There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
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Hippolytus of Rome
AD 235
There be three things which I cannot understand, and the fourth I know not: the tracks of an eagle flying,” i.e., Christ’s ascension; “and the ways of a serpent upon a rock,” i.e., that the devil did not find a trace of sin in the body of Christ; “and the ways of a ship crossing the sea,” i.e., the ways of the Church, which is in this life as in a sea, and which is directed by her hope in Christ through the cross; “and the ways of a man in youth,”([The Authorized Version reads very differently; but our author follows the Sept., with which agrees the Vulgate.])—the ways of Him, namely, who is born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin. For behold, says the Scripture, a man whose name is the Rising.(The reference probably is to Zech. vi. 12, where the word is rendered “Branch.” The word in the text is ἀνατολή)
“There be three things which I cannot understand, and the fourth I know not: the tracks of an eagle flying,” i.e., Christ’s ascension; “and the ways of a serpent upon a rock,” i.e., that the devil did not find a trace of sin in the body of Christ; “and the ways of a ship crossing the sea,” i.e., the ways of the Church, which is in this life as in a sea, and which is directed by her hope in Christ through the cross; “and the ways of a man in youth,”1249—the ways of Him, namely, who is born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin. For behold, says the Scripture, a man whose name is the Rising.1250
“Such is the way of an adulterous woman, who, when she has done the deed of sin, wipeth herself, and will say that no wickedness has been done.” Such is the conduct of the Church that believes on Christ, when, after committing fornication with idols, she renounces these and the devil, and is cleansed of her sins and receives forgiveness, and then asserts that she has done no wickedness.
“By three ...
