Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 33/82

Such heretics, then, are overthrown by the truth and accuracy of the divine Scriptures, and especially by the harmony of the four gospels.

For no one of sound mind would cast aside what has been most accurately treated in every respect by the Holy Spirit through the divine gospels.

For even if they say that the evangelists Matthew and Mark and Luke narrated concerning the Savior that after the baptism he was led up into the wilderness and spent forty days being tempted, and after the temptation, having heard that John had been handed over, he came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, whereas John lies by not speaking of these things, but immediately from the first, when the Savior came to John, and the other things which (the text is here corrupt) he says he did — it will appear in every way that they have been altogether ignorant of the precise accuracy of the gospels.

— that the days of the temptation had come upon him.

For how, once John had been handed over, could it still be possible for the Savior to come to him again at the Jordan? But they did not realize that the other three evangelists narrate precisely the time after John had been handed over, saying:

'Now when Jesus heard that John had been handed over, he left Nazareth and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea.'

And you see that in truth everything has been said in harmony by the four evangelists.

For indeed John also appears, again narrating in sequence, that after the Savior performed the first sign and came to Capernaum, and performed certain signs there, and went up to Nazareth and read the book, then, when the Baptist had at last been handed over, he came and dwelt in Capernaum not many days.

And these are the days after the day of Epiphany, and his coming to Capernaum and to Nazareth, and his going up to Jerusalem for the Passover, and his coming again to John, where he was baptizing in Aenon near Salim.

For thus it says, 'After this he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers, and there they remained not many days.'

For it did not yet indicate the permanent residence, about which it later said that after John had been handed over, he came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea.

'And the Passover of the Jews was near,' as it says, 'and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money-changers sitting there.'

And after driving out these same money-changers and those selling doves and the rest, and having said:

'Take these things away from here, and do not make my Father's house a house of trade' — and having heard from them, 'What sign do you show us, that you do these things?' — and having said to them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' — when Nicodemus came to him — and after saying much more, it says, 'Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea, and there he stayed with them and baptized.'

'And John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there.'

'For John had not yet been thrown into prison.'

And after John had said many things, that 'he who has the bride is the bridegroom,' the gospel then says, 'When therefore Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John — although Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples — he left the land of Judea and departed again into Galilee.'

'And he had to pass through Samaria.'

It was then that he sat down at the well and conversed with the Samaritan woman, and the Samaritan woman announced concerning him to those in the city, and the Samaritans came to him and urged him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days, and many more believed because of his word. And after the two days he came into Galilee; and there was a certain royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum, when Jesus said to him, 'Go your way...'

'...your son lives.' And he believed, and the boy was healed.

And the gospel says, 'This is again the second sign that Jesus did, when he had come from Judea into Galilee.'

'After this there was a feast of the Jews' — and I think it speaks of another feast of the Jews, either Pentecost or Tabernacles — 'and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,' when, coming to the Sheep Pool on the Sabbath, he healed the man who had been paralyzed in infirmity for thirty-eight years.

From then on, once the acceptable year had been fulfilled, they began to persecute him, from the time he healed the paralytic at the pool on the Sabbath.

Then again it says: the Jews persecuted Jesus all the more, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

Are not those heresies to be condemned which make the Son inferior to the Father? For the Gospel says, 'making himself equal to God.'

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a great crowd followed him, because they saw the signs which he was doing on those who were sick.

So Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. Moreover, as the other Gospels say, after John had been handed over, he came and settled in Capernaum by the sea.

just as John himself is also found to say things in harmony with the others.

For since the Passover falls in the month of March or April, it is shown from every consideration that there were other occasions on which the Savior, after the temptation, came to John.

These same men again accuse the holy evangelist, or rather the Gospel itself, saying that John declared the Savior kept two Passovers within a period of two years, whereas the other evangelists narrate about only one Passover.

But these unlearned men do not know that the Gospels acknowledge not merely two Passovers, as we have shown from every side, but that they speak of two as the first ones, and that the very Passover in which the Savior suffered is yet another, so that there are three Passovers from the time of the baptism and the beginning of the preaching, over the three years, up to the cross.

For the Savior was 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 is recorded in them thus:

'While these were consuls — I mean Octavius, for the thirteenth time, and Silanus — Christ was born on the eighth day before the Ides of January, thirteen days after the winter solstice and the beginning of the increase of the daylight. This day the Greeks — I mean the idolaters — celebrate on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, called by the Romans the Saturnalia, by the Egyptians the Kronia, and by the Alexandrians the Kikellia.'

For on the eighth day before the Kalends of January this turning point occurs, which is the solstice, and the day begins to increase as the light receives its addition; and it completes the number of thirteen days, up to the eighth day before the Ides of January, that is, until the day of Christ's birth, a thirtieth part of an hour being added to each day.

As also Ephraim, the sage among the Syrians, testified to this statement in his commentaries, saying that thus was the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ordered by providence — his birth according to the flesh, that is, his perfect incarnation, which is called Epiphany — occurring at an interval of thirteen days from the beginning of the increase of the light.

For this too had to become a type of the number of our Lord Jesus Christ himself together with his twelve disciples, since it fulfilled the number of the thirteen days of the increase of the light.

And how many other things have happened, and still happen, in support of and testimony to this matter — I mean the birth of Christ.

For indeed the founders of the religion of idols, being deceivers and being compelled to confess a certain part of the truth, in order to deceive the idolaters persuaded by them, hold in many places a very great festival on this very night of the Epiphany, so that those who have set their hope on the deception might not seek the truth.

First of all, in Alexandria, in the place called the Koreion.

It is a very great temple, that is, the sanctuary of Kore.

...on the hands two other such seals, and on the two knees two more, so that together there are five seals stamped from gold; and they carry the wooden image around, circling the innermost shrine seven times, with pipes and drums and hymns, and after their revelling they carry it back down again into the place underground.

And when asked what this mystery is, they answer and say that at this very hour, today, the Kore, that is, the Virgin, gave birth to the Aion.

This same thing also happens in the city of Elusa on that same night, as also there in Petra and in Alexandria.

For the sake of those who disbelieve, we have been compelled by many considerations to demonstrate that 'Epiphany' is rightly the name given to the incarnate birth of the Savior which took place in Bethlehem, he having been born at the eighth hour and having been manifested to the shepherds and to the world through the testimony of the angels.

He was also manifested to Mary and to Joseph.

At that very hour the star also appeared in the east to the magi, two years before their arrival at Jerusalem and Bethlehem; at which time Herod carefully inquired of the magi themselves concerning the time the star had appeared, and heard from them that it was from two years old and under — and it is this very saying that gave the Epiphany its name, from Herod's speaking of the star that had appeared.

Therefore, when they were saying, '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 a mere human king in name only.

Therefore he no longer asked about an earthly or human king, but about the 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 inquiry, but from the magi he learned the time.

For indeed the magi themselves, after two years, arrived at Bethlehem on this very day of the Epiphany and offered their gifts — the myrrh, the gold, and the frankincense.

For on this very day of the Epiphany the beginnings occurred of many events that were signs of the manifestation.

And this was the day — as I have said above, and am compelled to say many times — in the consulship of Octavius Augustus, for the thirteenth time, and of Silanus, on the eighth day before the Ides of January, thirteen days after the increase of the light and of the day, reckoned from the winter solstice, that is, from the eighth day before the Kalends of January, up to this very day of the birthday and Epiphany, because of the type foreshown, the Savior himself together with his twelve disciples completing the number thirteen.

The Savior, then, was born in the forty-second year of Augustus, king of the Romans, in the aforementioned consulship, twenty-nine years after the union of Augustus with the Jews.

Augustus reigned thirteen years before Judea was completely united to the Romans.

In about the fourth year, more or less, of his reign, friendship and an alliance were extended by the Romans to the Jews, and a procurator was appointed; and portions of tribute were paid to the Romans over about five years, more or less, until Judea was completely handed over and became tributary to them, when the rulers from Judah ceased, and Herod, though from the Gentiles — yet a proselyte — was established; then, after Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea and had come to his preaching, the anointed rulers from Judah and Aaron ceased, who had lasted until the rule of Alexander the anointed, and of Salina, also called Alexandra.

In these events the prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled: 'A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and he is the expectation of the nations' — which is the Lord who was born.

All these things were being fulfilled, 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, the father of Herod, when there was friendship between the Romans and the Jews and partial gifts of tribute; and after the procuratorship of Antipater, which lasted from the sixth year of Augustus to his ninth, Herod having been established from the tenth year, and a portion of tribute being paid up to the thirteenth year, which was the fourth year of the reign of Herod as established by Augustus.

But after the fourth year of Herod, Judea was thereafter completely handed over.

Up to the thirty-third year of Herod, when Augustus had completed forty-two years, the whole of Judea having been subdued, as I have said, after it had been made tributary to the Romans for twenty-nine years, and after Antipater, the father of Herod, had been appointed procurator, and after Herod had been established as king by Augustus, in the tenth year of that same Augustus, over Judea.

These things took place in the consulship of Octavius Augustus, for the thirteenth time, and of the consul Silanus, as I have often said; and this consulship was succeeded in order by the following consulships, as follows:

Of Lucius Caesar and Paulus.

Of Lamius and Servilius Nonnius.

Of Magnus Pompeius and Valerius.

Of Camillus and Quintillianus.

Of Pompeius Magnus and Apuleius.

Of Agrippa, for the second time, and Lentulus Galba.

And you see that it is a period of thirty years; for this reason we have taken pains to set down the successive consulships with precision, so that those who go through them may see that there is nothing falsified in the divine doctrine of truth, but that everything has been proclaimed to the church with exactness. For who, having reckoned up the consulships, which cannot go astray in their sequence, will not condemn those who suppose there is a discrepancy in the number of years sung by the evangelists? For this reason also the earlier heresies concerning Valentinus and certain others fell, which mythically recorded the thirty aeons, which they supposed to liken to the years of the Savior, so that, forsooth, they might be able to write down the myth-making of their own aeons and principalities.

For in the thirty-third year of his incarnate coming the Only-begotten suffered — he who is impassible from above as God the Word, but who, having taken on flesh and having undertaken to suffer on our behalf, did so in order that he might destroy the handwriting of death that stood against us.

For after that consulship marking his thirtieth year, another consulship occurred, called that of the two Gemini.

Then another consulship, that of Rufus and Rubellio; and thus, when the consulship following that of Rufus and Rubellio was underway — which later came to be called that of Vinicius and Longinus Cassius — in his thirty-third year, which was the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, the Savior suffered on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of April.

And the error of all these has been refuted, since the teaching according to the truth is clearly found, namely that not merely two periods of years for the Passover feast are indicated in the Gospels, but three.

For he was born in the month of January, that is, on the eighth day before the Ides of January — which according to the Romans is the fifth of January, the evening dawning into the sixth; according to the Egyptians, the eleventh of Tybi; according to the Syrians, or the Greeks, the sixth of Audynaios; according to the Cyprians, or the Salaminians, the fifth of the fifth month; according to the Paphians, the fourteenth of Julius; according to the Arabs, the twenty-first of Aleom; according to the Cappadocians, the thirteenth of Atarta; according to the Athenians, the fifth of Maimakterion; according to the Hebrews, the fifth of Tebeth.

For here too it was necessary that what was spoken by the prophet should be fulfilled: 'The ark of God has come in to us' — and this speaks of the perfect incarnation of Christ, on the fifth day of the fifth month, as it was then accomplished among the Hebrews.

And from that point, from the twelfth of Athyr, he began preaching the acceptable year of the Lord, according to what had been foretold in the prophet Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of recompense.'

For truly he proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord, that is, one not contradicted.

For during the first year after the thirtieth year of his incarnate coming he was preaching, and everyone accepted him, and neither the Jews contradicted him, nor the Gentiles, nor the Samaritans, but all listened to him gladly.

In that year he went up to Jerusalem, after having been baptized and having passed through the forty days of the temptation and the twenty days we mentioned before, up to the first sign, and after having chosen his own disciples.

Having returned from the temptation to the Jordan, and having passed through the Sea of Tiberias, journeying toward Nazareth, he then evidently went up to Jerusalem, and in the middle of the feast he cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink'; and thus he departed to Nazareth and to Judea and to Samaria and to the region of Tyre.

And when the first year was completed, he went up again to Jerusalem, and thereafter they sought to seize him at the feast, and yet they were afraid.

At that feast he had said, 'I am not going up to this feast.'

For he was not lying — far be it!

For it says that when the feast was already half over, he came and went up to Jerusalem; and they were saying:

'Is not this he whom they sought to seize? And look, he is speaking openly.'

'Have the priests perhaps come to learn that this is truly the Christ? Yet we know where this man is from.'

For since he was speaking to his brothers mysteriously and spiritually, they did not know what he was saying.

For he was telling them that he was not going up to heaven at that feast, nor to the cross, until he should first complete the dispensation of his passion and the mystery of salvation, and rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven.

All these things he was fulfilling by his own authority.

And after this, when the two-year period following his baptism and his birth was completed — reckoned from the month of November and from the month of January onward — then in the thirty-third year of his sojourn in the flesh, after he had passed through the two consulships we mentioned, that of the two Gemini and that of Rufus and Rubellio, then in the third consulship, in its third month, after January and February, in the month of March, the impassible God the Word completed the mystery of the passion, having suffered in the flesh for our sake while remaining in impassibility, as Peter says: 'put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.'

He suffered on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of April, one evening having already passed, that is, in the middle of the night of the fourteenth day of the moon.

For they anticipated and ate the Passover early, as the Gospel says, and as we ourselves have said many times.

So they ate the Passover two days before it was due to be eaten, that is, on the evening of the third day, when it should have been eaten on the evening of the fifth day.

For in this reckoning the fifth day was the fourteenth day of the moon.

He was arrested on the evening of that same Tuesday, which was the eleventh day of the moon at night, sixteen days before the Kalends of April; Wednesday dawned as the twelfth day at night, fifteen days before the Kalends of April; Thursday was the thirteenth day, but the fourteenth at night, fourteen days before the Kalends of April; the day before the sabbath (Friday) was the fourteenth day, thirteen days before the Kalends of April; the sabbath (Saturday) was the fifteenth day, twelve days before the Kalends of April, dawning into the Lord's Day (Sunday), the fifteenth day at night.

This was the illumination of Hades, earth, and heaven, and the equality of night and day, because of the moon's fifteenth day and the sun's course.

For both the resurrection and the equinox occurred eleven days before the Kalends of April; and it was regarding this that the Jews, having gone astray, made an error of one day's displacement, as I said before.

Now the precise reckoning involves certain hours left over, which accumulate every three years, producing among them a discrepancy of one day.

For to the lunar course, after its three hundred fifty-four days, they add a further four hours each year, so that over three years this amounts to one day.

For this reason five intercalary months are inserted among them in the course of fourteen years, because one hour is subtracted from the solar course of three hundred sixty-five days and three hours.

For when the hours are added up, the result comes to three hundred sixty-five days short by one hour.

...months over the eighty-five years, which, with precision, ought to amount to thirty-one months, twenty-one days, and three hours.

Because of this, then, having erred at that time, they not only anticipated the Passover in confusion, eating it two days early, but also, by adding the transposed day, erred in every respect.

But the dispensation of the truth accomplished everything for us with the utmost precision, unto our salvation.

Hence the Savior himself, having completed the Passover, went out to the mountain after eating it, having earnestly desired to eat it.

And he ate that Jewish Passover with his disciples, doing nothing different, but doing likewise along with those who did so, so that he might not abolish the Law but fulfill it.

And so, after passing his thirtieth year, when he was baptized, and after his thirty-first, having preached one most full year that was acceptable and not contradicted, and having then preached another year that was contradicted, spent amid persecution and enmity, and after this having passed into yet another year -- reckoning from the day of his birth, that is, of the Epiphany (which falls at the dawning of the fifth into the sixth of the month of January, or among the Egyptians the eleventh of Tybi) -- for a full seventy-four days, as we said before, up to the thirteenth day before the Kalends of April, that is, among the Egyptians the twenty-fourth of Phamenoth, he completed thirty-two full years and seventy-four days from the Epiphany.

And he rose, according to the Egyptians, on the twenty-sixth of Phamenoth, which was the equinox -- the night having passed and the equinoctial balance occurring after the twenty-fifth, eleven days before the Kalends of April -- so that all who are not sons of the truth might be found liars.

First and foremost, Valentinus, fabricating his drama, supposed that he had furnished us with thirty aeons on the basis of the thirty-year period of the Savior's elevation and the maturing of his age, not knowing that he did not merely complete thirty years, but was baptized in his thirtieth year, after completing twenty-nine years and ten months, on the twelfth of Athyr, as I said before, six days before the Ides of November; and after this, having preached one acceptable year of the Lord, and after that first year another year that was contradicted, and seventy-four contradicted days, counting from when he was baptized, sixty days before his own birthday.

So that the total years of his fleshly presence, from his birth until the Passion, amount to thirty-two years and seventy-four days; and from the beginning of the consulship of Silanus and Nerva, two years and one hundred thirty-four days.

And thus the aforementioned Valentinus is here refuted, along with the many who play the fool after his fashion.

Refuted too are those who reject the Gospel according to John, whom I would justly call the 'Alogi', since they reject the Word of God -- the paternal divine Word proclaimed through John, who came down from heaven and wrought salvation for us through the whole of his fleshly presence -- because from the consulships, from the years, from the testimony of the prophet Isaiah, from the Gospel according to Luke, from that according to John, from that according to Matthew, and from that according to Mark, and in short from every quarter, these deceived men have been refuted: that he did not celebrate only one Passover after the beginning of his preaching within the span of a single year, but rather fulfilled, all but a little, the span of three consulships after the baptism by John.

And so the argument of these unreasoning men has utterly collapsed into error, folly, and ignorance -- an ignorance that not only fails to know its own life, but also falsely and vainly arms itself against the truth.

...remaining thus, he completed only forty years.

For he was born in the forty-second year of Augustus.

He says that he was conceived twelve days before the Kalends of July, or of June -- I cannot say which -- in the consulship of Sulpicius Camerinus and (the text is corrupt here) Vetus Pompeianus.

And I have also considered this: that those who state the day of the conception, and how Gabriel announced the good news to the Virgin, said this because of the suspicion arising from certain persons who say, in tradition, that he was born after seven months.

For we have found that from this date until the eleventh of Tybi, and eight days before the Ides of January, when the Theophany truly occurred and he was born, is a period of seven months according to the lunar course, less four days.

So then, if you should find these things written somewhere in marginal notes, do not be misled concerning the information.

For in truth, the certain birth of Christ is on the eleventh of Tybi.

But some say that he was carried in the womb for ten months less fourteen days and eight hours, that is, nine months, fifteen days, and four hours, alluding to the saying in Solomon: 'compacted in blood during a ten-month period.'

Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated from every quarter that the aforementioned fleshly birth of the Lord took place on the eleventh of Tybi, according to the Egyptians.

And around that same eleventh day, thirty years later, the first sign occurred in Cana of Galilee, when the water became wine.

For this reason, in many places even to this day this same thing happens, on account of the divine sign then wrought, as a testimony to unbelievers, just as springs and rivers in many places bear witness by being changed into wine.

There is the spring of the city of Cibyra in Caria, at the very hour when the servants drew the water and he said, 'Give it to the master of the feast.'

And the spring in Gerasa of Arabia likewise bears witness.

For we ourselves have drunk from the spring at Cibyra, and our brethren from the spring at Gerasa, in the martyrium.

And many in Egypt also bear witness to this concerning the Nile.

For this reason, on the eleventh of Tybi according to the Egyptians, everyone draws water and stores it away, both in Egypt itself and in many other homelands.

For thus it is found: after the twelfth of Athyr, he departed and was tempted for forty days, and came to Nazareth and remained there about two weeks and three days; then he went down to the Jordan to John and spent a first and a second day there, and returned to Nazareth and likewise stayed a first and a second day, and on the third day went out to Cana of Galilee -- so that the total days from his baptism are completed as sixty: forty for the temptation, the two weeks and two days at Nazareth, and the other two days, and on the third day the sign of the water took place at the wedding.