The Letters of Nerses the Gracious

what they received in their creation from the Creator.

It would have been the same for the nature of the corporeal if we had remained in the commandment of the one who first established us. But because we sinned by transgression of the commandment, and died because of our sins, and through that death lost our eternal glory, and being exiled from our ancestral inheritance, we fell into this world of sorrow and were condemned by curses; for that reason, everything became invalid and changeable, both the order of divine works and the authority of this material world. And because this is so, nature provided through wisdom—or rather, it was given from above—so that by changing one another, the immortal and the mortal could hold their work and authority. According to this, the prophets replaced the patriarchs, and the ranks of the apostles and evangelists replaced the prophets,

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