“Now these things came to pass not in seeming but in essential truth, for if He appeared to be man though He was not man then the Spirit of God did not continue to be what in truth It is; for the Spirit is invisible; nor was there any truth in Him, for He was not what He appeared to be. And we have said before that Abraham and the rest of the prophets beheld Him in prophecy prophesying what was destined to come to pass in actual sight. If then now too He appeared to be of such a character, though in reality He was not what He appeared, then a kind of prophetic vision would have been given to men, and we must still look for yet another advent in which He will really be what He is now seen to be in prophecy. Now we have demonstrated that there is no difference between the statements that He only appeared in seeming and that He took nothing from Mary, for He did not really even possess flesh and blood whereby He redeemed us, unless He renewed in Himself the old creation of Adam. The sect of Valentinus are therefore vain in teaching thus that they may cast out the life of the flesh.”