Tripartite Tractate 23

1The prophets, however, spoke nothing by their own will. Instead, each of them spoke about the things he saw and heard concerning the proclamation of the Savior. What he proclaimed—and the central theme of their proclamation—was what each one said about the coming of the Savior: that it would arrive. At times the prophets speak about it as though he has yet to be born, while at other times it is as though the Savior speaks through their mouths, saying that the Savior will arrive and show favor to those who did not know him. Accordingly, they did not all say everything in the same way. Rather, through the power given to each one to speak about him and about the place he saw, each thought that the Savior would be born from that place and would come from there. Accordingly, none of them knew where he would come from or who would beget him. They were worthy to speak only of this: that he would be born and would suffer. As for his pre-existence and his eternal existence as unbegotten, incapable of suffering <…> not from the Word, who came into being in flesh, [] it never entered their thoughts.

2And this is the message they were inspired to deliver concerning his flesh that would appear. It is said that his birth was like the birth of all of them, but that, above all else, it was from the spiritual Word, the cause of the things that have come into being. The one from whom the Savior received his flesh did indeed beget him in the form of a seed, at the revelation of the light, in agreement with the promised word of his revelation, <being> indeed the state of <a> seed of <what was>, though begotten last. However, the one whom the Father ordained to manifest salvation through him, who is the fulfillment of the promise, when he descended into life, he was given every means necessary for his descent. His Father is one, the only one who is truly a father to him: the unseen and unknowable one, ungraspable by nature, who alone is God and who, by his will and his gift, has granted that he could be seen, known, and grasped.