Wisdom, and the Word of God, and deems Him to consist merely of a soul and body, such an one is a serpent, that preaches deceit and error for the destruction of men. And such a man is poor in understanding, even as by name he is an Ebionite.[2] If any one confesses the truths mentioned,[3] but calls lawful wedlock, and the procreation of children, destruction and pollution, or deems certain kinds of food abominable, such an one has the apostate dragon dwelling within him. If any one confesses the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and praises the creation, but calls the incarnation merely an appearance, and is ashamed of the passion, such an one has denied the faith, not less than the Jews who killed Christ. If any one confesses these things, and that God the Word did dwell in a human body, being within it as the Word, even as the soul also is in the body, because it was God that inhabited it, and not a human soul, but affirms that unlawful unions are a good thing, and places the highest happiness[4] in pleasure, as
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