This know we: that our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ is God the Son of God, who was sent of God the Lord of the whole world, the maker and creator of it, who is named by all names, and high above all powers, Lord of lords, King of kings, Ruler of rulers, the heavenly one, that sitteth above the cherubim and seraphim at the right hand of the throne of the Father: who by his word made the heavens, and formed the earth and that which is in it, and set bounds to the sea that it should not pass: the deeps also and fountains, that they should spring forth and flow over the earth: the day and the night, the sun and the moon, did he establish, and the stars in the heaven: that did separate the light from the darkness: that called forth hell, and in the twinkling of an eye ordained the rain of the winter, the snow (cloud), the hail, and the ice, and the days in their several seasons: that maketh the earth to quake and again establisheth it: that created man in his own image, after his likeness, and by the fathers of old and the prophets is it declared (or, and spake in parables with the fathers of old and the prophets in verity), of whom the apostles preached, and whom the disciples did touch. In God, the Lord, the Son of God, do we believe, that he is the word become flesh: that of Mary the holy virgin he took a body, begotten of the Holy Ghost, not of the will (lust) of the flesh, but by the will of God: that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in Bethlehem and made manifest, and grew up and came to ripe age, when also we beheld it.
Apocrypha · Chapter 3 of 51
The Epistle of the Apostles 3
Early Epistle
Words in this chapter
What these words meant in the original — and where else they appear.
- CherubimכְּרוּבWinged beings who guard what is holy.
- Seraphimשְׂרָפִים“The burning ones” — those who blaze before the throne.
- QadoshקָדוֹשׁHoly is what has been set apart for one use only — not what is morally better.
- NaviנָבִיאA prophet is a spokesman, not a fortune teller: he speaks for another, in the present.
About The Epistle of the Apostles
An apocryphal or pseudepigraphal text — outside the canon of the Western churches, yet widely circulated among ancient Jews and Christians. Published here from a public-domain translation, edited for continuous reading.