Against Heresies: Book IV

I WILL SIMPLY SAY: in opposition to all the heretics, especially against the followers of Marcion and others like them, who claim that the prophets were from a different God than the one announced in the Gospel, read the Gospel given to us by the apostles with care, and also read the prophets carefully. You will find that the entire conduct, teachings, and sufferings of our Lord were predicted by them. If you then wonder, "What did the Lord bring us with His coming?"—know that He brought all possible newness by bringing Himself, who had been announced. This was predicted beforehand: that a novelty would come to renew and invigorate humanity. The arrival of the King is announced first by servants who are sent ahead to prepare the men who are to receive their Lord. But when the King has actually arrived, and His subjects have been filled with the joy foretold and have attained the freedom He gives, sharing in His presence, listening to His words, and enjoying His gifts, no sensible person would ask what new thing the King brought beyond what was announced by those who proclaimed His coming. For He has brought Himself and has given men the good things that were announced beforehand, things that even the angels desired to look into.

BUT THE SERVANTS WOULD HAVE BEEN PROVEN FALSE AND NOT SENT BY THE LORD IF CHRIST: at His coming, was not exactly as He had been previously described and had not fulfilled their words. Therefore, He said, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one small letter or stroke shall pass from the law and the prophets until all happens." For by His coming, He Himself fulfilled all things and continues to fulfill in the Church the new covenant foretold by the law, onward to the completion of all things. Paul, His apostle, also says this in the Epistle to the Romans, "But now, without the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, witnessed by the law and the prophets; for the just shall live by faith." The fact that the just shall live by faith had been previously announced by the prophets.

HOW COULD THE PROPHETS HAVE HAD THE POWER TO PREDICT THE COMING OF THE KING AND TO SPEAK BEFOREHAND ABOUT THE FREEDOM HE GAVE: and announce all the things done by Christ—His words, His works, and His sufferings—and predict the new covenant, if they had received their prophetic inspiration from another God than the One revealed in the Gospel? You claim they were ignorant of the ineffable Father, His kingdom, and His plans, which the Son of God fulfilled when He came to earth in these last times.

You can't say these events happened by some kind of chance, as if the prophets were speaking about someone else and it just so happened to align with the Lord. All the prophets prophesied these things, but they never happened to any of the ancients. If these events had occurred for any of them in ancient times, the prophets living later wouldn't have predicted these things would happen in the last times.

Additionally, among the fathers, the prophets, and the ancient kings, there is none in whose life any of these things specifically took place.

All prophesied about the sufferings of Christ, but they themselves did not endure sufferings like what was predicted. The events related to the Lord's passion, which were foretold, happened in no other case. At the death of none of the ancients did the sun set at mid-day, the temple veil torn, the earth quake, rocks split, or the dead rise. None of them rose on the third day or were taken into heaven, nor did the heavens open at their ascension.

The nations did not believe in the name of any other, nor did any among them, once dead and risen, reveal the new covenant of freedom.

Therefore, the prophets spoke of no one else but the Lord, in whom all these signs were fulfilled.

4. If anyone, however, advocating for the Jews, claims that this new covenant was about the building of the temple under Zerubbabel after returning from Babylon, and the people's return after seventy years, let them understand that while the temple made of stones was rebuilt (since the law given on stone tablets was still observed), no new covenant was established. They followed the Mosaic law until the Lord's coming. But from the Lord's arrival, the new covenant bringing peace and the law bringing life spread across the earth, as the prophets said: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He shall rebuke many people; and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and they shall learn war no more.”

IF ANOTHER LAW AND WORD FROM JERUSALEM BROUGHT SUCH PEACE AMONG THE GENTILES WHO ACCEPTED IT: and convinced many nations of their folly, then it seems the prophets spoke of someone else. But if the law of liberty, meaning the word of God, preached by the apostles from Jerusalem across the world, brought such change that these nations transformed swords and war lances into ploughshares and converted them into tools for peaceful purposes and now no longer engage in fighting, but when struck, also offer the other cheek, then the prophets spoke not of anyone else but of Him who made these changes. This person is our Lord, and in Him, this declaration is confirmed; since He Himself has brought about the plough and introduced the pruning-hook, representing the first sowing in man through Adam, and the harvest in the last times by the Word.

For this, since He connected the beginning to the end, and is the Lord of both, He ultimately displayed the plough in that the wood was joined to the iron, thus cleansing His land; because the Word, firmly united with flesh and secured with pins, reclaimed the wild earth. In the beginning, He depicted the pruning-hook through Abel, indicating the gathering of a righteous race. He says, “See how the just man perishes, and no one takes notice; righteous men are taken away, and no one understands.” These events prefigured in Abel, were foretold by the prophets, and were fulfilled in the Lord's person; and the same is true for us, the body following the example of the Head.

THESE ARE THE ARGUMENTS SUITABLE TO USE AGAINST THOSE WHO CLAIM THAT THE PROPHETS WERE INSPIRED BY A DIFFERENT GOD AND THAT OUR LORD CAME FROM ANOTHER FATHER: with the hope that these heretics might eventually abandon such extreme folly. This is my sincere goal in presenting these Scriptural proofs: by refuting them, as much as I can, with these very passages, I aim to restrain them from such great blasphemy and from irrationally creating many gods.