Neither give heed to myths and endless genealogies, which cause questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
I will take the fool’s line and propound some examples drawn from the things of a lower world. “I am become a fool; you have compelled me.” What indeed is more foolish than to debate over the majesty of God, which rather occasions questionings, than receiving godly instruction which is by faith. But to arguments let arguments reply. Let words make answer to them. Rather we will answer with love, the love which is in God, issuing of a pure heart and good conscience and faith unfeigned. .
In this passage we note the novelty as well as the viciousness of their devices, and how they go beyond all other heresies. They support their madness by seductive arguments calculated to deceive the simple. The Greeks, as the apostle has said, make their attack with excellency and persuasiveness of speech and with fallacies that have the aura of plausibility. The Jews, departing widely from the divine Scriptures, now, as the apostle again has said, contend about “fables and endless genealogies.” Meanwhile the Manichaeans and Valentinians with them, and others, corrupt the divine Scriptures, putting forth fables of their own invention. But the Arians are bolder than them all and have shown that the other heresies are but their younger sisters, whom, as I have said, they surpass in impiety, emulating them all, and especially the Jews, in their circumventions.
Nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, In some Greek manuscripts is read, dispensation, or economy; and so the sense may be, which contribute nothing to the explaining the dispensation of grace in the mystery of Christ's incarnation. The construction of this and the former verse is imperfect, when it is said, as I desired thee, nothing being expressed corresponding to the word as. Some understand it, As I desired before, so now in this epistle I desire it of thee again. The same difficulty occurs in the Greek as in the Latin text. (Witham)
The Jews were accustomed to dispute and make endless questions concerning their origin from Abraham, Isaac, and other patriarchs, and concerning their different tribes, which their captivity had confounded together. Hence there was no end of their questions, how, when, why? which gave rise to many fables, to the great disturbance of the faithful. Whereas, they ought to have taken the shortest way to edification, which was to confine the...
You must not be panicstricken by those who have an air of credibility but who teach heresy. Stand your ground like an anvil under the hammer. A great athlete must suffer blows to conquer. And especially for God’s sake must we put up with everything, so that God will put up with us. Show more enthusiasm than you do. Mark the times. Be on the alert for him who is above time, the Timeless, the Unseen, the One who became visible for our sakes, who was beyond touch and passion, yet who for our sakes became subject to suffering and endured everything for us.
Where is the boasting of those who are styled prudent? For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment.
Be not deceived with strange doctrines, "nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies"
Certain men, rejecting the truth, are introducing among us false stories and vain genealogies, which serve rather to elicit controversies, as the apostle said, than to God’s work of building up in the faith. By their craftily constructed rhetoric they lead astray the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, corrupting the oracles of the Lord. They are evil expounders of what was first well spoken. For they upset many, leading them away by the pretense of knowledge from him who constituted and ordered the universe, as if they had something higher and greater to show them than the God who made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them. By clever language they artfully attract the simpleminded into their kind of inquiry and then crudely destroy them by developing their blasphemous and impious view about the Demiurge. Nor can their simple hearers distinguish the lie from the truth.
By fables he does not mean the law; far from it; but inventions and forgeries and counterfeit doctrines. For, it seems, the Jews wasted their whole discourse on these unprofitable points. They numbered up their fathers and grandfathers, that they might have the reputation of historical knowledge and research. That you might charge some, he says, that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies. Why does he call them endless? It is because they had no end, or none of any use, or none easy for us to apprehend. Mark how he disapproves of questioning. For where faith exists, there is no need of question. Where there is no room for curiosity, questions are superfluous. Questioning is the subversion of faith. For he that seeks has not yet found. He who questions cannot believe. Therefore it is his advice that we should not be occupied with questions, since if we question, it is not faith; for faith sets reasoning at rest. But why then does Christ say, Se...
By “fables” he does not mean the law; far from it, but inventions and forgeries and counterfeit doctrines. For, it seems that some Jewish teachers wasted their whole discourse on these unprofitable points. They numbered up their fathers and grandfathers, that they might have the reputation of historical knowledge and research…. Why does he call them “endless”? It is because they had no end, or none of any use, or none easy for us to apprehend. Note how he disapproves of skeptical questioning. For where faith exists there is no need of suspicion. Where there is no room for curiosity, questions are superfluous.
What is enabled by faith? The reception of God’s mercies that we may become better persons, to doubt and dispute of nothing, but to repose in confidence.
The same matter is turned and twisted by the heretics and the philosophers, and the same questions are involved: Whence comes evil? And what is its purpose? And whence human history? And how? And, what Valentinus has lately propounded—whence God? All of this ensues from an excessive exercise of mind and from an abortive birth. Wretched Aristotle! Who has taught them this dialectic art, cunning in building up and pulling down, using many shifts in sentence, making forced guesses at truth, stiff in arguments, busy in raising contentions, contrary even to itself, dealing backwards and forwards with every subject, so as really to deal with none! Hence, those “fables and endless genealogies,” and “unprofitable questions” and “words that spread like a cancer,” from which the apostle restraining us, testifies of philosophy by name, that it ought to be shunned…. When Paul spoke of “endless genealogies,” we can now recognize the hand of Valentinus, according to whom the “aeon” generates its own...
But in the few words there always arises certainty to him; nor is he permitted to give his inquiries a wider range than is compatible with their solution; for "endless questions "the apostle forbids.
Nothing! Whence spring those "fables and endless genealogies".
Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert of themselves. When again he mentions "endless genealogies".
Infelicities of a dispersed and mutilated Deity, will that man hesitate at once to pronounce that these are "the fables and endless genealogies "which the inspired apostle
