By Water & Blood

Three Passovers; Epiphany; the Alexandria Kore and Aeon rite

These same people again accuse the holy evangelist—or rather the Gospel itself—saying that John said the Savior kept two Passovers in a period of two years, while the other evangelists narrate concerning one Passover.

And the uninstructed do not know that the Gospels confess not only two Passovers, as we have shown from every side, but first speak of two, and then yet another Passover in which the Savior suffered—so that there are three Passovers from the time of the baptism and the beginning of the preaching over three years until the cross.

For the Savior is born in the forty-second year of Augustus, king of the Romans, in the consulship of the same Octavius Augustus for the thirteenth time and of Silanus, as the Roman consular lists have it.

For it stands in them thus: ‘While these were consuls,’ I mean, ‘on the eighth before the Ides of January, after thirteen days from the winter turning-point and from the addition of light and of day.’

This day the Greeks celebrate—I mean the idolaters—on the eighth before the Kalends of January, which among the Romans is called Saturnalia, among the Egyptians Kronia, and among the Alexandrians Kikellia.

For on the eighth before the Kalends of January this segment occurs, which is the turning-point, and the day begins to increase as the light takes its addition; and it completes a number of thirteen days unto the eighth before the Ides of January, until the day of Christ’s birth, a thirtieth of an hour being added to each day;

as also the wise Ephraim among the Syrians bore witness to this account in his own expositions, saying that ‘thus was the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ administered—the birth according to the flesh, or rather the perfect becoming-human, which is called Epiphany—from the beginning of the increase of the light over an interval of thirteen days; for this too had to become a type of the number of our same Lord Jesus Christ and of his twelve disciples, who completed the number of the thirteen days of the increase of the light.’

And how many other things there are for the subject and testimony of this account—I mean of the birth of Christ—have come to pass and still come to pass. For even the leaders and deceivers of the worship of idols, being compelled to confess a certain part of the truth in order to deceive the idolaters who have been persuaded by them, in many places keep a very great festival on that very night of the Epiphanies, so that those who have set their hope on the error may not seek the truth.

First, in Alexandria, in the so-called Koreion: it is a very great temple—that is, the sacred precinct of Kore (Κόρη).

For having kept vigil the whole night with certain songs and with flutes, singing to the idol and completing an all-night festival, after the crowing of the cocks they go down with torches into a certain underground shrine and bring up a wooden image seated naked on a litter, having a certain seal of a cross gilded upon the forehead, and upon each of the two hands two other such seals, and upon the two knees themselves two others—five seals in all wrought of gold—and they carry about this very cult-image, circling the central temple seven times with flutes and drums and hymns; and after their revel they carry it down again into the underground place. And when asked what this mystery is, they answer and say that at this hour today Kore (Κόρη)—that is, the Virgin—gave birth to the Aeon (Αἰών).

This also takes place in the city of Petra (it is the metropolis of Arabia, which is Edom written in the Scriptures) in the idol-house there in the same way; and in the Arabian dialect they hymn the virgin, calling her in Arabic Chaamou—that is, Kore, or rather Virgin—and the one born from her Dusares—that is, only-begotten of the Lord. This also takes place in the city of Elusa on that night, as there in Petra and in Alexandria.

From many things we have been compelled to set forth, because of those who disbelieve, that the Epiphanies are rightly named for the incarnate birth of the Savior that took place in Bethlehem, he being born at the eighth hour and appearing to the shepherds and to the world through the testimony of the angels;

and he appeared also to Mary and to Joseph. And in that hour the star also appeared in the east to the magi, two years before their arrival at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, when Herod also carefully inquired of the magi themselves the time of the star that had appeared, and heard from them that it was from two years old and under—which itself also gave the name of the Epiphanies from Herod’s saying ‘of the star that appeared.’

Through those who said, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him,’ Herod did not consider the matter as concerning the bare name of a human king.

For having thought the matter through and marveling that many kings had been born in Jerusalem—first Saul from the tribe of Benjamin, second David from the tribe of Judah, and his son Solomon, and Solomon’s son Rehoboam, and his sons in succession—and that never for any one of these when born did a star appear, nor did an arrival of magi take place to come and worship the newborn king, but then only—hence, considering this, he directed his mind toward knowledge of the truth, learning that this sign is not of a human being but of the Lord alone;

therefore he no longer asked about an earthly king or a human being, but about Christ, saying to the scribes and priests, ‘Where is the Christ born?’ and he heard from them, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea’; and from these he learned the place by asking, and from the magi the time.

For the magi themselves also, after two years, on that very day of the Epiphanies came to Bethlehem and offered the gifts—the myrrh and the gold and the frankincense. For on that very day of the Epiphanies the beginnings of many signs of the appearance took place.

This was the day, as I said above and am often compelled to say, in the consulship of Octavius Augustus for the thirteenth time and of Silanus, on the eighth before the Ides of January, after thirteen days from the increase of the light and of the day, which is from the winter turning-point—that is, from the eighth before the Kalends of January—until the birthday itself and the day of the Epiphanies, because of the type previously indicated, the Savior himself and his twelve disciples completing the thirteenth number. The Savior, then, is born in the forty-second year of Augustus, king of the Romans, in the consulship already written,

twenty-nine years after Augustus’s association with the Jews. And Augustus reigns thirteen years before Judea was completely joined to the Romans.

And from the time Augustus began to reign, for about four years of his reign more or less there was friendship of Romans toward Jews and an alliance being sent and a procurator being appointed and portions of tributes being paid to the Romans—for about five years more or less—until Judea was finally handed over and became tributary to them, the rulers from Judah having ceased and Herod from the nations having been appointed,

a proselyte indeed; then Christ having been born in Bethlehem of Judea and having come to the preaching, the anointed leaders from Judah and Aaron having ceased, who lasted until Alexander the anointed leader and Alexandra; upon whom was fulfilled the prophecy of Jacob: ‘A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is reserved, and he is the expectation of the nations’—which is the Lord who was born.

All these things were being completed beginning from the birth in Bethlehem, which took place in the forty-second year of the whole reign of Augustus, which was after the fifth year of the procuratorship of Antipater, Herod’s father, when there was friendship of Romans toward Jews and portions of gifts; and after Antipater’s procuratorship from Augustus’s sixth year until his ninth; and Herod having been appointed from the tenth year, and a portion of tributes being given until the thirteenth year, which was the fourth year of Herod’s reign after he was appointed by Augustus;

and after Herod’s fourth year, Judea having thereafter been completely handed over until Herod’s thirty-third year, Augustus having completed forty-two years, the whole of Judea having been held, as I said, after it had been tributary to the Romans for twenty-nine years, and after Antipater, Herod’s father, had been appointed procurator, and after Herod had been appointed king by Augustus in Augustus’s tenth year over Judea.

These things were wrought in the consulship of Octavius Augustus for the thirteenth time and of the consul Silanus, as I have often said; which consulship the succeeding consulships followed in order thus: (2) Lentulus and Piso; (3) Lucius Caesar and Paulus; (4) Vindicius and Varus; (5) Lamius and Servilius Nonnius; (6) Magnus Pompeius and Valerius; (7) Lepidus and Aruncius; (8) Caesar and Capito; (9) Creticus and Nerva; (10) Camillus and Quintillianus; (11) Camerinus and Sabinus; (12) Dolabella and Silanus; (13) Lepidus and Taurus; (14) Flaccus and Silanus; (15) the two Sexti; (16) Pompeius Magnus and Apuleius; (17) Brutus and Flaccus; (18) Taurus and Libo; (19) Crassus and Rufus; (20) Tiberius Caesar for the second time and Drusus Germanicus for the second time; (21) Silanus and Balbus; (22) Messala and Gratus; (23) Tiberius Caesar for the third time and Drusus Germanicus for the third time; (24) Agrippa and Galba; (25) Pollio and Vetus; (26) Cethegus and Varus; (27) Agrippa for the second time and Lentulus Galba; (28) Getulicus and Sabinus; (29) Crassus and Piso; (30) Silanus and Nerva.