By Water & Blood

Chapter 20: Why Moses and the prophets did not hand down the theology of the Son nakedly to the Jews

All these passages, and still more than these, Marcellus heaped together for the denial of the Son of God, not reckoning, through want of understanding, that such teaching was furnished to the Jewish people with a view to their hardness of heart. For it was not possible for the Holy Spirit, through the prophets of God, to hand down the perfect doctrine of piety to men imperfect in their minds.

So, at any rate, he legislated for them to offer sacrifices, and circumcision of the body, and the keeping of the sabbath, and abstinence from certain foods, and purifications of bodies, and bodily blessings—yes, and promises of a land flowing “with milk and honey,” but not of the kingdom of heaven. And our Saviour and Lord, when asked how it was that, Moses having commanded that whoever wished might give a writing of divorcement and put away his own wife, he himself ordained the contrary, gave a general reason, saying, “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts wrote this; but from the beginning it was not so.”

He would have said the same if anyone had asked why Moses and the prophets after him, exhorting the people to worship one God, did not teach them the knowledge of the Son. For those who were continually being led away into the error of many gods were not able to receive the grace of the Gospel. Wherefore they framed the teaching about one God with a view to their hardness of heart, tutoring them for the time being by turning them away from supposing that there are many gods and leading them on to the introduction of the one.

In this way Moses handed down an imperfect teaching to those of his time because of the imperfection of their understanding, so that in his account of the world’s making he made no mention of the creation of angels—although the later prophets made mention not only of angels but also of divine powers and holy spirits and the supercelestial ministers of God, concerning whom Daniel taught, saying, “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”

But Moses passed over in silence the accounts of all these, though he was not ignorant of them, having already received by the divine Spirit the exact knowledge of all things; yet nowhere in the world’s making did he make mention of them as having come into being from God.

And one could give no other cause for this than the hardness of heart of the people, just as the Saviour himself taught. And you may learn from the readings of the New Covenant that there are myriad other things in the constitution of the universe which are not found at all in the writing of Moses. Thus he made no mention of principalities, nor of powers, nor of world-rulers, nor of spiritual hosts “of wickedness,” against which the divine Apostle says our wrestling is set.

What then? Since one cannot clearly find accounts of these things either in Moses or in the other prophets, must we disbelieve the Apostle? Or when the same Apostle again mentions the order of higher beings, saying that Christ sits “at the right hand” of God, “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come,”

and again when he names thrones and dominions and principalities and powers, saying, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers”—ought we not to accept these things, because neither Moses nor the other prophets spoke of them beforehand? Or shall we say the same about these too: that the “stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” were not able to believe the accounts of them? To these the prophets of God did not even reveal the heavenly Jerusalem, just as Paul, making plain to the Church of Christ the accounts concerning it also, cried out, saying, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all”; and, “Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.”

Let Marcellus say in reply to these things whether he is able to bring forward the teaching about them from the ancient writings. And if he cannot find it, let him give the cause for which all these things were kept in silence by the prophets of God, along with myriad other things akin to them, concerning which the same Apostle prayed to God on our behalf, “that we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of God, which passeth knowledge.”

And our Saviour himself disclosed to his disciples a great many mysteries concerning the kingdom of heaven, and concerning the consummation of the universe, and concerning the promises—sometimes through parables, and sometimes also in secret—to whom he said, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of God.” One would not find the like of these in Moses or in the other prophets.

What then? Since these things were not handed down to the Jewish people, but were kept for a fitting season for the Church of Christ, ought we on this account to set aside the grace given to us, or rather to give greater thanks to the one who counted us worthy of such great knowledge? In the same way, then, it would be fitting to receive the teachings concerning the Son from his own New Covenant, not being surprised at all if the men of God did not reveal the knowledge of him to the hard-hearted people, but stored up the doctrine concerning him for a fitting season.

For it did not seem suitable at that time to hand down the mystery of the Father and the Son to men who were being drawn away into the error of many gods—men to whom they did not even reveal the accounts of the lesser powers, lest on this pretext they should fall into Greek polytheism, the Greeks having fashioned their own god as father “of men and of gods.”

Wherefore the Word, restraining them from such error, proclaimed the one God, yet did not deny that the same one is Father; and he taught them to worship the true God, and exhorted them to know none besides him, yet did not deny that he is Father. And if he called him Lord and God and righteous and Saviour, he did not on that account exclude the belief that he is also Father of his only-begotten and beloved Son. Whether, then, the Father or the Son should say, “I am he that is,”

the saying would be true either way. For the Father would be “he that is,” being alone “God, above all, and through all, and in all,” as the divine Apostle taught. And the Son, being himself also styled “he that is,” would speak truly, being alone the only-begotten Son of the One who is. Moreover, being the image of the invisible God, he would be his image in this very respect, in which the Father alone was “he that is”; wherefore he too would be styled “he that is,” since he too, like the Father, is proclaimed both God and Lord throughout the whole of the divinely inspired Scripture.