And among us one can see both women and men possessing gifts from the Spirit of God. So it was not because He Himself lacked power that it was prophesied that the powers enumerated by Isaiah would come upon Him, but because they would no longer exist beyond Him. Let this also be a testimony to you—what I said to you had taken place at the hands of the Magi from Arabia, who, as soon as the child was born, came and worshiped Him.
For even at His birth He had His own power; and growing up in the common way of all other men, using what was suitable, He apportioned to each stage of growth what belonged to it, being nourished with all kinds of food, and remaining some thirty years, or more or even less, until John came forth as the herald of His coming and went before, advancing along the way of baptism, as I have also shown beforehand.
And then, when Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when Jesus went down into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came up from the water, the Holy Spirit flew down upon Him like a dove—so His apostles wrote, the apostles of this very Christ of ours.
And we know that He came to the river, not as though He were in need of baptism or of the Spirit that descended in the form of a dove—just as neither did He submit to being born and crucified as though in need of these—but for the sake of the human race, which from Adam had fallen under death and the deception of the serpent, each of them also having done evil by his own particular fault.
For God, wishing that both angels and men—made free in their choice and possessed of self-determination—should do whatever He had empowered each to be able to do, made them so that, if they should choose the things pleasing to Him, He would keep them incorruptible and free from punishment; but if they should do evil, He would punish each as seems good to Him.
For neither did His entering Jerusalem seated on a donkey—which, as we have shown, had been prophesied—confer on Him the power to be Christ, but it brought to men a sign that He is the Christ; just as in the case of John, too, there had to be a sign for men, so that they might recognize who is the Christ.
For when John was sitting by the Jordan and proclaiming a baptism of repentance, wearing only a leather girdle and a garment of camel's hair and eating nothing except locusts and wild honey, men supposed that he was the Christ; to whom he himself also cried out: 'I am not the Christ, but a voice of one crying; for there shall come one mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to bear.'
And when Jesus came to the Jordan—being supposed to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, and appearing without comeliness, as the Scriptures had proclaimed, and being thought a carpenter (for these carpenter's works He used to make while among men: plows and yokes, teaching through these the symbols of righteousness and an active life)—then the Holy Spirit, for the sake of men, as I said before, flew down upon Him in the form of a dove, and at the same time a voice came from the heavens, which had also been spoken through David, as though He were speaking in His own person what was to be said to Him by the Father: 'You are My Son; this day have I begotten You'—saying that His generation was then taking place for men, from the time when knowledge of Him was about to come into being.