Chapter II.—Why Christ’s Coming Should Be Previously Announced.

Coming then at once to the point,782    Hinc denique. I have to encounter the question, Whether Christ ought to have come so suddenly?783    As Marcion makes Him. (I answer, No.) First, because He was the Son of God His Father. For this was a point of order, that the Father should announce784    Profiteretur. the Son before the Son should the Father, and that the Father should testify of the Son before the Son should testify of the Father. Secondly, because, in addition to the title of Son, He was the Sent. The authority,785    Patrocinium. therefore, of the Sender must needs have first appeared in a testimony of the Sent; because none who comes in the authority of another does himself set it forth786    Defendit, “insist on it.” for himself on his own assertion, but rather looks out for protection from it, for first comes the support787    Suggestu. of him who gives him his authority. Now (Christ) will neither be acknowledged as Son if the Father never named Him, nor be believed in as the Sent One if no Sender788    Mandator. gave Him a commission: the Father, if any, purposely naming Him; and the Sender, if any, purposely commissioning Him. Everything will be open to suspicion which transgresses a rule. Now the primary order of all things will not allow that the Father should come after the Son in recognition, or the Sender after the Sent, or God after Christ. Nothing can take precedence of its own original in being acknowledged, nor in like manner can it in its ordering.789    Dispositione, “its being ordered or arranged.” Suddenly a Son, suddenly Sent, and suddenly Christ! On the contrary, I should suppose that from God nothing comes suddenly, because there is nothing which is not ordered and arranged by God. And if ordered, why not also foretold, that it may be proved to have been ordered by the prediction, and by the ordering to be divine? And indeed so great a work, which (we may be sure) required preparation,790    Parabatur. as being for the salvation of man, could not have been on that very account a sudden thing, because it was through faith that it was to be of avail.791    Per fidem profuturum. Inasmuch, then, as it had to be believed in order to be of use, so far did it require, for the securing of this faith, a preparation built upon the foundations of pro-arrangement and fore-announcement. Faith, when informed by such a process, might justly be required792    Indiceretur. of man by God, and by man be reposed in God; it being a duty, after that knowledge793    Agnitione. has made it a possibility, to believe those things which a man had learned indeed to believe from the fore-announcement.794    Prædicatione, “prophecy.”

CAPUT II.

Hinc denique gradum consero , an debuerit tam subito venisse. Primo, quia et ipse Dei sui Filius, hoc enim ordinis fuerat , ut ante Pater Filium profiteretur, quam Patrem Filius; et ante Pater de Filio testaretur, quam Filius de Patre. Dehinc et quia missus, praeter Filii nomen. Proinde enim praecessisse debuerat mittentis patrocinium in testimonium missi, quia nemo veniens ex alterius auctoritate, ipse eam sibi ex sua affirmatione defendit, sed ab ipsa defendi 0323B se potius exspectat, praeeunte suggestu ejus, qui auctoritatem praestat. Caeterum, nec Filius agnoscetur, quem nunquam Pater nuncupavit: nec missus credetur, quem nunquam mandator designavit; nuncupaturus Pater, et designaturus mandator, si fuisset. Suspectum habebitur omne, quod exorbitarit a regula; rerumque principalis gradus non sinit posterius agnosci Patrem post Filium, et mandatorem post mandatum, et Christum post Deum. Nihil origine sua prius est in agnitione, quia nec in dispositione. Subito Filius, et subito missus, et subito Christus? Atquin nihil putem a Deo subitum, quia nihil a Deo non dispositum. Si autem dispositum, cur et non praedicatum, ut probari posset et dispositum ex praedicatione, et divinum ex dispositione? Et utique tantum 0323C opus, quod scilicet humanae saluti parabatur, vel eatenus subitum non fuisset, qua per fidem profuturum. In quantum enim credi habebat ut prodesset, in tantum paraturam desiderabat, ut credi posset, substructam fundamentis dispositionis et praedicationis; quo ordine fides informata, merito et homini indiceretur a Deo, et Deo exhiberetur ab homine; ex agnitione debens credere quia posset, quae scilicet credere didicisset ex praedicatione.