I recently came across this letter from one District Overseer to an Elder:
"You did well in silencing the unspeakable teaching of the Apostates. From these are the "wandering stars" referred to in the prophecy, who wander from the narrow road of the commandments into a bondless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins. For, priding themselves in knowledge, as they say, " of the deep things of Satan," they do not know that they are casting themselves away into the nether world of the darkness of falsity, and boasting that they are free, they have become slaves of servile desires. Such men are to be opposed in all ways and altogether. For, even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them. For not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth."
Scary.
By the way, the District Overseer was Bishop Clement of Alexandria and the Elder was one "Theodore." The letter was written because the early Church had taken out a fragment of the book of Mark that was embarrassing to the teachings of the Alexandrine Church. If you substitute the word "Carpocrations" for "Apostate" it is verbatim as written.
The year? 195 A.D.
Not much has changed over the Centuries, has it?
Farkel