Chapter 22

§ 1.

But that the whole of their doctrine about the number Thirty fails,¹ and that obviously, since by their account sometimes few and sometimes more Æons are found in the Pleroma; this we have shewn. There are not then thirty Æons, nor did the Saviour at the age of thirty come to Baptism, that He might signify their thirty silent Æons: otherwise they will have first of all to separate Him in His own Person, and cast Him out of the Pleroma. But they say that He suffered in the twelfth month, thus making Him preach one year only after His Baptism: and they try to confirm this out of the Prophet;² for it is written, To proclaim the accepted year of the Lord, and the day of recompence;) so truly blind are they, who say they have discovered the obscure things of The Deep, yet understand not the acceptable year of the Lord spoken of by Isaiah, nor the day of recompence. For the Prophet spake not of a day having the space of twelve hours, nor of a year having the measure of twelve months. For the Prophets themselves confess that they spake many things in parables and allegories, and not after the very sound of the words.

§ 2.

The Day then of Recompence is a name given to that day,³ in which the Lord will recompense every man according to his deeds, i.e., to the judgment. And the acceptable year of the Lord is this time wherein those are called by Him who believe Him, and become acceptable to God. That is, it is the whole time from His coming to the consummation, wherein He wins to Himself, as fruits, such as are saved. For the day of Recompence by the Prophet’s saying, follows the year: and the Prophet will have uttered a lie, if the Lord preached for a year only, and if he speak of Him. For where is the day of recompence? since the year is past, and the day of recompence is not yet,⁴ but He still maketh His sun to rise on the good and the bad, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. And while the righteous suffer persecution, affliction, slaughter, sinners are in abundance,⁵ and they drink with harp and psaltery, but regard not the works of the Lord. But they ought, by the manner of speaking, to be close conjoined: the day of recompence should follow on the year. For it is said, To proclaim the accepted year of the Lord, and the day of recompence. It is well therefore to understand by the accepted year of the Lord, this time in which men are called and saved by the Lord, which is followed immediately by the day of recompence, i.e., the judgment.

And indeed this time is called not only a year, but also a day, both by the Prophet, and by Paul; I mean where the Apostle, remembering the Scripture, saith in the Epistle to the Romans, As it is written,⁶ For Thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Now here all day is spoken for this whole time, wherein we suffer persecution and are slaughtered as sheep. As therefore this word Day signifies not that which consists of twelve hours, but the whole time during which believers in Christ suffer and are slain for His sake: so also the Year spoken of in the other passage is not that of twelve months, but the whole time of faith, during which men hear the preaching and believe, and those who join themselves to the Lord become acceptable unto Him.

§ 3.

And one may greatly wonder, how while they say they have found the deep things of God,⁷ they have failed to search out in the Gospels, how often at the time of the Passover the Lord after His Baptism went up to Jerusalem, according to the custom which the Jews had of assembling every year from the whole country at Jerusalem, and there celebrating the Paschal feast-day. And first, when He made wine out of water in Cana of Galilee, He went up to the Paschal feast day;⁸ when also it is written, That many believed in Him, seeing the signs which He did, as John the Lord’s disciple mentions. Thence again withdrawing Himself He is found in Samaria, where He was both disputing with the Samaritan woman, and cured in His absence the Centurion’s son with a word,⁹ saying, Go, thy son liveth. And after this again the second time He went up to the feast of the Passover to Jerusalem, when He cured the paralytic, who was lying by the pool thirty eight years, bidding him rise,¹⁰ and take up his bed, and walk and again departing from thence over the sea of Tiberias,¹¹ whither also a great multitude having followed Him, He satisfied that whole company with five loaves, and there remained twelve baskets’ full of fragments. Lastly when He had raised Lazarus from the dead, and a conspiracy was made by the Pharisees,¹² He withdrew into the city of Ephraim;¹³ and thence, six days before the Passover, it is written that He came to Bethany, and from Bethany went up to Jerusalem, and ate the Passover, and suffered on the following day. Now that these three times of the Passover are not one year alone, every person whatever will confess. And the very month too wherein the Passover is celebrated, wherein also the Lord suffered, is not the twelfth, but the first, which if they know not, boasting as they do that they know all, they may learn it of Moses. Their explication therefore both of the year and of the twelfth month is proved false, and they must either reject their own explication, or the Gospel: else how did the Lord preach for one year only?

§ 4.

The fact is, being thirty years old when He came to Baptism,¹⁴ afterwards at the complete age of a teacher He came to Jerusalem, so as to be properly called by all men Master. For He did not seem one thing while He was another, as they say who bring in an imaginary Christ, but what He was, that He also seemed. Being then a Teacher, He had also a Teacher’s age: not rejecting nor over-passing Man, nor breaking in His own case the law of mankind, but sanctifying every age by there semblance which it bore to Himself. For He came to save all by Himself: all, I mean, who through Him are newborn unto God: infants, and little ones, and boys, and youths, and elder men. Therefore He passed through every age, being first made an infant unto infants, to sanctify infants: among little ones, a little one, to sanctify such as are of that same age, being made to them an example both of piety, and of righteousness, and of obedience: among youths, a youth, becoming a pattern to youths, and sanctifying them in the Lord. Thus also He was an Elder among elders, in order to be a perfect Master in all things, not in setting forth the truth only, but in age too, sanctifying the elder persons as well, becoming an example to them also. Lastly He came even unto death, that He might be the first-born from the dead,¹⁵ having Himself the preeminence in all things, the Prince of Life, first of all, and going before all.

§ 5.

But they, to maintain their own device concerning that which is written, to proclaim the accepted year of the Lord,¹⁶ say that He preached for one year only, and suffered in the 12th month. They have been forgetful, against their own cause, doing away with the whole of His task, and taking away the most indispensable and most honourable part of His life; that elder part of it, I mean, wherein He was before all as a Teacher also. For how had He disciples, if He did not teach? And how did He teach, if He had not a Master’s age? For He came to Baptism as one Who had not yet fulfilled thirty years, but was beginning to be about thirty years old; (for so Luke, who hath signified His years,¹⁷ hath set it down; Now Jesus, when He came to Baptism, began to be about thirty years old:) and He preached for one year only after His Baptism: completing His thirtieth year He suffered, while He was still young, and not yet come to riper age. But the age of thirty years is the first of a young man’s mind, and that it reaches even to the fortieth year, every one will allow: but after the fortieth and fiftieth year, it begins to verge towards elder age: which our Lord was of when He taught, as the Gospel and all the Elders witness, who in Asia conferred with John the Lord’s disciple, to the effect that John had delivered these things unto them: for he abode with them until the times of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John, but others also of the Apostles, and had this same account from them, and witness to the aforesaid relation. Whom ought we rather to believe? These, being such as they are, or Ptolemy, who never beheld the Apostles, nor ever in his dreams attained to any vestige of an Apostle?

§ 6.

Yea, and the Jews also, who were then disputing with our Lord Jesus Christ,¹⁸ did most clearly signify this. For when the Lord said to them, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day,¹⁹ and he saw it, and was glad, they answered Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?²⁰ Now this is with consistency said to him who hath now got beyond forty years, but hath not yet reached his fiftieth year, though he be not far distant from it. Whereas to one of thirty years old, of course it would be said, Thou art not yet aged forty years. For they who wanted to prove Him deceitful, would not surely lengthen His years far beyond that age, which they saw Him to have arrived at. But they were stating His age as nearly as they could, either truly knowing it by the Taxation-Enrolment, or gnessing it by the age which they saw He was of;—more than forty but not anything like thirty years. For it is quite unreasonable, that they should falsify by twenty years, when they wanted to prove Him later than the times of Abraham. But what they saw, that also they spake: while He on Whom they looked was no imaginary person, but the Truth. He was not therefore far from fifty years: and therefore they said unto Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham? He preached not therefore one year only, nor did He suffer in the twelfth month of the year. For the time from the thirtieth year to the fiftieth can never be made out one year only, unless haply amongst their Æons the years are accounted of that length to those, who sit in order with the Deep in the Pleroma: concerning whom also Homer the Poet; himself inspired by the mother of their error,²¹ said, “The gods sitting by Jupiter held council on the golden platform.”