Anf-01 ix.iv.xii Pg 36
Matt. i. 1; 18.
and also, “The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.” This, then, is the Gospel of His humanity;3457 3457 The Greek text of this clause, literally rendered, is, “This Gospel, then, is anthropomorphic.”
for which reason it is, too, that [the character of] a humble and meek man is kept up through the whole Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences with [a reference to] the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet,”—pointing to the winged aspect of the Gospel; and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character. And the Word of God Himself used to converse with the ante-Mosaic patriarchs, in accordance with His divinity and glory; but for those under the law he instituted a sacerdotal and liturgical service.3458 3458 Or, “a sacerdotal and liturgical order,” following the fragment of the Greek text recovered here. Harvey thinks that the old Latin “actum” indicates the true reading of the original πρᾶξιν, and that τάξιν is an error. The earlier editors, however, are of a contrary opinion.
