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.

14. This is more clearly seen in the Epistle of the Apostles, which they sent not to the Jews or to the Greeks, but to those who believed in Christ from among the Gentiles. For when some of the Jews came to Antioch, where the Lord's disciples also began to be called Christians in the first place by faith in Christ, and they urged those who believed in the Lord to be circumcised and to obey the other ordinances of the law, and Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem to the rest of the apostles on this matter, and the whole church was gathered together, Peter said to them, "Men, brethren! you know that God has chosen from among you from among the days of old,44 that out of my mouth the Gentiles should hear the Word of the Gospel and believe; and God, who knows the heart, gave them a testimony, giving them the Holy Ghost as he did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Why then do you now tempt God, that you may put upon the necks of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we could bear? But we believe that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we can be saved, even as they are (Acts 15:7-11). After him, Jacob said: "Men, brethren! Simon explained how God chose to take a people from the Gentiles in His name. And thus,45 the words of the prophets agree, as it is written: "Then I will turn and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David, and that which is destroyed in it, I will build it up and raise it up, that other men and all the nations among whom my name is called may seek the Lord, saith the Lord who does these things" (Amos 11:11, 12).46 God knows His work from eternity.47 For my part, therefore, I do not intend to hinder those who turn to God from among the Gentiles, but to command them to abstain from the vanities of idols,48 from fornication, and from blood, and not to do to others what they do not want to do to themselves (Acts 15:14-20). And when these things had been said, and all had agreed, they wrote to them thus: Apostles and elders (and) brethren, greetings to the brethren of the Gentiles who are in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. For we have heard that some of those who have gone out from us have troubled you with speeches, breaking your souls, saying that you must be circumcised and keep the law, which we did not command them; then we, having gathered together in agreement, decided to send to you chosen men with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who gave up their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have sent Judas and Silas, who will explain our opinion to you verbally. For it is pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us not to lay any burden upon you except these necessary things: abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from fornication, and do not do to others what you do not want to do to yourself; wherefore, keeping yourselves, ye shall do well, walking in the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:23-29). From all this it is evident that they did not teach about the existence of another God, but gave a new covenant of freedom to those who had recently come to believe in God through the Holy Spirit. And by inquiring whether or not disciples should be circumcised, they clearly showed that they had no conception of another God.

15. In this case, they would not have such a fear of the first Testament that they would not even want to eat with the Gentiles. For even Peter, although he was sent to instruct them and was moved to do so by a vision, yet with great fear he spoke to them thus: "You know that it is forbidden for a Jew to associate or associate with a foreigner, but God has revealed to me that I should not consider any man filthy or unclean; therefore I came without questioning (Acts 10:28, 29), showing by these words that he would not have gone to them if he had not been commanded. In the same way, he would not have given them baptism so easily if he had not heard that they prophesied, since the Holy Spirit had rested upon them. And therefore he said: "Who can forbid those who have received the Holy Spirit to be baptized with water, even as we have" (Acts 10:47)? – inspiring those who were with him and showing that if the Holy Spirit had not rested upon them, then someone could have forbidden them baptism. And the Apostles who were with James allowed the Gentiles to act freely, leaving us to the Spirit of God. But they themselves, knowing the same God, held to the former customs, so that Peter, too, fearing to be reproached by them, although he had formerly eaten with the Gentiles for the sake of the vision and the Spirit that rested upon them, nevertheless separated himself from them and did not eat with them, when certain people came from James; so did Barnabas, according to Paul (Gal. 2:12:13). Thus the Apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of all (His) activity and all doctrine – for Peter, James, and John are everywhere with Him – reverently acted in relation to the disposition of the law of Moses, showing that it came from one and the same God. And this they would not have done, as I have said, if they had been taught by the Lord that there is another father besides him who established the law.

Chapter XIII: Refutation of the Opinion that Paul Alone of the Apostles Knew the Truth

1. As for those who say that Paul alone knew the truth, and that the sacrament was revealed to him (only) by revelation, Paul himself will rebuke them49 when he says that one and the same God cooperated Peter in the apostleship of the circumcision, and of him among the Gentiles (Gal. 2. 8). Peter, therefore, was an apostle of the same God whom Paul had, and whom Peter proclaimed among the circumcised as God and the Son of God, Whom also Paul (preached) among the Gentiles. For our Lord did not come to save Paul alone, and God is not so poor. to have only one apostle who would know the decree of His Son. And Paul, saying, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good tidings, who preach good tidings of peace" (Rom. 10:15; Isa. 52:7), clearly showed that not one, but many, preached the truth. And again in the Epistle to the Corinthians, having enumerated those who saw God after His resurrection, He added: "Therefore I, or they, we so preach, and so you believed" (1 Cor. 15:11), acknowledging that the preaching of all those who saw God after His resurrection from the dead is the same.

2. And the Lord answered Philip, who wanted to see the Father, saying, "How long have I been with you, and you do not know me, Philip?" He who sees Me also sees the Father: how then do you say, Show us the Father? For I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, and from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him (John 14:7-10). Therefore, to say that those to whom the Lord gave testimony that they both knew and saw the Father in Him, and that the Father is the truth, did not know the truth, is characteristic of people who bear false witness and have alienated themselves from the teaching of Christ. For why did the Lord send the twelve apostles to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, if they did not know the truth? How did the seventy (Apostles) preach, if they themselves did not know the truth of the preaching beforehand? Or how could Peter not know (the truth), to whom the Lord gave testimony that flesh and blood had not revealed to him, but the Heavenly Father (Matthew 16:17)? And just as Paul (was) an apostle not of man, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal. 1:1), (so also the rest of the apostles), for the Son brought them to the Father, and the Father revealed the Son to them.