This is Life: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The More Things Change . . .

Can you guess when these words were written (no fair peeking!):

When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. . . . But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour . . . but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery . . .

No, not in 2003. And no, the writer wasn't referring to "mainline liberal theologians" of North America and Europe. Give up?

That's right, the author is Irenaeus of Lyons, from the last half of the AD 200s. He was writing about the Gnostics.

Boy does it sound familiar.