who appointed the legal dispensation. But “Simeon,” he also says, “blessed God, and said,
Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,
which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light for the revelation of the
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.”773 And “Anna”774 also, “the prophetess,” he
says, in like manner glorified God when she saw Christ, “and spake of Him to all them who
were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”775 Now by all these one God is shown forth,
revealing to men the new dispensation of liberty, the covenant, through the new advent of
His Son.
5. Wherefore also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, does thus commence his
Gospel narrative: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is
written in the prophets, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare
Thy way.776 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
426
the paths straight before our God.” Plainly does the commencement of the Gospel quote
the words of the holy prophets, and point out Him at once, whom they confessed as God
and Lord; Him, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had also made promise to Him,
that He would send His messenger before His face, who was John, crying in the wilderness,
in “the spirit and power of Elias,”777 “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight paths
before our God.” For the prophets did not announce one and another God, but one and the
same; under various aspects, however, and many titles. For varied and rich in attribute is
the Father, as I have already shown in the book preceding778 this; and I shall show [the same
truth] from the prophets themselves in the further course of this work. Also, towards the
conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: “So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He
was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God;”779 confirming what had
been spoken by the prophet: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, until
I make Thy foes Thy footstool.”780 Thus God and the Father are truly one and the same;
773 Luke ii. 29, etc.
774 Luke ii. 38.
775 The text seems to be corrupt in the old Latin translation. The rendering here follows Harvey’s conjectural
restoration of the original Greek of the passage.
776 The Greek of this passage in St. Mark i. 2 reads, τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ, i.e., His paths, which varies from the
Hebrew original, to which the text of Irenæus seems to revert, unless indeed his copy of the Gospels contained
the reading of the Codex Bezæ. [See book iii. cap. xii. 3, 14, below; also, xiv. 2 and xxiii. 3. On this Codex, see
Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 12, etc., and references.]
777 Luke i. 17.
778 See ii. 35, 3.
779 Mark xvi. 19.
780 Ps. cx. 1.
1083
Chapter X.—Proofs of the foregoing, drawn from the Gospels of Mark and …