[D]ecadence, relative to truth, has depths. The least serious is just ignorance of the truth. Second, and a deeper level, is exclusion of the truth. . . . [Y]ou not only don’t know, but you accept and you prefer the opposite to the truth . . . [The] third level [is] where a person embraces the error . . . and then seeks to promote it. That’s false teaching. But there is one deeper level – the dungeon – where the one, who having embraced error and is teaching falsehood, conceals his designs by stealth and cunning, in order to seduce others into error. All of this is implied when Peter [2 Peter: 1-10] warns the faithful against the prophets of falsehood.
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