Acts of the Martyrs and Saints, Volume 5

A Discourse on Law and Instruction.

I testify to the student, that He was before the nature of perception, and of the enlightened thought, like perception. For He said, as I say to you, that before Abraham the Patriarch was, I am. But the instruction was even from Adam the first man, that from the day he was a speaker, all would be made to speak, that there was instruction for you after the Father, for he showed something, because He was before me. And that it is not good that I should lose the student of the testimony, I know, that He speaks [as] the herald of the Law and the Prophets. How then, when He knows that He is a man and Lord to the man to show, He says that there was something original: "a gift" to Him, and He was before him, [for] Him who was shadowing from him and was perception? But perhaps I say, that there was, that He was before me, for the sake of the change of the likeness. For I think that these things speak to Him as that, and not as what you know. For even this foolish talk, it is not foolish speech that they speak to us which is equal. For if I am a student that He was before me, as He who for the sake of the change of the likeness said this word, we also speak of Him who, after the Father, in His childhood made known His change. And we think to believe the foolishness, that the change of the speaking is thought of from the day, and through Him from whom He came [and] sent Him. For He says that after the Father [He is] a man. O listen to this, blessed student! See then our living faith...

(1) Gift. Give to him!