1. The Apostle Peter, after the Lord's resurrection and ascension to heaven, desiring to complete the number of the twelve apostles and to take the place of Judas another who would be chosen by God, thus said to those present: Men brethren! it was necessary to fulfill (the word of) the Scripture, which the Holy Spirit had foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became the leader of those who took Jesus, for he was numbered among us: ... let his court be desolate, and let there be no one who dwells in it; and let another take on his dignity (Acts 1:16, 17, 20; Ps. 68:26; 108:8), and arranges the fulfillment of the Apostles in accordance with the words of David. And when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, so that they all prophesied and spoke with tongues, and some laughed at them as if they were drunk with wine, Peter said that they were not drunk, because it was the third hour of the day, but this is what the prophet said, It shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and they shall prophesy" (Joel 2:28). Therefore God, having promised through the prophet to send His Spirit upon the human race, He sent it to him, and Peter declares that God Himself has fulfilled His promise.

2. For Peter said, "Men of Israel! Listen to my words:25 Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was testified among you from God by powers, wonders, and signs, which God wrought through him among you, as you yourselves know, who was delivered up according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God,26 having nailed him to death by the hands of the wicked; but God raised Him up, ending the diseases of hell,27 because it was impossible for Him to restrain Him. For David says of Him, I have always seen the Lord before me, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken: therefore my heart rejoices, and my tongue rejoices, even my flesh shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither will Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption (Acts 2:22-27; Ps. 15:8). Then he boldly tells them about the Patriarch David, that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with them to this day. "And being a prophet," he said, "and knowing that God had promised him with an oath from the fruit of his womb28 to sit on His throne, he foretold of the resurrection of Christ, that He was not left in hell, and His flesh had not seen corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses. It was he, having been lifted up by the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, who poured out this gift,30 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 thy enemies thy footstool. Know therefore with certainty, all the house of Israel, that God has made this Jesus, whom you have crucified, Lord and Christ (Acts 2:30-37). When the multitudes said, "What shall we do?" Peter says to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Thus it was not another God or another Fullness (Plyroma) that the Apostles proclaimed, and (they did not say) that one Christ suffered and rose again, and the other who soared on high and remained untouched by suffering, but that one and the same God the Father and Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, and preached faith in Him to those who did not believe in the Son of God, and from prophecies convinced them, that Christ, whom God promised to send, He sent in Jesus, Whom they crucified, and God raised up.

3. Again, when Peter, together with John, saw at the door of the temple, which is called beautiful, a man lame from birth, who was sitting and begging alms, he said to him, "I have no silver and no gold; but what I have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth: arise and walk. And immediately his feet and knees were strengthened, and he began to walk, and went into the temple with them, walking, jumping, and glorifying God (Acts 3:6-8). When the crowd gathered to them on account of the unexpected event, Peter said to them: "Men of Israel! Why are you amazed at this, and why do you look at us, as if by our own power we made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his Son, whom you delivered up to judgment,31 and whom you denied before Pilate when he wanted to let him go. But you became hardened32 against the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you; and the Author of life was killed. This God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And according to faith in His name, His name strengthened this one whom you see and know, and the faith that is from Him granted him healing in the sight of you all. And now, brethren, I know that you have done evil through ignorance.33 And God, as He foretold through the mouth of all the prophets that His Christ would suffer, so He fulfilled it. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of comfort may come unto you from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, whom heaven was to preserve until the time of the fulfillment of all that God had spoken through his holy prophets.34 Moses said to our fathers, "The Lord your God will raise up for you from among your brethren a prophet like me; obey him in all that he says to you. And it shall come to pass that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be cut off from the people. And all (the prophets) from Samuel and after him, however much they spoke, also foretold these days. Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God hath made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. To you first, God raised up His Son,35 and sent Him to bless you, that each one might also turn from his evil works" (Acts 3:12-26). Peter preached a clear sermon to them, together with John, preaching that the promise which God had given to the fathers had been fulfilled through Jesus, and not of any other God, he proclaimed, but brought to the knowledge of Israel about the Son of God, who had become man and suffered, and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and pointed out that whatever the prophets had proclaimed of Christ's suffering, God had fulfilled.

4. Therefore, again, when the leaders of the priests were assembled, he boldly said, "Leaders of the people and elders of Israel! If today you demand of us an account of the good deed done to a weak man, through which he became well, then 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 he stands before you well. He is a rock, despised by you who build it, but has become the head of the corner.36 And there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:8-12). Thus, the Apostles did not change God, but proclaimed to the people that Christ was Jesus crucified, Who was resurrected by the same God Who sent prophets and granted salvation to people in Him.

5. And when the chief priests, troubled by the example of healing, for the Scriptures had been more than forty years old, and by the teaching of the Apostles and the exposition of the prophecies, Peter and John had been dismissed, they returned to the rest of the Lord's co-apostles and disciples, i.e., to the church, and told what had happened and how boldly they had acted in the name of Jesus. And when they heard, the whole church, with one accord lifted up their voices to God, and said, "Lord, thou art God, having made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, who through the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David thy servant, said, Why have the Gentiles been troubled, and the nations have devised vain things? The kings of the earth and the princes stood together, and gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. For verily Herod and Pontius Pilate are gathered together in this city against Thy holy Son Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel. to do that which Thy hand and Thy will have ordained to be (Acts 4:24-28). Such are the voices of the Church, from which every church received its origin; such are the voices of the metropolis of the citizens of the New Testament; such are the voices of the Apostles; such are the voices of the disciples of the Lord, made perfect by the Holy Spirit after the Lord's ascension; they called upon God, who made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, who was proclaimed by the prophets, and his Son Jesus, whom God hath shewed, but they know no other. For there was neither Valentine, nor Marcion, nor the rest of those who corrupt themselves and those who follow them. For it is said, "The place where they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the Word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31) to everyone who would believe. With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Acts 4:33), saying to them: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you took and put to death, hanging on a tree. God exalted him to be Author and Saviour with His right hand,37 that he might give Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins; and in this we are witnesses of these words, and also the Holy Spirit, Whom God has given to them that believe in Him (Acts 5:30). And every day, it is said, in the temple and in their homes, they did not cease to teach and preach the gospel about Jesus Christ (Acts 5:42), the Son of God. For such was the knowledge of salvation; which makes perfect in the sight of God those who acknowledge the coming of His Son.

6. But since some of them (the heretics) shamelessly say that the Apostles, preaching among the Jews, could not proclaim to them any other God than Him in whom they (the Jews) believed, I will tell them that if the Apostles spoke according to the opinion that had previously taken root in the people, then no one knew the truth from them, and still before from the Lord Himself, for he, according to them, spoke in the same way. This means that they themselves do not know the truth, but having such an opinion about God, they accepted the teaching as they could hear it. According to this reasoning, no one will have a rule of truth, but all the disciples will impute to everyone (teachers), so that as each of them thinks and is able to understand, so it will be spoken to him. But the coming of the Lord will be superfluous and useless if He came to admit and preserve everyone's former opinion about God. Moreover, it was much more difficult to proclaim that the one whom the Jews saw as a man and nailed to the cross was Christ the Son of God, their eternal King. And if it was so, then (the Apostles) spoke to them not according to their former opinion. Those who told them to their face that they were murderers of the Lord would themselves have been much more bold in proclaiming the Father who is higher than the Demiurge, and would not have conformed to the way they thought (of God); and it would have been even less sinful if they had not nailed to the cross the heavenly Saviour, to Whom they must ascend, since He had no part in suffering. For just as they did not speak to the Gentiles according to their former notions, but boldly said that their gods were not gods, but idols of demons, so they would have proclaimed to the Jews, if they had known another greater and more perfect Father, without nourishing or strengthening their false opinion of God. And by destroying the error of the Gentiles and turning them away from their gods, they did not introduce another error into them, but by removing those who were not gods, they revealed only the One God and the True Father.

7. From the words of Peter, which he spoke in Caesarea to the centurion Cornelius and to the pagans who were with him, to whom the Word of God was first proclaimed, we can understand what the apostles proclaimed, what their preaching was, and what concept they had of God. This Cornelius was, it is said, a pious man and fearing God with all his household, doing much alms to the people and always praying to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw an angel of God, who came to him and said: "Thy alms have come as a memorial before God." Therefore they went to Simon, who is called Peter (Acts 10:1-5). Peter introduced a revelation in which a heavenly voice said to him: "What God has cleansed, do not call unclean" (Acts 10:15), i.e. God, Who made a distinction in the law between clean and unclean, He, Whom Cornelius also honored, cleansed the Gentiles with the blood of His Son. Peter came (to Cornelius) and said, "Verily I know that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him, and doeth righteousness, is acceptable unto Him" (Acts 10:34, 35), clearly showing that the God whom Cornelius had formerly feared, of whom he had heard through the law and the prophets, and for whose sake he gave alms, is truly God. But he lacked the knowledge of the Son. Therefore, (Peter) added, "You know what happened in all Judea, beginning with Galilee, after the baptism preached by John, how God by the Holy Spirit and power showed Jesus of Nazareth, and He went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all that he did in the land of Judah, and in Jerusalem: at last they killed him, hanging him on a tree. This God raised up on the third day, and gave Him to appear, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses who had been chosen 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 bear witness that He is the Judge of the living and the dead, ordained of God. All the prophets testify of Him that everyone who believes in Him receives in His name the remission of sins (Acts 10:37-44). Wherefore the apostles proclaimed the Son of God, whom men did not know, and his coming to those who had previously been taught concerning God, but they had not introduced another God. For if Peter had known any such thing, he would have freely preached to the Gentiles that one is the God of the Jews, and the other is the God of the Christians, and whatever he said to them, all who were amazed at the vision of the angel would have believed. From Peter's words it is evident that he preserved God, whom they had previously known, but testified to them that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, into whom he also commanded them to be baptized for the remission of sins, and not only this, but also that he testified that Jesus was the Son of God Himself, Who, being also anointed with the Holy Spirit, is called Jesus Christ. And He is the same One who was born of Mary, as the testimony of Peter says. Did Peter not yet have the perfect "knowledge" that these people later invented? With them Peter is imperfect, and the other Apostles are imperfect, and they must come to life and become disciples of these (heretics), in order to also become perfect. But this is of course ridiculous. These people turn out to be disciples not of the Apostles, but of their own evil teaching. Wherefore the opinions of each of them are so different, because he has learned the error as he was capable of it. But the Church throughout the world, having a firm beginning from the Apostles, abides in one and the same teaching about God and His Son.

8. Again, whom did Philip proclaim to the eunuch of the queen of Ethiopia, who was returning from Jerusalem and reading the prophet Isaiah when he was alone with him? Is it not the One of Whom the prophet said, "As a sheep was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer is silent, so He does not open His mouth." Who can explain His generation? for His life shall come from the earth (Acts 8:26-32; Isa. 53:7, 8); and that this is Jesus; and in Him the Scripture was fulfilled, as the eunuch himself believed, and immediately, demanding to be baptized, said, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God" (Acts 8:37). He was sent to the countries of Ethiopia to preach what he himself believed, that there is one God, proclaimed by the prophets, and that His Son appeared as a man, and was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and other things that the prophets say about Him.

9. And Paul himself, after the Lord had spoken to him from heaven and had shown him that he was persecuting his Lord, persecuting His disciples, and had sent Ananias to him that he might receive his sight and be baptized, preached, it is said, in the synagogues in Damascus, with all boldness concerning Jesus, that He is Christ the Son of God (Acts 9:20). This is the sacrament, which, as he says, was proclaimed to him by revelation, namely, that those who suffered under Pontius Pilate are the Lord of all, the King, God and Judge, who received authority from the God of all, because he was obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8). And since this is true, he, preaching the gospel to the Athenians in the Areopagus, where, in the absence of the Jews, he was free to preach the true God, said to them: God, who created the world and all that is in it, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He encomposed38 by human hands, as if He had need of anything, Himself giving life to all, breathing and that's it. From one blood He made the whole human race to dwell on the face of the whole earth, predestining the times according to the limits of their habitation,39 so that they might seek the Godhead if they could in any way feel or find Him, although He is not far from each of us. For in Him we live, move, and have our being, as some of you have said, We are His offspring. Therefore, being the offspring of God, we must not think that the Godhead is like gold, or silver, or stone, which has received its image from art, or the whim of man. Thus, leaving the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent; for He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world righteously through the Man Jesus, of which He has given assurance by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:24-32). In this passage he declares to them, in the absence of the Jews, not only that God is the Creator of the world, but also that He produced one human race to dwell on all the earth, just as Moses says: "When the Most High divided the nations after the scattering of the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God" (Deuteronomy 32:8); but the people who believe in God are no longer under the authority of angels, but of the Lord. For the people of Jacob became the inheritance of the Lord, Israel a part of His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:9). And again, when Paul was with Barnabas in Lystra in Lycia,40 and made him lame from birth in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ capable of walking, and when the crowd wanted to honor them as gods for such a wonderful deed, he said to them: "We are men like unto you, and we preach good news to you, that we may turn you from those vain idols to the living God; Who created the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, Who in times past allowed all nations to go their own ways, though He did not cease to bear witness to Himself with good works, giving you rains in the heavens, and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:15-17). And that all his Epistles agree with these sermons, I will prove it from the Epistles themselves in a proper place, explaining the Apostle. If, in order to strengthen the proofs, I cite passages from the Scriptures, and what is said in them in various ways, I convey briefly and concisely, then generously pay attention to them and do not consider this as verbosity, understanding that the proofs found in the Scriptures cannot be presented otherwise than from the Scriptures themselves.

10. Further, Stephen, the first to be elected deacon by the Apostles, and the first of all men to follow in the footsteps of the Lord's martyrdom, since he was the first to be killed for confessing Christ, boldly spoke to the people and taught, saying, "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham and said to him, "Come out of your land and out of your kindred, and go into the land that I will show you; And he carried him into this land, in which ye dwell even now, and gave him no inheritance therein, but promised to give it to him and his seed after him. but I, said God, will execute judgment on the people with whom they will be in bondage, and after that they will go out and serve Me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so he (Abraham) begat Isaac (Acts 7:2-8). And the rest of his words proclaim the same God who was with Joseph and with the patriarchs, who also spoke with Moses.

11. And that all the teaching of the apostles proclaimed one and the same God, who transmigrated Abraham, gave him the promise of inheritance, made the covenant of circumcision in due time, called him out of Egypt, clearly preserving him through circumcision, for he gave him as a sign, so that they would not be like the Egyptians, (and proclaimed him) as the Creator of all things, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as a God of glory; Those who wish can learn this from the very words and deeds of the Apostles and see that He alone is God and there is no other (God) above Him. If another God were higher than Him, then we would say by comparison, on the basis of superiority, that this one is higher than that. For superiority is revealed by works, as I have said before.41 and since they (heretics) cannot point out any of the works of their Father, He alone turns out to be God. And if Who, infected with a passion for contests (1 Tim. 6:4), considers what the Apostles said about God to be an allegory, then let him consider my above-quoted words, in which I have shown the One God the Creator and Creator of all things, and have refuted and denounced their propositions; and he will find that they agree with the teaching of the Apostles and affirm what they taught and were convinced of, that God alone is the Creator of all things; and when he rejects from his thought so great an error and blasphemy against God, he will find a reason in himself and know that the law of Moses and the grace of the New Testament, both in accordance with the times, were given for the benefit of the human race by one and the same God.

12. For all those who think badly, on the basis of the law of Moses, thinking that it is dissimilar and contrary to the teaching of the Gospel, did not try to investigate the reasons for the difference between the two Covenants. Forsaken by fatherly love and filled with Satan, they turned to the teaching of Simon the sorcerer, and departed in their thoughts from Him who is God, and imagined that they had found something more than the Apostles by inventing another God, and that the Apostles, still holding to Jewish opinions, preached the Gospel, and they were more sincere and wiser than the Apostles. For this reason, Marcion and his followers turned to the truncation of the Scriptures, some of which they did not recognize at all,42 and the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of Paul were abridged, and considered only the authentic that they had thus abridged. But I, with the help of God, will refute them in another work,43 on the basis of what is still retained by them. And all the rest, who are haughty with the false name of "knowledge," though they acknowledge the Scriptures, pervert their interpretation, as I have shown in the first book. And the followers of Marcion directly blaspheme the Creator, attributing to Him the created evil, but have a more tolerable teaching regarding His beginning, recognizing two different gods by nature, one good and the other evil; and the Valentinians, though they use plausible names, and call the Creator (the Demiurge) Father, Lord, and God, yet they maintain a more blasphemous doctrine or sect, asserting that He is not produced by any of the aeons within the Plyroma, but by the defect which has been expelled from the Plyroma. In all this they were drawn by ignorance of the Scriptures and the economy of God. In the following discussion, I will cite both the reason for the difference in the Covenants and, on the other hand, their unity and agreement.

13. And since both the Apostles and their disciples taught as the Church preaches, and in teaching they were perfect, because they were also called to perfection, Stephen, while teaching the same thing, saw the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of God, while still on earth, and said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). He said this and was stoned, and thus fulfilled the perfect teaching, in all his martyrdom imitating the Master and praying for those who had killed him, saying: "Lord, do not impute this sin to them (Acts 2:10). 7:60). Thus were perfect those who knew one and the same God, who from the beginning to the end was present to the human race by means of various decrees, as the prophet Hosea says: "I have fulfilled visions, and have been indicated by the hands of the prophets" (Hos. 12:10). Those who for the Gospel of Christ gave up their souls even unto death, how could they speak to people in accordance with their ingrained opinions? If they had done so, they would not have suffered; but because they preached the opposite to people who disagreed with the truth, they also suffered. Thus it is evident that they did not abandon the truth, but with all boldness preached to the Jews and Greeks, the Jews, that Jesus, whom they crucified, was the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, and that He received from the Father the eternal kingdom in Israel, as I have shown, and to the Greeks they proclaimed the One God, Who created all things, and His Son Jesus Christ.