know hidden secrets, and appear to the absent, and prophesy to them
about what they should remember, and walk upon the sea like the dry land
like a God, and He should satisfy from hunger, and He should heal all
diseases and sicknesses with authority and power. All this the prophets had
said about the Christ, that He should do these signs to men. By this we
trust the Christ and believe in Him and follow Him, and we know that none
works the works of the Christ save God. Praise be to God who hath helped us
to this, and hath made us [to be] among the friends of the Christ, and hath
saved us from error and the service of the devil, to His light and His mercy
and His great bounty wherewith He abounded towards us. This was somewhat of
what God's prophets prophesied about the Christ, the Word and the Light of
God, when He should appear to men in His mercy and should save them and
deliver them from the error of Satan to light and guidance. This is some of
their prophecy. Nevertheless everything that the prophets prophesied about
the Christ is greater than that any man should speak of it or should
comprehend it. But have we loved to aim at that? In everything the aim is
the best and most beautiful thing. If we wished to extract from the sayings
of the prophets about the birth of the Christ, we are able by God's help for
what we wish in that; this is our plea with God in the day of the
resurrection before the Archangels and the former and the latter prophets;
"We believe in Thee and Thy Word and Thy Holy Spirit, one God and one
Lord as Thou hast brought [it] down and shewn [it] to men in Thy books: save
us from the punishment of Gehenna, and in Thy mercy make us to enter with
Thy Angels and Thy Saints and Thy Prophets, O God." This is the saying
of God's prophets about the immersion of the Christ in baptism, which God
commanded, and appointed in it for us the forgiveness of trespasses, and
shewed about it by the tongues of His prophets. The Christ is a fortress in
regard to it, and commanded us about it, saying, "Verily, verily, I say
unto you that none shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven save he who is born of
water and
