St. Epiphanius of Salamis ca. 315-403
Anyone who is willing to make an impartial investigation can see, from the very object of it, that the Holy Catholic Church is the beginning of everything. Adam, the man who was formed at the first, was not formed with a body circumcised, but uncircumcised. He was no idolater, and he knew the Father as God, and the Son and Holy Spirit, for he was a prophet.
Without circumcision he was no Jew and since he did not worship carved images or anything else, he was no idolater. For Adam was a prophet, and knew that the Father had said, “Let us make man,”to the Son. What was he, then, since he was neither circumcised nor an idolater—except that he exhibited the character of Christianity?
And we must take this to be the case of Abel, Seth, Enosh, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah and Eber, down to Abraham. (Panarion 2.4-6)
