Against Heresies 3.12.2–3.12.14

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ought to 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.

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 worshipped — 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.

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.

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 unto 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 ought not to 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.

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.

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.

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. Hence 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.

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, “Behold, 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.

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.