Chapter XVI.—Early Manifestations of the Son of God, as Recorded in the Old Testament; Rehearsals of His Subsequent Incarnation.

But you must not suppose that only the works which relate to the (creation of the) world were made by the Son, but also whatsoever since that time has been done by God. For “the Father who loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand,”194    John iii. 35. Tertullian reads the last clause (according to Oehler), “in sinu ejus,” q.d. “to Him who is in His bosom.” loves Him indeed from the beginning, and from the very first has handed all things over to Him. Whence it is written, “From the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God;”195    John i. 1. to whom “is given by the Father all power in heaven and on earth.”196    Matt. xxviii. 18. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son”197    John v. 22.—from the very beginning even. For when He speaks of all power and all judgment, and says that all things were made by Him, and all things have been delivered into His hand, He allows no exception (in respect) of time, because they would not be all things unless they were the things of all time. It is the Son, therefore, who has been from the beginning administering judgment, throwing down the haughty tower, and dividing the tongues, punishing the whole world by the violence of waters, raining upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone, as the Lord from the Lord.  For He it was who at all times came down to hold converse with men, from Adam on to the patriarchs and the prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in dark saying; ever from the beginning laying the foundation of the course of His dispensations, which He meant to follow out to the very last. Thus was He ever learning even as God to converse with men upon earth, being no other than the Word which was to be made flesh. But He was thus learning (or rehearsing), in order to level for us the way of faith, that we might the more readily believe that the Son of God had come down into the world, if we knew that in times past also something similar had been done.198    See our Anti-Marcion, p. 112, note 10. Edin. For as it was on our account and for our learning that these events are described in the Scriptures, so for our sakes also were they done—(even ours, I say), “upon whom the ends of the world are come.”199    Comp. 1 Cor. x. 11. In this way it was that even then He knew full well what human feelings and affections were, intending as He always did to take upon Him man’s actual component substances, body and soul, making inquiry of Adam (as if He were ignorant),200    See the treatise, Against Marcion. ii. 25, supra. “Where art thou, Adam?”201    Gen. iii. 9.—repenting that He had made man, as if He had lacked foresight;202    Gen. vi. 6. tempting Abraham, as if ignorant of what was in man; offended with persons, and then reconciled to them; and whatever other (weaknesses and imperfections) the heretics lay hold of (in their assumptions) as unworthy of God, in order to discredit the Creator, not considering that these circumstances are suitable enough for the Son, who was one day to experience even human sufferings—hunger and thirst, and tears, and actual birth and real death, and in respect of such a dispensation “made by the Father a little less than the angels.”203    Ps. viii. 6. But the heretics, you may be sure, will not allow that those things are suitable even to the Son of God, which you are imputing to the very Father Himself, when you pretend204    Quasi. that He made Himself less (than the angels) on our account; whereas the Scripture informs us that He who was made less was so affected by another, and not Himself by Himself. What, again, if He was One who was “crowned with glory and honour,” and He Another by whom He was so crowned,205    Ps. viii. 6.—the Son, in fact, by the Father? Moreover, how comes it to pass, that the Almighty Invisible God, “whom no man hath seen nor can see; He who dwelleth in light unapproachable;”206    1 Tim. vi. 16. “He who dwelleth not in temples made with hands;”207    Acts xvii. 24. “from before whose sight the earth trembles, and the mountains melt like wax;”208    Joel ii. 10; Ps. xcvii. 5. who holdeth the whole world in His hand “like a nest;”209    Isa. x. 14. “whose throne is heaven, and earth His footstool;”210    Isa. lxvi. 1. in whom is every place, but Himself is in no place; who is the utmost bound of the universe;—how happens it, I say, that He (who, though) the Most High, should yet have walked in paradise towards the cool of the evening, in quest of Adam; and should have shut up the ark after Noah had entered it; and at Abraham’s tent should have refreshed Himself under an oak; and have called to Moses out of the burning bush; and have appeared as “the fourth” in the furnace of the Babylonian monarch (although He is there called the Son of man),—unless all these events had happened as an image, as a mirror, as an enigma (of the future incarnation)? Surely even these things could not have been believed even of the Son of God, unless they had been given us in the Scriptures; possibly also they could not have been believed of the Father, even if they had been given in the Scriptures, since these men bring Him down into Mary’s womb, and set Him before Pilate’s judgment-seat, and bury Him in the sepulchre of Joseph. Hence, therefore, their error becomes manifest; for, being ignorant that the entire order of the divine administration has from the very first had its course through the agency of the Son, they believe that the Father Himself was actually seen, and held converse with men, and worked, and was athirst, and suffered hunger (in spite of the prophet who says: “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, shall never thirst at all, nor be hungry;”211    Isa. xl. 28. much more, shall neither die at any time, nor be buried!), and therefore that it was uniformly one God, even the Father, who at all times did Himself the things which were really done by Him through the agency of the Son.

CAPUT XVI.

Nec putes sola opera mundi per Filium facta, sed et quae a Deo exinde gesta sunt. Pater enim qui diligit Filium, et omnia tradidit in manu ejus; utique a primordio diligit, et a primordio tradidit. Ex quo, a primordio Sermo erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Sermo (Joan., I, 1), cui data est omnis potestas a Patre in coelis et in terra (Matth., XXVIII, 8). Non judicat 0174C Pater quemquam; sed omne judicium tradidit Filio (Joan., V, 22); a primordio tamen. Omnem enim dicens potestatem, et omne judicium, et omnia per eum facta, et omnia tradita in manu ejus, nullam exceptionem temporis permittit: quia omnia non erunt, si non omnis temporis fuerint. Filius itaque est qui ab initio judicavit, turrim superbissimam elidens, linguasque dispertiens , orbem totum aquarum violentia puniens, pluens super Sodomam et Gomorrham ignem et sulphurem ; Dominus a Domino (Gen., XIX, 24). Ipse enim et ad humana semper colloquia descendit, ab Adam usque ad Patriarchas et Prophetas, in visione, in somnio , in 0175A speculo, in aenigmate, ordinem suum praestruens ab initio semper, quem erat persecuturus in finem . Ita semper ediscebat , et Deus in terris cum hominibus conversari non alius potuit quam Sermo, qui caro erat futurus. Ediscebat autem, ut nobis fidem sterneret, ut facilius crederemus Filium Dei descendisse in saeculum, si et retro tale quid gestum cognosceremus. Propter nos enim sicut scripta sunt, ita et gesta sunt, in quos aevorum fines decucurrerunt. Sic etiam affectus humanos sciebat jam tunc, suscepturus etiam ipsas substantias hominis, carnem et animam; interrogans Adam quasi nesciens, Ubi es Adam? poenitens quod hominem fecisset, quasi non praesciens; tentans Abraham, quasi ignorans quid sit in homine; offensus, reconciliatus 0175B eisdem. Et si qua haeretici apprehendunt quasi Deo indigna, ad destructionem Creatoris, ignorantes haec in Filium competisse, qui etiam passiones humanas, et sitim, et esuriem, et lacrymas, et ipsam nativitatem, ipsamque mortem erat subiturus: Propter hoc minoratus a Patre modicum quid citra angelos (Ps. VIII, 6). Sed haeretici quidem nec Filio Dei deputabunt convenire, quae tu ipsi Patri inducis, quasi ipse se denominaverit propter nos; cum Scriptura alium dicat ab alio minoratum, non ipsum a semetipso. Quid si et alius qui coronabatur gloria et honore , alius qui coronabat, utique Filium Pater? Caeterum, quale est, ut Deus omnipotens ille invisibilis, quem nemo vidit hominum, nec videre potest: ille qui inaccessibilem lucem habitat: ille qui non habitat 0175C in manufactis; a cujus conspectu terra contremiscit, montes liquescunt ut cera; qui totum orbem manu apprehendit velut nidum; cui coelum thronus, et terra scabellum; in quo omnis locus, non ipse in loco; qui universitatis extrema linea est; ille Altissimus, in paradiso ad vesperam deambulaverit, quaerens Adam; et arcam post introitum Noe clauserit; et apud Abraham sub quercu refrigeraverit; et Moysen de rubo ardenti vocarit; et in fornace Babylonii regis quartus apparuerit (quanquam Filius hominis est dictus), in haec in imagine , et speculo, et aenimate fuissent? Scilicet et haec nec de Filio Dei credenda 0176A fuisse , si scripta non essent; fortasse non credenda de Patre, licet scripta, quem isti in vulvam Mariae deducunt, et in Pilati tribunal imponunt, et in monumento Joseph concludunt. Hinc igitur apparet error illorum. Ignorantes enim, a primordio omnem ordinem divinae dispositionis per Filium decucurrisse, ipsum credunt Patrem et visum, et congressum, et operatum, et sitim et esuriem passum, adversus Prophetam dicentem: Deus aeternus non sitiet, nec esuriet omnino (quanto magis nec morietur, nec sepelietur!); et ita unum Deum semper egisse, id est Patrem, quae per Filium gesta sunt.