Against Heresies, Book 3

Preface

1 You directed me, dearest friend, to bring into the open the opinions of the followers of Valentinus, which are hidden, as they themselves suppose, to show their variety, and to compose a refutation of them. So we undertook, refuting them from Simon, the father of all heretics, to make known both their doctrines and their successions and to contradict them all. Therefore, since exposing them and overthrowing them is in many respects one work, we have sent you books, of which the first contains the opinions of all of them and shows the customs and character of their way of life. In the second, the things they wrongly teach have been destroyed and overthrown, and laid bare and shown for what they are. In this third book we shall bring proofs from the Scriptures, so that nothing of what you directed may be lacking on our part; indeed, beyond what you expected, you may receive from us the means of refuting and overthrowing those who teach wrongly in any way. For the love that is in God, being rich and ungrudging, gives more than one asks of it. Remember, then, what we said in the first two books, and adding this to them, you will have from us the fullest refutation of all heretics, and you will resist them confidently and most earnestly on behalf of the only true and life-giving faith, which the church received from the apostles and distributes to her children. For the Lord of all gave his apostles the power of the Gospel, through whom we have also come to know the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God; to whom the Lord also said, “Whoever hears you hears me, and whoever despises you despises me and him who sent me.”

1 For we have learned the plan of our salvation from no others than those through whom the Gospel came to us. This they first proclaimed, and afterwards, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the foundation and pillar of our faith. For it is not lawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge, as some dare to say, boasting that they are correctors of the apostles. For after our Lord rose from the dead and they were clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them from on high, they were filled with all things and had perfect knowledge; they went out to the ends of the earth, preaching the good things that come to us from God and announcing heavenly peace to men, all of them alike and each one of them having the Gospel of God. So Matthew published a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel at Rome and founding the church. After their departure Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in writing what Peter had preached. And Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by Paul. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also reclined on his breast, himself also published a Gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia. 2 And all these handed down to us one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, proclaimed by the law and the prophets, and one Christ, the Son of God. Whoever does not assent to them despises those who shared the Lord's life; he despises Christ the Lord himself; he despises the Father too, and is condemned by himself, resisting and fighting against his own salvation, as all heretics do.

1 For when they are refuted from the Scriptures, they turn to accusing the Scriptures themselves, as though they were not correct nor of authority, saying that they are stated in various ways, and that the truth cannot be found from them by those who do not know the tradition. For, they say, the truth was handed down not through writings but by the living voice; and for this reason Paul too said, “But we speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.” And this wisdom each of them says is the one he has invented himself — a fiction, of course; so that by their account the truth properly resided at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or else in whoever argues against us, who could say nothing that saves. For each of them, wholly perverse, distorting the rule of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself. 2 But when we in turn appeal to that tradition which comes from the apostles and is guarded in the churches through the successions of presbyters, they oppose tradition, saying that they, being wiser not only than the presbyters but even than the apostles, have found the unmixed truth. For the apostles, they say, mixed things of the law with the Savior's words; and not only the apostles but even the Lord himself spoke sometimes from the Demiurge, sometimes from the Middle, and sometimes from the Highest; while they themselves know the hidden mystery indubitably, undefiled, and pure. This is indeed to blaspheme their Maker most shamelessly. So it comes about that they agree neither with the Scriptures nor with tradition. 3 Such are the people we must contend with, dearest friend, slippery as serpents, trying to escape on every side. Therefore they must be resisted on every side, in case, by blocking their escape and confounding some of them, we may bring them to turn to the truth. For though it is not easy for a soul seized by error to come to its senses, it is not altogether impossible to escape error when the truth is set beside it.

1 The tradition of the apostles, then, made manifest in the whole world, can be seen in every church by all who wish to see the truth; and we can enumerate those who were appointed bishops in the churches by the apostles, and their successions down to our own time, who taught nothing like what these people rave about and knew nothing of it. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the perfect privately and secretly from the rest, they would have handed them down above all to those to whom they were also entrusting the churches themselves. For they wished those whom they were leaving as their successors, handing over to them their own place of teaching authority, to be very perfect and blameless in all things; for if these acted rightly great benefit would result, but if they fell, the greatest disaster. 2 But since it would be very long, in a volume such as this, to list the successions of all the churches, we confound all those who in any way, whether through evil self-satisfaction, or empty pride, or blindness and wrong opinion, gather in ways they should not, by pointing to the tradition which the greatest, most ancient, and universally known church, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, has from the apostles, and to the faith proclaimed to men, which comes down to us through the successions of bishops. For with this church, because of its more powerful preeminence, every church must agree — that is, the faithful who are everywhere — in which the tradition from the apostles has always been preserved by those who are everywhere. 3 The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the church, handed over to Linus the episcopate for administering the church. Paul mentions this Linus in the letters to Timothy. Anacletus succeeds him; after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement is allotted the episcopate. He had seen the apostles themselves and conferred with them, and had the preaching of the apostles still sounding in his ears and their tradition before his eyes; and he was not alone, for many were still left at that time who had been taught by the apostles. Under this Clement, then, when no small dissension had arisen among the brothers at Corinth, the church at Rome wrote a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, bringing them together in peace, renewing their faith, and proclaiming the tradition it had recently received from the apostles: proclaiming one God almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, Fashioner of man, who brought on the flood and called Abraham, who led the people out of the land of Egypt, who spoke with Moses, who ordained the law and sent the prophets, who prepared fire for the devil and his angels. That this one is proclaimed by the churches as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, those who wish can learn from the writing itself, and can understand the apostolic tradition of the church, since the letter is older than those who now teach falsely and invent another God above the Demiurge and Maker of all that exists. To this Clement succeeds Euaristus, and to Euaristus Alexander; then Sixtus was appointed, sixth from the apostles, and after him Telesphorus, who also bore a most glorious martyrdom; then Hyginus, after him Pius, after whom Anicetus. When Soter had succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius now holds the episcopate in the twelfth place from the apostles. By this order and succession the tradition in the church from the apostles and the preaching of the truth have come down to us. And this is the fullest proof that it is one and the same life-giving faith which has been preserved in the church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth. 4 Polycarp too was not only taught by apostles and lived with many who had seen our Lord, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia as bishop in the church at Smyrna. We too saw him in our early youth, for he lived a long time and, when very old, departed this life by a most glorious and noble martyrdom. He always taught the things he had learned from the apostles, which the church also hands down, and which alone are true. All the churches of Asia testify to these things, as do those who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present; and he was a witness to the truth of much greater weight and more trustworthy than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest who hold perverse opinions. It was he who, coming to Rome under Anicetus, turned many from the heretics we have mentioned to the church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles this one and only truth, which the church also hands down. And there are those who heard him tell that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus inside, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, saying that he feared the bath-house would fall in, since Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, was inside. And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him and said, “Do you know us?” answered, “I know you, the firstborn of Satan.” Such fear did the apostles and their disciples have of sharing so much as a word with any of those who had corrupted the truth, as Paul too says: “Avoid a heretical man after one admonition, knowing that such a one is perverted and is condemned by himself.” There is also a most excellent letter of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who wish and who care for their salvation can learn both the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth. And the church at Ephesus, founded by Paul, with John remaining among them until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.

1 Since, then, there are such proofs, we must not still seek among others the truth which it is easy to receive from the church; for the apostles, as into a rich storehouse, deposited in her most fully all things that belong to the truth, so that everyone who wishes may draw from her the drink of life. For she is the entrance to life; all the rest are thieves and robbers. Therefore we must avoid them, but love with the greatest diligence the things of the church and lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For what then? If there were a dispute about some minor question, should we not turn to the most ancient churches, in which the apostles lived, and take from them what is certain and clear about the question at hand? And what if the apostles had not even left us Scriptures? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they entrusted the churches? 2 To this order many nations of barbarians who believe in Christ assent, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit without paper or ink, and carefully guarding the ancient tradition: believing in one God, the Fashioner of heaven and earth and all that is in them, through Christ Jesus the Son of God; who, because of his surpassing love for his handiwork, underwent the birth from the Virgin, himself uniting man through himself to God; who suffered under Pontius Pilate, rose again, and was received up in splendor; who will come in glory as the Savior of those who are saved and the Judge of those who are judged, sending into eternal fire those who distort the truth and despise his Father and his coming. Those who have believed this faith without letters are barbarians as far as our language is concerned; but as to their thinking, customs, and way of life they are, because of faith, very wise indeed, and they please God, living in all righteousness, chastity, and wisdom. If anyone were to proclaim to them the inventions of the heretics, speaking to them in their own language, they would at once stop their ears and flee as far away as possible, not enduring even to hear the blasphemous talk. So, through that ancient tradition of the apostles, they do not admit even into the conception of their minds any of the heretics' monstrous talk; for among the heretics no assembly has existed and no teaching has been established. 3 For before Valentinus there were no Valentinians, nor before Marcion were there Marcionites, nor at all did the other malicious minds we listed above exist before the initiators and inventors of their perversity appeared. For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and stayed on until Anicetus. Cerdon, Marcion's predecessor, also came under Hyginus, who was the eighth bishop; often coming into the church and making public confession, he went on in this way, now teaching secretly, now making public confession again, now exposed by some for what he wrongly taught, and he was kept away from the assembly of the devout. Marcion, succeeding him, flourished under Anicetus, who held the tenth place in the episcopate. The rest, who are called Gnostics, took their beginnings from Menander, the disciple of Simon, as we have shown, and each of them appeared as father and high priest of the opinion he had embraced. But all these rose up in their apostasy much later, when the times of the church were already half run.

1 Since, then, the tradition from the apostles stands thus in the church and remains among us, let us return to the proof from the Scriptures of those apostles who also wrote the Gospel, in which they wrote down the teaching about God, showing that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth and that there is no lie in him. As David too, prophesying his birth from the Virgin and his resurrection from the dead, says, “Truth has sprung from the earth.” And the apostles, being disciples of the truth, are beyond all falsehood; for falsehood has no fellowship with truth, as darkness has none with light, but the presence of one excludes the other. Our Lord, then, being the truth, did not lie; and him whom he knew to be the fruit of a defect he would certainly not have confessed as God, the God of all, the supreme King, and his own Father — he the perfect confessing the imperfect, he the spiritual the animal, he who was in the Pleroma him who was outside the Pleroma. Nor would his disciples have named any other God or called any other Lord than him who was truly God and Lord of all. Yet these most empty sophists say that the apostles hypocritically framed their teaching according to the capacity of their hearers, and their answers according to the suspicions of their questioners, telling blind things to the blind according to their blindness, to the sick according to their sickness, and to the erring according to their error; that to those who thought the Demiurge alone was God they announced him, but to those who grasp the unnameable Father they made known the unspeakable mystery through parables and riddles; so that the Lord and the apostles gave their teaching not as the truth itself is, but in hypocrisy and as each was able to receive it. 2 But this is not the way of those who heal or give life, but rather of those who burden people and increase their ignorance; and the law will be found much truer than these, which says that everyone is accursed who sends a blind man astray on the road. For the apostles, who were sent to find the wanderers, to give sight to those who did not see, and to heal the sick, certainly did not speak to them according to their opinion at the time, but according to the manifestation of the truth. For no one would act rightly who urged blind men already beginning to fall over a precipice to keep to that most dangerous path, as though it were truly right and they would arrive safely. And what physician who wishes to cure a sick man will act according to the sick man's desires and not according to what suits medicine? That the Lord came as physician of those who are ill he himself testifies, saying, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” How, then, will those who are ill be made strong, and how will sinners repent? By persisting in those same things, or, on the contrary, by undergoing a great change and turning away from their former way of life, through which they brought on themselves no small sickness and many sins? And ignorance, the mother of all these, is done away with by knowledge. So the Lord gave knowledge to his disciples, by which he also healed the suffering and restrained sinners from sin. He did not, then, speak to them according to their former opinion, nor answer according to the suspicions of his questioners, but according to saving teaching, without hypocrisy and without respect of persons. 3 This is shown also from the words of the Lord, who to those of the circumcision showed the Son of God, the Christ who had been foretold by the prophets; that is, he revealed himself, who restored freedom to men and granted them the inheritance of incorruption. And the apostles in turn taught the Gentiles to leave vain sticks and stones, which they supposed to be gods, and to worship the true God, who established and made the whole human race, and by his creation nourishes, increases, and strengthens it and grants it existence; and to await his Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed us from apostasy by his blood so that we too might be a sanctified people, who will descend from heaven in the power of the Father, will judge all, and will grant the good things that come from God to those who have kept his commandments. He, appearing in the last times as the chief cornerstone, gathered into one and united those who were far off and those who were near, that is, the circumcision and the uncircumcision, enlarging Japheth and settling him in the house of Shem.

1 Therefore neither the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles would ever have named as God, definitely and absolutely, one who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they in their own person have called anyone Lord except God the Father, who rules over all, and his Son, who received from his Father dominion over all creation, as this passage has it: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” For it shows the Father speaking with the Son, he who gave him the inheritance of the nations and subjected all his enemies to him. Since, then, the Father is truly Lord and the Son is truly Lord, the Holy Spirit rightly marked them with the title of Lord. And again, at the overthrow of the Sodomites, Scripture says, “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and sulfur from the Lord out of heaven.” For it signifies here that the Son, who had also spoken with Abraham, received from the Father power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness. Likewise this passage: “Your throne, O God, is for ever; the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” For the Spirit marked both with the title of God, both him who is anointed, the Son, and him who anoints, that is, the Father. And again: “God stood in the assembly of the gods; in their midst he judges gods.” He speaks of the Father and the Son and of those who have received adoption; and these are the church. For this is the synagogue of God, which God, that is, the Son himself, gathered by himself. Of him it says again: “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth.” Which God? He of whom it said, “God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silence”: that is, the Son, who came openly to men, who says, “I appeared openly to those who did not seek me.” And of which gods? Those to whom he says, “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High”: namely, those who have obtained the grace of adoption, by which we cry, “Abba, Father.” 2 Therefore no other, as I said before, is named God or called Lord except him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, “I am who I am. And thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you”; and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those who believe in his name children of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, he says, “I have come down to deliver this people.” For it is he who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Through the Son, then, who is in the Father and has the Father in himself; He Who Is, God, has been made manifest, the Father bearing witness to the Son and the Son proclaiming the Father. As Isaiah too says, “I too am witness, says the Lord God, and the servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am.” 3 When it names those who are not gods, Scripture does not, as I said before, show them to be gods in every sense, but with some addition and indication by which they are shown not to be gods. As in David: “The gods of the nations are idols of demons,” and, “You shall not follow other gods.” For by saying “gods of the nations” — and the nations do not know the true God — and by calling them “other gods,” he took away their being gods; and in his own person he says what they are: “For they are,” he says, “idols of demons.” And Isaiah: “Let all be put to shame who blaspheme God and carve useless things; and I am witness, says the Lord.” He took away their being gods and uses only the name, so that we may know whom he speaks of. Jeremiah says the same thing: “The gods that did not make heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth under heaven.” For by adding their destruction he showed that they are not gods. And Elijah, when he had called all Israel together to Mount Carmel, wishing to turn them from idolatry, said to them, “How long will you limp on both hams? If the Lord God is one, come after him.” And again, at the burnt offering, he spoke thus to the priests of the idols: “You will call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord my God; and the God who hears today, he is God.” For by saying these things the prophet proved that those who were thought gods among them are not gods. And he turned them to that God in whom he believed and who was truly God, calling on whom he cried, “Lord God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, hear me today, and let all this people understand that you are the God of Israel.” 4 Therefore I too call on you, Lord God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob and of Israel, who are the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who in the abundance of your mercy have been well disposed toward us, that we should know you; who made heaven and earth, who rule over all, who are the only and true God, above whom there is no other God: through our Lord Jesus Christ grant also the governing power of the Holy Spirit; grant to everyone who reads this writing to know you, that you alone are God, to be strengthened in you, and to keep away from every heretical, godless, and impious opinion. 5 And the Apostle Paul, saying, “For you served those who were not gods; but now, knowing God, or rather being known by God,” separated those who were not from him who is God. And again, speaking of the Antichrist, “Who opposes and exalts himself,” he says, “above everything that is called god or is worshiped,” he means those who are called gods by people ignorant of God, that is, idols. For the Father of all is called God and is God; and the Antichrist will not exalt himself above him, but above those who are called gods but are not. That this is true Paul himself says: “We know that an idol is nothing, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” For he distinguished and separated those who are called gods but are not from the one God the Father, from whom are all things, and in his own person he most firmly confessed one Lord Jesus Christ. And by “whether in heaven or on earth” he does not mean, as these people explain, the makers of the world; it is like what was said by Moses: “You shall not make for yourself any likeness for God, of whatever is in heaven above, and whatever is on the earth below, and whatever is in the waters under the earth.” And what the things in heaven are, he himself explains: “Be careful,” he says, “that when you look up to heaven and see the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the splendor of heaven, you are not led astray into worshiping and serving them.” And Moses himself, being a man of God, was indeed given as a god before Pharaoh; but he is not truly called Lord, nor named God by the prophets, but is called by the Spirit “Moses, the faithful attendant and servant of God,” which he also was.

1 As to their saying that Paul said plainly in the second letter to the Corinthians, “In whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers,” and their saying that there is one God of this age and another who is above every principality, beginning, and power: we are not to blame if those who say they know the mysteries above God do not even know how to read Paul. For if anyone reads it according to Paul's custom (for we show elsewhere from many examples that he uses transpositions), thus: “In whom God,” then making a pause and a slight interval, and reads the rest together as one, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age,” he will find the true sense, namely that what is said is, “God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this age.” And this is shown by the pause. For Paul does not say “the God of this age” as though he knew of some other above him; but he confessed God as God, and he speaks of the unbelievers of this age, since they will not inherit the coming age of incorruption. How God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers we shall show from Paul himself as our discourse proceeds, so as not now to draw our mind far away from the matter in hand. 2 That the Apostle frequently uses transpositions, because of the speed of his words and the impetus of the Spirit within him, can be found from many other passages. In the letter to the Galatians he says, “Why then the law of works? It was laid down until the seed should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.” For the order is this: “Why then the law of works? Ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator, it was laid down until the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” so that it is a man asking and the Spirit answering. And again, in the second letter to the Thessalonians, speaking of the Antichrist, he says, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus Christ will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the presence of his coming, him whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders.” For the order of the words here is this: “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the presence of his coming.” For he does not say that the coming of the Lord takes place according to the working of Satan, but the coming of the lawless one, whom we also call the Antichrist. If, then, someone does not pay attention in reading and does not mark the pauses for breath where they belong, there will be not only incongruities, but he will even blaspheme as he reads, as though the Lord's coming took place according to the working of Satan. As, then, in such passages the transposition must be shown by the reading, and the Apostle's meaning kept consistent, so there too we do not read “the God of this age”, but God, whom we truly call God; and we shall hear of the unbelievers and the blinded of this age, that they will not inherit the coming age of life.

1 With this slander of theirs refuted as well, it has been clearly shown that neither the prophets nor the apostles ever named another God or called another Lord than the true and only God. Much more the Lord himself, who commands that the things that are Caesar's be rendered to Caesar and the things that are God's to God, naming Caesar as Caesar but confessing God as God. Likewise the saying, “You cannot serve two masters,” he himself interprets, saying, “You cannot serve God and Mammon,” confessing God as God, but naming Mammon as what it is. He does not call Mammon lord when he says, “You cannot serve two masters,” but teaches his disciples, who serve God, not to be subject to Mammon nor to be ruled by it. For “Whoever commits sin,” he says, “is a slave of sin.” Just as he calls those who serve sin slaves of sin, yet does not call sin itself God, so he calls those who serve Mammon slaves of Mammon, not calling Mammon God. Mammon, in the Jewish speech, which the Samaritans also use, means a covetous person who wants to have more than he should. In Hebrew, with an added syllable, it is called Mamuel, and means gluttonous, that is, one who cannot restrain himself from gluttony. In both of the things signified, then, we cannot serve God and Mammon. 2 And when he called the devil strong — not absolutely, but as compared with us — the Lord showed himself to be strong in every respect and truly, saying that no one can steal the possessions of the strong man unless he first binds the strong man himself, and then he will rob his house. And we were his vessels and his house when we were in apostasy; for he used us as he wished, and the unclean spirit dwelt in us. For he was not strong against him who bound him and robbed his house, but against the people who were in his use, since he had made their minds withdraw from God; these the Lord rescued. As Jeremiah too says, “The Lord has redeemed Jacob and rescued him from the hand of one stronger than he.” If, then, he had not indicated him who binds and steals his possessions, but had only called him strong, he would be strong and unconquered. But he also added the one who prevails; for he who binds holds, and he who is bound is held. And this he did without comparison, so that the apostate slave might not be compared with the Lord; for not only he, but nothing at all of the things that have been established and are in subjection, will be compared with the Word of God, through whom all things were made, who is our Lord Jesus Christ. 3 For that all things, whether angels or archangels or thrones or dominions, were both established and made by him who is God above all through his Word, John has indicated thus. For having said of the Word of God that he was in the Father, he added, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” David too, having enumerated the praises, naming individually all the things we have mentioned, the heavens and all their powers, added, “For he commanded, and they were created; he spoke, and they were made.” Whom, then, did he command? The Word, of course, “by which,” he says, “the heavens were established, and all their power by the breath of his mouth.” And that he made all things freely and as he willed, David says again: “But our God is in the heavens above and on earth; he has made whatever he willed.” But the things established are other than him who established them, and the things made other than him who made them. For he himself is unmade, without beginning and without end, needing nothing, sufficient to himself, and moreover granting to all others this very thing, that they exist; but the things made by him have received a beginning. And whatever has received a beginning, can undergo dissolution, is subject, and needs him who made it, must altogether have a different name, even among those who have only a little sense for distinguishing such things; so that he who made all things may justly be called, together with his Word, the only God and Lord, while the things that have been made cannot share in the same name, nor can they rightly take the name that belongs to the Creator.

1 This, then, having been plainly shown here — and it will be shown still more clearly — that neither the prophets nor the apostles nor the Lord Christ in his own person confessed any other Lord or God, but preeminently God and Lord, the prophets and apostles confessing the Father and the Son but naming no other as God and confessing no other as Lord, and the Lord himself handing down to his disciples the Father alone as God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of all: we must follow their testimonies, which are such, if indeed we are their disciples. For Matthew the apostle, knowing one and the same God, who made the promise to Abraham that he would make his seed like the stars of heaven, and who through his Son Christ Jesus called us from the worship of stones to the knowledge of himself, so that what was not a people became a people and she who was not beloved became beloved, says that John, preparing the way for Christ, said to those who boasted of their kinship according to the flesh but had a mind that was fickle and full of every evil, proclaiming the repentance that calls back from evil: “Brood of vipers, who showed you how to flee from the coming anger? Bear fruit, then, worthy of repentance. And do not say among yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” He proclaimed to them, then, repentance from evil, but did not announce another God besides him who made the promise to Abraham, he the forerunner of Christ; of whom Matthew again says, and Luke likewise: “For this is he who was spoken of by the Lord through the prophet: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked shall become straight and the rough ways smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” There is, then, one and the same God, the Father of our Lord, who promised through the prophets that he would send the forerunner, and made his salvation, that is, his Word, visible to all flesh, the Word himself becoming incarnate, so that in all things he might become manifest as their King. For it was necessary that those who are judged should see the judge and know him by whom they are judged, and that those who attain glory should know him who grants them the gift of glory. 2 Again, speaking of the angel, Matthew says, “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.” Of which Lord, he himself explains: “That what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I have called my son.” “Look, a virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.” Of this Emmanuel, who is from the Virgin, David said, “Do not turn away the face of your anointed. The Lord swore truth to David and will not reject him: Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne.” And again: “God is known in Judea; his place has been made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion.” There is, then, one and the same God, who was proclaimed by the prophets and announced by the Gospel, and his Son, who is of the fruit of David's womb, that is, from the Virgin of David's line, and Emmanuel; whose star Balaam prophesied thus: “A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a leader shall rise in Israel.” And Matthew says that the Magi, coming from the East, said, “For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him”; and that, led by the star to the house of Jacob, to Emmanuel, they showed by the gifts they offered who it was that was worshiped: myrrh, because he was the one who would die and be buried for the mortal human race; gold, because he is a King, of whose kingdom there is no end; and frankincense, because he is God, who also was made known in Judea and became manifest to those who did not seek him. 3 Further, Matthew says at the baptism: “The heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming upon him like a dove. And listen, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” For Christ did not then descend into Jesus, nor is Christ one and Jesus another; but the Word of God, who is the Savior of all and the ruler of heaven and earth, who is Jesus, as we have shown before, who also took flesh and was anointed by the Father with the Spirit, became Jesus Christ. As Isaiah too says: “There will come a shoot from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from his root; and the Spirit of God will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of God will fill him. He will not judge according to glory, nor reprove according to speech, but he will judge judgment for the lowly and reprove the glorious of the earth.” And again Isaiah himself, foreshowing his anointing and why he was anointed, says: “The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and sight to the blind, to call the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of repayment, to comfort all who mourn.” For since the Word of God was man, from the root of Jesse and son of Abraham, in this respect the Spirit of God rested upon him and he was anointed to preach good news to the lowly. But since he was God, he did not judge according to glory nor reprove according to speech; for he had no need that anyone should bear witness to him about man, since he himself knew what was in man. And he called all people who mourn, and, granting forgiveness, He freed them from the chains of which Solomon says, “Each one is bound by the cords of his own sins.” So the Spirit of God descended upon him, the Spirit of him who had promised through the prophets that he would anoint him, so that we, receiving from the abundance of his anointing, might be saved. Such, then, is Matthew's witness.

1 Luke, the follower and disciple of the apostles, reporting about Zechariah and Elizabeth, from whom John was born according to God's promise, says: “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” And again, speaking of Zechariah: “Now it happened, while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to offer incense”; and he came to sacrifice, “entering the temple of the Lord.” The angel Gabriel, who stands before the Lord, simply, absolutely, and firmly confessed in his own person as God and Lord him who chose Jerusalem and gave the law of the priesthood, whose angel Gabriel also is. For he knew of no other above him; for if he had had knowledge of any more perfect God and Lord besides him, he would certainly not have confessed absolutely and entirely as Lord and God one whom he knew to be the fruit of a defect, as we have shown before. And speaking of John he says this: “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people.” For whom, then, did he prepare a people, and in the sight of which Lord was he made great? Surely of him who said that John had something even more than a prophet, and that among those born of women no one is greater than John the Baptist; who also prepared the people for the Lord's coming, forewarning his fellow servants and preaching repentance to them, so that they might receive forgiveness from the Lord when he was present, having been turned to him from whom they had been estranged because of sins and transgression; as David also says, “Sinners are estranged from the womb; they went astray from the belly.” And for this reason, turning them to their Lord, he prepared for the Lord a perfect people, in the spirit and power of Elijah. 2 And again, reporting about the angel, he says: “In that time the angel Gabriel was sent from God, who also said to the Virgin, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” And of the Lord he says: “He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Who else is it that reigns over the house of Jacob without interruption forever, but Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of the Most High God, who promised through the law and the prophets that he would make his salvation visible to all flesh, so that he would become Son of Man in order that man might also become son of God? For this reason Mary, rejoicing, cried out, prophesying on behalf of the church: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has taken up his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.” By these and so many other things, then, the Gospel shows that the God who spoke to the fathers is he who gave the law through Moses, by which law we know that he spoke to the fathers. This same God, in his great goodness, poured out his mercy upon us, in which mercy the Dawn from on high has looked upon us and appeared to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, and has guided our feet into the way of peace; as Zechariah too, ceasing to be mute (which he had suffered because of unbelief), filled with a new spirit, blessed God in a new way. For all things were new, the Word arranging in a new way his coming in the flesh, so that he might enroll for God the man who had gone away from God; and therefore they were taught to worship God in a new way, but not another God, since indeed there is one God, who justifies the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And Zechariah, prophesying, said: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption for his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old: salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that, rescued from the hand of our enemies, we might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” Then he says to John: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people for the forgiveness of their sins.” For this is the knowledge of salvation which they lacked, the knowledge of the Son of God, which John gave, saying, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who was before me, because he was prior to me; and from his fullness we have all received.” This, then, is the knowledge of salvation: not another God, nor another Father, nor Bythus, nor a Pleroma of thirty Aeons, nor a Mother of the Ogdoad; but the knowledge of salvation was the knowledge of the Son of God, who is truly both called and is salvation, Savior, and saving. Salvation, thus: “I have waited for your salvation, Lord.” Savior, again: “Look, my God, my Savior; I will trust in him.” Saving, thus: “God has made known his saving work in the sight of the nations.” For he is Savior because he is the Son and Word of God; saving, because he is Spirit, for it says, “The Spirit of our face, Christ the Lord”; and salvation, because he is flesh, for “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This knowledge of salvation, then, John gave to those who repented and believed in the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 3 “The angel of the Lord,” he says, “appeared to the shepherds, announcing joy to them, that a Savior has been born in the house of David, who is Christ the Lord. Then a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” The falsely named Gnostics say that these angels came from the Ogdoad and made known the descent of the higher Christ. But they fall again when they say that the Christ and Savior who is above was not born, but that after the baptism of the Jesus who belongs to the dispensation he descended upon him like a dove. By their account, then, the angels of the Ogdoad lie when they say, “For today a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.” For by their account neither Christ nor the Savior was born then, but the Jesus of the dispensation, who belongs to the maker of the world, upon whom they say the Savior from above descended after the baptism, that is, after thirty years. And why did they add “in the city of David,” unless to announce as fulfilled the promise made by God to David, that from the fruit of his womb there would be an eternal King? For the Fabricator of the whole universe had made the promise to David, as David himself says: “My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” And again: “In his hand are the ends of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his. For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us, for he is the Lord our God.” The Holy Spirit plainly declares through David to those who hear him that there will be those who despise him who formed us, who alone is God. Therefore he also spoke the words just quoted, meaning: Do not go astray; besides him or above him there is no other God to whom you should rather attend; making us devout and grateful toward him who made, established, and nourishes us. What, then, will become of those who have devised so much blasphemy against their Maker? The angels too proclaimed this same thing. For in saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,” they glorified with these words him who is the maker of the highest things, that is, of the things above the heavens, and the founder of all things on earth, who sent from heaven the kindness of salvation to his own handiwork, that is, to men. Therefore, he says, the shepherds returned, “glorifying God for all that they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” For the Israelite shepherds did not glorify another God, but him who was proclaimed by the law and the prophets, the Maker of all, whom the angels also glorified. But if the angels from the Ogdoad glorified one God and the shepherds another, those angels from the Ogdoad brought them error and not truth. 4 Further, Luke says of the Lord: “When the days of purification were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord; and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” — in his own person most clearly calling him Lord who gave the law. And Simeon, he says, “blessed God and said, Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” And Anna the prophetess, he says, likewise glorified God when she saw Christ, “and spoke of him to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.” By all these things one God is shown, opening to men the new dispensation of freedom, the covenant, through the new coming of his Son. 5 Therefore Mark too, the interpreter and follower of Peter, began his written Gospel this way: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets: Look, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths before our God.” He plainly says that the beginning of the Gospel is the words of the holy prophets, and points to him whom they confessed as Lord and God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also promised him that he would send his messenger before his face; this was John, crying in the wilderness in the spirit and power of Elijah, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths before our God.” For the prophets did not proclaim one God and another, but one and the same, though under various significations and many titles. For the Father is manifold and rich, as we have shown in the book before this one, and we shall show it from the prophets themselves as our discourse proceeds. And at the end of the Gospel Mark says: “So the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God,” confirming what was said by the prophet: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” So there is one and the same God and Father, who was proclaimed by the prophets and handed down by the Gospel, whom we Christians worship and love with all our heart, the Maker of heaven and earth and all that is in them.

1 John, the disciple of the Lord, proclaiming this faith, and wishing through the proclamation of the Gospel to remove the error which had been sown among men by Cerinthus, and much earlier by those called Nicolaitans, who are an offshoot of the knowledge falsely so called, wrote to confound them and persuade them that there is one God, who made all things through his Word; and not, as they say, that the fabricator is one and the Father of the Lord another; and that the fabricator's son is one, but the Christ from above another, who also remained impassible, descending into Jesus the fabricator's son, and flew back again into his Pleroma; and that the Beginning is Monogenes, but the Logos the true son of the Only-begotten; and that the creation to which we belong was made not by the first God but by some power far below and cut off from communion with the things invisible and unnameable. Wishing, then, to rule out all such things, and to establish the rule of truth in the church, that there is one God almighty, who made all things, visible and invisible, through his Word, and signifying also that through the Word by whom God made the creation he also granted salvation to the men who are in the creation, the disciple of the Lord began thus in the teaching of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. What was made was life in him, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.” “All things,” he says, “were made through him”; therefore among all things is also this creation to which we belong. For it will not be granted them that “all things” means the things within their Pleroma. For if their Pleroma contains these things too, then this great creation is not outside it, as we have shown in the book before this; but if these things are outside the Pleroma, which has been seen to be impossible, then their Pleroma is no longer “all things”; therefore this great creation is not outside. 2 John himself took away all disagreements from us when he said, “He was in this world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” But according to Marcion and those like him, neither was the world made through him, nor did he come to his own, but to what belonged to another. According to some of the Gnostics, this world was made by angels and not through the Word of God. According to the Valentinians, again, it was not made through him but through the Demiurge. For he (the Savior), they say, worked to make such likenesses after the pattern of the things above, while the Demiurge completed the fabrication of the creation. For they say that he was emitted by the Mother as Lord and Demiurge of the dispensation relating to creation, through whom they will have this world made; whereas the Gospel plainly says that all things were made through the Word who was in the beginning with God; which Word, it says, “became flesh and dwelt among us.” 3 According to them, neither the Word, nor Christ, nor the Savior who was made from all the Aeons became flesh. For they will have it that the Word and Christ did not even come into this world, and that the Savior was neither incarnate nor suffered, but descended like a dove upon that Jesus who came from the dispensation, and after proclaiming the unknown Father ascended again into the Pleroma. Some say that the one who became incarnate and suffered was the Jesus of the dispensation, who they say passed through Mary like water through a tube; others, the son of the Demiurge, upon whom the Jesus of the dispensation descended; others again say that Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh and impassible. But according to no opinion of the heretics did the Word of God become flesh. For if anyone examines all their rules, he will find that the Word of God, and the Christ who is in the higher regions, is brought in by all of them as without flesh and impassible. Some think that he was manifested like a man transfigured, but say that he was neither born nor made flesh; others, that he did not even take the form of a man, but descended like a dove upon that Jesus who was born of Mary. Showing all of them to be false witnesses, then, the disciple of the Lord says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” 4 And so that we may not ask of which God the Word became flesh, he teaches us besides, saying, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.” By which God, then, was the forerunner John, who bears witness to the light, sent? Surely by him whose angel is Gabriel, who also announced his birth; who also promised through the prophets that he would send his messenger before the face of his Son to prepare his way, that is, to bear witness to the light, in the spirit and power of Elijah. And whose servant and prophet, in turn, was Elijah? Of him who made heaven and earth, as he himself confesses. How, then, could John, sent by the founder and fabricator of this world, bear witness to that light which came down from the unnameable and invisible things? For all the heretics have decreed that the Demiurge is ignorant of the power above him, of which John is found to be the witness and herald. This is why the Lord said that he had something more than a prophet. For all the other prophets announced the coming of the Father's light and longed to be worthy to see him whom they preached; but John both foretold him as the others did, and saw him when he came, and pointed him out, and persuaded many to believe in him, so that he held the place of both prophet and apostle. This is what “more than a prophet” means: for first apostles, second prophets; but all things from one and the same God. 5 For good also was the wine which was made by God in the vineyard through the creation and was drunk first. None of those who drank it found fault with it, and the Lord too accepted some of it. But better was the wine which was made through the Word, briefly and simply, out of water, for the use of those who had been invited to the wedding. For though the Lord could have provided wine for the guests and filled the hungry with food without using any of the things of creation, he did not do so; but taking loaves that came from the earth and giving thanks, and again making water into wine, he satisfied those who were reclining and gave drink to those invited to the wedding. He showed that the God who made the earth and commanded it to bear fruit, who established the waters and produced the springs, he it is who in the last times grants to the human race through his Son the blessing of food and the grace of drink: the Incomprehensible through the comprehensible, and the Invisible through the visible, since the Son is not outside him but exists in the Father’s embrace. 6 “For no one,” he says, “has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the Father’s embrace; he has made him known.” For the Son who is in His embrace makes known to all the Father, who is invisible. Therefore those know him to whom the Son has revealed him; and again the Father, through the Son, gives knowledge of his Son to those who love him. From him Nathanael too learned and knew, to whom the Lord bore witness that he was a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit. The Israelite knew his King, and so said to him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.” Taught by him, Peter too knew Christ, the Son of the living God, as the Father says: “Here is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim judgment to the nations. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking wick he will not quench, until he brings judgment to victory; and in his name the nations will hope.” 7 These, then, are the first principles of the Gospel: they proclaim one God, the fabricator of this universe, who was announced through the prophets and who made the dispensation of the law through Moses, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and they know no other God and no other Father besides him. So firm is the ground of these Gospels that even the heretics themselves bear witness to them, and each of them, starting from them, tries to confirm his own doctrine. For the Ebionites, who use only the Gospel according to Matthew, are refuted from that very Gospel, as holding wrong views about the Lord. Marcion, mutilating the Gospel according to Luke, is shown to be a blasphemer of the only existing God from what is still preserved in his copy. Those who separate Jesus from Christ and say that Christ remained impassible while Jesus suffered, preferring the Gospel according to Mark, can be corrected if they read it with love of the truth. And the Valentinians, who make the fullest use of the Gospel according to John to display their pairings, will be exposed from it as saying nothing rightly, as we have shown in the first book. Since, then, those who contradict us bear witness for us and use these Gospels, our proof from them is firm and true. 8 Nor can the Gospels be more in number than they are, nor again fewer. For since there are four regions of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, and the church is scattered over all the earth, and the pillar and support of the church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life, it follows that she has four pillars, breathing out incorruption on every side and giving life to men. From this it is plain that the Word, the Artificer of all, who sits upon the cherubim and holds all things together, having been manifested to men, gave us the Gospel in fourfold form, held together by one Spirit. As David too, asking for his coming, says, “You who sit upon the cherubim, shine out.” For the cherubim too are fourfold, and their forms are images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it says, is like a lion, signifying his effective, sovereign, and royal character; the second like a calf, signifying his sacrificial and priestly order; the third has a face like a man's, clearly describing his coming as a man; and the fourth is like a flying eagle, showing the grace of the Spirit flying down upon the church. And the Gospels, then, are in harmony with these, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For one of them, the Gospel according to John, relates his sovereign, effective, and glorious generation from the Father, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” For this reason this Gospel is full of all confidence, for such is his person. The Gospel according to Luke, since it is of priestly character, began with the priest Zechariah offering sacrifice to God. For already the fatted calf was being made ready, which was to be slain for the finding of the younger son. Matthew relates his generation as man, saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” and again, “Now the generation of Christ was in this way.” This, then, is the Gospel of his human form; and so throughout this Gospel he is kept as a man of humble mind and meek. Mark began from the prophetic Spirit coming from on high to men, saying, “The beginning of the Gospel, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” showing the winged image of the Gospel; and for this reason he gave a concise and swift-running account, for this is the prophetic character. And the Word of God himself gave the patriarchs before Moses converse according to his divinity and glory; for those under the law he provided a priestly and liturgical service; afterwards, having become man for us, he sent the gift of the heavenly Spirit into all the earth, sheltering us with his wings. As, then, is the dispensation of the Son of God, so is the form of the living creatures; and as is the form of the living creatures, so is the character of the Gospel. The living creatures are fourfold, the Gospel is fourfold, and the dispensation of the Lord is fourfold. And for this reason four covenants were given to the human race: one before the flood, under Adam; the second after the flood, under Noah; the third, the giving of the law, under Moses; and the fourth, which renews man and recapitulates all things in itself, the one through the Gospel, raising and bearing men on wings into the heavenly kingdom. 9 This being so, all are empty, ignorant, and audacious besides who destroy the form of the Gospel and bring in either more aspects of the Gospel than have been named, or fewer: some, that they may seem to have discovered more than the truth; others, that they may set aside the dispensations of God. For Marcion, rejecting the whole Gospel, or rather cutting himself off from the Gospel, boasts that he has a part of the Gospel. Others, to nullify the gift of the Spirit, which in the last times was poured out on the human race according to the Father's good pleasure, do not admit the aspect that is according to John's Gospel, in which the Lord promised that he would send the Paraclete; but they reject at once both the Gospel and the prophetic Spirit. Unhappy men indeed, who wish to be false prophets, yet drive the grace of prophecy away from the church; suffering like those who, because of people who come in hypocrisy, keep themselves even from communion with the brothers. It is to be understood that such people do not accept the Apostle Paul either. For in the letter to the Corinthians he spoke carefully about prophetic gifts, and he knows men and women prophesying in the church. Sinning, therefore, in all these things against the Spirit of God, they fall into the unforgivable sin. And the Valentinians, again, being beyond all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast of having more than the Gospels themselves. Indeed they have gone so far in audacity as to entitle a book written by them not long ago “the Gospel of Truth,” though it agrees in nothing with the Gospels of the apostles, so that among them not even the Gospel is without blasphemy. For if what they bring forward is the Gospel of Truth, and it is unlike those handed down to us by the apostles, those who wish can learn, as is shown from the Scriptures themselves, that what was handed down by the apostles is no longer the Gospel of Truth. But that these alone are true and firm, and that there cannot be more or fewer Gospels than those named, we have shown by so many and such great arguments. For since God made all things ordered and fitted, the form of the Gospel too had to be well ordered and well joined together. Having examined, then, the teaching of those who handed down the Gospel to us from their very beginnings, let us come also to the other apostles and inquire into their teaching about God; and afterwards let us hear the Lord's own words.

1 The Apostle Peter, then, after the resurrection of the Lord and his being taken up into heaven, wishing to complete the number of the twelve apostles and to choose another in place of Judas, one chosen by God, said to those present: “Brothers, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus, because he was numbered among us: Let his dwelling be deserted, and let there be no one to live in it; and, Let another take his office.” So he completed the apostles from what was said by David. Again, when the Holy Spirit had come down upon the disciples, so that they all prophesied and spoke in tongues, and some mocked them as drunk with new wine, Peter said that they were not drunk, since it was the third hour of the day, but that this was what was spoken through the prophet: “It shall be in the last days, says the Lord, that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy.” God, then, who promised through the prophet that he would send his Spirit upon the human race, himself sent him; and God himself is proclaimed by Peter as having fulfilled his promise. 2 “Men of Israel,” says Peter, “hear my words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you by mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this man, delivered up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, fastening him to the cross by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pains of hell, because it was not possible for him to be held by them. For David says of him: I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh too will rest in hope. For you will not abandon my soul in hell, nor let your holy one see corruption.” Then he speaks boldly to them of the patriarch David, that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with them to this day. “But being a prophet,” he says, “and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that of the fruit of his womb one would sit on his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was neither abandoned in hell nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Being exalted at the right hand of God, and receiving from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this gift which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. Let all the house of Israel therefore know most surely that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” And when the crowds said, “What then shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So the apostles did not proclaim another God or another Pleroma, nor one Christ who suffered and rose and another who flew up above and remained impassible; but one and the same God the Father, and Christ Jesus who rose from the dead; and they proclaimed faith in him to those who did not believe in the Son of God, and exhorted them from the prophets that the Christ whom God promised to send he had sent, namely Jesus, whom they crucified and God raised up. 3 Again, when Peter with John saw the man who had been lame from birth sitting before the gate of the temple called Beautiful and asking alms, he said to him, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.” And at once his steps and soles were made firm, and he walked, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and glorifying God. When the whole crowd had gathered to them because of the unexpected deed, Peter said to them: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, and why do you stare at us, as though by our own power we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Son, whom you delivered up to judgment and denied before the face of Pilate when he wished to release him. But you oppressed the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you; and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name has made strong this man whom you see and know, and the faith that is through him has given him this soundness before you all. And now, brothers, I know that you did this evil in ignorance. But God has fulfilled what he foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer. Repent, therefore, and turn, so that your sins may be blotted out, and times of refreshment may come to you from the presence of the Lord, and he may send Jesus Christ, appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the times of the ordering of all things of which God spoke through his holy prophets. Moses said to our fathers: The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from your brothers like me; you shall listen to him in all that he says to you. And every soul that does not listen to that Prophet will perish from the people. And all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have also announced these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham: And in your seed all the tribes of the earth will be blessed. To you first God, raising up his Son, sent him to bless you, so that each of you may turn from his wickedness.” So Peter with John proclaimed to them a clear message, announcing that the promise God made to the fathers had been fulfilled through Jesus; not proclaiming another God, but the Son of God, who also became man and suffered, bringing Israel to knowledge, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and indicating that all that the prophets announced about the suffering of Christ, God had fulfilled. 4 For this reason, when the chief priests had again been called together, Peter said to them boldly: “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we are being examined by you today about a good deed done to a sick man, by what means this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands before you well. This is the stone despised by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner. And there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” So the apostles did not change God, but proclaimed to the people that the Christ is Jesus who was crucified, whom the same God who sent the prophets raised up, and in him gave salvation to men. 5 Confounded, then, both by the healing (for the man on whom the sign of healing had been done, says Scripture, was more than forty years old) and by the teaching of the apostles and their exposition of the prophets, the high priests released Peter and John. They returned to the other fellow apostles and disciples of the Lord, that is, to the church, and told what had happened and how boldly they had acted in the name of Jesus. “And the whole church,” it says, “hearing this, lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said: Lord, you are the God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said: Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot vain things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city there gathered together against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your will had predestined to take place.” These are the voices of the church from which every church has had its beginning; these are the voices of the great city, of the citizens of the new covenant; these the voices of the apostles, these the voices of the disciples of the Lord, who after the Lord's ascension were made perfect by the Spirit and called upon God who made heaven and earth and sea, who was proclaimed by the prophets, and his Son Jesus, whom God anointed, and knew of no other. For neither Valentinus nor Marcion was there then, nor the rest who overturn themselves and those who agree with them. Therefore God, the Maker of all, heard them. “For the place,” it says, “where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” to all who were willing to believe. “For with great power,” it says, “the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” saying to them, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you seized and killed by hanging him on a tree. Him God exalted by his glory as Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and we are witnesses in him of these words, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who believe.” “And every day,” it says, “in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and proclaiming Christ Jesus the Son of God.” For this was the knowledge of salvation, which makes perfect toward God those who know the coming of his Son. 6 But since some of them shamelessly say that the apostles, preaching among the Jews, could not announce to them another God besides the one in whom they already believed, we say to them that if the apostles spoke to people according to their long-ingrained opinion, no one learned the truth from them, and much earlier no one learned it from the Lord, for they say that he too spoke in this way. Then not even these people know the truth themselves; but since their opinion about God was such, they received the teaching as they were able to hear it. On this reasoning, then, no one will have a rule of truth, but all disciples will charge it to all, that as each one thought and as each one could grasp, so the word was addressed to him. And the Lord's coming will appear superfluous and useless, if he came to permit and preserve each person's long-ingrained opinion about God. Moreover, it was much harder to proclaim that the man whom the Jews had seen and nailed to the cross was the Christ, the Son of God, their eternal King. So they were not speaking to them according to their former opinion. For those who told them to their faces that they were the murderers of the Lord would much more boldly have proclaimed the Father who is above the Demiurge, and not what each one thought; and the sin would have been much smaller, if indeed they had not nailed to the cross the higher Savior, to whom they should ascend, since he was impassible. For just as they did not speak to the Gentiles according to their opinion, but told them boldly that their gods were not gods but idols of demons, so they would have proclaimed to the Jews too, if they had known another greater and more perfect Father, not nourishing and increasing their untrue opinion about God. And in dispelling the error of the pagans and taking them away from their gods, they certainly did not bring them another error; but taking away those that were not gods, they showed him who alone was God and true Father. 7 From the words of Peter, then, which he spoke at Caesarea to Cornelius the centurion and the Gentiles with him, to whom the word of God was first told, we must learn what the apostles proclaimed, what their preaching was like, and what view they held about God. “This Cornelius,” it says, “was devout and feared God with all his household, giving many alms to the people and praying to God always. About the ninth hour of the day he saw an angel of God coming in to him and saying, Your alms have gone up as a remembrance in the sight of God. Therefore send to Simon, who is called Peter.” And when Peter had seen the revelation in which the heavenly voice answered him, “What God has cleansed, do not call common” — this because the God who through the law distinguished between clean and unclean is he who cleansed the Gentiles through the blood of his Son, whom Cornelius also worshiped — coming to him Peter said, “In truth I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.” He plainly signifies that the God whom Cornelius feared before, of whom he had heard through the law and the prophets, and for whose sake he gave alms, is in truth God. But he lacked the knowledge of the [Son]. Therefore Peter added: “You know the word that went out through all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John preached: Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power; he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they killed by hanging him on a tree. God raised him on the third day and granted him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but to us, witnesses predestined by God, who ate and drank with him after his resurrection from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one predestined by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” The apostles, then, proclaimed the Son of God, whom people did not know, and his coming, to those who had already been instructed about God; but they did not bring in another God. For if Peter had known any such thing, he would freely have preached to the Gentiles that the God of the Jews was one and the God of the Christians another; and they, all terrified by the vision of the angel, would have believed whatever he told them. But from Peter's words it is plain that he kept the God already known to them, and testified to them that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, into whom he also commanded them to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins; and not only this, but he testified that Jesus himself is the Son of God, who, anointed with the Holy Spirit, is called Jesus Christ. And this same one is he who was born of Mary, as Peter's testimony includes. Or did Peter not yet have perfect knowledge then, which these people discovered later? Then by their account Peter was imperfect, and the other apostles imperfect too; and they will have to come back to life and become disciples of these people, so that they too may become perfect. But this is ridiculous. These people are proved to be disciples not of the apostles but of their own evil opinion. And for this reason the opinions of each of them vary, each receiving error as he was able to grasp it. But the church throughout the whole world, having its firm beginning from the apostles, perseveres in one and the same view of God and of his Son. 8 And again, whom did Philip proclaim to the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians, who was returning from Jerusalem and reading Isaiah the prophet, the two of them alone together? Was it not him of whom the prophet said, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. But who will declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” That this was Jesus, and that the Scripture was fulfilled in him; as the eunuch himself, believing and at once asking to be baptized, said, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” And he was sent into the regions of Ethiopia to preach what he himself had believed: one God proclaimed by the prophets, and that his Son had already made his coming as man, and was led like a sheep to the sacrifice, and all the other things the prophets say about him. 9 Paul too, after the Lord had spoken to him from heaven and shown him that in persecuting his disciples he was persecuting his own Lord, and had sent Ananias to him so that he might see again and be baptized, “preached in the synagogues at Damascus,” it says, “with all boldness, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” This is the mystery which he says was made known to him by revelation: that he who suffered under Pontius Pilate is Lord of all, and King, and God, and Judge, receiving power from him who is God of all, because he became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. And because this is true, when preaching to the Athenians on the Areopagus, where, with no Jews present, he could freely preach the true God, he said to them: “God who made the world and all that is in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he handled by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gave life and breath to all and made all things; who made from one blood the whole race of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, determining times according to the fixed bounds of their habitation, to seek the divine, if somehow they might touch it or find it, though it is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and are; as some of your own have said, For we are also his offspring. Being, then, the offspring of God, we should not think that the divine is like gold or silver or stone shaped by the art or desire of man. Overlooking the times of ignorance, God now commands all men everywhere to repent toward him, because he has appointed a day for the world to be judged in righteousness by the man Jesus, in whom he has established faith by raising him from the dead.” Here he not only proclaims to them God the Maker of the world, with no Jews present, but also that he made one human race to dwell on all the earth; as Moses too says, “When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God”; but the people that believes God is no longer under the power of angels but under the Lord's. “For the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, Israel the line of his inheritance.” And again, when Paul was at Lystra in Lycia with Barnabas, and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ had made a man lame from birth walk, and the crowd wished to honor them as gods because of the wonderful deed, he said to them, “We are men like you, bringing you the good news that you should turn from these vain idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them; who in past times allowed all the nations to go their own ways, yet did not leave himself without witness, doing good, giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.” That all his letters agree with these proclamations of his we shall show from the letters themselves in the proper place, when expounding the apostle. As for you, while we labor at these proofs from the Scriptures and present briefly and concisely what is said in many ways, attend to them patiently and do not think it long-windedness, understanding this: that the proofs contained in the Scriptures cannot be shown except from the Scriptures themselves. 10 Stephen too, who was chosen by the apostles as the first deacon, who was also the first of all men to follow in the footsteps of the Lord's martyrdom, the first to be killed for confessing Christ, speaking boldly among the people and teaching them, said: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred, and come into the land that I will show you. And he moved him into this land in which you now live, and gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his seed after him. And God spoke to him thus: that his seed would be sojourners in a foreign land, and would be brought into slavery and afflicted for four hundred years; and the nation they serve I will judge, says the Lord. And afterward they will come out and serve me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so he begot Isaac.” And the rest of his words proclaim the same God, who was with Joseph and with the patriarchs and who spoke with Moses. 11 And that the whole teaching of the apostles proclaimed one and the same God, who moved Abraham, who made him the promise of the inheritance, who gave the covenant of circumcision at the fitting time, who called his seed out of Egypt, plainly preserved by circumcision (for he gave it as a sign, so that they should not be like the Egyptians) — this Maker of all, this Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, this God of glory — those who wish can learn from the very words and Acts of the apostles, and see that he is the one God, above whom there is no other. And if there were another God above him, we would say, by way of comparison and more than enough, that this one is better than that one. For the better is shown by works, as we said before; and since they have no work of their Father to show, this one alone is shown to be God. But if anyone, sick with questions, thinks that what the apostles said about God should be allegorized, let him examine the arguments we have set out above, in which we showed one God, the Founder and Maker of all, and destroyed and laid bare what they say; and he will find them consistent with the teaching of the apostles, and that the apostles held and were persuaded as they taught, that the fabricator of all is one God. And when he has driven so great an error from his mind, and the blasphemy against God, he will find the reason for himself, recognizing both the law according to Moses and the grace of the New Testament as each suited to its times, granted for the benefit of the human race by one and the same God. 12 For all who hold a wrong opinion, troubled by the legislation according to Moses and thinking it unlike and contrary to the teaching of the Gospel, have not turned to inquire into the causes of the difference between the two Testaments. Abandoned, then, by the Father's love and puffed up by Satan, turned to the teaching of Simon Magus, they have departed in their opinions from him who is God, and thought that they had found more than the apostles, by inventing another God; and they say that the apostles preached the Gospel still holding Jewish views, while they themselves are purer and wiser than the apostles. So Marcion and his followers turned to cutting up the Scriptures, not acknowledging some at all, and, curtailing the Gospel according to Luke and the letters of Paul, they say that only these are authentic, which they themselves have shortened. But we shall refute them, God granting, in another work, even from what is still preserved among them. All the rest, puffed up with the false name of knowledge, acknowledge the Scriptures but twist their interpretations, as we showed in the first book. And the followers of Marcion openly blaspheme the fabricator, calling him the maker of evils, though they hold a more tolerable account of his origin, saying that there are two gods by nature, distinct from each other, one good and the other evil. The Valentinians, using more honorable names and presenting the fabricator as Father, Lord, and God, hold a more blasphemous position or sect, saying that he was not emitted even by any of the Aeons within the Pleroma, but from the defect that was expelled outside the Pleroma. All this was brought upon them by ignorance of the Scriptures and of God's dispensation. But we, the cause of the difference of the Testaments, and again their unity and harmony, shall set out in what follows. 13 But that both the apostles and their disciples taught as the church preaches, and teaching thus were perfect, and for this reason were also called to perfection: Stephen, teaching these things while still on earth, saw the glory of God and Jesus at his right hand, and said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He said this and was stoned, and so fulfilled the perfect teaching, imitating in everything the master of martyrdom and praying for those who were killing him, saying, “Lord, do not lay this sin against them.” So they were perfect who knew one and the same God, assisting the human race from beginning to end by various dispensations; as the prophet Hosea says, “I have multiplied visions, and in the hands of the prophets I have been represented.” How, then, could those who gave up their lives to death for the Gospel of Christ speak to people according to their ingrained opinion? Had they done so, they would not have suffered; but because they preached things contrary to those who did not assent to the truth, therefore they suffered. It is plain, then, that they did not abandon the truth, but preached with all boldness to Jews and Greeks: to the Jews, that Jesus, who was crucified by them, is the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, who has received from the Father the eternal kingdom in Israel, as we have shown; and to the Greeks they proclaimed one God who made all things, and his Son Jesus Christ. 14 This is shown more plainly from the letter of the apostles, which they sent neither to Jews nor to Greeks, but to those from the Gentiles who believed in Christ, confirming their faith. For when some had come down from Judea to Antioch — where the Lord's disciples were first of all called Christians because of their faith in Christ — and were urging those who had believed in the Lord to be circumcised and to carry out the other observances of the law, and Paul and Barnabas had gone up to Jerusalem to the other apostles about this question, and the whole church had come together, Peter said to them: “Brothers, you know that from early days God chose among you that the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel from my mouth and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now, then, why do you tempt God by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as they are.” After him James said: “Brothers, Simon has related how God planned to take from the Gentiles a people for his name. And so the words of the prophets agree, as it is written: After this I will return and rebuild the tent of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins and raise it up, so that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the nations upon whom my name is called, says the Lord, who does these things. His work is known to God from of old. Therefore, for my part, I judge that we should not trouble those from the Gentiles who are turning to God, but instruct them to abstain from the vanities of idols, from sexual immorality, and from blood; and whatever they do not wish done to themselves, not to do to others.” And when these things had been said and all had agreed, they wrote to them thus: “The apostles and the presbyters, brothers, to the brothers from the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, greeting. Since we have heard that some going out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, though we gave them no instructions, saying, Be circumcised and keep the law: it seemed good to us, having come together, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have given up their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent, therefore, Judas and Silas, who will themselves announce our decision by word. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, and from sexual immorality, and whatever you do not wish done to yourselves, not to do to others; keeping yourselves from these you will do well, walking in the Holy Spirit.” It is plain, then, from all this, that they did not teach that there is another Father, but gave the new covenant of freedom to those who were newly believing in God through the Holy Spirit. And by asking whether the disciples should still be circumcised or not, they plainly showed that they had no notion of another God. 15 Otherwise they would not have had such reverence for the first covenant that they were unwilling even to eat with Gentiles. For Peter too, though he had been sent to instruct them and had been shaken by such a vision, still spoke to them with much fear, saying, “You yourselves know that it is not lawful for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner; but God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean; therefore I came without objection” — indicating by these words that he would not have gone to them had he not been commanded. Likewise he would not easily have given them baptism either, had he not heard them prophesying when the Holy Spirit rested upon them. And for this reason he said, “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” — persuading those who were with him and indicating that, had the Holy Spirit not rested upon them, there would have been someone to forbid them baptism. The apostles with James allowed the Gentiles to act freely, yielding us to the Spirit of God. But they themselves, knowing the same God, persevered in their former observances; so that Peter too, fearing that he might be blamed by them, though he had earlier eaten with the Gentiles because of the vision and of the Spirit who had rested upon them, nevertheless, when some had come from James, separated himself and did not eat with them; and Paul said that Barnabas did the same. So the apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of all his action and all his teaching — for everywhere Peter, James, and John are found present with him — acted reverently toward the dispensation of the law according to Moses, indicating that it was from one and the same God. This they would certainly not have done, as we said before, if they had learned from the Lord of another Father besides him who made the dispensation of the law.

1 As for those who say that Paul alone knew the truth, to whom the mystery was made manifest by revelation, let Paul himself refute them, when he says that one and the same God worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision and in him for the Gentiles. Peter, then, was an apostle of the same God as Paul; and the God and the Son of God whom Peter proclaimed among the circumcision, Paul too proclaimed among the Gentiles. For our Lord did not come to save Paul alone, nor is God so poor as to have only one apostle who knew the dispensation of his Son. And Paul, saying, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, who bring good news of peace,” makes it plain that it was not one but many who were preaching the truth. And again, in the letter to the Corinthians, after listing all who saw God after the resurrection, he added, “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed,” confessing one and the same preaching of all who saw God after the resurrection from the dead. 2 And the Lord answered Philip, who wished to see the Father: “Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever sees me sees the Father also. How can you say, Show us the Father? For I am in the Father and the Father in me; and from now on you have known him and have seen him.” To say, then, that those to whom the Lord bore witness that they both knew and saw the Father in him (and the Father is truth) did not know the truth is the mark of false witnesses and of people estranged from Christ's teaching. For why did the Lord send the twelve apostles to the lost sheep of the house of Israel if they did not know the truth? And how did the seventy preach unless they had first known the truth of the preaching? Or how could Peter be ignorant, to whom the Lord bore witness that flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but the Father who is in heaven? Just as Paul, then, was an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, the Son bringing them to the Father, and the Father revealing the Son to them. 3 And that Paul complied with those who summoned him to the apostles about the question, and went up to them with Barnabas to Jerusalem, not without reason, but so that the freedom of the Gentiles might be confirmed by them, he himself says in the letter to the Galatians: “Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also. I went up by revelation and laid before them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.” And again he says, “For an hour we yielded in subjection, so that the truth of the Gospel might remain with you.” If anyone, then, carefully examines from the Acts of the Apostles the time of which it is written that he went up to Jerusalem because of the question mentioned, he will find that the years Paul mentions coincide. So Paul's account and Luke's testimony about the apostles agree and are, as it were, the same.

1 That this Luke was inseparable from Paul and his fellow worker in the Gospel, he himself makes plain, not boasting but led by the truth itself. For when Barnabas and John, who was called Mark, had separated from Paul and sailed to Cyprus, “we came to Troas,” he says; and when Paul had seen in a dream a man of Macedonia saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us, Paul,” “at once,” he says, “we sought to go into Macedonia, understanding that the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel to them. Sailing, then, from Troas, we set our course for Samothrace.” And then he records carefully all the rest of their journey up to Philippi, and how they spoke their first word: “Sitting down,” he says, “we spoke to the women who had gathered”; and who believed, and how many. And again he says: “But we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to Troas, where we stayed seven days.” And all the rest he relates in order with Paul, showing with all care the places, the cities, and the number of days, until they went up to Jerusalem; and what happened to Paul there, how he was sent bound to Rome; the name of the centurion who took charge of him; the ensigns of the ships; how they were shipwrecked and on what island they were saved; how they received kindness there, when Paul healed the chief man of that island; and how they sailed from there to Puteoli and from there came to Rome, and how long they stayed at Rome. Since Luke was present at all these things, he wrote them down carefully, so that he cannot be caught as either false or boastful, since all these things are established, and since he is older than all who now teach otherwise and was not ignorant of the truth. And that he was not only a follower but also a fellow worker of the apostles, and especially of Paul, Paul himself has made plain in his letters, saying, “Demas has forsaken me and gone to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia; Luke alone is with me.” From this he shows that Luke was always joined to him and inseparable from him. And again in the letter to the Colossians, he says, “Luke the beloved physician greets you.” If, then, Luke, who always preached with Paul, was called beloved by him, preached the Gospel with him, and was entrusted with handing down the Gospel to us, learned nothing else from him, as has been shown from his own words, how do those who were never joined to Paul boast that they learned hidden and unspeakable mysteries? 2 And that Paul taught simply what he knew, not only to those who were with him but to all who heard him, he himself makes plain. For at Miletus, having called together the bishops and presbyters from Ephesus and the other neighboring cities, since he was hastening to keep Pentecost at Jerusalem, he testified many things to them, telling them what must happen to him at Jerusalem, and added: “I know that you will no longer see my face. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am clean of the blood of all. For I did not hold back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Take heed, then, to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops, to rule the church of the Lord, which he acquired for himself through his own blood.” Then, indicating the evil teachers to come, he said: “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among yourselves men will arise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” “I did not hold back,” he says, “from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” So the apostles, simply and grudging no one, handed on to all what they themselves had learned from the Lord. So Luke too, grudging no one, handed on to us what he had learned from them, as he himself testifies, saying, “As they handed them on to us who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word.” 3 If anyone rejects Luke as though he did not know the truth, he will clearly be casting away the Gospel whose disciple he claims to be. For through him we have come to know very many and very necessary parts of the Gospel: such as the birth of John, the story of Zechariah, the angel's coming to Mary, Elizabeth's exclamation, the angels' descent to the shepherds and what they said, the testimony of Anna and Simeon about Christ, that at twelve years old he was left behind in Jerusalem, the baptism of John, how old the Lord was when he was baptized, and that this was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar; and in his teaching, what was said to the rich: “Woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation”; and, “Woe to you who are full, for you will hunger; and you who laugh now, for you will weep”; and, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you; for so your fathers did to the false prophets.” All things of this kind we have come to know through Luke alone (and through him we have learned very many acts of the Lord which all use): such as the multitude of fish which those with Peter enclosed when the Lord commanded them to let down the nets; the woman who had suffered for eighteen years and was healed on the Sabbath; the man with dropsy whom the Lord healed on the Sabbath, and how he argued that he had healed on that day; how he taught the disciples not to seek the first places at table; that we should invite the poor and the weak, who cannot repay; the man who knocked at night to get loaves and got them because of his persistent importunity; that, when he was reclining at a Pharisee's house, a sinful woman kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment, and all that the Lord said to Simon about her concerning the two debtors; the parable of that rich man who stored up what had been produced for him, to whom it was said, “This night they will demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”; likewise the rich man who was clothed in purple and feasted splendidly, and the beggar Lazarus; the answer he gave his disciples when they said to him, “Increase our faith”; the conversation held with Zacchaeus the tax collector; the Pharisee and the tax collector who were praying together in the temple; the ten lepers whom he cleansed together on the road; that he ordered the lame and the one-eyed to be gathered from the lanes and streets to the wedding; the parable of the judge who did not fear God, whom the widow's persistence made avenge her; and the fig tree in the vineyard which bore no fruit. And there are many other things that can be found to have been told by Luke alone, which both Marcion and Valentinus use. And on top of all these, what he said to his disciples on the road after the resurrection, and how they recognized him in the breaking of bread. 4 They must, then, either accept also the rest of what he has said, or renounce these things too. For people of sense will not allow them to accept some of what Luke has said as true and to reject other things as though he did not know the truth. And if the followers of Marcion reject them, they will have no Gospel; for, as we said before, by curtailing the Gospel according to Luke they boast that they have the Gospel. And the Valentinians will cease from much of their empty talk, for from this Gospel they have taken many occasions for their subtleties, daring to interpret wrongly what was well said by Luke. But if they are compelled to accept the rest too, then by attending to the complete Gospel and the teaching of the apostles they must repent, so that they may be saved from the danger.

1 We say the same again to those who do not acknowledge the Apostle Paul: either they must renounce the other words of the Gospel which have come to our knowledge through Luke alone, and not use them; or, if they accept all of them, they are bound to accept also the testimony about Paul, where he says, first, that the Lord spoke to him from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? I am Jesus Christ, whom you are persecuting”; and then that he said of him to Ananias: “Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name among the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him from now on how much he must suffer for my name.” Those, then, who do not accept him who was chosen by God for this, to carry his name boldly, being sent to the nations we have mentioned, despise the Lord's choice and separate themselves from the company of the apostles. For they cannot contend that Paul is not an apostle, since he was chosen for this; nor can they show that Luke, who proclaims the truth to us with all care, is a liar. Perhaps indeed God worked for this reason, that very many parts of the Gospel should be shown through Luke, which all would have to use, so that all, following his subsequent testimony about the acts and teaching of the apostles and holding the unadulterated rule of truth, might be saved. His testimony, then, is true, and the teaching of the apostles is open and firm, holding nothing back, and they did not teach some things in secret and others in public. 2 For this is the device of pretenders, wicked seducers, and hypocrites, as the Valentinians do. For they address discourses to the multitude for the sake of those who belong to the church, whom they themselves call “common” and “ecclesiastical,” and by these they catch the simpler people and entice them, imitating our way of speaking, so that they may hear them more often. They even complain about us, that, though they think as we do, we keep away from communion with them without cause, and that, though they say the same things and hold the same teaching, we call them heretics. And when they have thrown some down from the faith by the questions they raise, and made them hearers who do not contradict them, they tell them privately the unspeakable mystery of their Pleroma. All are deceived who think that from what is plausible in words they can learn the truth. For error is persuasive and plausible, and seeks disguises; but truth is without disguise, and for this reason it has been entrusted to children. And if anyone among those who hear them asks for explanations or contradicts them, they declare that he does not grasp the truth and does not have the seed from above from their Mother, and say nothing at all to him, saying that he is of the middle region, that is, of the animal. But if anyone gives himself up to them like a little sheep and has received their initiation and their “redemption,” such a one is puffed up and thinks himself to be neither in heaven nor on earth, but to have entered within the Pleroma and already embraced his angel; he walks about with a hawker's swagger and a haughty brow, having the pride of a cock. There are some among them who say that the man who comes from above must attain good conduct; for this reason they also feign gravity with a certain haughtiness. But very many, having become contemptuous, as though already perfect, live without reverence and in contempt, call themselves spiritual, and say that they already know the place of refreshment that is within their Pleroma. 3 But let us return to the same treatment. Since it has been plainly declared that those who were preachers of the truth and apostles of freedom called no one else God and named no one else Lord than the only true God the Father and his Word, who has the preeminence in all things, it will be plainly shown that they confessed as Lord God the Maker of heaven and earth, who spoke with Moses and gave him the dispensation of the law, who called the fathers, and that they knew no other. The view about God of the apostles and of their disciples has thus been made plain from their own words.

1 But there are some who say that Jesus was the receptacle of Christ, upon whom Christ descended from above like a dove, and that, after he had made known the unnameable Father, he entered the Pleroma incomprehensibly and invisibly, for he was not grasped by men, nor even by the powers and virtues in heaven; and that Jesus was the son, but Christ the father, and God the father of Christ. Others say that he suffered only in appearance, being by nature impassible. The Valentinians say that the Jesus of the dispensation is the one who passed through Mary, upon whom the Savior from the higher world descended, who is also called Christ because he bore the names of all who had emitted him; and that he shared with the one of the dispensation his own power and his own name, so that death might be abolished through him, while the Father would be made known through the Savior who had descended from above, whom they also call the receptacle of Christ and of the whole Pleroma. So they confess one Christ Jesus with the tongue but are divided in opinion (for this is their rule, as we said before: that one was Christ, sent out by the Only-begotten for the correction of the Pleroma; another the Savior, sent for the glorification of the Father; and another the one of the dispensation, whom they say suffered, while the Savior who bore Christ returned to the Pleroma). Therefore we must bring forward the whole teaching of the apostles about our Lord Jesus Christ, and show not only that they held nothing of the kind about him, but further that they indicated through the Holy Spirit those who would begin to teach such things, sent by Satan to overturn the faith of some and draw them away from life. 2 That John knew one and the same Word of God, and that he is the Only-begotten, and that he became incarnate for our salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord, we have sufficiently shown from John's own words. And Matthew too, knowing one and the same Jesus Christ, and setting out his human generation from the Virgin, as God had promised David that from the fruit of his womb he would raise up an eternal King, having made the same promise to Abraham long before, says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Then, to free our minds from suspicion about Joseph, he says, “Now the generation of Christ was in this way. When his mother had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Then, when Joseph was thinking of putting Mary away because she was pregnant, an angel of God stood by him and said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what she has in her womb is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: Look, a virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.” He plainly shows both that the promise made to the fathers was fulfilled, the Son of God being born of a virgin, and that he himself is the Savior Christ whom the prophets proclaimed; not, as they say, that Jesus is the one born of Mary, but Christ the one who descended from above. Matthew could have said, “Now the generation of Jesus was in this way”; but the Holy Spirit, foreseeing the corrupters and guarding against their fraud, says through Matthew, “Now the generation of Christ was in this way,” and that he is Emmanuel, so that we do not think Him merely human — for not by the will of the flesh nor by the will of a man, but by the will of God, the Word became flesh — and so that we do not suppose that Jesus was one and Christ another, but know that they are one and the same. 3 Paul interpreted this very thing when he wrote to the Romans: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestined for the Gospel of God, which he promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” And again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says, “Whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever.” And again in the letter to the Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption.” He plainly indicates one God, who made the promise about his Son through the prophets, and one Jesus Christ our Lord, who is of the seed of David according to his generation from Mary; that this Jesus Christ was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, so as to be the firstborn from the dead, as he is the firstborn of all creation; the Son of God made Son of Man, so that through him we might receive adoption, man bearing, receiving, and embracing the Son of God. For this reason Mark too says, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets,” knowing one and the same Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was announced by the prophets, who from the fruit of David's womb is Emmanuel, the messenger of the great counsel of the Father; through whom God made the Dayspring and the Righteous One to rise for the house of David, and raised up for him a horn of salvation, and established a testimony in Jacob; as David, discussing the reasons for his generation, says, “And he established a law in Israel, that another generation might know it, sons who will be born of them, and they too will arise and tell it to their sons, so that they may put their hope in God and seek out his commandments.” And again the angel, bringing the good news to Mary, says, “He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of his father David,” confessing that he who is Son of the Most High is likewise the son of David. And David, knowing by the Spirit the dispensation of his coming, through which he is Lord of all the living and the dead, confessed him as Lord, seated at the right hand of the Father Most High. 4 And Simeon, who had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had first seen Christ Jesus, taking in his hands this firstborn of the Virgin, blessed God and said, “Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” He confessed that the infant he carried in his hands, Jesus, born of Mary, is himself the Christ, the Son of God, the light of all, the glory of Israel itself, and the peace and refreshment of those who had fallen asleep. For he was already despoiling men, taking away their ignorance and giving them knowledge of himself, and making a distribution of those who knew him, as Isaiah says: “Call his name, Quickly despoil, Swiftly divide.” These are the works of Christ. He, then, was the Christ whom Simeon carried as he blessed the Most High; whom the shepherds glorified God for when they had seen him; whom John, while still in his mother's womb, and he in Mary's womb, recognized as Lord and greeted, leaping for joy; whom the Magi saw and worshiped, bringing the gifts we have mentioned, and prostrating themselves before the eternal King, they went away by another road, no longer returning by the way of the Assyrians. “For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the goods seized from Samaria against the king of the Assyrians”: showing in a hidden way, yet powerfully, that the Lord was fighting against Amalek with a hidden hand. For this reason he also snatched away the children who were of the house of David, happy in their lot to be born at that time, so as to send them ahead into his kingdom; while he himself was an infant, he prepared infants as martyrs, killed for the sake of Christ, who was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the city of David, according to the Scriptures. 5 For this reason the Lord said to his disciples after the resurrection, “O foolish men, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” And again he said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, [and thus it was necessary] for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that [repentance for] the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations.” And this is he who was born of Mary. “For the Son of Man,” he says, “must suffer many things, be rejected, be crucified, and rise on the third day.” The Gospel, then, knows no other Son of Man than him who is from Mary, who also suffered; nor a Christ flying away from Jesus before the passion; but it knows this one who was born, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and that this same one suffered and rose again, as John the disciple of the Lord confirms, saying, “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have eternal life in his name”; foreseeing these blasphemous rules which divide the Lord, as far as in them lies, saying that he was made of one substance and another. For this reason he also testified to us thus in his letter: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us; but they went out so that it might be shown that they are not of us. Know, then, that every lie is foreign and is not of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist.” 6 Since all those mentioned, though they confess one Jesus Christ with the tongue, make fools of themselves, thinking one thing and saying another — for their theories vary, as we have shown: they proclaim that one suffered and was born, and that he belongs to their Demiurge, either the one of the dispensation or the one from Joseph, whom they argue was passible, and that another descended from the invisible and unspeakable regions, whom they declare to be invisible, incomprehensible, and impassible — they stray from the truth, because their opinion departs from him who is truly God. They do not know that his only-begotten Word, who is always present to the human race, united and mingled with his own handiwork according to the Father's good pleasure, and made flesh, is himself Jesus Christ our Lord, who suffered for us and rose for our sake, and will come again in the glory of the Father to raise up all flesh, to show salvation, and to show the rule of just judgment to all who were made under him. There is, then, one God the Father, as we have shown, and one Christ Jesus our Lord, coming through the whole dispensation, and summing up all things in himself. And in all things he is also man, the handiwork of God; and so he recapitulated man in himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible comprehensible, the impassible passible, and the Word man, summing up all things in himself, so that, as the Word of God is chief among super-celestial, spiritual, and invisible things, so also among visible and bodily things he may have the preeminence, taking the primacy to himself and setting himself as head of the church, so that he may draw all things to himself at the proper time. 7 For with him nothing is unordered or untimely, just as nothing is incongruous with the Father. For all these things were foreknown by the Father, and are accomplished by the Son, as is fitting and consistent, at the proper time. For this reason, when Mary was hastening toward the wonderful sign of the wine and wished before the time to share in the cup of the shortened way, the Lord, checking her untimely haste, said, “Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come,” awaiting the hour foreknown by the Father. For this reason, when people often wished to seize him, “No one,” it says, “laid hands on him, for the hour of his arrest had not yet come,” nor the time of his passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as the prophet Habakkuk also says, “When the years draw near you will be known; when the time comes you will be shown; in that my soul is troubled, in anger you will remember your mercy.” And Paul says, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son.” By this it is plain that our Lord accomplished all things that had been foreknown by the Father, in order, time, and hour, foreknown and fitting, being one and the same, yet rich and manifold. For he serves the rich and manifold will of the Father, since he himself is the Savior of those who are saved, the Lord of those who are under his dominion, the God of the things that have been established, the only-begotten of the Father, the Christ who was proclaimed, and the Word of God incarnate, when the fullness of time had come in which the Son of God was to become Son of Man. 8 So all are outside the dispensation who under pretext of knowledge understand Jesus as one, Christ as another, the Only-begotten as another, from whom again the Word comes, and the Savior as another, whom those disciples of error say is an emission of the Aeons who came to be in the diminution. Outwardly they are sheep, for by the speech they have on the outside they appear like us, saying the same things we do; but inwardly they are wolves. For their opinion is murderous, inventing many gods and feigning many fathers, while breaking up the Son of God and dividing him into many. The Lord warned us beforehand to beware of them, and his disciple John in the letter we mentioned commanded us to flee them, saying, “Many deceivers have gone out into this world, who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Watch out for them, so that you do not lose what you have worked for.” And again he says in the letter, “Many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that dissolves Jesus Christ is not from God, but is from the Antichrist.” These words are like what was said in the Gospel, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Therefore he cries out again in the letter, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,” knowing one and the same Jesus Christ, to whom the gates of heaven were opened because of his taking flesh, who will also come in the same flesh in which he suffered, revealing the glory of the Father. 9 And Paul too, agreeing with them, says to the Romans: “Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.” He does not know, then, a Christ who flew away from Jesus, nor does he know the Savior above, whom they call impassible. For if one suffered and the other remained impassible, and one was born and the other descended upon him who was born and left him again, then not one but two are shown. But that the Apostle knew one Christ Jesus, both him who was born and him who suffered, he says again in the same letter: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death, so that as Christ rose from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life?” And again, indicating that Christ suffered and that he himself is the Son of God, who died for us and redeemed us by his blood at the appointed time, he says: “For why did Christ, while we were still weak, die at the right time for the ungodly? But God commends his love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved by him from anger. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” He most plainly proclaims that this same one who was seized and suffered and shed his blood for us is the Christ, the Son of God, who also rose and was taken up into heaven, as he himself says, “At the same time, it is Christ who died, yes, who also rose, who is at the right hand of God”; and again, “Knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more.” For he too, foreseeing by the Spirit the subdivisions of the evil teachers and wishing to cut off every occasion of dissension for them, said what has been quoted: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.” Does he not all but cry out to those who are willing to hear: Do not err; Christ Jesus the Son of God is one and the same, who by his passion reconciled us to God, rose from the dead, is at the right hand of the Father, and is perfect in all things; who when he was beaten did not strike back; who when he suffered did not threaten; and when he suffered tyranny prayed the Father to forgive those who had crucified him. For he himself truly saved; he himself is the Word of God, he the only-begotten of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 For the apostles could have said that Christ descended into Jesus; or that the higher Savior descended into the one who belongs to the dispensation; or that the one who is from the invisible beings descended into the one who belongs to the Demiurge. But they neither knew nor said any such thing; for if they had known it, they would certainly also have said it. What was really the case, that they also said: that the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove; this Spirit, of whom it was said by Isaiah, “And the Spirit of God shall rest upon him,” as we said before. And again: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” This is the Spirit of whom the Lord says: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” And again, giving the disciples the power of regeneration into God, he said to them: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” For this Spirit he promised through the prophets to pour out in the last times upon his servants and handmaids, that they might prophesy. For this reason he also descended upon the Son of God, who had become the Son of Man, becoming accustomed with him to dwell in the human race, to rest in human beings, and to dwell in God’s handiwork, working the Father’s will in them and renewing them from their oldness into the newness of Christ. 2 This Spirit David asked for on behalf of the human race, saying: “Establish me with your governing Spirit.” Luke says that this Spirit descended after the Lord’s ascension upon the disciples at Pentecost, having power over all nations for their entrance into life and for the opening of the new covenant. So also, agreeing together in all languages, they sang a hymn to God, the Spirit bringing distant tribes to unity and offering to the Father the firstfruits of all nations. So also the Lord promised to send the Paraclete, who would fit us for God. For as one lump of dough cannot be made from dry wheat without moisture, nor one loaf, so neither could we who are many be made one in Christ Jesus without the water that is from heaven. And as dry earth, if it does not receive moisture, bears no fruit, so we too, being at first a dry tree, would never bear fruit leading to life without the voluntary rain from above. For our bodies have received through the washing that unity which leads to incorruption, but our souls through the Spirit. So both are necessary, since both contribute to the life of God. So our Lord had compassion on that Samaritan woman, the transgressor, who did not remain with one husband but committed sexual immorality in many marriages; he showed and promised her living water, so that she would thirst no more nor be busied with laboriously drawing water, having in herself a drink springing up to eternal life. This the Lord received as a gift from the Father, and he himself also bestowed it on those who partake of him, sending the Holy Spirit into all the earth. 3 Foreseeing this gift of grace, Gideon, that Israelite whom God chose to save the people of Israel from the power of foreigners, changed his request, and prophesied that there would be dryness on the fleece of wool, on which alone at first there had been dew (which was a type of the people): that is, that they would no longer have the Holy Spirit from God, as Isaiah says, “I will command the clouds not to rain upon it”; but that over all the earth there would be dew, which is the Spirit of God, who descended upon the Lord, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of the fear of God.” This Spirit he in turn gave to the church, sending the Paraclete from heaven into all the earth, from where also, the Lord says, the devil was cast down like lightning. Therefore we need the dew of God, so that we may not be burned up nor made unfruitful, and so that where we have an accuser, there we may also have an Advocate. For the Lord commended to the Holy Spirit his own man, who had fallen among robbers, on whom he had compassion, and whose wounds he bound up, giving two royal denarii; so that we, receiving through the Spirit the image and inscription of the Father and the Son, may make the denarius entrusted to us bear fruit, counting it back to the Lord multiplied. 4 So the Spirit descended upon the dispensation foretold, and the only-begotten Son of God, who is also the Word of the Father, came in the fullness of time, was made flesh in man for man’s sake, and fulfilled every dispensation that concerns man: Jesus Christ our Lord, being one and the same, as the Lord himself testifies, the apostles confess, and the prophets announce. In this way all the teachings of those who invented imaginary Ogdoads and Tetrads and devised subdivisions have been shown to be false. They do away with the Spirit; they understand Christ to be one and Jesus another, and teach that there was not one Christ but several; and if they say they were united, they again show that one shared in the suffering while the other remained impassible, that one ascended into the Pleroma while the other remained in the Middle, that one feasts and delights among the invisible and unnameable beings while the other sits beside the Demiurge, emptying him of power. So it will be necessary for you, and for all who give attention to this writing and are anxious for their salvation, not to yield readily when you hear their speeches from outside. For while they speak things similar to the faithful, as we said before, they think not only dissimilar things but contrary ones, full of blasphemies in every respect, by which they kill those who, through the likeness of the words, draw into themselves the poison of their dissimilar disposition — as one who gives gypsum mixed with water instead of milk deceives by the likeness of color. As someone superior to us said concerning all who in any way deprave the things of God and adulterate the truth: “Gypsum is wickedly mixed with God’s milk.”

1 It has been clearly shown that the Word, who existed in the beginning with God, through whom all things were made, who was also always present with the human race, has in the last times, at the time fixed beforehand by the Father, been united to his own handiwork and become a man capable of suffering. This rules out every objection of those who say: “If he was born then, Christ did not exist before.” For we have shown that the Son of God did not begin then, since he exists always with the Father; but when he was made flesh and became man, he recapitulated in himself the long line of human beings, providing us with salvation in brief, so that what we had lost in Adam, namely to be according to the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. 2 For since it was not possible for the man who had once been conquered and dashed down through disobedience to be refashioned and to obtain the prize of victory, and again it was impossible for one who had fallen under sin to receive salvation, the Son accomplished both: being the Word of God, he descended from the Father, was made flesh, descended even to death, and completed the dispensation of our salvation. Exhorting us to believe in him without doubting, [the apostle] again says: “Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who has descended into the abyss? that is, to free Christ from the dead.” Then he adds: “For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And he gave the reason why the Word of God did this, saying: “For to this end Christ both lived and died and rose again, that he might be Lord of the living and the dead.” And again, writing to the Corinthians, he says: “But we proclaim Christ Jesus crucified.” And he adds: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?” 3 But who is it that shared food with us? Is it the Christ above whom they fabricate, who stretched himself out over Horos, that is, the Limit, and formed their Mother? Or is it rather Emmanuel, who is from the virgin, who ate butter and honey, of whom the prophet says, “He is a man, and who shall know him?” He it was who was proclaimed by Paul: “For I delivered to you first of all,” he says, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and rose the third day according to the Scriptures.” It is plain, therefore, that Paul knows no other Christ but this one alone, who suffered, was buried, and rose, who was also born, and whom he also called man. For when he had said, “But if Christ is proclaimed as risen from the dead,” he added, giving the reason for his incarnation: “For since by a man came death, by a man also the resurrection of the dead.” And everywhere, when speaking of our Lord’s passion, his humanity, and his death, he used the name of Christ, as in this: “Do not destroy by your food him for whom Christ died.” And again: “But now in Christ you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” And again: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” And again: “And through your knowledge the weak brother will perish, for whom Christ died.” He signifies that it was not an impassible Christ who descended into Jesus, but that he himself, being Jesus Christ, suffered for us: he who lay down and rose again, who descended and ascended, the Son of God become the son of man, as the very name signifies. For in the name of Christ is implied he who anointed, and he who was anointed, and the anointing itself with which he was anointed. The Father anointed, and the Son was anointed, in the Spirit, who is the anointing; as the word says through Isaiah, “The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me,” signifying the anointing Father, the anointed Son, and the anointing, which is the Spirit. 4 And the Lord himself makes plain who it was that suffered. For when he had asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” and Peter had answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and had been praised by him because flesh and blood had not revealed it to him but the Father who is in heaven, he made it plain that this Son of Man is the Christ, the Son of the living God. “From that time,” it says, “he began to show the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the priests, and be rejected, and be crucified, and rise again on the third day.” He who was acknowledged by Peter as Christ, who called Peter blessed because the Father had revealed to him the Son of the living God, said that he himself must suffer many things and be crucified. And then he rebuked Peter, who thought him to be the Christ according to men’s opinion and shrank from his passion, and he said to the disciples: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; and whoever loses it for my sake will save it.” For Christ said these things openly, being himself the Savior of those who would be handed over to death for their confession and would lose their lives. 5 But if he himself was not going to suffer, but was to fly away from Jesus, why did he exhort the disciples to take up the cross and follow him — a cross which, according to them, he himself did not take up, but abandoned the dispensation of the passion? For that he does not say this about the knowledge of the higher Cross, as some dare to explain it, but about the suffering which he was to undergo and which his disciples too were going to undergo, he showed by adding: “For whoever saves his life will lose it, and whoever loses it will find it.” And because his disciples were to suffer for his sake, he said to the Jews: “Look, I send to you prophets and wise men and teachers, and some of them you will kill and crucify”; and to the disciples he said: “You will stand before governors and kings for my sake, and some of you they will whip and kill and persecute from city to city.” He knew, then, both those who would suffer persecution and those who would be whipd and killed for his sake; and he speaks not of another cross but of the suffering which he himself would suffer first, and his disciples afterwards. Therefore his word also exhorted them: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but fear rather him who has power to send both body and soul into Gehenna”; and to keep the confessions made toward him. For he promised that he would confess before the Father those who confessed his name before men, but would deny those who denied him, and be ashamed of those who were ashamed of confessing him. And although these things are so, some have advanced to such rashness that they even despise the martyrs and censure those who are killed for confessing the Lord, who endure all that the Lord foretold and in this way strive to follow in the footsteps of the Lord’s passion, becoming martyrs of the one who suffered. These we hand over to the martyrs themselves. For when their blood is required and they attain glory, then all who have dishonoured their martyrdom will be put to shame by Christ. And from the fact that the Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” the long-suffering, patience, compassion, and goodness of Christ are shown, so that he both suffered and himself excused those who had treated him badly. For the Word of God who said to us, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who hate you,” himself did this on the cross, loving the human race so much that he prayed even for those who were killing him. If anyone [compares the two], that one will be found much better, more patient, and truly good who, in his very wounds and blows and the other things they did to him, is beneficent and does not remember the wrong done to him, than the one who flew away and suffered neither injury nor insult. 6 The same objection also meets those who say that he suffered only in appearance. For if he did not truly suffer, no thanks are due to him, since there was no suffering; and when we begin truly to suffer, he will seem a deceiver, exhorting us to be beaten and to offer the other cheek, if he himself did not first truly suffer this. And as he deceived them, so that he seemed to them to be what he was not, he deceives us too, exhorting us to endure what he himself did not endure. We shall even be above the teacher, since we suffer and endure what the teacher neither suffered nor endured. But our Lord alone is truly teacher, and the Son of God is truly good and patient, the Word of God the Father become Son of Man. For he fought and conquered: he was man contending for the fathers, and through obedience paying off disobedience; for he bound the strong man and set the weak free, and gave salvation to his handiwork, destroying sin. For he is a most loving and merciful Lord, and loves the human race. 7 So he caused man to cleave to God and united him with God, as we said before. For if man had not conquered the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been justly conquered. Again, unless God had given salvation, we would not possess it securely. And unless man had been joined to God, he could not have become a partaker of incorruptibility. For the Mediator of God and men had, through his kinship with both, to bring both back into friendship and concord, and to bring it about that God should take up man and man should give himself to God. For by what means could we be partakers of adoption as sons, unless we had received from him through the Son that communion which is with him — unless his Word, made flesh, had shared it with us? Therefore he also passed through every age, restoring to all communion with God. So those who say that he was manifested only in appearance, and was neither born in the flesh nor truly made man, are still under the old condemnation, pleading the cause of sin, since according to them death has not been conquered, which “reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.” But the law, which was given through Moses, came and testified concerning sin that it is a sinner; it took away its kingdom, uncovering it as a robber and not a king, and showed it to be a murderer. But it burdened man, who had sin in himself, showing him to be guilty of death. For since the law was spiritual, it only made sin manifest, but did not destroy it; for sin did not rule over the Spirit, but over man. For he who was to begin to kill sin and to redeem man, who was guilty of death, had to become the very thing that man was, that is, man — man who had been dragged into slavery by sin and was held by death — so that sin might be killed by a man and man might go out from death. For as through the disobedience of one man, who was first formed from untilled earth, many were made sinners and lost life, so it was necessary that through the obedience of one man, who was first born from a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation. So the Word of God was made man, as Moses also says: “God, his works are true.” But if he appeared as flesh without having been made flesh, his work was not true. But what he appeared to be, that he also was: God recapitulating in himself the ancient formation of man, to kill sin, abolish death, and give life to man; and for this reason his works are true.

1 But again, those who say that he was a mere man, begotten of Joseph, remain in the slavery of the old disobedience and die, not yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving freedom through the Son, as he himself says: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Not knowing him who is Emmanuel from the virgin, they are deprived of his gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the Word of incorruption, they remain in mortal flesh and are debtors to death, not receiving the antidote of life. To them the Word says, describing his own gift of grace: “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men.” He says this without doubt to those who do not receive the gift of adoption, but despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defrauding man of his ascent to the Lord and being ungrateful to the Word of God, who was made flesh for them. For this is why the Word of God became man, and he who is Son of God became Son of Man, so that, joined to the Word of God and receiving adoption, [man] might become a son of God. For we could not otherwise receive incorruption and immortality unless we had been united to incorruption and immortality. And how could we be united to incorruption and immortality unless incorruption and immortality had first become what we are, so that what was corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruption, and what was mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons? 2 Therefore, “Who shall declare his generation?” For “he is a man, and who shall know him?” But he knows him to whom the Father who is in heaven has revealed him, so that he understands that he who was born “not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man” is the Son of Man, and this is the Christ, the Son of the living God. For we have shown from the Scriptures that none at all of the sons of Adam is called God in the full sense, or named Lord. But that he himself, beyond all the men who then lived, is properly God and Lord and eternal King and Only-begotten and incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets and the apostles and by the Spirit himself, anyone can see who has attained even a little of the truth. The Scriptures would not testify these things of him if he had been a mere man like all others. But because he had in himself, beyond all, that illustrious generation which is from the Most High Father, and also underwent the illustrious generation from the virgin, the divine Scriptures testify both of him: that he was a man without beauty and capable of suffering, sitting on the foal of a donkey, given vinegar and gall to drink, despised among the people, and descending even to death; and that he is the holy Lord, Wonderful, Counselor, beautiful in appearance, and mighty God, coming on the clouds as Judge of all. All these things the Scriptures prophesied of him. 3 For as he was man in order to be tempted, so he was also the Word in order to be glorified: the Word remaining quiet, so that he could be tempted, dishonoured, crucified, and die; but the man being swallowed up in that [the Word] when he conquers, endures, acts kindly, rises, and is taken up. This, then, is the Son of God, our Lord, being the Word of the Father and the Son of Man: since he had a human generation from Mary, who was descended from human beings and was herself a human being, he became the Son of Man. For this reason the Lord himself gave us a sign, in the depth below and in the height above, which man did not ask, because he did not hope that a virgin could become pregnant, that one who was a virgin could also bear a son, and that this offspring would be “God with us,” and would descend into the lower parts of the earth, seeking the sheep that had perished, which was indeed his own handiwork, and ascend to the height, offering and commending to the Father the man who had been found, making in himself the firstfruits of man’s resurrection; so that, as the head rose from the dead, so also the rest of the body — of every man who is found in life — may rise when the time of his condemnation, which was on account of disobedience, is fulfilled, growing together through joints and bands and strengthened by the increase of God, each of the members having its own fitting position in the body. For there are many dwelling places with the Father, because there are also many members in the body.

1 So God was magnanimous when man failed, foreseeing the victory that would be given back to him through the Word. For since power was being made perfect in weakness, it displayed the kindness of God and his most magnificent power. For as he patiently allowed Jonah to be swallowed by the sea monster, not that he might be swallowed and perish altogether, but that, having been vomited out, he might be more subject to God and glorify the more him who had given him an unhoped-for salvation, and might bring the Ninevites to firm repentance, so that they turned to the Lord who would free them from death, terrified by the sign that had happened to Jonah — as Scripture says of them: “And they turned each from his evil way and from the injustice that was in their hands, saying, Who knows whether God will repent and turn away his anger from us, and we shall not perish?” — so from the beginning God patiently allowed man to be swallowed up by the great sea monster, who was the author of the transgression, not that, swallowed up, he might perish altogether, but arranging beforehand and preparing the plan of salvation, which was accomplished by the Word through the sign of Jonah for those who held the same view of the Lord as Jonah, and confessed, and said: “I am a servant of the Lord, and I worship the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” So man, receiving from God an unhoped-for salvation, was to rise from the dead and glorify God, and speak the word prophesied by Jonah: “I cried to the Lord my God in my affliction, and he heard me from the belly of hell”; and was always to continue glorifying God and giving thanks without ceasing for the salvation he has obtained from him, “so that no flesh may boast in the presence of the Lord”; and so that man might never take a contrary view of God, supposing that the incorruption that is his belongs to him by nature, and, not holding the truth, be puffed up with empty pride as though he were by nature like God. For this, making him more ungrateful to the one who had made him, obscured the love that God had for man and blinded his mind, so that he did not perceive what is worthy of God, comparing himself with God and judging himself his equal. 2 This, then, was the magnanimity of God: that man, passing through all things and acquiring knowledge of moral discipline, then coming to the resurrection from the dead and learning by experience from what he has been delivered, may always be grateful to the Lord, having obtained from him the gift of incorruption, so that he might love him the more — for he to whom more is forgiven loves more; and that he may know himself, that he is mortal and weak; and understand God, that he is immortal and powerful to such a degree that he gives immortality to the mortal and eternity to the temporal; and understand also all the other powers of God displayed in himself, by which, being taught, he may think of God as befits God’s greatness. For the glory of man is God; but of the workings of God, and of all his wisdom and power, the receptacle is man. Just as a physician is proved in those who are sick, so also God is manifested in human beings. Therefore Paul also says: “For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all” — saying this not of spiritual Aeons but of man, who was disobedient to God and cast out from immortality, and afterwards obtained mercy, receiving through the Son of God the adoption that is through him. For he who holds, without pride and boasting, the true glory concerning created things and concerning him who made them — the most powerful God of all, who granted all things their being — and remains in his love and subjection and thanksgiving, will receive greater glory from him as he advances, until he becomes like him who died for him. For he too was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, to condemn sin, and, having now condemned it, to cast it out of the flesh; and to call man into his own likeness, appointing him an imitator of God, setting him under the Father’s rule so that he may see God, and granting him to receive the Father: the Word of God who dwelt in man and became Son of Man, to accustom man to receive God and to accustom God to dwell in man, according to the Father’s good pleasure. 3 For this reason, then, [the Lord gave] as the sign of our salvation him who is Emmanuel from the virgin — the Lord himself, because it was the Lord himself who saved them, since they could not be saved by themselves. And for this reason Paul, proclaiming the weakness of man, says: “For I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing,” signifying that the good of our salvation is not from us but from God. And again: “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Then he brings in the deliverer: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Isaiah too says this: “Be strong, weak hands and feeble knees; take courage, you faint of heart; be strong, do not fear. Look, our God gives judgment and will give it; he himself will come and save us.” This [he says] because we were to be saved not of ourselves but by God’s help. 4 Again, that he who would save us would be neither a mere man nor without flesh — for the angels are without flesh — [the prophet] proclaimed, saying: “Neither an elder nor an angel, but the Lord himself will save them, because he loves them and will spare them; he himself will deliver them.” And that this same one would begin to be a true, visible man, since he is the saving Word, Isaiah again says: “Look, Zion, city; your eyes will see our salvation.” And that it was not only a man who died for us, Isaiah [Jeremiah] says: “And the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead who had fallen asleep in the land of burial; and he descended to them to bring them the good news of the salvation that is from him, to save them.” The same thing the prophet Amos [Micah] also says: “He will turn and have mercy on us; he will dissolve our iniquities and cast our sins into the depth of the sea.” And again, indicating the place of his coming, he says: “The Lord has spoken from Zion, and from Jerusalem he has uttered his voice.” And that the Son of God, who is God, would come from the region that lies toward the south of the inheritance of Judah, and that he who was from Bethlehem, where the Lord was born, would send out his praise into all the earth, the prophet Habakkuk says: “God will come from the south, and the Holy One from Mount Ephraim. His power covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. Before his face the Word will go, and his feet will go out in the plains.” He clearly signifies that he is God, that his coming is in Bethlehem and from Mount Ephraim, which lies toward the south of the inheritance, and that he is man. For “his feet will go out in the plains,” he says; and this is a sign proper to a man.

1 God, then, became man, and the Lord himself saved us, himself giving the sign of the virgin. So the interpretation of some is not true, who dare to interpret the Scripture thus: “Look, a young woman will conceive in her womb and bear a son,” as Theodotion of Ephesus interpreted it, and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes. Following them, the Ebionites say that he was begotten of Joseph, undoing, as far as they can, so great a dispensation of God, and frustrating the testimony of the prophets, which God brought about. For it was prophesied before the deportation of the people to Babylon took place, that is, before the Medes and Persians received dominion; and it was translated into Greek by the Jews themselves long before the times of our Lord’s coming, so that no suspicion remains that the Jews perhaps translated it so to accommodate us. If they had known that we would exist and would use these testimonies from the Scriptures, they would never have hesitated to burn their own Scriptures, which show that all the other nations share in life, and show that those who boast that they are the house of Jacob and the people of Israel are disinherited from the grace of God. 2 For before the Romans possessed their empire, while the Macedonians still held Asia, Ptolemy son of Lagus, wishing to adorn the library he had built in Alexandria with the worthy writings of all men, asked the people of Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into Greek. They — for they were then still subject to the Macedonians — sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, the most skilled they had in the Scriptures and in both languages, to do what he wished. He, wishing to test them, and fearing that they might agree together and conceal by their translation the truth that was in the Scriptures, separated them from one another and ordered all of them to translate the same Scripture; and he did this for all the books. When they came together before Ptolemy and compared their translations, God was glorified, and the Scriptures were believed to be truly divine, since all of them recited the same things, in the same words and the same names, from beginning to end, so that even the Gentiles who were present knew that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration of God. And it is not marvelous that God did this in them, since, when the Scriptures had been corrupted in the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews after seventy years had returned to their land, afterwards, in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, he inspired Ezra the priest, of the tribe of Levi, to recall all the words of the former prophets and to restore to the people the law given through Moses. 3 Since, then, the Scriptures were translated with such great truth and grace of God — the Scriptures from which God prepared and reformed our faith in his Son, and which he preserved unadulterated for us in Egypt, where the house of Jacob too grew up, fleeing the famine in Canaan, and where our Lord also was preserved, fleeing the persecution of Herod — and since this translation of these Scriptures was made before our Lord came down, and was completed before Christians appeared (for our Lord was born about the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus, and Ptolemy, under whom the Scriptures were translated, was much earlier), truly shameless and bold are those who now wish to make other translations, when they are refuted by us from these very Scriptures and are shut up to faith in the coming of the Son of God. But firm, and not fabricated, and the only true faith is ours, having clear proof from these Scriptures, which were translated in the way we have described; and the church’s proclamation is without interpolation. For the apostles, since they are older than all these, agree with the translation just mentioned, and the translation agrees with the tradition of the apostles. For Peter, John, Matthew, Paul, and the rest after them, and their followers, proclaimed all the prophetic things just as the translation of the elders contains them. 4 For one and the same Spirit of God, who in the prophets proclaimed what the Lord’s coming would be and of what kind, and in the elders translated well what had been well prophesied, himself also proclaimed in the apostles that the fullness of the times of adoption had come, that the kingdom of heaven had drawn near, and that he dwelt within those who believe in him who was born of the virgin, Emmanuel. As they themselves testify: that before Joseph came together with Mary, while she therefore remained in virginity, “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit”; and that the angel Gabriel said to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God”; and that the angel said to Joseph in a dream: “Now this took place to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet: Look, a virgin will conceive in her womb.” And the elders translated Isaiah as having said: “And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz: Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God, in the depth below or in the height above. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. And he said: Is it a small thing for you to make a contest for men? And how does the Lord make a contest? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel. He will eat butter and honey; before he knows or chooses evil, he will exchange it for good; for before the child knows good or evil, he will not consent to wickedness, so as to choose the good.” So the Holy Spirit carefully signified by these words his generation from the virgin, and his substance, that he is God (for the name Emmanuel signifies this); and he shows that he is man by saying, “He will eat butter and honey,” and by calling him a child, and by “before he knows good and evil”; for all these are signs of a human child. But that “he will not consent to wickedness, so as to choose the good” is proper to God; so that we should not, because he will eat butter and honey, understand him to be merely a man, nor again, because of the name Emmanuel, suppose him to be God without flesh. 5 And in saying, “Listen, house of David,” he was signifying that the eternal King whom God promised David to raise up from the fruit of his womb is the one who was begotten of the virgin, who was of the line of David. For this reason he promised a King “from the fruit of his womb,” which is proper to a pregnant virgin, and not “from the fruit of his loins” nor “from the fruit of his kidneys,” which is proper to a man who begets and to a woman who conceives by a man. So in the promise Scripture excluded the man’s generative organs; indeed they are not even mentioned, because he who was born was not of the will of man. But it fixed and confirmed “the fruit of the womb,” to announce the generation of him who was to be from the virgin; as Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, testified, saying to Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The Holy Spirit signifies to those willing to hear that the promise God made, to raise up a King from the fruit of his womb, was fulfilled in the childbearing of the virgin, that is, of Mary. Let those, then, who alter the text of Isaiah to “Look, a young woman will conceive in her womb,” and want him to be Joseph’s son, alter also the promise placed in David, where God promised him to raise up from the fruit of his womb the horn of Christ the King. But they did not understand; otherwise they would have dared to alter this too. 6 And Isaiah’s saying, “in the depth below or in the height above,” signified that he who descended is the same who ascended. And by saying, “The Lord himself will give a sign,” he signified the unexpectedness of his generation, which would not have come about otherwise than if God, the Lord of all, God himself, had given the sign in the house of David. For what great thing, or what sign, would there be in a young woman conceiving by a man and giving birth — which happens to all women who give birth? But since an unexpected salvation was to begin for human beings with God’s help, the virgin’s childbirth was also unexpected, God giving this sign and not man bringing it about. 7 For this reason Daniel too, foreseeing his coming, said that a stone cut without hands had come into this world. For this is what “without hands” signified: that his coming into this world was not by the work of human hands, that is, of those men who are accustomed to cut stones; that is, Joseph had no part in it, but Mary alone cooperated with the dispensation. For this stone is from the earth, and it has its being from the power and the skill of God. For this reason Isaiah too says: “This is what the Lord says: Look, I am setting in the foundations of Zion a precious stone, chosen, chief, a cornerstone, honored,” so that we may understand that his coming as man was not from the will of a man but from the will of God. 8 For this reason Moses too, showing a type, threw his rod upon the ground, so that, having become flesh, it might expose and swallow up all the transgression of the Egyptians that rose up against God’s dispensation; and so that the Egyptians themselves might testify that it is the finger of God that works salvation for the people, and not the son of Joseph. For if he were the son of Joseph, how could he be greater than Solomon, or greater than Jonah, or be greater than David, since he would have been begotten of the same seed and would be their offspring? And why did he also call Peter blessed because he recognized him to be the Son of the living God? 9 Besides this, he could not even be king if he had been the son of Joseph, nor heir, according to Jeremiah. For Joseph is shown to be the son of Joachim and Jeconiah, as Matthew too sets out his genealogy. But Jeconiah, and all who came from him, were disinherited from the kingdom, as Jeremiah says: “As I live, says the Lord, if Jeconiah son of Joachim, king of Judah, should become a signet on my right hand, I will pull him off from there and hand him over into the hand of those who seek your life.” And again: “Jeconiah is dishonored, like a vessel that is of no use, because he has been cast out into a land that he did not know. Earth, hear the word of the Lord: write down this man as a disinherited man, for none of his seed shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, a ruler in Judah.” And again God says concerning Joachim his father: “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Joachim his father, king of Judea: There shall be none from him sitting on the throne of David; and his corpse shall be cast out in the heat of the day and in the frost of the night; and I will look upon him and upon his sons, and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, upon the land of Judah, all the evils that I have spoken against them.” So those who say that he was begotten of Joseph, and that they have their hope in him, make themselves disinherited from the kingdom, falling under the curse and rebuke that were spoken against Jeconiah and against his seed. For this is why these things were said about Jeconiah: the Spirit foreknew what is said by the evil teachers, so that they may learn that he would not be born of his seed, that is, of Joseph, but that according to God’s promise from David’s womb is raised up the eternal King, who sums up all things in Himself and gathers into Himself humanity’s ancient formation. 10 Just as through the disobedience of one man sin made its entrance, and through sin death prevailed, so too through the obedience of one man righteousness has been brought in, so that it may make life bear fruit in those human beings who were once dead. And just as that first-formed Adam had his substance from untilled and still virgin earth (“for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not worked the ground”), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God — for “all things were made through him,” and “the Lord took mud from the earth and formed man” — so he who is himself the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly received from Mary, who was still a virgin, the birth that is the recapitulation of Adam. If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father and was born of a man’s seed, they would be right to say that the second Adam too was begotten of Joseph. But if the former was taken from the earth and formed by the Word of God, it was fitting that this same Word, making the recapitulation of Adam in himself, should have the likeness of the same birth. Why, then, did God not take mud again, but brought it about that the formation should be made from Mary? So that no other formation should come into being, nor should there be another handiwork that is saved, but that the very same one should be recapitulated, the likeness being preserved.

1 Those, then, are in error who say that he received nothing from the virgin, so that they may cast away the inheritance of the flesh and cast away the likeness as well. For if the first man had his formation and substance from the earth and by the hand and workmanship of God, but this one not by the hand and workmanship of God, then he did not preserve the likeness of the man who was made after his image and likeness, and the workmanship will appear inconsistent, having nothing in which to show its wisdom. But this amounts to saying that he appeared only in seeming, as a man when he was not a man, and that he was made man while taking nothing from man. For if he did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, he was made neither man nor Son of Man; and if he was not made what we were, it was no great thing that he suffered and endured. But that we are a body taken from the earth and a soul receiving spirit from God, everyone will confess. This, then, is what the Word of God was made, recapitulating his own handiwork in himself; and for this reason he confesses himself the Son of Man and blesses the meek, “because they shall inherit the earth.” And the apostle Paul also says plainly in the letter to the Galatians: “God sent his Son, made of a woman.” And again in the letter to the Romans: “Concerning his Son,” he says, “who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 2 Superfluous, besides, is his descent into Mary. For why did he descend into her, if he was to take nothing from her? Or if he had taken nothing from Mary, he would never have taken the foods that come from the earth, by which the body taken from the earth is nourished; nor would his body have hungered after fasting forty days, like Moses and Elijah, seeking its own food; nor would his disciple John have written of him, “But Jesus, wearied from the journey, was sitting down”; nor would David have proclaimed of him beforehand, “And they added to the pain of my wounds”; nor would he have wept over Lazarus; nor sweated drops of blood; nor said, “My soul is sorrowful”; nor would blood and water have come out when his side was pierced. For all these are signs of the flesh taken from the earth, which he recapitulated in himself, saving his own handiwork. 3 Therefore Luke shows that the genealogy which runs from the generation of our Lord back to Adam contains seventy-two generations, joining the end to the beginning and signifying that it is he who recapitulated in himself all the nations dispersed from Adam onward, and all languages, and the generation of human beings together with Adam himself. So Adam himself was also called by Paul “a type of the one who was to come,” because the Word, the maker of all things, had formed beforehand in himself the future dispensation of the human race concerning the Son of God, God predestining the first, animal man, namely so that he might be saved by the spiritual one. For since the Savior already existed, what was to be saved also had to come into being, so that the Savior should not be in vain. 4 Correspondingly, the virgin Mary is found obedient, saying, “Here is Your servant, Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey while she was still a virgin. Just as she, who had Adam for a husband and yet was still a virgin (for they were both naked in Paradise and were not ashamed, because, having been made a little before, they had no understanding of begetting children; for they had first to grow up and then to multiply), became disobedient and was made the cause of death both for herself and for the whole human race, so also Mary, having a husband destined for her and yet a virgin, by obeying was made the cause of salvation both for herself and for the whole human race. And for this reason the law calls a woman betrothed to a man the wife of the one who betrothed her, though she is still a virgin, signifying the circling back from Mary to Eve. For what has been tied together could not be untied unless the joints of the binding were turned back in reverse, so that the first knots are untied by the second, and the second in turn free the first. And so it happens that the first bond is untied by the second tying, while the second tying takes the place of an untying of the first. For this reason the Lord said that the first will be last and the last first. And the prophet signifies the same, saying, “In place of fathers, sons have been born to you.” For the Lord, born the firstborn of the dead and receiving the ancient fathers into His embrace, regenerated them into the life of God, he himself having become the beginning of the living, as Adam became the beginning of the dying. For this reason Luke too, beginning the genealogy from the Lord, carried it back to Adam, signifying that it was not they who regenerated him, but he who regenerated them into the gospel of life. So also the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve bound through unbelief, the virgin Mary untied through faith.

1 It was necessary, therefore, that the Lord, coming to the lost sheep, making the recapitulation of so great a dispensation and seeking his own handiwork, should save that very man who had been made after his image and likeness, that is, Adam, fulfilling the times of his condemnation incurred through disobedience, times which the Father set in his own authority; for the whole dispensation of salvation concerning man took place according to the good pleasure of the Father, so that God should not be overcome nor his art weakened. For if the man made by God to live, having lost life when he was injured by the serpent that corrupted him, were no longer to return to life but were wholly cast away to death, God would have been overcome, and the serpent’s wickedness would have prevailed over the will of God. But since God is invincible and magnanimous, he showed himself magnanimous for the correction of man and the testing of all, as we said before; and through the second man he bound the strong one, plundered his goods, and abolished death, bringing to life the man who had been put to death. For Adam became the first vessel of his possession, whom he held under his power, that is, by wickedly bringing transgression upon him and, under the pretext of immortality, bringing death upon him. For by promising that they would be like gods, which is not at all in his power, he brought death on them. So he who had taken man captive was justly taken captive in turn by God, and man, who had been taken captive, was set free from the chains of condemnation. 2 Now this Adam, if one must tell the truth, is that first-formed man of whom Scripture says that the Lord said, “Let us make man after our image and likeness”; and we are all from him, and because we are from him, we have also inherited his name. When man is saved, then, the man who was formed first must be saved. For it is altogether unreasonable to say that he who was grievously injured by the enemy and was the first to suffer captivity is not rescued by him who conquered the enemy, while his children, whom he begot in that same captivity, are rescued. Nor would the enemy yet appear conquered if the old spoils themselves remained with him. It is as if enemies conquered certain people, led them away bound as captives, and held them in slavery a long time, so that they had children among them; and someone grieved for those who had become slaves conquered those same enemies: he would not act justly if he freed the children of the captives from the power of those who had enslaved their fathers, but left the captives themselves subject to the enemy, though it was on their account that he took vengeance, the children obtaining freedom by reason of the vindication of their fathers’ cause, while the fathers who endured the captivity itself were not left behind. For God is neither weak nor unjust, who helped man and restored him to his own freedom. 3 For this reason too, at the beginning of Adam’s transgression, as Scripture relates, he did not curse Adam himself but the ground in his works, as one of the ancients says: “God transferred the curse to the ground, so that it might not remain on man.” As the condemnation of his transgression man received weariness and earthly toil, to eat bread in the sweat of his face, and to return to the earth from which he was taken; and likewise the woman received weariness, toils, groaning, the pains of childbirth, and servitude, that is, that she should serve her husband: so that, cursed by God, they would neither perish entirely, nor, continuing without rebuke, despise God. But the whole curse ran down upon the serpent that had led them astray. “And God,” it says, “said to the serpent: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle and above all the beasts of the earth.” The Lord too says the same in the Gospel to those found on the left: “Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels,” signifying that the eternal fire was not prepared principally for man, but for him who led man astray and made him stumble, him, I say, who is the chief of the apostasy, and for the angels who became apostates with him. Yet those too will justly receive it who, like them, persevere in works of wickedness without repentance and without turning back. 4 Just so Cain: when he had received counsel from God to be quiet, because he had not rightly divided the share that was owed to his brother, but with envy and malice thought he could dominate him, not only did he not acquiesce, but he added sin to sin, showing his intention by his action. For what he planned, he also did: he dominated and killed him, God subjecting the just to the unjust, so that the one might be shown just by what he suffered and the other exposed as unjust by what he committed. And not even so was he softened or did he stop at the evil deed; but when asked where his brother was, he said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”, extending and multiplying the evil by his answer. For if it is evil to kill a brother, it is much worse to answer God, who knows all things, so boldly and irreverently, as if he could deceive him. For this reason he himself bore a curse, because he brought the sin of his own accord, not revering God nor ashamed of the murder of his kin. 5 With Adam, however, nothing of the kind happened, but everything was the opposite. For, led astray by another under the pretext of immortality, he is at once seized with fear and hides, not as if he could escape God, but ashamed because, having transgressed his command, he is unworthy to come into the sight and conversation of God. Now “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding”; and the understanding of his transgression produced repentance, and to those who repent God grants his kindness. For he showed his repentance in his act through the girdle, covering himself with fig leaves, though there were many other leaves that would have chafed his body less; yet, terrified by the fear of God, he made himself a garment fitting his disobedience. And checking the wanton impulse of the flesh, since he had lost his childlike disposition and mind and had come to think of worse things, he put a bridle of self-control around himself and his wife, fearing God and awaiting his coming, and as it were signifying something like this: “Since I have lost through disobedience the robe of holiness which I had from the Spirit, I now acknowledge that I deserve such a covering, which gives no pleasure but bites and pricks the body.” And he would surely have kept this clothing always, humbling himself, had not the Lord, who is merciful, clothed them in tunics of skin instead of fig leaves. For this reason also he questions them, so that the accusation might come to the woman; and he questions her in turn, so that she might pass the cause on to the serpent. For she told what had happened: “The serpent deceived me,” she said, “and I ate.” But he did not question the serpent, for he knew that it had been the chief author of the transgression; but he first laid the curse on it, so that the rebuke might come on man in second place. For God hated the one who led man astray, but on the one who was led astray he took pity gradually, little by little. 6 Therefore he also cast him out of Paradise and removed him far from the tree of life, not because he begrudged him the tree of life, as some dare to say, but out of pity for him, so that he would not remain a transgressor for ever, and the sin that clung to him would not be immortal, an evil without end and incurable. He checked his transgression by interposing death and making sin cease, putting an end to it through the dissolution of the flesh which would take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at last to live to sin and dying to it, might begin to live to God. 7 For this reason he put enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed, watching each other: the one, whose sole would be bitten, being able to tread on the enemy’s head; the other biting, killing, and hindering the steps of man, until the predestined seed should come to tread on his head, which was Mary’s offspring, of whom the prophet says: “You will walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you will trample the lion and the dragon.” He signifies that the sin which rose up and spread against man and made him cold would be abolished together with death that reigned, and that the lion, that is, the Antichrist, leaping upon the human race in the last times, would be trampled by him; and that he would bind the dragon, that ancient serpent, and subject him to the power of man, who had been conquered, so as to trample all his might. Now Adam had been conquered, all life having been taken from him; for this reason, when the enemy was conquered in turn, Adam received life again; and the last enemy, death, is abolished, which first had possessed man. Therefore, when man has been set free, what is written will come to pass: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” This could not justly be said if that man over whom death first ruled were not set free. For his salvation is the abolition of death. When, then, the Lord gives life to man, that is, to Adam, death too is done away. 8 All, then, who deny his salvation are liars, always shutting themselves out of life, in that they do not believe that the sheep which was lost has been found. But if it has not been found, the whole race of mankind is still held in destruction. A liar, then, is the man who first introduced this opinion, or rather this ignorance and blindness: Tatian. He became, as we have shown, a junction of all the heretics; but this he invented by himself, so that, bringing in something new beyond the rest and speaking emptiness, he might gather hearers empty of faith, wanting to be thought a teacher, and attempting now and then to use such sayings as are often spoken by Paul: “For in Adam we all die,” but not knowing that “where sin abounded, grace superabounded.” Since this has been plainly shown, let all who come from him blush, who dispute about Adam as if they would gain something great if he were not saved; when they gain nothing at all, just as the serpent gained nothing by persuading man, except that it showed him a transgressor, having man as the beginning and material of its own apostasy; but God it did not see. So also those who deny the salvation of Adam gain nothing, except that they make themselves heretics and apostates from the truth and show themselves advocates of the serpent and of death.

1 Thus, then, all have been exposed who bring in abominable opinions about our Maker and Fashioner, who also made this world, above whom there is no other God; and those who teach falsehoods about the substance of our Lord and the dispensation he carried out for the sake of his human creature have been overthrown by their own arguments. But the preaching of the Church is everywhere constant and continues unchanged, having the testimony of the prophets, the apostles, and all the disciples, as we have shown, through the beginning, the middle, and the end, and through the whole dispensation of God and the well-grounded working for man’s salvation which is in our faith. This faith we have received from the Church and guard; and by the Spirit of God, like a precious deposit in a good vessel, it is always renewing its youth and makes the very vessel in which it is renew its youth. For this gift of God has been entrusted to the Church, as breath was to the first formation, so that all the members who receive it may be made alive; and in it has been placed the communion with Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruption, the confirmation of our faith, and the ladder of ascent to God. “For in the Church,” it says, “God has set apostles, prophets, teachers,” and all the rest of the working of the Spirit. Of him none have a share who do not run together to the Church, but defraud themselves of life by evil opinion and most wicked conduct. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace; and the Spirit is truth. Therefore those who do not share in him are neither nourished into life from their mother’s breasts nor receive the most limpid fountain that flows from the body of Christ, but dig for themselves broken cisterns out of earthly ditches and drink foul water from the mud, fleeing the faith of the Church so as not to be exposed, and rejecting the Spirit so as not to be instructed. 2 Estranged from the truth, they deservedly wallow in every error, tossed about by it, thinking differently about the same things at different times, and never having a settled knowledge, wishing to be sophists of words rather than disciples of the truth. For they are not founded on the one rock, but on sand that has many stones in it. For this reason they also invent many gods; and they always have the excuse of seeking, for they are blind, but they can never find. For they blaspheme the Maker, that is, him who is truly God, who also enables us to find, thinking that they have found another God above God, or another Pleroma, or another dispensation. Therefore the light that is from God does not shine on them, because they have dishonoured and despised God, thinking him very small because, through his love and immeasurable kindness, he came to be known by human beings (known, however, not according to his greatness nor according to his substance, for no one has measured or handled it, but in this way: that we should know that he who made and formed them, breathed into them the breath of life, and nourishes us through creation, establishing all things by his Word and binding them together by his Wisdom, is the only true God). But they dream of a non-existent being above him, so that they may be thought to have discovered the great God, whom no one can know, who has no dealings with the human race and does not govern earthly things: they find, in fact, the god of Epicurus, who provides nothing either for himself or for others, that is, who exercises no providence over anything.

1 God, however, exercises providence over all things, and for this reason he also gives counsel; and in giving counsel he is present to those who take care for their conduct. It follows, then, that the things that are provided for and governed should know their ruler; and they are not irrational or empty, but have a perception received from the providence of God. For this reason some of the pagans, who were less enslaved to allurements and pleasures and were not carried away so far by the superstition of idols, being moved, though faintly, by his providence, were nevertheless converted to the point of calling the maker of this universe the Father who provides for all things and orders our world. 2 Again, so as to remove rebuke and judgment from the Father, thinking that unworthy of God, and supposing that they had found a God without anger and good, they said that one God judges and another saves, not realizing that they take away the understanding and justice of both. For if the judging one is not also good, to give gifts to those to whom He should and to reprove those whom he should, he will appear neither a just nor a wise judge. And again, the good one, if he is only good and not also one who tests on whom he should send his goodness, will be outside both justice and goodness, and his goodness will seem weak, not saving all, if it is not accompanied by judgment. 3 Marcion himself, then, dividing God into two, calling one good and the other judging, destroys God on both sides. For the judging one, if he is not also good, is not God, because he who lacks goodness is not God; and again the good one, if he is not also judging, will suffer the same as the other and be deprived of being God. And how do they call the Father of all wise, if they do not also assign judgment to him? For if he is wise, he also tests; and judgment belongs to the one who tests; and justice accompanies judgment, so that he may test justly; justice calls for judgment; and judgment, when it is done with justice, will pass on to wisdom. The Father, then, will excel in wisdom all human and angelic wisdom, because he is Lord and Judge and Just and Ruler over all. For he is also good and merciful and patient, and saves those whom he should; neither does goodness fail him when he acts justly, nor is his wisdom diminished; for he saves those whom He should save and judges those worthy of judgment; nor is his justice shown to be harsh, since goodness, of course, goes before and leads the way. 4 God, then, who kindly makes his sun rise on all and sends rain on the just and the unjust, will judge those who, receiving his kindness equally, have not lived in a way worthy of his bounty, but have spent their lives in pleasures and luxury against his benevolence, and are even blaspheming him who has bestowed such great benefits on them. 5 Plato is shown to be more religious than these, for he confessed that the same God is both just and good, having power over all things and himself carrying out judgment, speaking thus: “And God, as the ancient saying also is, holding the beginning, the end, and the middle of all things that exist, accomplishes them rightly, going round according to nature; and justice always follows him, avenging those who fall away from the divine law.” And again he shows that the maker and fashioner of this universe is good. “In the good,” he says, “no envy ever arises about anything”; thus setting the goodness of God as the beginning and cause of the making of the world, and not ignorance, nor an Aeon who went astray, nor the fruit of a defect, nor a weeping and lamenting Mother, nor another God or Father. 6 Justly, then, will their Mother lament them, the devisers and inventors of such things; for they have invented things that fall back on their own heads, since their Mother is outside the Pleroma, that is, outside the knowledge of God, and their gathering became an abortion, shapeless and without form; for it grasps nothing of the truth; it falls into void and shadow; for their doctrine is empty and darkened; and Horos did not allow her to enter the Pleroma; for the Spirit did not receive them into refreshment. For their father, generating ignorance, worked the passions of death in them. We do not slander them in this: they themselves affirm it, they themselves teach it, they glory in it, they think highly of their Mother, whom they say was born without a father, that is, without God, a female from a female, that is, corruption from error. 7 But we pray that they may not remain in the pit they themselves have dug, but may separate themselves from such a Mother, go out from Bythus, stand away from the void, and leave the shadow behind; and that, converted to the Church of God, they may be lawfully begotten, and Christ may be formed in them, and they may know the fashioner and maker of this universe, the only true God and Lord of all. We pray this for them, loving them more profitably than they think they love themselves. For our love, since it is true, is salutary to them, if only they receive it. It is like a harsh medicine, eating away the proud and excess flesh of a wound; for it empties out their pride and conceit. Therefore we shall not grow weary of trying with all our strength to stretch out our hand to them. In addition to what has been said, we have deferred to the following book bringing forward the words of the Lord, in case, convincing some of them through the very teaching of Christ, we may persuade them to cease from such error and to stand away from the blasphemy against their maker, who is both the only God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.