who are filled with the grace of God without wavering, and who are filtered
clear of every foreign stain, I wish an unalloyed joy in Jesus Christ, our
God.”
St. Melito of Sardes, Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai 13 (c. 177 AD)
“The activities of Christ after His Baptism, and especially His miracles,
gave indication and assurance to the world of the Deity hidden in His flesh.
Being God and likewise perfect man, He gave positive indications of His
two natures: of His Deity, by the miracles during the three years following
after His Baptism; of His humanity, in the thirty years which came before
His Baptism, during which, by reason of His condition according to the
flesh, he concealed the signs of His Deity, although He was the true God
existing before the ages.”
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3, 19, 1 (c. 180 AD)
“Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that He
is Himself in His own right God and Lord and Eternal King and Only-
begotten and Incarnate Word, proclaimed as such by all the Prophets and
by the Apostles and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have
attained to even a small portion of the truth. The Scriptures would not have
borne witness to these things concerning Him, if, like everyone else, He
were mere man. But that He had in Himself what no other ever had, that
pre-eminent generation by the Most High Father; and that He also
experienced that pre-eminent birth from a Virgin,––the divine Scriptures
testify to both in His regard.”
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