Today we begin our journey into Irenaeus’s Against Heresies with his extended preface and first chapter, where he explains why false teaching is so dangerous—and why he felt compelled to write. Error, he warns, never comes naked. It wears the cloak of truth, drawing in the simple with clever imitations of Christian language. The Gnostic system he begins to detail in Book 1, Chapter 1 is elaborate, strange, and often dizzying—but Irenaeus’s goal is not curiosity. It’s clarity. Heresy must be named to be defeated.

From Augustine’s Confessions, we listen as he reflects on the beauty of creation and how it testifies to the invisible God. But beauty alone does not teach. Only when the soul compares the voice of creation with the truth within does it begin to hear the Creator. In a haunting line, Augustine confesses: “The truth  ...