Cosmas Indicopleustes

God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, thus distributing the word into portions and manners, into the prophets and His Son. By portions, he means the difference of the places in which God appeared and spake to the men of old through the prophets, and by manners, the diversity of the visions themselves, which He, when seen at one time and another in cases of immediate necessity, exhibited either in person or through the Prophets, having a desire to signify this, that God in every way, both by real things and by visions, did not neglect to instruct rational beings in the knowledge of Himself, placing it before them at one time through the prophets, and now through His own Son.