On Ecclesiastical Theology

VI. How the Church of God believes. VII. That those who dissent from the Church have erred in more than one way and manner from the theology concerning the Son of God. VIII. The presentation of sound and ecclesiastical orthodoxy. IX. That the Son did not subsist in the same manner as the many creatures. X. That since He alone was begotten of the Father, it is rightly said that He alone is both God and the only-begotten Son. XI. How the Church acknowledges one God, even though it has lately accepted the form "God from God." XII. That His generation from the Father is ineffable. XIII. That the advent and presidency of the Son of God was necessary and salutary for all. XIV. That the Church rightly cast out Marcellus, who held the same opinion as Sabellius. XV. With what words Marcellus attacked Sabellius, while pretending not to think the same things as he. XVI. How he is caught by his own words, holding the same opinion as Sabellius. XVII. How he openly denied the hypostasis of the Son. XVIII. How he claimed that before the assumption of man, the Son was nothing other than the Word, similar in all respects to that which is used among men. XIX. How the divine Scriptures call the Son of God not only "Word," but by six hundred other names, even before He was incarnate. XX. Demonstrations proposed from the sacred Scriptures, explained and comprised in thirty chapters in all.

PROOEMIUM

^A ...to be his refutation, so that in this way it may be clear to everyone that, in the matter of his denying the Son of God, he did not bring forward a single piece of evidence from the Holy Scriptures that was relevant to the matter in that very long work of his. Indeed, let them know that whatever he brought forward from the Scriptures gave voice to the very opposite, and that by twisting back toward a right sense and meaning those things which were spoken by him impiously, I have set them aright. Furthermore, I am about to join to these things arguments concerning the divinity of our Savior: I shall not be setting forth anything newly invented by me myself, or born in my own house, or proceeding from the opinion of any wisdom of my own; but I shall be carrying before me the doctrine of the Church of God, incorrupt, which, having received it from the ear-witnesses and eye-witnesses of the Word from the beginning, she still guards inviolate.

CAP. I.

But before I gird myself to examine these things, since in the context of his work I observed Sabellius being mauled by him, I marveled at the folly of the man, in that he spared him in no way, but attacked with abuse him whom he ought to have pursued with praises above all others, inasmuch as he was a follower of his own dogma, and of the same opinion as himself. I decided, therefore, not to pass over his words in silence, but as a kind of addition, to add to this work a refutation of him. For since he accuses the ministers of God—although that matter tends rather to his own ignominy, while it brings greater praise and reputation to those who are alien to his communion—it does not, however, lack pardon and excuse: it is not absurd, since he thinks that the things which he does not approve of at all should be censured by himself. But that he should wish to maul him badly, in the hope that he would escape notice—he who fosters the exact same impious opinion with him—this seems to be of an intolerable impudence and a most shameless face, and not without cause.

^C That matters are in this state is evident, nor am I falsely tearing him apart with calumnies, in that he names God as Son-Father, after the opinion of Sabellius. I acknowledge, certainly, that he does not do this explicitly and in so many words; but he uses such things as directly destroy the hypostasis of the Son: they establish one God only, and that he is his own generator, and finally his own Son also. For given and granted that the Word is in God, and that it exists as one and the same with him, he teaches that he is to be called the Father of this: and that the Word is also his Son—not a Son existing in the subsistence of a substance, but indeed properly and according to truth, yet existing as the Word. He wishes, therefore, for the Word ^D to be understood as being that, not catachrestically, but most truly and most properly the Word, and that besides the Word, there is nothing.

^A Indeed, it is most clear that the Church of God has not reckoned Him among the godless heretics.

CAP. II. That through the grace of Christ an excellent knowledge concerning the Father and the Son has been bestowed upon the Church.

The nation of the Jews, the leaders of all others, received the knowledge and confession of one God, against the heathen errors of a multitude of gods. But that saving grace has communicated to the Church, as a sort of excellent prerogative, the profession of that same God as Father of the only-begotten Son. The Church, however, acknowledges none other than Jesus Christ alone as that Son. And it does not acknowledge Him according to the generation of the flesh which He assumed (for it has been taught to call this the form of a servant and the Son of man), but according to that divinity ^B which He possessed from the Father and that same God before all ages, unknown to all. According to this generation, it constitutes this same Son as God, holding the fullness of the paternal divinity; not possessed by Himself or separated from the Father, nor yet having that divinity as something without beginning and unbegotten, much less as something foreign, derived from elsewhere, alien, or separate from the Father, but propagated with fullness from the paternal participation, as if poured forth into Him from an unfailing wellspring. For the great Apostle taught that in Him alone dwells the fullness of the ^C paternal divinity. For this reason, one only God is preached in the Church, and there is no other besides Him; and there is likewise one only-begotten Son of God, the image of the paternal divinity, and for this reason, God.

CAP. III. That those who are entangled in various errors have wandered in their thinking concerning the Son, holding opinions different from the Church.

Many, indeed, not being able to understand this manner of theology, have devised various paths of error for themselves. Some, while conceding that the Son is God, deny the man whom He assumed. Others, professing Him to be mere man, have ignored the God ^D within Him. A third group, for fear of introducing a second God, opine that the Father and the Son are one and the same. While the Church of God avoids these ways, it glories in the evangelical proclamation of the truth. It boasts that it confesses one God, who is above all; it acknowledges one only-begotten Son of His, Jesus Christ, God from God; and it confesses the same to be the Savior and the Son of man. He, even when He had not yet been made man, was already subsisting as the Son of God. He was made what He was not before, on account of the ineffable transcendence of the Father's mercy toward mankind.

^A

CHAP. IV. That they call themselves Christians in vain, who do not confess that the Son of God subsists.

This indeed is the truth, proclaimed by the preaching of the Church. But as for those who deny the Son of God, while claiming that He is God—and nothing else—why do they annoy the Church in vain, when they ought rather to join the synagogues of the Jews? And why do they pierce themselves with blasphemous words, slandering the one God with double accusations, if they maintain that the Father and the Son are one and the same? For whose father would he be, if no son were subsisting? And whose son will he be, if the one who begat him does not pre-exist? Since he is one, he must necessarily be the very one who was incarnate and suffered and lived the mortal life among men.

CHAP. V. How Marcellus denied the Son of God, following the sect and purpose of Sabellius.

Indeed, the Church of God cast Sabellius far away when he maintained these things, as a man devoid of God and impiously audacious. But Marcellus attempts to renew these things, using a pretense of a discourse that is not altogether plausible. For rightly defining one God, he says that this God has His Word united and joined to Himself within Him; then, out of the one God, he calls one part Father and another Son, as if there were a certain double and composite substance in one and the very same being. And how much better in the choice of evils is he who does not divide the unoriginate and unbegotten and divine power, ^C but confesses that it is the same through the naked Word? And how much better than both is the Jew, who does not divide the one God into Father and Son, as Marcellus does, nor introduce the same Being as Son-Father, according to Sabellius? Rather, while he worships God, he acknowledges and expects His Christ who was proclaimed through the prophets; and because they did not receive Him when He came, they have suffered and shall continue to suffer the penalty for their disbelief in Him.

CHAP. VI. How the Church of God believes.

But those who desire to believe in Him who has come will clearly confess these three things: He was born of the seed of David and of that same most holy Virgin; and the Son of God, who pre-existed and was essentially of the Godhead, inhabited Him and dwelt in Him bodily.

^A And He unceasingly confesses the Father of this One, God, by whom He Himself was sent. For us, therefore, there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, according to the Apostle; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, the pre-existing Only-begotten Son of God; and third, the Son of man according to the flesh, whom the Son of God has taken unto Himself for our sake. But neither is the body which He took the same as the Son of God who took it, nor could the Son of God Himself be thought to be one and the same as He who begat Him. Since these three are thus subjects, those who grant two but cast the third aside would be cast out from the Church.

CHAP. VII.

Certain atheistic heretics, in denying the flesh of the Saviour and saying that He appeared on earth only in the opinion of a phantasm, were the first to fall from the goal of the truth in this matter. But others have admitted the dispensation in the flesh, yet by denying the pre-existence of the Son of God, they have invented for themselves various paths of error, as I have said. There are those who consider Him a mere man, no better in nature than the common run of men, except as regards the prerogatives of virtue. And others, in declaring that God over all inhabited the very body of the Saviour, and in asserting that He became His own Son ^C on account of that dispensation which He underwent as a man—since they concede two, God and man—have excluded themselves from the third, by denying the Saviour Himself to be the only-begotten Son of God. Sabellius of old used to hold this opinion, and Marcellus has now arrived at it. For they, no differently than the unbelieving Jews, profess that they know God who is over all, and they urge this vehemently. In the second place, they also acknowledge the flesh that was taken from the most holy Virgin. Yet as to the third—which is the primary head of our salvation—the Son of God, they have pushed Him aside; and being at once light and truth, by the denial of the Son, they have fallen from the light of the truth. Hence one may hear them confessing one God and venerating the flesh taken by the Saviour, but while they acknowledge the Son of God who dwelt in this flesh in voice and with their lips, in reality they ^D utterly deny Him. For we must seek the Son of God as One who truly lives and subsists, not the same as the body which He took, nor the same as God and Father. For he could not be considered pious who declares the Son to be that God who is over all. For whose son could He be, who is clothed in an unoriginate and unbegotten deity? Nor, if anyone teaches that the only-begotten Son of God is the same as the Father, will he be able to escape the judgment that is established against those who speak blasphemy.

CAP. VIII. The orthodox and salutary faith of the Church is proposed.

^A Therefore, walking the royal and straight path, the Church of God rejects all manner of detours, and commends to its own disciples the knowledge of divine grace; while in the very sacrament of regeneration it teaches them to confess and to believe in one God, the Father Almighty, bringing forward this theology to be believed, perfect in its own measures, exact and finished on all sides—by which God is handed down as one, warding off the error of the pagans concerning many gods; and by which he is known as Father, separating him from the teaching of the Jews; and by which he is confessed as Almighty, turning away from the impiety of the atheistic heretics. For not one ^B of the heretics could say that the Father of Christ is the very God who is Almighty, just as no one among the Jews could confess God to be the Father, if he does not know the only-begotten Son; nor indeed would a Greek say that he knows one only God. By all these things, clearing away error, the Church proclaims one God, teaching him to be both Father and Almighty: Father of Christ alone, but God, Creator, and Lord of all the rest.

Thus also it hands down the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was begotten of the Father before all ages; not being the same as the Father, but existing in himself and living, and truly existing as Son, God from God, and light from light, and life from life; ^C begotten of the Father for the salvation of all in ways ineffable and unspeakable, and to us altogether unknown and incomprehensible; and not having come into existence similarly to other created things, nor living as a life comparable to those who were begotten through him, but brought forth from the Father alone, and being life itself. For it was fitting for God, who is over all, before every created thing and before all ages, to bring forth this only-begotten offspring, like a certain foundation and unshakable base for the things that were to come into being through him. Therefore, he begat the Son before all things that were to come, as a ray of a certain light, and a fountain of life, and a treasury of good things, «in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,» ^D according to the divine Apostle. Of such great goods, the only good Father brought forth his Son, being life itself, the life-giver of all, and the true self-light, and the illuminator of all intellectual and rational substance; and the self-Word, and Wisdom, setting forth all things and existing and administering them rationally. For this reason, the only-begotten Son of God is acknowledged, and is, he alone and no other.

CHAPTER IX. That the Son does not subsist in the same manner as the rest of created things.

And for this reason those are not undeservedly to be rebuked who have dared to call him a creature, and to say that he was produced ^A from non-being, in the same way as other creatures are produced. For how, I ask, can he in this way be the Son? Or how can he be the only-begotten of God, if he has obtained the same nature as the rest of created things? For by this account he would sooner be their brother than the Son of God; and he would be one of the many generated things, ^B since he would have acquired a share in the communion of that creation which is from non-being, just like them. But the divine oracles do not teach us thus concerning him; but when the instruction concerning the existence of generated things is called for, it testifies that all things came to be through him in one breath: "For all things," it says, "were made through him, and without him was not one thing made"; and, "In him were created all things that are ^C in heaven and that are on the earth, whether visible or invisible, and all things through him and for him were created, and he is before all things"; and, "All things consist in him," according to the apostolic teachings. But when it introduces the theology concerning him, it separates him from the totality of all other things, and acknowledges him as the Lord and Master, and the Creator and God and Savior of all, and declares him alone, and no other, to be the only-begotten Son of God. It calls him alone Wisdom and Word and Life and Light, and the image of the invisible God and the reflection of eternal light, and teaches us to think of countless other names akin to these concerning him, by all of which it demonstrates the peculiar and proper relation of the paternal deity to look toward him alone, as toward an only-begotten Son. Hence it came to pass that the Father gave him [this] title with a great voice, in his heavenly proclamation at the streams of the Jordan, testifying that he alone was his beloved, where he says: ^D "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And he repeated this selfsame testimony a second time, when he was transfigured on the mountain, confirming the same word. Therefore, because the God of all himself bestowed this testimony upon him, and because the evangelist plainly teaches him to be the only-begotten Son through what he said: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son," or "the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Fa

ther, he hath declared him." ^A Furthermore, when the Savior himself, in his teaching, confirms this, where he speaks in this way: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should have life eternal." Whoever, therefore, [×] after these testimonies, maintains that he who was begotten is a creature from non-existent things, and produced from nothing, is found to be bestowing the name upon him in name only, but in reality denying that he is the Son. For he who is generated from non-existent things cannot truly be the Son of God, any more than anything else that is created.

CH. X. That because he is the only one begotten of the Father, he is deservedly called both God and the only-begotten Son alone.

He who is according to the truth the Son of God, begotten of the Father—what wonder is it if he should also be called the Beloved and the Only-begotten of his Father, and for that very reason also be God? For what else could be begotten of God, but that which is in all respects most similar to him? A king, indeed, founds a city, but he does not beget a city; whereas to beget a son, and not to found, is what is said. ^B And an artisan, a builder, might perhaps be the maker of someone or something being fashioned by him, but he could not be a father; nor could he be called the maker of a son who has sprung from him. And in the same way, the God of all is the Father of his Son, while he is deservedly called the Creator and Maker of the world. But if at any time one finds it said in the Scriptures, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works," it is necessary to examine the meaning of the word, which I shall explain a little later; but one must not, according to Marcellus, seek to unsettle the chief dogma of the Church on account of a single expression. For he, having once heard that the Son is the Word, fell into human reasoning and denied his very subsistence. ^C How then is it holy to compare him—who is testified to by himself and by the Father as being the Son—with the rest of created things? And how shall he be the Only-begotten, if he is numbered among the multitude of things that have been created? And yet, from the very title, the Son indicates the natural relationship to the Father; just as, conversely, the name "only-begotten" pertains to his lineage, and to his generation, and to the fact that he is alone, and that no one else shares in his sonship. ^D But these men seem to have suffered the same distress as Marcellus. For he, out of fear of saying there are two Gods, put forward the denial of the Son, doing away with his hypostasis; while they, granting two hypostases, though they posit one God—one the unbegotten, the other created out of non-existent things—still do not accept the Son, nor the Only-begotten. [×] But these very same people seem to be affected in exactly the same way as Marcellus.

^A For fear, you see, lest he might appear to proclaim two Gods, he proceeded to the denial of the Son, by rejecting His very hypostasis. Yet although they concede two hypostases—the one unbegotten, and the other created from non-existent things—they indeed posit one single God. But in the meantime, no Son is numbered among them, neither an Only-begotten, nor a Lord, nor a God; for according to them, He has nothing in common with the Father's divinity, but is instead compounded in all respects with the multitude of creatures in that He was procreated from nothing. But the Church does not hold such a view. For she proclaims the Son of God as God and Lord, and teaches that He is truly Son and God—not in the common way of many who are called sons and gods by title, of whom it is said: "I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High," but rather as it was fitting He alone should be called, who was procreated of that Father, who existed in the form of God, and was the image of the invisible God, and the Firstborn of every creature. Wherefore we have been taught by the Church to worship, venerate, and adore Him alone, inasmuch as He exists as her Lord, Savior, and God.

CHAP. XI.

That the Church acknowledges one and known God, although she lately admits that form, God from God.

^B But if, moreover, they fear lest they appear to announce two Gods, they ought to know that, however much we may profess the Son to be God, there is yet, by our account, but one God: that One, namely, who alone is without beginning, who is unbegotten, who possesses a divinity proper to Himself, and who, further, gave to the Son Himself the cause of existence, and of existing in such a manner. Through whom, indeed, the Son Himself confesses that He lives, where He says: "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father" (John vi, 57). And "as the Father has life in Himself, so He has also given to the Son to have life in Himself" (John v, 26). ^C For this reason, He teaches that the Father is our God and His own God, where He speaks: "I go to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God" (John xx, 17). And the great Apostle teaches the Church, the pupil of Christ, that God is the head of the Son Himself, when he says: "The head of Christ is God" (I Cor. xi, 3). Now again, speaking of the Son: "And He gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body" (Ephes. i, 22, 23). Therefore, He would be the leader of the Church, but the Father is His head; this is one God, the Father of the only-begotten Son, and there is one head of this same Christ. ^D Since there is one source and one head, how could there be two Gods, and not rather that One alone, who acknowledges no one superior, nor claims anyone else as the cause of His existence? He who, as His own peculiar possession, possesses the unprincipled and unbegotten divinity of the monarchy, and has imparted His own divinity and life to the Son, while He Himself...

^A holding that supreme monarchical power, made the Son a participant in His own life and divinity; He subjected all His own things to Him; when He sent Him, He gave Him commands, He taught Him, He bestowed all things upon Him, He glorified Him, He exalted Him, He declared Him King of all, He delivered all judgment to Him; He wished us to obey Him, and He commanded Him to take His seat at the right hand of His magnificence, addressing Him thus: "Sit at my right hand." And because of these things, and all of them, the Son of God Himself exists as God, whom the Only-begotten obeys, and for whose sake He emptied Himself, humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death. ^B Him He invokes with prayers; Him He obeys; to Him He gives thanks; Him He teaches us to believe is the only true God; whom He declares to be greater than Himself, and whom He willed all of us, each and every one, to know as his own God above all. And the Father, in turn, glorified Him who thus glorified His own Father, and openly declared Him to be Lord, Savior, and God of all, and a partner in His own kingdom. Having been taught these things by God, the Church of God acknowledges Him as God, Lord, and Savior, and as the Only-begotten Son of the Most High God, and, so far from departing from Him, she does not confess any other to be God among creatures. For she knows only Him whom the Father alone begat from Himself. Just as He Himself also indicates through Solomon, saying: "Before the mountains were established, before all the hills, He begets me," ^C where by "mountains and hills" He intended to signify the divine and supermundane powers.

CAP. XII. That the generation of Him from the Father is ineffable.

But if anyone should be curious here, and should inquire how God could beget, and how He who is above all things can be Father—let the one who says the following silence the boldness of such a question: "Seek not things deeper than you, and do not examine things higher than you; think upon those things which have been commanded you; for you have no need of hidden things." And Paul likewise says: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments! and His ways past finding out!" ^D And let him who is attempting to go further be restrained, at least, by the daring nature of such a crime; let him be persuaded, if he is to attempt such inaccessible things, to explain first—if he is so bold—how those things which he says were made from non-being, came to exist and in what manner, not being previously in any way or at any time. For He did not, like the craftsmen among us, take pre-existing matter into His hands and fashion the universe from it. But as this was impossible to nature, so far as humans are concerned—I mean the bringing of that which in no way existed out of what is not into being—to Him it was possible, and He became the creator of all things, not

within the human mode of operation, but by ineffable and ^A unspeakable words. Thus, and even much more so, the generation of His Only-Begotten would be unsearchable and untraceable, not only to us, as one might say, but even to all powers superior to us. For how could those things which are far beneath Him in nature, and which are situated low down and at a vast distance from that ineffable and divine essence, attain to the comprehension that is beyond and above all things? And how could anyone have knowledge of things which did not exist before, but were brought into being out of non-existence by Him who brought them forth—the One who became the cause of their existence—prior to their generation?

Shall we, who were fashioned only yesterday, clothed in skin and flesh, knit together with bones and sinews, and who do not even know the things that are close at hand, undertake a dangerous inquiry into what is ineffable, ^B investigating how the Father begat the Son? That countless things, even those right before our feet, escape our knowledge is clear from the following: for who could explain how the soul is fettered to the body, how it departs, or how it was initially inserted? What is its form, its shape, its figure, its essence? I have not yet even troubled myself to investigate the nature of demons, nor have I explained the substances of the angels, nor how the principalities, thrones, and dominations subsist, nor anything about the powers and world-rulers. If we are at a loss regarding all these, why must we investigate knowledge concerning the unbegotten and ingenerate divinity? Why ask about things that are unreachable? How did God become the Father of the Only-Begotten Son? As if the Father's voice were not sufficient to bring our testimony to the Beloved, ^C when He proclaimed, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." If, therefore, He commands us to hear Him, let us, in obedience to this royal command, hear the beloved Son. And what He wished us to understand about Himself, He Himself will teach us, where He says: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." We must believe in Him, so that we may attain eternal life. For "he that believeth in Him," He says, "hath everlasting life," not he who knows how He was begotten of the Father. For no one would possess eternal life if this were the case, since it is said: "No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor does anyone know ^D the Son but the Father alone who begat Him."

Faith, therefore, is sufficient for us for salvation—faith which provides that we know God the Father Almighty, and acknowledge His Only-Begotten Son as Savior. He, among other things, taught us this as well, saying: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; and God is Spirit." From this it follows that one must think that that which is born of God would also be God. And as much as the God who is above all is estranged and separated from base flesh by nature,

^A in the same degree one must conceive that the mode of generation by which the Father begot the Son is also estranged from the generation of flesh. For He did not bring Him into existence by sending forth anything, nor by undergoing change, nor by being moved passionately, nor, in short, by submitting to any of the things known to us. For there was no body for the Father, so that one could impute to Him an efflux [(46)] or diminution, or expansion, or transmutation, or change, or flux, or parts, or passion. Rather, apart from all these things, in a manner ineffable and beyond our reckoning to us—or rather, unsearchable and untraceable for every generated nature—He brought about the generation. The sun, then, indeed generates its ray, and the Son is said to be the radiance of eternal light and the radiance of glory; yet not according to the sensory image of light (for He is beyond every example), but ^B by ineffable and incomprehensible words He brought Him into existence, as One and Only-Begotten. But as for impious and godless men, who are diseased with the error of polytheism, let every mouth be stopped, they who cast the singular and peculiar generation of the Only-Begotten Son into a multitude, and have called Him the Father of men and of gods, at once mixing men with gods, and at the same time introducing the same being as Father to them. Nay, not even by demonic operation did they utter this impious and godless word, that gods are of the same nature and subject to the same passions as the mortal, passionate, and sinful race of men, and by positing God as the common Father of these, they liken Him who is completely ^C similar to the children; whereas the ecclesiastical herald proclaims one Only-Begotten Son of one God to all, whom He brought forth for the salvation and providence of all generated things.

CAP. XIII. That the advent of the Son was salutary and necessary for all.

Since the nature of created things, because it has acquired a manifold difference—in bodies and incorporeal essences, in those possessed of soul and those without, in rational and irrational, in mortal and immortal—was ^D not able in any way to participate in the splendors of the divinity of the God who is over all and through all, by reason of that excessive deficiency of its own, by which it is removed from that most sublime nature; whence, by a great, nay, a very long [distance], would it have slid away, [(47)] had it not met with the Savior God as a helper; naturally, the paternal philanthropy...

and not without cause, established its own only-begotten Son over all things, as one who passes through all things and presides over all things, and lavishes the gifts from Himself. ^A For the Father who begat Him designated Him alone as the pastor and Savior of all things at once—of those in heaven and those on earth—[as well as] guardian and protector, physician and helmsman, having committed the rudders of the constitution and administration of the whole to Him alone. He Himself teaches [this], saying: "All things have been delivered unto me by my Father." And again: "For the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." And He, as a wise helmsman, having received that lot from the Father, being set over the whole world, and looking ever toward His own Father, leads and carries, steering the whole, overlooking none, not even the smallest of those needing the distribution from Him, nor despising the most trifling things. ^B Therefore, indeed, since He is present to each, He apportions to all things what is appropriate, providing, in the manner of a physician, the things pertaining to salvation for the care of the whole. Whence, with good reason, He did not disdain the human life, but even in the past, long before, He provided His own assistance to those God-beloved men of the ages, here appearing in human form to the patriarchs of the Hebrews, here prescribing laws appropriate to their descendants, and already, even to those who came after, through the prophets, He was issuing oracles of His future theophany that was about to shine forth to all men. And as the time for these things approached, He fulfilled the outcomes of ancient oracles with deeds, and already He was present at the end, mingling with mortal life. ^C He Himself was the only-begotten Son of God, as in a divine statue, in the instrument of the body, conversing with the race of men through the instructions and healings of divine wisdom, through ineffable teachings—with the exceedingly great philanthropy of the paternal will, so that He might also draw those here to the life with Him, having deemed them worthy of His own grace. Thus God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; and He underwent the incarnate economy, already existing before it, and pre-existing, honored with the divinity of the paternal glory, not thinking it a robbery to be equal to God, but emptying Himself, and taking the form of a servant, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the Father ^D unto death, so that, just as death reigned over the entire race of man through one who sinned, so also the eternal life through His grace [of those] who believe in Him, and through Him are known to His God and Father, might reign.

CAP. XIV. That the Church did not unworthily cast out Marcellus, who harbored the same opinion as Sabellius.

^A The Church, preaching these things with good reason, cast out Sabellius, as if he were counterfeit money, for his denial of the Son of God, even though he professed to know one God and held that there was none but Him, speaking in this way similarly to Marcellus. And the first heralds of our Savior also called them "Ebionites" in the Hebrew tongue, ^B calling them "poor" in mind, because they claimed to know one God and did not deny the body of the Savior, but did not know the divinity of the Son. And the ecclesiastical Fathers also declared Paul of Samosata to be an alien to the Church of God, even though he taught that Jesus is the Christ of God and likewise confessed, as Marcellus did, one God over all, because he did not confess that Christ was the Son of God and God before his incarnate birth. But he, as one impious toward Christ, was driven far from the Church. Sabellius, moreover, ^C as one impious against the Father himself, whom he dared to call the Son, suffered the same punishment as the sacrilegious heretics. Marcellus, fearing that he might be punished with the same penalty as him, discovered a new device for his heresy to impede it: he determined that God and the Word in God were one, but applied the dual nomenclature of Father and Son to Him. Yet he did not lie hidden, nor, even though he was caught late, could he escape his own nets. But indeed, before he was detected, his own conscience stinging him, in order to clear himself of every suspicion, he broke out into accusing Sabellius.

CAP. XV. With what words Marcellus strikes down Sabellius, pretending not to hold the same views as he.

Hear also in what words he accuses Sabellius, in which he calls him by name. For these are the very things he writes: ^D "For Sabellius himself, having deviated from the right faith, neither knew God accurately, nor his most holy Word. For he who did not know the Word was ignorant also of the Father. For no one, he says, knows the Father except the Son, that is, the Word, who of Himself provides the knowledge of the Father. For in this way also [he writes this] to those who imagined at that time that the Jews knew God..."

while yet repudiating the Word of God, through whom alone He was known. For He says: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." For since it would have been impossible in any other way to know God, God imparted the knowledge of Himself to men through His own Word, so that it is most certain that he [Marcellus] erred, since he understood neither the Father nor His Son accurately. Marcellus wrote these very things, while wishing to clear himself of every suspicion of Sabellianism: but only with his tongue and as far as mere words go. For as to his intention of mind, and in confederacy with that man, he is found to be pierced by the same shafts as he, so that for my part, I could wish that he had not fallen into such mention: for he seems to have progressed further in impiety. For the latter [Sabellius], perhaps, erred through ignorance; but the former, while confessing that man to have erred, and yet thrusting himself into the same manifest precipice of impiety, has rendered himself utterly unworthy of any indulgence. But let us examine his own words.

CHAPTER XVI. How Marcellus is detected from his own words in favoring the very same opinion as Sabellius.

In the first place, he lays it down that neither Sabellius nor the Jews knew God, for the reason that they were ignorant of the Word. But what he understood by "the Word" is a matter we must examine. For if he meant the only-begotten Son of God—existing as a living being—he himself did not know Him either. And since our Savior ^C mentioned the Son in various ways, and often called Himself the only-begotten Son, and never called Himself "the Word," but throughout the Gospels taught that He is the Son of God—on account of which He also calls Peter blessed for having said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and testified that the knowledge of this had come to him by revelation from the Father, saying, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven"—this admirable man, having stopped his ears, writes these words in plain terms: "And for this very reason He nowhere calls Himself the Son of God, but everywhere calls Himself the Son of man, so that by this confession of his, he might make it known that he who was in truth the Son of man, on account of that communion, was constituted the Son of God." ^D You see, then, how he does not dare to profess Himself the Son of God, lest he should fall away from that Sabellian dogma. But he calls Him the Son of man, on account of the flesh which He assumed. And he calls Him "Word" throughout his entire treatise, repeatedly pointing out that the Word was nothing else. And in the very places where he finds fault with Sabellius, he brings forward...

the Savior's words, by which He said: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." ^A And as if correcting these, instead of "Son" he again names the Word, saying thus: "For no one knows, he says, the Father except the Son, that is to say the Word," and he adds: "For the Word by itself provides knowledge of the Father," and he adds: "It was impossible otherwise to know God, except through His own Word." And again, instead of "Son," he puts "Word," and calls Him His holy Word. Thus, in such very brief words, he has mentioned the "Word" many times, but not even once the "Son." Indeed, he even alters the very utterance of the Savior, introducing "that is to say the Word" in place of "the Son," although the designation of "Son" is much more fitting to the Father's appellation than that of "Word." Hence, the Savior quite aptly applied the relationship of the Son to that of the Father; but he [Marcellus], having ^B refused to speak of the Son, babbles of the Word up and down, and condemns Sabellius for denying the Son, but by doing the same thing as he, he fashions himself thus, thinking to avoid the suspicion of heresy through his calumny against him. Therefore, if he finds fault with Sabellius for denying the Son of God, he ought to have found fault with himself first; but if he found fault, as he did, because Sabellius was ignorant of the Word, he did not rightly blame him for this. For neither Sabellius, nor even the Jews themselves who deny Christ the Son of God, could be said to be ignorant of this—which Marcellus says is the Word within God, through whom He spoke to Moses and the prophets—but this [Word] everyone, not only Jews but also Gentiles, would say they know accurately. For who would not confess that God is rational, as He is also wise, ^C and good, and powerful? Sabellius certainly would not deny that he knew this, but he does not confess that there is also a Son of God, living and subsistent, who exists and pre-exists before the flesh. On account of this concert with Marcellus, he was likewise cut off from the Church of God. And how Marcellus thought the same things as Sabellius would be clear from the fact that he distinguished God and His Word as being one and the same, as he once stated in these very words.

CHAP. XVII.

"For if the examination of the Spirit were to be made alone, the Word would naturally appear to be one and the same as God; but by comparing the Word of God with the human word, and adding, 'It is one and the same with the human word that is within him [the man], the Word in no way separated from another except by the sole...

of the mere efficacy of the operation. Therefore, at one time he asserted that before the constitution of the world, nothing existed other than God, and again in these same terms he said, "As the world had not yet been made, there was nothing else but God alone"; at another time, he compared the divine Word to our own expressive language, in those places where he wrote: "Just as all things that have been made were made by the Father through the Word, so also those things which are spoken by the Father are signified through the Word." And indeed, having called Him in these places an expressive Word, proceeding henceforth, he represents Him as inseparable in subsistence, and as one and the same with the Father, saying thus: "I think this is easy ^B for those who think correctly to understand from a certain small and lowly example among ourselves. For neither is it possible for anyone to separate human language from a man in power and subsistence. For language is one and the same with man, and is not separated by anything else, but only by the efficacy of the operation." And again he uses the same image where he says: "For all things that the Father says, He appears to say everywhere through the Word. And this is evident from ourselves, as much as small things can be compared to great and divine ones. For we also, all things that we wish to say and do, according to our ability, we do through our own word." It is proper to consider these words as coming no more from Marcellus than from Sabellius, unless perhaps Marcellus wished to ridicule Sabellius, because he did not dare, as he himself dared, to name that expressive Word of God, which he deems to be only such, the Son of God. For there could not have been in him ^C such a folly of reasoning, as to attribute a word, similar to the word of men, to the God over all. Nor was he so foolish as to call a word which has no subsistence the Son of God. Therefore, Sabellius, having said there is one God, and having denied the Son, consistently with the hypothesis given to him, claimed that the Father and the Son are the same. But Marcellus, similarly granting to him that God and the word within Him are one and the same, argues in vain that Sabellius has erred, without confessing that he himself has also erred.

PROOFS FROM THE DE ECCLESIASTICA THEOLOGIA

existed ^A there save God alone; and he strives with the whole of his writing to establish this very thing, to the end that he may cut off from the Son every avenue to subsistence. But he also boasts vehemently that he acknowledges one God alone: as if we did not confess this with him, who have nevertheless accepted that [the Son] is truly the Son of God, and have been taught by the Son himself to acknowledge one God, and [to know] that he himself is God, and at once the Father of the only-begotten Son—that is to say, of himself—who has thus taught us, who truly existed as Son before all ages, begotten of that Father, whom we are accustomed to call not only "Word" (even before he assumed flesh, as this good man circumscribes him), but by many other names, a fact by which he convicts Scripture of lying, while he asserts more vehemently that he was known by no other name before his incarnation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

That he affirms that before the assumption of flesh the Son existed as nothing at all other than the Word, most similar to human speech.

Hear, moreover, how he teaches this very thing, while he writes in these express words: "So that ^C it is clear from every side that no other name is fitting for the eternity of the Word than this very one which the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, has set down at the beginning of the Gospel. For since after the assumption of flesh he is preached as Christ and Jesus, and life, and way, and day, and resurrection, and door, and bread, and whatever other names are ascribed to him in the Holy Scriptures, yet we ought not to be ignorant that his primary name was Word. For this very reason, the most holy evangelist and disciple of the Lord, being truly vigilant in spirit, and mindful of that beginning ^D of all things from eternity, and of nothing more recent, said: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' to show that if any other new and recent name was adapted to him, that [name] accrued to him from that new and recent dispensation of his according to the flesh." And he adds in the following passages: "Therefore, before he descended to us and was born of the Virgin, he was Word and nothing else besides. For what else, I ask, was he before he assumed human flesh, that which 'descended in the last days'? which is also affirmed to have been written by him. And what was born of the holy Virgin was nothing other than the Word." And again he adds: "For before, as I have often said, he was nothing else but the Word."

^A And he adds again, saying: "For the Word was in the beginning, being nothing other than the Word. But the human being united to the Word would not have become a human being previously, as John ^B teaches us: 'And the Word became flesh.' For this reason, then, he appears to mention only the Word. For whether the holy Scripture mentions the name of Jesus or of Christ, it appears to designate the Word of God who exists with the human flesh. But if anyone should promise to be able to show that the name of Christ, the Son—even before the New Testament—is designated by the Word alone, he will find that this was spoken prophetically." And after other things, he adds, saying: "It is reasonable, therefore, that before his descent, he was that which we have often said, the Word; but after the descent, and the assumption of flesh, he has obtained various other titles." ^B These, then, are the things by which Marcellus is caught, denying the Son of God, who is the living and truly existing Son, and introducing a mere Word. It has been shown through his words quoted above what kind of word he supposed him to be, using as an example the human word, and saying that he is one and the same with God. And indeed, having established this principle, he proceeds consistently from the hypothesis given to him to lie against the divinely inspired Scripture and to twist its interpretations into his own meaning.

CAP. XIX. That the holy Scriptures do not only call the Son of God the Word, but by six hundred other different names, even before his incarnation.

^C Concerning which, if we now examine them briefly, we believe we will act not absurdly, so that those who are ignorant of these matters may understand that no Scripture at all favors the opinion of him who, pursuing novelty, has strayed from the true faith; on the contrary, all of them speak in opposition and bear witness against his perverted narratives. It was altogether necessary to undertake this, because there are those who admire this man, lest perhaps someone of their number, through ignorance of the holy Scriptures, might think that he strikes the mark of the truth. And indeed, we must first examine this, which he has dared to assert, that before the Son of God was born through the Virgin, he was not called by any other name than Word. For he says that he was nothing at all before the incarnate presence except the Word, and that he was not called by any other name, unless perhaps prophetically; for he claims that he was and was called the Word and nothing else, but after the incarnate presence, ^D of various and [other] titles.

^A This is the first thing that must be accepted, that he spoke in ignorance and without knowledge of the divine Scriptures.

CHAP. XX.

1. First, the divine evangelist John himself, who indeed called him the Word, not long after, but immediately and at once, named him God, saying: *And the Word was God*. For although he could have said (and the Word was of God), he did not say this, lest anyone might think that he was like some human word. But he calls him God, so as to show the surpassing nature of the dignity pertaining to him that is worthy of God.

2. Turning then to another notion concerning the glorification of him, he called him *Light*, wishing to indicate that he pre-existed before the assumption of the body, as he declares in those things he says about the Baptist:

3. *That one was not the light, but [was sent] to bear witness concerning the light, which enlightens every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came into his own, and his own did not receive him*. You see how in these texts he named him not only Word, as seemed [right] to Marcellus, but also God and light, and taught that he pre-existed, and that the world was made through him. For just as he said that all things were born through God the Word, and that without him nothing was made, so too [he says it] through the light. *For the world*, he says, *was made through him*. So that the light and God the Word are one and the same. And by saying that things were made through him, now the world, now all things, he demonstrates the sub-ministerial role ^C of the Word to God. For the evangelist, being able to say, “All things were made by him,” and again, “The world was made by him,” did not say “by him,” but *through him*, so that he might send us back to the authentic power of the Father to create all things. *But the world*, he says, *did not know him*. Yet all men, and first the children of the Jews, knowing God who is above all things by natural notions, being guided by the prophetic Scriptures, as Marcellus himself also demonstrates further on. Therefore, this one whom the world did not know was other, being God and Word, and both existing as and named light; a light not sensible, nor in the same way to the eyes of the flesh

as the sun illuminates: for in that way even the nature of irrational animals would partake of it. But now he teaches what sort of light it was, saying: *There was the light that illuminates every person coming into the world.* Therefore, only the rational part of humanity was this light. Wherefore, by his own power, endowed with intellect and reason, he who is light brought forth rational and intelligent souls after his own image and likeness. But this was not a sensible light; just as neither was God himself, who is above all things. For God is light, and there is no darkness in him. For the one was inaccessible light, as the divine Apostle teaches, saying: *Dwelling in light inaccessible, whom no one has seen, nor can see.* But the One who was in the world was illuminating every person coming into the world. But he says also that the world was made ^B through this light—that is, through the greater, the Father having constituted all things through the Son. These three, then, are the devout and pious appellations of the Son of God, which the theologian, beginning his Scripture, left to us gathered into one place: the Word, and God, and the light.

4

^A *And I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.* And the same evangelist further establishes his hypostasis by adding the testimony which John the Baptist gave concerning him, and he cried out, saying: *This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me is preferred before me: for he was before me; and of his fulness have all we received.* But although John cries out that he was before him, the new Sabellius does not listen, even though John the Baptist was speaking [to him] concerning his generation in relation to the Father. How, therefore, does he testify that he was before him? For in the generation according to the flesh, the Savior was not before him; consequently, according to that in which he is called the Only-Begotten of God, he was before John, and came into being before him. ^B Does one then admit that these things refer to the Father and God of all, or to the unessential and unsubstantial Word in God, who is the same as God? And how could it be possible for the expression, "He has come into being before me," to be said of a non-subsistent word? Who would be so mad as to think that John the Baptist had said of the God of all, "He has come into being before me," and "He was before me"? From this, therefore, it is demonstrated that he concerning whose divinity we are speaking existed before the born John, ^C and came into being prior to him: he who was not only called Word, but God, light, and Only-Begotten, existing and named as such before his coming in the flesh. From where the evangelist obtained this knowledge, he will himself declare, saying in what follows: *The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.* You see from whom he learned the theology of the Son.

5.

^A the world to judge the world. And again: *He that believes not is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.* Here too, again, while God was giving and sending the Son as the Savior of the world, He who was being sent was clearly someone other than the one sending Him. Wherefore it seems to me that in what follows, as if addressing Marcellus himself and those who begrudge the nature of the Son, the Savior our Lord himself states: *Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—say ye of him, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, You blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God?* Do you hear how ^B many times the Savior himself calls himself not the Word, but the Son and the Only Begotten? He teaches how he was sent by the Father, and how, before he was sent, he had been sanctified; and he rebukes those who are reluctant to confess him to be the Son of God, teaching from the divine Scripture that not only were angels of God, but also men, mortal by nature, called gods. Hence it should not be considered blasphemous to confess, at the same time, both that he is the Son of God and God, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world. What then was that man suffering, who, after such words, dared to say openly that he is the Word and nothing besides, and for that reason to write in so many words: ^C «He does not call him the Son of God; but everywhere he calls himself the Son of man, so that by such a confession he might persuade men that he, being naturally a mere man, became the Son of God through such communion with God.» When these things are said by Marcellus, I marvel with what eyes he could look back, or with what lips he could contradict so many testimonies! Moreover, the Savior also says that he himself is the Light, corresponding to the things which were predicted about the Light, saying: *I am the light of the world.* And again: *I am the light, and the truth, and the life.* And finally: *The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light.* And if any one should ask, whence he has come, he who said it will answer: *He that comes from above is above all;* and, *He that comes from heaven bears witness to what he has seen and heard.* Who then was he who came from heaven? Was it, perhaps, the flesh which the Savior assumed? By no means; but he himself was clearly the Light, and the Word, and God, and the Only Begotten, and the Son—he himself being all these things. ^D *What he has seen and heard,* he says, *he bears witness to.* Therefore, he also saw and heard before he came upon the earth. But what did he see in this way, since he declared himself not as a Word of signification, but as the Son, truly living and subsistent, in that he spoke thus: *The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand; he that believes in the Son has eternal life*? Belief in the Son, the one truly living and subsistent, he was teaching, just as he says: *The Father loves the Son, and all…*

hand; he that believes in the Son has eternal life. Let us believe, therefore, that the Father who loves the Son has given all things into his hand. And one must attend diligently to the word "all," as being that by ^A which the subsistence of all things is comprehended; from which one might also see the greatness of the power of the Son of God, while reflecting on how great and of what kind is the subsistence of all existing things that has been committed by the Father into his hand. For if the whole heaven and the world are great, and those things which are beyond these things perceived by the eyes, and which exist in incorporeal, incorruptible, intelligible, and divine powers, are by far greater and widely different from these—both all those things which escape our intellect and elude our knowledge—the one hand of the Only-begotten Son of God, grasping all these things, demonstrates the virtue of his infinitely great power. ^B This is also what the Son himself sets forth again through another utterance, saying: *All things have been delivered to me by my Father.* Then, as if we were in doubt about who he was, and how great, who had received a deposit of this kind, he says: "Do not seek, nor ask who." For he does not have a nature to be known by men, nor can the accurate apprehension of the Son of God be grasped even by the superior and more divine powers. Therefore, having prophesied, *All things have been delivered to me by my Father,* he added: *And no one knows the Son, except the Father.* Let, therefore, every unspeakable word concerning the Son of God be hushed, and let the knowledge of his generation from him be entrusted to the Father alone, nor let anyone, by investigating further, proceed to search into his unspeakable nature and substance. But let his teaching concerning himself alone be confirmed for us by the grace which is through faith, ^C clearly teaching us that all things have been delivered to him by the Father. God, therefore, was giving and delivering for improvement and benefit, as if making the delivery to a Savior and physician and governor of all; and the Son received it, and as a faithful guardian of a deposit, accepted the gift—not as a word lacking existence and substance, but as one who is truly the Only-begotten Son and beloved of the Father.

7. Furthermore, in addition to these things, he also called himself the bread of life, saying: *I am the bread of life.* *I am the living bread that came down from heaven.* And as to how he existed as living, he explained most clearly, setting it forth in order, in what he says: *As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; and he who eats me, he also will live because of me.* He taught this same thing elsewhere, saying: *For as the Father has life in himself, ^D so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.* He was therefore the bread of life and subsisted in heaven, [superior to] the angelic...

powers with the power of his divinity. And such he was, before descending to earth; he was the Son, having life in himself just as the Father having life in himself. For the preeminent and peculiar quality of the Father’s unbegotten and divine life—by reason of which he alone is said by the divine Apostle to have immortality—the Son alone would also have, existing as the Image of the Father and in this respect. But he possesses the aforementioned life, not as unoriginate, nor unbegotten, nor as his own property in the same way as the Father, but as having received it from the Father. For thus he says: "And to the Son he has granted to have life in himself, as the Father has life in himself." Therefore, the one gave and the other has received. And he alone has received this prerogative, such that life did not come to him from somewhere else outside, as is accustomed to happen to other creatures, but he has that which springs up in himself, according to the condition of that which is in the Father. Wherefore all things that partake of life live from the superabundant bounty of the Son; but he alone has in himself the life springing up, the Father having bestowed this upon him for the enjoyment of those who were in the future to be made alive through him. ^C This is what he himself also teaches, saying: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father." And: "The one who eats me, he also shall live because of me." This is the bread which came down from heaven. You see how, even while he was in heaven, he was the bread of life. For which reason it is read somewhere: "Man ate the bread of angels." Before then being sent by the Father, he was in heaven, and he lived because of the Father, not as a significant Word, nor as existing as one and the same with God, but as one who subsisted and possessed a life proper to himself: that, namely, which the Father had bestowed upon him. And proceeding further, while indicating the excellence of the paternal glory, he said: "As the Father taught me, these things I speak." And: "He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that are pleasing to him." Mark accurately how it is said, *always*. For he does not say, "Now, when I am on earth conversing with men in the flesh, I do the things pleasing to the Father," but *always* and *everywhere*. And he testifies that he speaks these things which, as from a teacher, he has learned from the Father; thus he also inscribes the Father as his teacher, being, of course, other than him, if indeed everyone who is discipled by another happens to be other than the one who teaches. But if the Word were in God, by which account he might also be called rational as being a signifier of the Father’s thoughts, how could he himself become the teacher of himself? ^D How, being inseparable from God, could he say he had been sent? How, being one and the same with God, could he bear witness that he does the things that are pleasing to him? But if Marcellus should say to these things that it was in the flesh that the Word was, when he spoke these words, what shall we say to this in opposition to one who does not confess him to be the Son, but only a Word; how

^A was he in the flesh when he said these things? Was he alive and subsistent, yet existing outside the Father? And who was the Father then, if he did not possess his own Word within himself, but subsisted without a Word? But if the Word dwelt in the flesh while he was spending his time on earth, and if he was outside the Father, living and subsistent, moving the flesh like a soul—he was clearly other than the Father, and thus two hypostases, himself and the Father, existed. Vain, therefore, is discovered to be the entire labor of Marcellus, who defined the Word as a living and subsistent substance that became in the flesh. If, however, the Word who dwelt in the body existed outside of God, ^B but was united and joined to God, so as of necessity to admit that he is one and the same with him, he must grant either that the Father himself was in the flesh, or that the Son existed by himself and was active in the body, or that it was the soul of a man; or, if none of these, he must confess that the flesh was moved automatically, being soulless and irrational. If he should say it was the Father, then the Father would be the one who was born and suffered and underwent every human affection—an assertion for the utterance of which the Church condemned Sabellius of impiety. But if it is not permitted to say that the Father became man, it is necessary to confess the Son, since those who are discipled by him are taught this. If Marcellus denies that he exists [as a hypostasis], it is time for him to posit that he was a mere man, consisting of body and soul, so as ^C to deviate in no way from the common nature of men. But this dogma too has been driven from the Church; the Ebionites of old, and more recently the Samosatene and those called Paulians after him who held these thoughts, suffered the judgment of blasphemy. What else then remains after this, but to introduce the flesh as void of any inhabitant at all, like those puppets which showmen lead about, moving of their own accord? How, in that case, could the flesh, and the body in itself, without any indwelling agent, have said: "As he taught me, I speak these things"? How could the flesh have said: "I always do the things that are pleasing to him"? How could the flesh have said that it was sent by the Father? And is it holy to call God the Father of the flesh, or rather, the Father of him who dwells and acts within it? Who, then, was this? Was it the Word ^D who is in God, being God himself according to Sabellius, or, as it is holy and true to say, the living and subsistent Only-begotten Son of God? If he says neither of these, he will of necessity have to posit a human soul, and Christ will be for him a mere man. And no longer will it be Sabellius, but a new writer, who will be a Paulian among us. But if he claims that the Word who is in God dwelt in the flesh, being nothing other than a word, a word expressive or active; how could this word have said that it possesses a life distinct from the Father? And where had it been sent, seeing that it is always joined and united to the

^A Father; how does he say that the Father is his teacher? And how did he say that he always does things pleasing to the Father? For these would be the utterances, explicitly, of a Son who is subsistent and living, and indeed throughout the whole Gospel, the one who prays to the Father, who glorifies the Father, who asks to be glorified by the Father—what does he show, if not that he himself is subsistent? Especially when he says, "The testimony of two men is true. I am he who bears witness about myself; and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." Through so many passages, the Savior himself, by presenting himself as living, nowhere called himself the Word, but Son, and Light, and Only-begotten, and Bread of Life. [And every word, or word,] And while he teaches that he has words, saying, "If anyone keeps my word, he will keep my word," he does not say that he himself is the Word. How then, after all these things, does he not blush, who asserts that he is only the Word and nothing else? Listen then to how he wrote, saying, ^B "So that from every side it is clear that no other name is appropriate to the eternity of the Word, than this same one, which the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, spoke in the beginning of the Gospel." [And again] "In order to show that if any new and recent name existed, this came to him from the New and recent Testament, according to the economy in the flesh." [And again] "Therefore, before he descended and was born of the Virgin, he was the Word only. For what else was there, before he assumed human flesh, that which 'descended in the last days,' as he himself also wrote? And that which was born from the Virgin was nothing else than the Word." Such things it is possible for Marcellus to say and to assert, ^C because he does not confess the Son of God, to whom the Evangelist referred his words. What are you saying, man? He did not call him Word alone, but also God, and Light that lightens every man coming into the world, and Only-begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father. Let no one, therefore, slander the theologian, but let him accurately understand him, what kind of Word he proposed, when he attached straightaway, "And the Word was God," and added, "All things were made through him." But by the Savior of all himself, he is not even once called Word, ^D but Son of God, and Only-begotten, and Light, and Life, and Truth, and everything rather [And he wrote everything rather than Word. ... coming into the world, and God and my Son who is in the bosom of the Father, and he did not say he was only Word. Do not therefore.]

8. But if he objects that these names are taken from the New Testament, one must say to him that even that testimony, *In the beginning was the Word* ^A, is not taken from elsewhere, as one and the same Gospel and the evangelist himself, who named him Word, entrusted the rest to be written concerning him. But the divine Apostle Paul also said, ^B *one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things* [1 Cor. VIII, 6]. He surely, and quite clearly, does not call the Son of God, through whom all things were made even before his advent in the flesh, "Word," but "Lord Jesus and Christ." But if, as pleases Marcellus, he was one and the same as God, and the Word in him, it would have sufficed for the Apostle to have said, *To us one God the Father, from whom are all things*. For the thought was complete, and the expression perfect, by which God was posited as the creator of the universe. Yet even a Jew might affirm as much. Therefore, the herald of the Church did not want us to be ignorant of this second point in addition to the first. And what is that? *And one Lord Jesus Christ*. Wherefore he added the second in the sequential order, saying "to us": for if not to all, yet to us, he says, there is *one Lord Jesus Christ*. But why, after the one God, does he also set him before us as our one Lord, adding *through whom are all things*? Surely because, since all things had been made through him, it is rightly believed by us—who know this well—that he is Lord of all things after God, who is over all. ^C And that he was not speaking these things about the flesh, but about the Word of God, is clear from his addition, *through whom are all things*. For "To us," he says, *one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things*. This same thing has been said also concerning the light and concerning the Word that exists around all. Therefore, Jesus Christ himself was the light and the Word, through whom all things were made, but not the flesh. For he would not have said so incongruously concerning the flesh: *through whom are all things*.

But the same Paul calls the Son of God, who pre-existed the flesh, Christ, in the same fashion, where he calls him the Rock in that same place, speaking of the people who were with Moses in the desert: *For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them; but that rock was Christ* [1 Cor. X, 4]. And he confirms the same thing immediately thereafter, saying: *Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and were destroyed by serpents* [1 Cor. X, 9]. And he confirms this same fact even more strongly, saying: *By faith Moses, when he had become great, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; having esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt* [Hebr. XI, 24, 26]. And he hints ^D at this same thing even more effectively where he says: Let this same thing be thought

in you, which was even in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man. You see that before he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, he was, and was in existence ^A, and existed in the form of God. Who then was this? None other than Jesus Christ. He himself, therefore, was God, Jesus Christ, even before he took on flesh. For one must listen accurately to the blessed Apostle who says, *Let this same thing be thought in you, which was even in Christ Jesus*, and who clarifies next who this Jesus Christ was, by the things he adds, saying, *who being in the form of God* thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Can one then here too interpret this oracle as applying to the flesh? Is it fitting to say of the flesh that, "who was," and "being"? But surely it was not flesh that emptied itself, taking the form of a servant; this is entirely ridiculous. Come then, let us examine how it is said, *Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself*. If indeed the Word were subsisting without a substance, in no way existing outside of God, but being inside in him, at times in silence and quiet, and at other times by acting, then how was he in the form of God, being God himself, by power equal to God? How did he not think it robbery to be equal to God, being himself God? How did he humble himself, becoming obedient to the Father? For to obey implies two persons, one unto another. But since Marcellus pulls into this example the human word and applies that likeness, ^B let us ask whether that which is said can fit the human word: "Who being in the form of man, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, becoming obedient unto death?" How could the word implanted in man do these things, being the same as the man himself? He will not, therefore, be a bare and unsubstantial word, but the truly Only-begotten Son of God. *He who is in the form of God, who thought it not robbery to be equal to God*, whom the divine Apostle named Jesus Christ, ^C knowing well that he pre-existed before the flesh.

11. Besides these things, he also called him the mediator of God and men, declaring that the law of Moses was given in his hand, through which he says, *The law, ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator; but a mediator is not of one, but God is one*. You hear how, while calling him God and naming the angels, he introduces the mediator as standing between ^D them, saying: *But a mediator is not of one, but God is one*. You hear how specifically one who calls God [God] and angels [angels]...

He was therefore, even before his incarnation, throughout the time of Moses, functioning as mediator in the giving of the law.

12. ^A And the same Apostle calls him High Priest, saying: *Having therefore a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God*.

13. Furthermore, he calls him the *splendor of glory, and the character of God,* and *Son*, and *heir,* saying: *In these last days he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all, through whom also he made the ages, who being the splendor of glory and the character of his substance*. ^B Here, just as was said above concerning the Word, that *all things were made through him*, and concerning the light, that *it was in the world and the world was made through it*, and concerning Jesus Christ, that *for us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things*, he sees that the expression *through whom* is used similarly concerning him: *through whom also he made the ages*. It is worth fixing the mind on these things, to consider why he is named the "splendor." For I think that the expression is intended to represent the generation of the Son from the Father. For since the name of "Son" had occurred ^C quite often, and the Father had even more frequently been heard as "God," lest we should perhaps imagine some manner of generation here like that which occurs in the generation of animate beings, the Apostle applies a more divine similitude where he speaks of God, ascribing to the Father, *dwelling in unapproachable light*, while defining the Son as the splendor of the paternal light; so that the splendor may be a generation of that first light: not existing in a manner usurped by mortal creatures while they are being generated, but according to the similitude brought forward. With good reason, therefore, does he also call him ^D the *image of the invisible God*: for the reason that he existed in the form of God, and because he was the splendor and character of the substance.

14. For this reason, writing about him, he said: *Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For in him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, whether invisible, or thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist*. These things are said concerning the divinity of the Son of God, even if it does not seem so to Marcellus. For the divine Apostle would not have said so many things about the flesh. For this would be foolish and unreasonable, besides the fact that such an interpretation of the phrasing is also incoherent; for how would it be appropriate for these things to be said of the flesh?

^A Or rather, it ought to be said, "which is the image."

15. In another place, again, the same Apostle calls Him the image of God, saying: "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the ^B image of God, should shine unto them" (II Cor. iv, 3-4). Here it is right for us to direct our attention to the fact that the divine Apostle laid down a defining statement about Christ, calling Him the image of God, so that no one might suppose there are two gods, but rather one, who is over all. For if God is one, and there is no other besides Him, He Himself must be the one who is known through His Son, as through an image. Wherefore the Son is also God, because of the figure of the Father being reflected in Him as in an image. This is what the divine Apostle indicates when he says at one time, "who, being in the form of God," and at another defines Him as "the image of God." Thus, along with all the other designations, the Son was and was called the image of God even before His advent in the flesh. And these few things, out of countless others, have been gathered from the New Testament for the sake of brevity in our discourse. Indeed, the prophets of God who existed of old also honored Him with various theological names.

16. Some, who call Him the Spirit of God, say: "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding," (Isa. xi, 1-2) ^C and what follows. For he clearly indicated through these words both Him who was of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the God Word who dwelt within Him. Hence the divine Apostle sometimes said: "Now the Lord is that Spirit" (II Cor. iii, 17); and at other times: "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. i, 24). Another prophet similarly calls Him Spirit, saying: "Christ the Lord is the spirit of our face" (Lam. iv, 20). And in the Gospel it is also clearly said concerning Him: "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles" (Matt. xii, 18).

17. Moreover, another prophet calls Him Life and Light, where he addresses God, saying: "For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light" (Ps. xxxv, 10). For who was the fountain of life ^D with God? And who is the light, if not He who said in the Gospels, "I am the light of the world" (John viii, 12; ix, 5); and, "I am the way and the truth and the life" (John xiv, 6)?

^A Therefore, the Prophet, supplicating in prayer to God, says again, "Send out thy light and thy truth; they shall lead me."

18. Furthermore, calling Him Truth, ^A [(48)] Zorobabel was accounted worthy of the palm of victory, who before the king of the Persians is recorded to have said, "Truth abides and prevails forever. It lives and surpasses unto ages of ages. And with it there is no respect of persons, but it does justice; it abstains from all the unjust and the wicked." To which he adds: "And its is the strength, and the kingdom, and the power, and the magnificence unto all ages." By saying that Truth lives and conquers and prevails, he most emphatically set forth its subsistence. Conformably to these things, the Savior Himself also, by calling Himself the Truth, sealed the testimony of Zorobabel.

19. He also called Him a river, he who said: "The streams of the river make glad the city of God." ^B Additionally, he called Him a mountain who said: "The mountain in which God was pleased to dwell, He will dwell therein."

20. Whence also, in Daniel, it is read concerning the mountain: "A stone cut out without hands." And again, the same, being established upon a high mountain, was seen; the mountain signifying the pre-existence of His divinity, and the stone, His humanity. [(49)]

21. And they also called Him justice, as the one who said: "Who raised up justice from the East?" And, the sun of justice, as the one who said: ^C "But unto you who fear me, the sun of justice shall arise, and healing is in his wings." And another says: "The sun shall set upon the prophets who make my people to err." For these things would not apply to this sensible sun, but indeed to the incarnate Word. [(50)]

22. And Solomon also names Him Wisdom, saying in Proverbs: "Wisdom has built for herself a house, and set up seven pillars," [(38)] and what follows. And that this living and subsisting Wisdom was before the world, He Himself taught by putting forth these voices from the mouth of Wisdom herself: "I, Wisdom, have dwelt in counsel, and knowledge, and understanding. I called." ^D And He adds in what follows: "By me kings reign, and the powerful write justice, by me nobles are magnified, and tyrants by me prevail." [(51)]

23 and 24. And Solomon called Him the tree of life, where he says: “She is a tree of life to all who take hold of her, and he who leans upon her, as upon the Lord, is safe.” ^A

25. And Solomon’s father David, in the Psalms, calls Him at once Lord and priest: at one time saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand”; at another time also saying, “The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

26. And the same [prophet] also acknowledges Him to be God, saying: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of rectitude is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” For who else could God, anointed in these passages by God, be, if not He who, because of that paternal anointing, is acclaimed as Christ? ^B

27. That same One was also the Beloved of God: which the inscription of that Psalm teaches, “An Ode concerning the Beloved.”

28. Moreover, Isaiah calls Him the arm, saying: “The Lord shall reveal His holy arm in the sight of all the nations.” David likewise acknowledged Him as righteousness and salvation, saying: “The Lord has made known His salvation, in the sight of the nations He has revealed His righteousness.”

29. And again: “Declare from day to day His salvation.” And again: “Who will give from Zion the salvation of Israel?” And: “Show us, O Lord, Your mercy, and grant us Your salvation.” ^C But what need is there for me to collect these one by one? Since it is permitted for any studious person to gather such things from the entire divinely inspired Scripture; through which it is manifest that the men of God, illuminated by the divine Spirit, manifested the ineffable knowledge of the Only-begotten Son of God—though not beyond the people of the Jews. For which reason they proclaimed Him in various ways through certain veiled nomenclatures. For that grace of preaching was reserved for His presence and advent: which His Church, having received it as a mystery that was once hidden and wrapped in silence, now proclaims throughout the whole world concerning His divinity. ^D

30. Indeed, the divine Apostle teaches this very thing, saying: “According to the dispensation of God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which had been hidden from the ages and from the generations; but now it has been manifested to His saints.”

^A You see how the mystery was hidden before, but now has been revealed: the Son of God. For this reason the prophets of God, by the prophetic Spirit, spoke of Him mystically. But the whole multitude of the Jewish nation lived in ignorance of this hidden mystery; whence they were taught to know one God, because they were constantly being drawn away into the error of the multitude of gods; but they were ignorant that God was the Father of His Only-begotten Son. For this mystery was kept for the Church from the Gentiles, having been granted to her by a special grace. For in Him, according to the Apostle, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. But truly, by so many testimonies, that Word of God which was in the beginning with God was shown to be not only called Word, as Marcellus thinks, but also Son, and Only-begotten, and light, and bread, and Jesus, and Christ, and Lord, ^B and high priest, and radiance, and character, and image, and First-born of all creation, and fountain of life, and truth, and river, and justice, and sun of justice, and wisdom, and tree of life, and Lord, and God, and Beloved, and priest, and arm, existing before the flesh, and was so named; as the cited Scriptures have shown. What reason, therefore, moved Marcellus here, to pass over all these and persist only in the Word? And not even to cross over to the other appellations, but to insist that He is only the Word of God; and a significant word, sometimes resting in God, and sometimes speaking or acting only by an operation? Is it because he frankly Sabellianizes, and does not believe in the Son of God, nor recognize that mystery which existed ^C long ago, but was revealed only to the Church of Christ through the grace manifested by Him? But if he says that the mystery which was unknown was that God possessed the Word within Himself, and made use of the Word—for this is what seems to Marcellus to be the case, when he writes in this way: “For what other mystery was hidden, according to the Word? Yet so was this mystery hidden in God formerly, that no one among that former people understood clearly what pertained to the Word”—if he puts this forward, let him learn that any Jew, who does not recognize the Christ of God, would nevertheless confess that God possesses a Word, and is not without reason. This, Sabellius himself would confess, ^D and every Greek and barbarian who acknowledges that God exists. For at the same time as one says God, one conceives Him to be wise, and rational, and powerful, and just, and good. What mystery, then, was hidden, which is admitted by all? For who would not say that there is wisdom in God, and power?

^A and life, and light, and truth, and righteousness, and the Word, and everything that is noble and good? Or rather, that He is all these things, and if there be anything above and better than these, which is unknown to us; for nature, taught by itself, compels every man to confess these things concerning God. From this source we are also taught that the Son is all these things, since He is the only-begotten Son, and the heir of the Father, and possesses everything that the Father possesses. Hence, He is said to be "in the form of God," and the "image of God," according to the divine Apostle, who says: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." And again: "Who is the image of God." ^B Accordingly, that God was rational was not the mystery which had been hidden from ages and from generations; nor is that now said to be revealed which is most well-known to all men through natural notions. But if anyone should ask, what kind of thing was it? The Apostle answers, where he says: "But now it is made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you." Christ, therefore, was that mystery; and it is clear that He is the Son of God. For this reason, the prophets of God formerly glorified Him in a mystical way by various titles, concealing the ineffable, and reserving the revelation of it—by His grace, to be diffused to all—as a treasure kept hidden. When, therefore, after so many testimonies from the Holy Scriptures, Marcellus nevertheless contends that "In the beginning was the Word" signifies nothing else than that He, before He assumed flesh, was nothing else than the Word, and was not called by any name other than that; but that only then, when the Word became flesh, did He obtain various designations, whereas before that He had existed as nothing at all besides the Word: how could he be convicted of ^C being ignorant and without understanding of the divine readings? But indeed, since this is established, come then, let us inspect this new Sabellius, as if he had come to life again.

OF THE REFUTATIONS AGAINST MARCELLUS BY EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI ON ECCLESIASTICAL THEOLOGY BOOK TWO.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND BOOK

1. How Marcellus renews the dogma of Sabellius. 2. How he is also convicted of Judaizing in his opinion. 3. How he defined the Word of God, existing in God, as being without beginning and unbegotten. 4. How he said that the Word and God are one and the same. 5. How, by saying these things, he denied the Son. 6. How the Church speaks of God in theology. 7. How the Church proclaims the monarchy of the Father. 8. In what words Marcellus proclaims the Son of God. 9. Refutation of the man’s evil opinion. 10. That he did not rightly interpret the "In the beginning was the Word." 11. That he claimed Him to be at one time the prophoric Word of God, and at another the endiathetic, similar to the word in men. 12. That the evangelist did not set forth the theology concerning the Word in the way that seemed so to Marcellus. 13. In how many ways the meaning of the word "Word" is understood. 14. How one ought to interpret the evangelical teaching concerning the Word. 15. Citations of the actual words of Marcellus, through which he clearly denied the Son of God, claiming Him to be a prophoric and endiathetic Word. 16. Refutation of the man’s evil opinion. 17. Interpretation of the true meaning of the Word. 18. Why the evangelist, beginning his writing, named the Son "the Word." 19. How Marcellus, citing the Scriptures of the Old Testament concerning the one God, denied the Son of God just like the Jews. 20. Why Moses and the prophets did not plainly hand down to the Jews the theology concerning the Son. 21. That the Son of God is He who spoke to Moses and to Abraham.

22. That the Father was taught even in the prophets through the Son. 23. That the Church by no means preaches two gods. 24. That Marcellus likened the only-begotten Word of God to the words of God which command things to be done. 25. How he wrote things contrary to himself.

CAP. I. How Marcellus restored the dogma of Sabellius.

he declares that nothing exists except God alone. He writes, therefore, word for word thus: ^A “Asterius calls the glory given to Him glory, and not just glory, but pre-cosmic glory. Not understanding that, when the world was not yet created, nothing else existed except God alone.” And again he confirms the same thing, saying: ^B “Heaven and earth and all that is in the heavens and upon the earth were made by God. If, therefore, he believes this, he must necessarily agree to that, that there was nothing except God.”

CAP. II.

That he is shown to Judaize in his opinion.

You see how he almost acts the part of the Jew, ^B denying the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things were made. For if there was nothing different from God before the generation of the world, then the Son was not. And how were all things made through Him, and without Him was made nothing? The Jew, indeed, who denies the Christ of God, knows nothing before the generation of the world save God alone, with Marcellus bearing witness for him. ^C But the Church of Christ, with all boldness, glorifies, saying: “To us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” But when Scripture says, “through whom are all things,” it knows Him to be before all things. Therefore, he who says that before the generation of the world there was nothing else save God alone is lying against the truth. For together with the only God, His only-begotten Son was also present before the constitution of the world, and He conversed with the Father. For this is what He who spoke recently also taught: ^D “In these last days He has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages.” And in the Proverbs, through Solomon, the Son Himself teaches concerning Himself by saying: “When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him.” But also: “He was the true light, which lightens every man coming into the world.” Since, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him.” But if the world was made through Him, it is clear that He pre-existed the world. Therefore, God was not alone before the constitution of the world; rather, His only-begotten Son was with Him, in whom the Father looking was rejoicing, as He Himself teaches—being Wisdom—saying in the Proverbs: ^D “I was that in which He was rejoicing day by day.” And the Son Himself, gazing upon the paternal thoughts, was filled with joy. Wherefore He says, “I was rejoicing before Him at every time.” These, then, are the holy and divine mysteries which the Church of Christ has received and guards. But he who—

maintains that before the world was created nothing else existed save God alone, necessarily makes of the two one, either in the manner of a Jew or of a Sabellian. ^A For if, denying the Son from his own opinion and professing only God, he is a Jew who rejects Christ; or if, accepting the title of Son in word only, he affirms Him to be the one God, both Son and Father at once, he will renovate Sabellianism. For if before the world there was nothing else save God, He Himself will be both Father and Son, or He will have no son at all.

CAP. III.

How he defined the Word of God, existing in God, to be without beginning and unbegotten.

But Marcellus seems to suppose that He who was in God, according to whom He is understood to be rational, is the very same as the Son, so that He is His own Father and, conversely, His own Son. Hearken, therefore, to his own words, in which he writes in this fashion: “For before the creation of all things there was, as is likely, a deep silence, the Word being in ^B God. For if Asterius believes that God is the Creator of all things, it is clear that he will agree with us both that He always existed, never having taken a beginning of existence, and that all things were made by Him, and made from nothing.” You see how, positing God as without beginning, he said that the Word existing in Him was in silence before the creation. And proceeding further, he adds: “If, therefore, he believes this, it is necessary for him also to confess that, save for God, there was nothing else. The Word, therefore, existing in the Father, had His own peculiar glory.” Starting from here, he declares the Word to be eternal, that is to say, unbegotten, writing thus: “You hear, ^C therefore, the harmony of the Holy Spirit, which through many and diverse persons bears witness to the eternity of the Word.” And again: “And on account of this He starts from the eternity of the Word, saying, *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*; and by three continuous testimonies He wishes to establish the eternity of the Word.” It is worth our while to hear from his own words how he maintains that the Word was truly co-unbegotten with God, and unbegotten together with Him: “We understand the dispensation in the flesh to respect man; but according to the Spirit, we believe His eternity to be united with the Father.”

CAP. IV.

How he said the Word and God are one and the same.

Having in this way ^D conceded that the Word is in God

he next appears to declare that it is one and the same with Him, writing word for word as follows: “For if an examination were to be made of the Spirit alone, the Word would reasonably appear to be one and the same with God; but if the addition according to the flesh in the Savior were to be examined, the divinity alone appears to be extended by operation; so that it is reasonably a truly indivisible monad.” And again, proceeding further, he says: “Not, therefore, on account of the precise agreement in all words and deeds, as Asterius said, does the Savior say, *I and the Father are one* (John x, 30), but because it is impossible for the Word of God, or God, to be separated from His own Word.” If, therefore, God and the Word in Him were one and the same, as Marcellus thinks, then He who was born in the most holy Virgin, and took flesh, and became man, and suffered the things recorded, and died for our sins, was Himself God over all. ^B The Church of God has relegated this, which Sabellius dared to say, among the impious and blasphemous.

CAP. V. That by saying these things he denied the Son.

If Marcellus should say that the Word of God was that which was incarnate, yet he defined it as inseparable from God, granting an indivisible monad, and one hypostasis of God and the Word in Him, so that according to him one cannot even conceive of the one who became man as anything other than the God over all; but if the monad is indivisible, and God and the Word in Him are one and the same, ^C who then would one say is the Father, and who the Son, when the subject is one? Thus, Marcellus, by introducing the one and the same as Father-Son, has renewed Sabellius.

CAP. VI. What the Church feels concerning the divinity of the Son.

But the Church of God knows the indivisible unity, confessing one principle, the one and unbegotten and beginningless God; and she acknowledges the only-begotten Son born from Him, precisely existing and living and subsisting, and designates Him Savior, not being beginningless, nor unbegotten, ^D so that she may not posit two principles and two gods; but born from His Father, and having the One who begat Him as His principle. Wherefore she has received it to believe in one God the Father Almighty, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, this holy and mystical faith providing regeneration in Christ to those who through it

^A are illuminated. But that which is posited by Marcellus, that the monad is dilated by operation, has a place in bodies, but it is not true concerning an incorporeal, ineffable, and inexpressible substance. For it is neither dilated when operating, nor contracted when not operating; nor does it act at all, nor is it moved, after the manner of men. Since God is an indivisible unity, He generated His only-begotten Son from Himself, not Himself being divided, nor altered, nor undergoing change, nor flux, nor subject to any passion. For He does not perform these things by commanding, nor by being urged, nor by legislating as men are wont to do; nor does He work these things by speaking with a tongue or lips, nor, with respect to the decoration of the universe, does He look on with eyes like ours. Rather, by His ineffable and divine power, He foresees those things which are not yet produced, ^B contemplating them as if they were already subsisting and produced. Nor, like the craftsmen among us, does He, in working and creating, take pre-existing matter into His hands and fashion it with His fingers, but by His ineffable, again, and incomprehensible power, He brought the substance of all produced things into their existence out of nothing. And thus, indeed, He effected all things by inscrutable reasons and modes. Why, therefore, do we labor anxiously to imagine a certain similar passion in Him in the generation of His Son, such as exists in other living beings? He underwent that generation above all things and before all things, not after the manner and proportion of mortal nature, but according to that mode and reason which was known and understood by Him alone.

CAP. VII. How the Church proclaims the monarchy of the Father.

^C Indeed you fear, O man, lest, if you confess two hypostases, you should thereby introduce two principles and so fall away from the monarchy of the Godhead. Learn, therefore, that since there is one unoriginate and unbegotten God, and the Son is generated from Him, there is necessarily one principle, one monarchy and kingdom, since the Son Himself subscribes to the paternal authority and principate. For the head of Christ is God, according to the Apostle. But you fear intensely, lest one who confesses two hypostases of Father and Son should be compelled to admit two principles: but learn this also, that he who gives two hypostases of Father and Son is not compelled to say there are two fathers, nor two

sons; but he will acknowledge one as Father, and the other as Son. ^A In the same way, it is unnecessary for one who posits two hypostases to acknowledge two gods. For we do not define them as being of equal honor, nor both as being without beginning and unbegotten; but one as unbegotten and without beginning, and the other as begotten and possessing the Father as his principle. Wherefore the Son himself also teaches that his Father is his own God, in those places where he says, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." Thus, God is shown to be the God even of the Son himself. For this reason, one God is preached to the Church, [who is] the Father of the Son; but the Son, when he is compared with the Father, will no longer be considered ^B the God of the Father himself, but the only-begotten Son and beloved of him, and the image of the invisible God, and the radiance of the Father’s glory; he honors, worships, and glorifies his own Father, acknowledging him as his own God, and it is written that he prays to him, that he gives thanks to him, and that he becomes obedient even unto death. He confesses that he lives through the Father, and that he can do nothing without the Father, and that he does not do his own will, but that of the Father. He says, therefore, in these very words: "That I have descended from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me"; and again: "I cannot do anything of my own self; just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me." And that he is a distinct person from the one who sent him, he shows by saying next: "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies about me." Then, having made mention of the Baptist, he teaches that the Father is his witness, saying: "And the Father who sent me, he himself has testified about me." And he adds: "If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I." Through all of these things, he shows himself to be distinct from the Father. And he sets forth the superiority of the Father's glory by saying that he was sent, while he [the Father] sent [him]; and that he has descended from heaven not to do his own will, but the will of him who sent him. And what, then, could Marcellus say ^D to these things, hearing the one who has descended from heaven teaching these things? For he surely will not say now that the flesh of the Savior said these things. For the flesh did not descend from heaven. Who, then, will he say [is] the [one] who has descended from heaven and teaches these things?

^A Whether the Father God himself, or the Word consubstantial with Him? But if he were to say the Father, he would be revealing Sabellius openly, and the Savior himself would refute him as a liar, saying: "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." And, "I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge. And I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father." And, "My Father is greater than I." For to think that the Father said these things would be the height of madness. But if one should say that it is the Word co-natural with God, and His mind, by which He reasons and thinks within Himself, that is setting forth these things that are proposed: how, then, could the thought of God and the mind within Him have come down from heaven? ^B And how could it have declared these things while existing in the flesh which He assumed? How, I ask, will the Word who was in God say that He descended from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him?

By these things, indeed, the Son declares the honor with which He esteemed the Father. But when He presides over all generated things, those which were produced through Him—as being the Savior and Lord and Creator of all (“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made”)—at that time, He could be proclaimed as God and Lord and Savior and King. And for this reason, His Church has been taught to worship and honor and revere Him as God, having learned this from Him. ^C Therefore, the Savior Himself says: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” By clear words He commands Him to be honored, not as the prophets, nor as the angels, or the powers that surpass these, but similarly to the Father Himself. For the Father Himself willed this, having given all judgment to the Son, that all might honor Him even as they honor the Father. Thomas, who is called Didymus, ^D clearly understanding this, as one who belonged to the choir of the twelve disciples, designated Him in brilliant words as both God and Lord, saying: “My Lord and my God.” And for this very reason it is fitting for us to revere the Son, and no one else, with divine honor, just as we honor the Father, and in this way the Father is honored through the Son. Which He Himself also taught, saying: “He that honoureth the Son honoureth the Father which hath sent him.” For just as those who honor an image of the king sent to them, honor the king himself whose exemplar the image is, in the same way the Father also is honored through the Son, as even

he who has seen the Son has seen ^A the Father, beholding the unbegotten deity, as it were in an image and a mirror, characterized in the Son. For he is the radiance of eternal light and an unspotted mirror of the operation of God, and an image of His goodness. Having received all these things from the Father, he possesses glory of divinity from Him, even as a genuine and only-begotten Son. But the Father has not received anything from anyone; being Himself the beginning and fountain and root of all good things, He is rightly proclaimed as one and the only God.

CAP. VIII. In what words Marcellus denied the Son of God.

^B But, being ignorant of these things, Marcellus does not truly wish for the Son to have been begotten of the Father, as a living and subsistent Son; but he says that He proceeded from God, as if He were merely some indicative or imperative word issuing forth from Him. Hear, then, him saying this very thing openly in these words: « It seems, therefore, to follow from this that He was begotten before the ages. For that which proceeds from the Father who is pre-existent becomes His offspring; but to say that it is something else can no longer be mentioned with sound piety. For to deny that He is the Word who proceeds from Him (and that this same thing is the true mode ^C of generation), but rather that He is truly only a Son—this is accustomed to provide to those who hear a certain appearance of human generation. » Then, indicating that the Word is not even begotten of the Father, he speaks word for word: « The holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, mentioning His eternity, is brought forward as a most truthful witness to the Word, saying, *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God* (Joan. I, 1). Nowhere here does he mention the generation of the Word. » Thus, in denying the Son of God, he used to say that the Word in God was sometimes inside in God, and sometimes proceeding from God; and at another time, he would say that He would run back into God, and would be in Him, just as He was before. Listen to how he says these things in these steps: « But now I believe the divine Scriptures, ^D that there is one God, and that the Word of this God proceeded from the Father so that all things might be made through Him. But after the time of judgment and the restoration of all things, and the destruction of every opposing operation, then He Himself will be subjected to the God and Father who subjected all things to Him, so that thus the Word may be in God, just as He was also before before the world was; for when nothing existed beforehand except God alone, and all things were about to be made through the Word, the Word proceeded as an active energy, being the Word of the Father. » And again, he sets forth the same thought more clearly, in these words:

^A « For before the world was, the Word was in the Father; but when the Almighty God determined to create all things that are in heaven and on earth, the production of the world required an active energy; and for this reason, since nothing else existed besides God (for all things are acknowledged to have been generated by Him), then the Word, having proceeded forth, became the creator of the world, He who even before this was preparing it intellectually within. » And again, after all this, he adds, saying: « And for this reason He does not call Himself the Son of God, but everywhere calls Himself the Son of Man, so that by this confession He might prepare the one who was man, through communion with the Word, to become the Son of God; and after the end of the work, again, as Word, He might be united to God, fulfilling that which was said by the Apostle: ^B *Then shall He Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all*. For then He shall be that which He was before. »

Having said so much concerning the Word—that which is in God, according to which we understand Him to be rational—Marcellus has fallen into dire straits, having dared to say that the Word which was in God at one time went forth outside of God, and again will enter within Him after the time of judgment, so that in this way, being united to God, He might subsist as He subsisted before.

CHAPTER IX.

Refutation of this man’s perverse opinion.

Now at last let him answer our questions. What are we to think about the intermediate time, when the Word was outside of God? How did He go forth? ^C What was the state of God meanwhile, when He did not have in Himself His own Word? For if, after the consummation of the world, the Word will be in God, as He was before—before the time of the consummation—how will the Word be one who has gone forth from God? For if, subsisting by Himself, He was other than God, then all of Marcellus’s labor is in vain. But if the Word, having gone forth outside of God, like our own spoken word, remained outside of God, yet was certainly always inseparable, and at every time—even then when He was working—was within God; if this were so, why then does he delay His reunion until the day of judgment? For he says that then He is to be reunited to God, and will be forever as He was formerly. But neither will the Word who proceeded from God exist as such a one as He was before, nor will God be otherwise than unlike His own self: ^D inasmuch as He once had His Word within Himself, and at the end of the world is to take Him back, becoming then as He was before, yet in the intermediate time being in a different state. And the Word, likewise, being placed outside of God, will not be, before the consummation of the world, such as He was before. And who would be more impious than these...

^A For entirely, the terms "was," "will be," "it is to be," "at some time," and "again," being indicative of change occurring in time, would be altogether foreign to that substance which is without time, without beginning, unbegotten, and immutable. In respect to it, one ought only to conceive of "being," and being in such a way as to remain always 12 unchanged in the same respects, and having itself in the same manner, neither diminished, nor contracted, nor extended, nor expanded, nor having anything outside or inside itself, nor becoming something else at another time, nor being one thing before, then becoming something else, and again being restored to its former state.

These things ^B Marcellus dared to posit, inasmuch as he says that God formerly existed, and he depicts a certain rest along with God for Himself, conforming himself to the imitation of that impious heresiarch who, dogmatizing such impious things, declared, saying: "There was God and Silence." And after Silence and Rest, he says that the Word of God proceeded at the beginning of the creation of the world with effective energy, so that He was no longer such as He was while He was resting before in the silent God, but, proceeding from God, He was working. And how, then, did He proceed? Surely, by way of the utterance of an articulate voice, God clearly speaking and talking just like men. ^C This, therefore, seemed to him as he wrote in this manner: "For just as all things that were made were made by the Father through the Word, so also all things that are said by the Father are signified through the Word." And again: "For all things whatsoever the Father says, these are made manifest everywhere through the Word. And this is clear even from ourselves, if it is permissible to compare small and divine things with what is great; for we too, all things that we wish to say and do according to our power, we do through our own word."

If, therefore, the Word proceeded from the Father in such a way by effective energy, from whence did it occur to Marcellus ^D to limit to a certain determined time—namely, the consummation of the world—the operation of the Word? When, he affirms, it will come to pass that the Word subsists within God, just as also at some time He subsisted? Yet at some time he gave to us that Word resting in a resting Father. Thus, it seems, after the consummation of the world he establishes a rest, since the Word will work nothing thereafter. But, he says, before the constitution of the world there was nothing at all except God. And since there was nothing, he reasonably fashioned for himself the [idea of] rest. But at the time of the consummation, Daniel the prophet prophesies that myriads will be before the throne of God, saying: "Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand 13 stood before Him." 14 Surely, all the sons of the age to come will also be there then: the blessed souls of the patriarchs, and of the prophets, and of the apostles, and the holy spirits of the martyrs; and all the sheep of our Savior, who are to be positioned at His right hand and hear: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Such—

will be the number of those who are to live an immortal life after the time of judgment, what reason could there be why the Word of God should not also be operative then? Whence did Marcellus know that God will by no means address His saints then, nor employ His own operative Word, but that the Word will be in God, just as it was before, altogether resting and silent? For he often asserted this, saying: "Then that will exist which also existed before; and it existed before, as he himself also asserts, in quiet." God, therefore, will be silent at that time, though He had spoken before and used His operative Word, and then, throughout that promised kingdom of heaven, He will utterly deprive His saints of His own Word and the wisdom that is in Him. You see into what a precipice he has cast himself, since he summons no one to guide him, nor calls upon the Scriptures for counsel. For he collected all these self-fabricated notions from a single phrase that he misunderstood. For when he applied himself to demonstrations from the Old and New Testament, he was certainly driven and straitened on every side; but having found one single little expression that seemed to favor his own heretical opinion, like one who has chanced upon a reef, he clung to it alone, which was not even spoken by the person of our Savior, but by the person of the evangelist, through whom he named Him, saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Hence, having started from there, as if He were nothing else but a word, similar to the one known to us, he denied the Son.

CHAPTER X. That he did not rightly understand the words: "In the beginning was the Word."

Indeed, the great and divine evangelist did not call Him by the name of the Word alone, as we have already said many times, but also God, and Light, and Son, and Only-begotten; furthermore, he testifies that the Savior Himself calls Himself Word nowhere in the Scripture, but throughout the whole Gospel, Life and Light, and Only-begotten, and Son of God, and Truth, and Resurrection, and Bread of Life, and Vine, and Shepherd, and countless other names, as has already been shown. What reason could there be, then, that while there are so many and such titles, he does not stand firm on the other expressions, but scrutinizes the meaning of what is said in an overly-curious way, yet asserts that He is properly called by the name of the Word alone, as if there were nothing else but this Word? He writes, in fact, in these very words: ^D "Not indeed catachrestically named the Word—let those who teach otherwise burst with lying—but truly and really being the Word." And again: "Let him learn, therefore, that the Word of God has come, not only the Word, but nothing else than life,"

^A and truly and really being the Word." And again: "Before, as I have often said, it was nothing else but the Word." And again: "Before it descended and was born of the Virgin, it was the Word only; for what else was it, before it assumed the human flesh which descended upon us in the last days, as he himself wrote? And that which was born of the Virgin was nothing else but the Word." To Marcellus saying these things, it would be fair to put forward the following question: "And from where, O good man, do you add 'nothing else' and 'only'? For we have accurately known the 'In the beginning was the Word,' and not only that, but 'the Word was God,' and 'was the light that enlightens every man' [coming into the world], and 'was the only-begotten Son,' and as many other things as have been enumerated. But that he was the Word only, and nothing else than the Word, no one could prove was ever said." From where, then, the boldness of this addition? For why should one not rather say he was the Son only, and nothing else but the Son? Or why not God, and nothing else but God? Why not the light of the world, and nothing else but that? Why not life, and nothing else? And in the case of similar terms, just as one would be caught erring if he were to say this (for all these are collectively one, and he is the Son of God, and if there is anything higher than these, he is deemed worthy of them in accordance with each conception of the diverse divine powers in him), so also in the case of the Word, whoever says he is the Word only and nothing else ^B would deservedly be said to be mistaken. For since only the evangelist John called him the Word, and not only this, but also other things—while the Savior himself called himself light, and truth, and life, and the only-begotten Son, and the rest, but never the Word—how is it not absurd, in the case of the terms by which he named himself, not to say that he is one of these and nothing else, but in the case of the evangelist's voice regarding him, which called him the Word, to assert that he was nothing else but the Word? "But," he says, "he is also properly and truly existing God." For indeed he who called him the Word was not one person, and he who called him God another; it is one and the same. The evangelist taught both, that he was the Word, saying, "And the Word was God," and the same man also named him light. Why, then, not properly and truly the Son, the only-begotten, and whatever else the Lord and Savior himself has testified about himself? Yet he, passing over all these, says he is only the Word, properly and truly existing. And he adds that he is therefore only the Word. And from here he falls away into the likeness of human speech. ^C And regarding similar terms, one would most justly propose the same thing. Indeed, he who is convinced that he who said he is the Word is the same person as he who named him God, ^D is in turn refuted as erring heavily; for since he who is one and the Son of God is called by all these names, and not only by these, but by many others besides these and perhaps more divine than these, according as we grasp his divine power and virtue in different ways, so also, he who has called him only the Word, and nothing else besides the Word, must altogether be mistaken and err. For since John the evangelist calls him the Word alone—or rather, not the Word alone, but designates him by many other names—and since the Savior himself calls himself light, and truth, and life, and the only-begotten, and the Son, but never the Word—how would it not be absurd to allege none of the things by which he distinguished himself? And not to say that he is called by those names, and by no other name; but to insist upon that word, "the Word," which the evangelist used of him, and constantly to affirm that he is nothing else besides the Word? "Nay indeed," he says, "he was properly and most truly God the Word; for he was not one person and the other, but the same and one evangelist; at once both the Word—

that he has taught us that it is: *And the Word was God*; and he has named the same person Light. For what reason then, does he not name him properly and truly the Only-begotten Son, and by the other names by which the Savior and Lord has named himself in the Gospels? But he omits and passes over all these, and teaches that he exists properly and truly as the Word alone, adding this also, that it is exclusively the Word: where he even descends to the likeness of a human word.

CAP. XI. That he sometimes calls him the proforic Word of God, and sometimes an immanent one, just as is accustomed to occur in men.

^A When he hears him named Light, he does not stray to physical light, nor does he affirm that he is like the light of the sun; but where he reads [the word] Word, he imagines him as a signifying [power], similar to the human word, to such an extent that he now affirms that he rests within God, and now says that he goes forth outside of God, and thus that he exists both outside of him and in him, after the likeness of the word within us, which is understood to reside within and to be uttered by the mouth. He speaks in exactly these words: ^B "For all things that the Father speaks, he is seen to speak everywhere through his Word, which is manifest also to us ourselves, as we compare great things with small, and divine with human. For we also, whatever we wish, according to our ability, do by our own word accomplish both in word and in deed." And again he speaks thus: "For before all creation, there was a certain silence, as was likely, while the Word existed in God." He adds, however: "Since nothing existed prior to God alone, but all things were about to come into being through the Word, the Word proceeded with his operative power." Having said these things about the Word and suchlike, hear now how he endeavors to interpret the saying of the Gospel. ^C He writes thus: "But the holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, while leading us in the beginning of his Gospel, clearly and explicitly, as if it were something previously unknown to men, thus names the Word of the omnipotent God. He says: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*. Not content with a single testimony, he [here] signifies the eternity of the Word." He says again: ^D "But having used three continuous testimonies, he wishes to show the eternity of the Word." And again he adds: "For in the saying, *In the beginning was the Word*, he shows his existence in the Father by power. For God is the beginning of all things that have come to be, from whom are all things; but in the saying, *And the Word was with God*, he shows that the Word is with God by operation. For all things were made through him, and without him was nothing made; but in the saying, *And the Word was God*, [he adds this] so as not to divide the Godhead, since the Word is in Him, and He himself is in the Word. For, he says, *I am in the Father, and the Father is in me*. By such markers—

^A Marcellus, while invalidating the substance of the only-begotten Son of God, calls upon the divine Evangelist as a witness to his own heretical and depraved opinion, as if he intended for us to understand nothing else but a Word, at times operative, at other times quiescent in God, and existing as nothing else than God himself.

Chapter XII: That the Evangelist did not set forth the theology concerning the Son as Marcellus thought.

For indeed the great Evangelist, being at once an evangelist and a theologian, ^B mentioning the Word three times in the same passage, has not even once called him "the Word of God." For he did not say, "In the beginning was the Word of God," but indefinitely, *In the beginning was the Word*, leaving it to us to inquire what sort of thing the Word was. And again, he said, *And the Word was with God*, being able to say, "And the Word of God was with God." But he said, *And the Word was God*, not, "And the Word of God was God," so that we might not suppose him to be some operation of God, or something intended to signify or create something. Marcellus, however, having supposed the Word of God to be eternal—that is, unbegotten—has frequently defined it, not observing that if he says the Word is something else besides God, there will be two eternals, the Word and God, and there will no longer be one principle. But if he is said to be eternal by defining the Word as being the same as God, he will be confessing himself to be a plain Sabellian, introducing, in accordance with that man, the "Son-Father" as one. For according to him, ^C the Father will be begotten and will have suffered, and he himself will be the one praying to himself, saying he was sent by himself, and [calling himself] the Son of himself, and only-begotten, not speaking the truth, but falsely asserting it with irony. And what other doctrine could be conceived more impious than this? But come, let us consider what sort of Word the Evangelist proclaims to us, saying: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*.

Chapter XIII: In how many ways the meaning of the term "Word" is understood.

The word denoting the "Word" (λόγος), when brought forth in the Greek tongue, offers a multifaceted theory. ^D First, the word is used for that which is disposed in the rational soul, from whence it happens that we are able to reason. Secondly, there is "word" as that which signifies something through the tongue and articulate voice. Thirdly, by a third method, that which is consigned to the writer by means of writing. Fourthly, we are accustomed to call "word" also that which is seminal or vegetative, according to which those things not yet grown exist in the seeds in potentiality, as long as they are not yet brought forth into the light into activity. Fifthly, besides these, they are wont to call "word" the intellectual faculty of some art or science, and every [index: entries preserved]

^A comprehensive grasp of such theorems, such as the medical, the architectonic, or the geometric word.

Chapter XIV. How the evangelical doctrine concerning the Word ought to be interpreted.

Since, therefore, "word" is understood in multifarious ways, and the evangelist has spoken indefinitely, *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*, it behooves the mind, having taken heed, to learn that the evangelist is delivering, for the present, a sense of "word" that is strange to what we have known elsewhere. While he speaks the word indefinitely, he adds the strange and paradoxical aspect of its own peculiar power in the phrase *and the Word was God*. For do not, he says, imagine that this is among things relative, like the word which is in the soul, or the word which is heard by voice, or that which exists in bodily seeds, or that which consists in mathematical theorems. ^B For all these, being relative, are understood as existing in another subject—but the God Word does not require another to be pre-existent, in order that He might subsist in it. By Himself He is living and subsisting, inasmuch as He is God; for *"God was the Word."* But when you hear Him called God, he says, do not suppose that He is unoriginate and unbegotten, like His Father, but learn that *in the beginning* this *God Word was*. But what His beginning is, He clarifies next, not saying, "And the Word was the God"—with the addition of the article—lest He should define Him as the One who is over all, nor yet "in God," lest he cast Him down to human likeness; but, and the Word, he says, *was with God*. For if he had said, "And the Word was in God," ^C as an accident in a subject, and as one thing in another, he would have introduced a composite God, positing Him as a substance without a word, and the word as an accident to the substance. Marcellus, having thought just this, brings the Father and the Son into one and the same, calling the Father the substance, and the Word in Him the Son; not considering that the one who grants this, by positing God as without a word, would fall into an impious and blasphemous dogma by admitting a wordless God—having indeed a word as an accident in Him, yet not Himself being the Word. But it must be altogether confessed that God Himself is divine, ineffable, good, simple, uncompounded, ^D uniform, and over all; or if any name greater and more excellent than these can be thought of. Nay, rather, that which exceeds every mind, and surpasses every thought and inquiry of the soul. But His only-begotten Son, as being the image of the Father, having sprung from Him, and being in all things and by all things most similar to the One who begat Him, and Him-

Himself also believed to be God, and mind, and Word, and wisdom, and life, and light—the image of that Beautiful and Good One—is yet not the Begetter Himself, but the only-begotten Son of the Father; and not Himself the Unbegotten and Unoriginate, but the One who has sprung from Him and who identifies the One who begat Him as His origin. ^A If, however, in opposition to these things, Marcellus were to say that God and the Word in Him are one and the same, defining God as simple and without composition, let him see that he acknowledges neither Father nor Son; but that he either betrays himself as a Jew, or introduces with Sabellius the Father and the Son as being one and the same—seeing that with him, "In the beginning was the Word" sounds the same as "In the beginning was God," and "the Word was with God" is equivalent to "God was with God," and the third likewise is for him the same as "God was God."

But how, further, will the text "All things were made through Him" hold any place, if there is but one subject? For it says that all things were not made *from* Him, nor *of* Him, but "through Him." Now, the preposition "through" signifies an auxiliary role; as the same evangelist, proceeding in order, shows by saying, "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." For just as the law, being not of men nor yet of Moses, was God's—to which Moses served as an associate and minister for its promulgation to men—and for this reason it is said, "The law was given through Moses," so too grace came "through Jesus Christ," the Father having wrought it through Christ. ^B In like manner, therefore, it is said that "All things were made through Him," while Another did the creating, and He Himself performed the service; so that one must seek another as the Maker of all things, who through Him who is the subject of theology brought all things into being. And who could this be? Indeed, no one could say. Since these things are so, we must confess that He who is deified by the evangelist is not the God over all, nor the Father Himself, but His only-begotten Son—not walking with the Father in equal stride, nor existing as in a single subject, nor as one and the same with God, but as the Son who truly exists, living and subsisting, existing in the beginning and with God, and being God, through whom He creates all things. ^C Wherefore one might, after transferring it to a clearer expression, rightly say instead of "In the beginning was the Word," "In the beginning was the Son," and instead of "and the Word was with God," "and the Son was with the Father," and instead of "and the Word was God," "and the Son was God." Thus would also appropriately cohere what follows: "For all things were made through Him, and without Him not one thing was made." Divinely, therefore, the holy evangelist ^D spoke of Him as "in the beginning," giving Him a beginning—it being clear that this refers to the generation from the Father; for everything that is generated from something has a beginning.

^B He did not, however, add similarly, "And the Word was in God," but, "And the Word was with God," teaching that the begotten One, although He possesses the Father as His beginning, did not depart to a place far from the Father, nor has He been cut off or stood far away from Him, but that He is present with Him and exists with Him: a truth which He also taught previously in Proverbs, saying, "Before all the hills He begets me," and adding thereafter, "When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him." Thus then the Word, that is, the only-begotten Son, was with His Father God, present, standing by, and assisting always and everywhere; which fact he indeed intimates by saying, "And the Word was with God." But since it was fitting for us to understand what rank He then held, he necessarily added, "And the Word was God." For how could He not be God, who was begotten from the one and only unbegotten God? For if "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," according to the saving teaching, it follows that that which is born of God must be God. Wherefore, "and the Word was God," and this God is the maker and creator of all things. This the Evangelist himself ^C intimated, adding immediately thereafter, "All things were made through Him."

The law then of Moses, which was in the manner of a pedagogue, introducing in the Cosmopoeia God as the maker of all things, and delivering to us certain elements and introductions to the worship of God, says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," etc. By these things he wished to instruct the people of the Jews, so that they might believe the world to have been created, lest they otherwise worship the creature instead of the Creator. But as to how God created all these things, and through whom, Moses did not yet inform his pupils. But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, announcing that mystery which he had shrouded in silence, and initiating the Church of God into a new and mystical doctrine; whence, that it might be heard by all, he proclaims that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and, "All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made." And further adding to these, "What has been made in Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness," and the things that follow, by which he teaches us ^D of the Son of God, and of the prerogative of the divine light and the life that is in Him, and how all things that were said by Moses, and even those that transcend them, were produced. Since Marcellus understood none of these things, he is caught at one time Judaizing, and at another Sabellianizing: Judaizing, in that he asserts there was nothing before the constitution of the world except God alone, before the constitution of the Church of God confessing the Father and the Son; but according to

^A Sabellius he appears as one and the same person, declaring him to be both Son and Father, sometimes introducing the indwelling Word, and sometimes the uttered Word. For if he pretends not to admit these terms, he still asserts that the Word is sometimes within God, and at other times proceeds from Him through an active operation, from which he compares Him to the human word. Yet the divine evangelist did not set forth the Word, who is theologized by him, according to any of these modes; but as it was fitting to conceive of the only-begotten Son of God, he taught that He is the Word through whom all things were reasonably constituted according to their rational principles, and ^B without whom nothing of those things which exist was made. He calls Him God and Only-begotten, because He alone was truly the Son of the God who is over all things; a Son truly genuine and beloved, assimilated to His own Father in all things. Wherefore He was also truly God, in that He illuminates with light the intellectual and rational part in souls created according to His image. Hence he says that He is not the light of all things, but of men alone. "For it was the true light," he said, "which illuminates every man coming into the world." And in this way He truly existed also as life, in that He supplies to all living things from His own abundance. And thus we may find those appellations truly attributed to Him, by which the divine virtues that are in Him are represented. For in all things the Son of God was Truth, which He Himself sets forth saying, "I am the truth."

CAP. XV.

^B or with the Wisdom that was always present to Him, ^A for God to have conceived of the construction of the heavens, He reasonably said: “When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him.” Then, proceeding further, he shows that the Word of God is both immanent and distinct, writing thus: “For who among the holy angels, or righteous men, was sufficiently worthy to avert the punishment appointed to him by God, if not the Word Himself, who was present and co-creating, to whom the Father said: 'Let us make man'?” Following these things, he clarifies what kind of word he is introducing, saying: “But if one wishes to use a small and human example, and as if by an image examine the divine activity, it would be as if some skilled sculptor, wishing to fashion a statue, first considers within himself its forms and exact shapes; then he conceives of the breadth and length, as is appropriate; and he examines the proportion of the whole in each individual part, having prepared the suitable bronze material, and having prefigured the future statue in his own mind, and ^B believing he sees it intellectually, and being conscious ^C that the reasoning by which he ratiocinates within himself cooperates with him, and that he does nothing without reason (for nothing lacking reason can be pleasing as a thing of beauty), when he has approached this, his sensible work, he addresses himself as if to another, exhorting himself, saying: ‘Come, let us make; come, let us fashion a statue.’ In this way, the Lord God of all, about to fashion from the earth a living statue, addressed not some other, but His own Word, saying: ‘Let us make man.’” Through these things he clearly attributed to God both the immanent word, with which one deliberates, and the uttered word, with which one converses, assuming the Word in God to be of such a kind as ours.

CAP. XVI. Refutation of the perverse opinion of this man.

It is not necessary for us to labor further to show that through these things the Son of God is denied; he need only answer the questions. If God was one, and nothing else—neither Father nor Son—why do the Holy Scriptures lie about such names? Why does Marcellus himself dissemble, while calling him Son whom he does not hold to be Son, but Word? And since he uses the example of the human word, it must be said that not every man, though endowed with reason and possessing the connatural word within himself, has a son, so that a son is necessarily something different from the word. If, therefore, he should say that God had the Word within Himself and nothing else, with whom he says...

^A, "Let us make man," he speaks in vain and to no purpose when he names a Son? Or why does he deceive the Church? Why does he, not believing in the Son of God, pretend to believe, crafting a facade by using the term Son for the Word that is in God? Clearly, the example teaches that the word innate within the soul differs widely from the Son, who is begotten from something, subsists in himself, lives, and acts. But he says, "It is not I, as it seems, but the divine evangelist who has called Him the Word." It would therefore follow that we too should agree with him. Yes, I say the same myself.

CHAPTER XVII. An explanation of the true meaning of the Word.

^B But I do not think this statement should be understood in any other way than according to the teaching of the evangelist himself, regarding what he understands by the Word. He insinuates this quite clearly in the words that follow, saying, "And the Word was God." For if he had wished to say that the Father and the Son were one and the same, and that this Word was the God who is over all, he could have said, "And God was the Word" (with the addition of the article). But he did not frame the writing in this way. For he ought to have said, "And the Word was of God," or, "And the Word was the God," with the addition of the article, if he were making the text consistent with the opinion of Marcellus. ^C But now, he indicates that the Word Himself is God, in the same way he said "the Word was with God." For having previously stated, "And the Word was with God," he proceeds to say, "And the Word was God," explaining to us, as it were, more clearly: first, that we should conceive of God who is over all, the very Father of the Word, with whom the Word was; then, secondly, that we should not be ignorant that His Word, the only-begotten Son, was indeed not that God who is over all, but that He also was God. For that ^D "and" conjunction joins the divinity of the Son to the Father. Therefore he says, "And the Word was God," so that we might see the God who is over all, with whom the Word was, and also the Word Himself as God. Hear it as the image of God, and an image not as in inanimate matter, but as in a living Son, conformed most accurately to the archetypal divinity of the Father. Since it seemed good to Marcellus to compare the Word of God to human speech, how much better would it be to say, if he was to use this comparison at all, that the parent of our speech is the mind, which exists as something different from the speech. For no human being has ever known what the mind is, or of what essence it is formed: but just as a king, established within his own secret chambers, deliberates on things to be done: and his speech, proceeding from him as if begotten from a parent, becomes manifest to all those outside...

who indeed share in the utility resulting from the word, but see not the invisible and unapparent mind, the begetter of that word. In the same manner, or rather further beyond all likeness and example, the most perfect Word of the Lord of all, not after the manner of human spoken speech, which is composed of syllables and words and names, but as the living and subsisting only-begotten Son of God, proceeds from the divinity and kingdom of his Father, and irrigates the whole world, abundantly spreading forth from himself life, reason, wisdom, light, and participation in every good thing, which he has received from the Father and which overflows from him to all created beings. ^B Since that Father is in all respects unapprehensible and incomprehensible, not appearing after the manner of that invisible mind (whence it is also said that he "dwells in light which no one can approach"), he is inaccessible and incomprehensible to all and to each entirely; but that Son, surely, since he is placed near to us through the Spirit of his Father, governs all things. Wherefore it is not said of the Father, but of the Son, "He was in the world, and the world was made by him." He, however, the Father, was above all things and all beings, dwelling in light unapproachable; while this latter, by his governing presence, ^C remains through all things and in all beings, so that *only* in this respect does that image of human speech appear to correspond to him. Having thus demonstrated these things, some eager student might perhaps ask:

CHAPTER XVIII

Why the Evangelist named the Son "the Word" at the beginning of his Gospel

What, then, was the reason that the evangelist, beginning his book, named the only-begotten Son by the title of "the Word"? To whom we shall respond: that this was done on account of the prophecies of old concerning him that are hard to understand; since everywhere throughout all the prophets it is written, "the Word of the Lord." Thus, in Isaiah it is said at the beginning, "The Word of the Lord to Isaiah." So to Hosea, ^D and to Joel: "And the word of the Lord came to Jonah," and so to Micah, and similarly it is said to other prophets, "The word came." For the sacred Scripture wished here necessarily and precisely to signify that in no [case]—

was it merely of the prophets, but that it came to each according to the capacity of each one, being such as he was able to contain—approaching him and providing to the soul of each the Spirit from Himself and the intellectual [grace] appropriate to each. Fittingly, therefore, at the present time, the evangelist, about to announce the economy of the Word, teaches that He has not come now in the same way as to those of old, but that He has taken flesh and become man. And since he was about to proclaim to everyone His saving passage to mankind, saying next, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," ^B he necessarily turns back to the beginning, demonstrating who and what kind of a being the Word—who just yesterday and the day before became incarnate—was. He theologizes about Him, announcing at once both His knowledge and His theophany to mankind; then, since the ancients had already learned from the divine readings that the Word had come to each of the prophets, he himself declares His more divine and preeminent beginning—a beginning which none of the prophets ever revealed to men so nakedly and openly. Wherefore, with a loud voice, handing down to all the hidden and secret mystery concerning the Word, he cried out, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made." For if, he says, having been instructed of old by the former divine Scriptures, you have already learned that the Word of the Lord came to this prophet and, again, similarly came to another, and again to yet another, it is now necessary for all to be evangelized not as to how the Word came, but as to how He was in the beginning, and how He was God, and how all things were made through Him, and how that very same God, the Word through whom all things were made, by the philanthropy of the Father was made flesh and dwelt among us. These things were evangelized by John, the great disciple and apostle of Christ, ^C instructing all men in the new and recent mysteries of the Savior—not that God was endowed with reason, nor that He pondered with Himself and took counsel with Himself, saying, "Let us make man," nor that He used words as admonitions for things to be done. For these are things that anyone who denied the Son of God would say, which is exactly what Marcellus is caught doing; for as if to a place of refuge, he flees to the old Scripture and draws together the things that were once handed down to the infantile people of the Jews concerning not worshipping idols but knowing and serving only one God—teaching where the doctrine concerning the one and only God succeeded abundantly, as it was handed down ^D very usefully and opportunely to the idolatrous Jews. Betaking himself thither, and fortifying himself as if within a stronghold with Jewish hardness of heart, he proceeded to launch his denial of the Son of God.

^A

Chapter XIX. How Marcellus, citing the Scriptures of the Old Testament concerning the one God, denies the Son of God in the same manner as the Jews.

Hear, then, the terms he employs, writing word for word: "Whom, then, does Asterius suppose the one saying, 'I am who I am,' to be—the Son, or the Father? For he affirms that there are two hypostases of the Father and the Son, looking toward that human flesh which the Word of God assumed, and on account of that flesh he has fallen into this opinion; and in this way he has asserted that there is a Father and a Son. Thus he separates the Son of God ^B from the Father, just as one might separate a son of man from his natural father." And he adds in the next passage: "If, therefore, he says that the Father separates Himself from the Son in saying these things to Moses, he will surely admit that the One who is the Son is not God. For how is it possible that the One who says, 'I am who I am,' does not also acknowledge that, in contrast to what is not, He says that He Himself is the One who is?" But if he claims that the Son, distinct in hypostasis, says this "I am who I am," it will be thought that He says the same thing again concerning the Father, and both of these are impious. And ^C again, attempting to demonstrate that the Father and the Son are one, he writes as follows: "For He Himself confesses, saying, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me.'" That he has not said this simply or without purpose is evident also from another apostolic utterance. For the one who said, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father, who is over all, and through all, and in all," showed that even here he does not depart from consistency, but that here, too, he has labored under the same. For having said, "One Lord," he again said, "One God," so that, whenever he makes mention of the one Lord, he may include the Father also; and whenever he speaks concerning the Father, he may attest that ^D the Word of God is not excluded. Having stated these things, Marcellus brings together many testimonies from the Old Testament in proof that there is no Son to God. For he claims that God has existed as an indivisible unity, and he insinuates that the Father and the Son are the same. Thus he writes: "What then? If we obey the Spirit, do we not consider the unity to be indivisible, at least in power? Certainly we shall not have erred. Since the Word has clearly taught us, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.' He preaches the same thing also through the Gospel according to Mark, for when a certain scribe came to Him and inquired what was the first of all the commandments, He answered him, saying, 'The first of all is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God...'"

with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. This is the first and second similar to it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.' And the scribe said to him, 'Well, Teacher, you have said in truth that there is one God and there is no other ^A except him.' Now the scribe, as one who is thought to have learned piety through the Law, appears to be praising the statement of the Savior, saying, 'Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one,' and as though convinced that it was well spoken by an oath, he says: 'For in truth, you have said that God is one, and there is no other except him.' But those who boast of knowing the mysteries of the New Testament—these also wish to fashion a second God, separated from the Father in substance and power. ^B To these he adds, establishing that God is one, and that there is no Son—by means of these.

But that the divine Scripture knows how to call the Monad Lord and God, has already become clear also from what was said before, where God said to his own servant Moses: 'And God said again to Moses: Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' You see how, while indicating to us a person here, it calls the same both Lord and God. And again likewise the Scripture says: 'And the Lord spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods except me.' You hear how through the pronoun He declares there to be one God only. And again a little later, 'I am the Lord thy God,' he says, speaking of himself as Lord and God. ^C But what do we learn also through another Scripture? 'And you shall know today,' he says, 'and you shall not be perverted in your mind, that the Lord your God, this is God in heaven above and upon the earth below, and there is not except him.' And again in the same Deuteronomy, 'Hear, Israel,' he says, 'The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' And again in the same: 'See, see, that I am, and there is no God except me; I will kill and I will make to live, I will strike and I will heal.' How then did Asterius, pretending to follow the holy Scriptures ^D simply and with fear, not know this part which says: 'The Lord your God, this is God in heaven above and upon the earth below, and there is not except him'? And that he is one, and that except him there is no other. And after other things, he adds to these again, saying: 'How

^A then does the holy prophet Jeremiah 87 not openly refute him for teaching perverted things? For prophesying concerning our Saviour, he thus spoke: 'This is our God; no other shall be reckoned against him. He discovered every path of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his child, and to Israel his beloved by him. After these things 88 he was seen upon the earth, and conversed with men.' ^B And again he adds, saying [and it seems the Father is in the Word, even if it does not please Asterius, nor those who think the same things as him. For this seems so to the divine prophet Isaiah, speaking by the Holy Spirit: 'And they shall worship you, and in you they shall pray, because God is in you, and there is no other besides you. For you are God' 90]. Do you see how he uproots the artificial wickedness of those who teach differently? And again he adds: 'And if you wish ^C to hear also other prophecies of the same [prophet] confirming to us one God: "I am God," he says, "the first; and for the things to come, I am." For the 'I' is indicative of one person; for the two expressions indicate one person to us. For having said "I," he adds also "am," so that by the two parts of speech, the pronoun and the verb, he might attest to the unity of the Godhead. And if he should require other testimonies, I will again bring forward the same prophet saying: "I am the first, and I am after these things, and besides me there is no God." But if Asterius thinks the Son to be divided from the essence of the Father as a son of man is divided from [the] flesh, which he took on for our sake, being offended, ^D let him show us who it is who says these things: for the statement being made is here also of one person. Who then is it who says, "There is no God besides me"? Hear another prophet who speaks thus: "Besides me there is no righteous one and Saviour." If he should think there are two gods, he is forced to acknowledge the other as neither God nor Saviour. But if he is neither righteous nor Saviour, how more can he be God? For he declares one to be righteous and Saviour. And again: "Before me," he says, "there was no other, and after me there shall be none. I am God, and there shall be no saviour besides me." And if he is desirous of hearing another prophetic statement, perhaps spoken to him and to those who think similarly to him concerning the Godhead, let him hear Isaiah himself saying: "Repent, you who are led astray, turn with your heart, and remember the former things from of old, that I am that God, and there is none besides me." He did not say, "I am God," so that even by the addition of the article, "that," he might clearly show that he is one God.' But what of the prophet Hosea? Does he not also [index: entries preserved]

^A bear witness to the same things? "I," he says, "brought you out of Egypt, and you shall know no God besides me, and there is no savior apart from me." Again, Malachi also says, "Has not one God created you? Is there not one Father of you all?" But Asterius says somewhere that David—who, with the exception of Moses, is the most ancient of the prophets—has said nothing about this, ^B and that for this reason it was a matter of doubt whether one ought to confess two Gods divided in substance or not. Therefore, so that he may not say this, I consider it a logical step to show that this prophet too thought the same things as the previously mentioned holy men. "Hear," he says, "my people, and I will speak to you, Israel, and I will bear witness to you; if you listen to me, there shall not be a new god in you, nor shall you worship a strange god. For I am the Lord your God." He who shows ^C himself and says, "I am," is he not clearly confessing that there is only one God, that is, himself?

CAP. XX. Why Moses and the prophets did not plainly hand down to the Jews the theology concerning the Son.

Marcellus piles up all these things and even more than these in order to deny the Son of God, owing to his own ignorance; for he did not consider that such instruction was provided to them on account of the hardness of heart of the Jewish people. For the Holy Spirit could not, through the prophets of God, deliver the perfect doctrine of piety to men who were so imperfect and incapable in their minds. ^D Therefore, he commanded them to perform sacrifices, and the circumcision of the body, and the keeping of the Sabbath, and the abstinence from certain foods, and bodily purifications, and bodily blessings, and, what is more, promises not of the kingdom of heaven, but of a land flowing with milk and honey. But our Lord and Savior, when asked why Moses, having commanded that a bill of divorce be given and that a man might dismiss his wife if he so pleased, himself decreed the opposite to these things, gave a universal reason, saying, "Moses wrote this because of the hardness of your hearts; but from the beginning it was not so." And the same answer could be given if someone asked: why did Moses and the prophets after him, who commanded them to worship God, teach nothing plainly, nor instill in them any knowledge of the Son? For they were not able, being so frequently led away by the error regarding the multitude of gods, to receive the evangelical grace. For this reason, for the hardness of their hearts, they provided instruction concerning one God, for the time being instructing them by turning them away from the belief that there are many gods and leading them toward the introduction of the one. Thus Moses delivered an imperfect doctrine to those of his time on account of their imperfect understanding, so that he made no mention of the creation of angels

^A in his account of the world’s creation, even though the prophets who came after him mentioned not only angels, but also divine powers, holy spirits, and the super-celestial ministers of God; of whom Daniel, teaching us, said: "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him" (Dan. vii, 10). Yet Moses passed over the mention of all these in silence, even though he was not ignorant of them, seeing that he had received an exact knowledge of all things from the inspiration of the divine Spirit. However, he did not include them among the created things worthy of mention as being brought into existence by God. And we could assign no other reason for this than the stiffness of heart of the people, as the Savior Himself also taught. ^B And you may learn that there are ten thousand other things in the composition of the universe through the readings of the New Testament, which appear nowhere in the history of Moses. He does not mention principalities, nor powers, nor the world-rulers, nor the spirits of wickedness, against whom the divine Apostle says our struggle is set. What then does it matter if we cannot find the rationale for these things either in Moses or in the rest of the prophets; must we then detract from the faith in the Apostle? Or because he, in turn, mentions this order of superior beings, saying that Christ sits at the right hand of God, "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come" (Ephes. i, 20, 21); and again, when he names thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers, saying: ^C "For in him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers" (Coloss. i, 16). Is it not fitting that we should accept these things, even if Moses and the rest of the prophets made no mention of them beforehand? Or shall we say the same thing concerning these matters, namely that the stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears were not able to be entrusted with the doctrines concerning these things, to whom therefore the prophets of God did not reveal anything about that Jerusalem ^D above; whereas in the Church of Christ, Paul clearly proclaims concerning it, saying, "But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal. iv, 26); and, "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven" (Hebr. xii, 22, 23). Let Marcellus tell us here whether he is able to produce the doctrine concerning these things from the ancient Scriptures. But if he should find no basis for it, let him provide the reason why these things, and ten thousand others related to them, were hidden by the prophets of God—those things for which the most holy Apostle prayed to God on our behalf, that we might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and len

length and depth and height, and to know the love of God which surpasses knowledge. ^A But our Saviour himself also set forth many mysteries concerning the kingdom of heaven, concerning the end of the world, and concerning the promises, sometimes through parables, and sometimes secretly and in private, as He revealed them to His own disciples, to whom He said: "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of God," the likes of which one would not find in Moses or the other prophets. What then? Since these things were not delivered to the Jewish people, but were reserved for an opportune time to be made manifest to the Church of Christ, are we therefore to neglect the grace granted to us? Nay, rather, we ought to return greater thanks to Him who has deemed us worthy of such knowledge.

In the same manner, therefore, the teachings concerning the Son in His New Testament ought to be accepted, and we should not regard them as something alien, even if the men of God did not impart the knowledge of Him to that people possessed of a hard heart, but reserved the discourse concerning His dispensation for an opportune time. ^B It did not seem right at that time to reveal the mystery of the Father and the Son to men who were easily inclined to the error of many gods, since nothing had been revealed to them concerning these subject powers, lest, given this pretext, they might slide back into the polytheism of the Greeks, who are accustomed to call their Zeus the father of both men and gods. Therefore, to restrain them from this error, the Word proclaimed one God, yet He did not deny that He was the Father; He taught them to worship the true God, and exhorted them to acknowledge no one else besides Him, yet He did not deny that He was the Father. If He also called Him Lord, and God, and Just, and Saviour, He did not thereby preclude the belief that He is also the Father of His only-begotten and beloved Son.

Whether, therefore, the Father speaks, or the Son, saying: "I am who I am," the statement is in either case entirely true. ^C For the Father is "He who is," being exclusively God over all, through all, and in all, as the divine Apostle taught; and the Son also, being properly called "He who is," is true, being the only Son, the only-begotten of Him who is, but also being the image of the invisible God. And this is His image, in that He alone was Himself "He who is." Therefore He too is called "He who is," since He is worshipped through all the divinely inspired Scripture as God and Lord, just as the Father is.

CHAPTER XXI.

This can also be known from the colloquy with Moses. For the Scripture says: "And God spoke to Moses, and said to him, ^D 'I am the Lord, and I appeared'"

Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. You see how He affirms that ^A He appeared to the fathers. And when He appeared, the Scripture teaches, saying, "God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, as he was sitting at the door of his tent." And in what form did He appear, if not in a human one? And who could that be, if not the Son of God, as He Himself teaches in the Gospel when addressing the Jews: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he might see my day, and he saw it and was glad." But to those who were astonished at His remark, He added, "Before Abraham existed, I am," thereby most clearly demonstrating His pre-existence. For what else did that expression intimate, other than that it was the Son of God Himself who was speaking with Moses and saying, "I am who I am"? For He Himself taught that He had appeared to Abraham. And how it was *He who is* that spoke, has been shown.

The great apostle Paul also acknowledges the Son of God as having been made mediator of the law given through Moses, in the passages where he instructs us, saying, "The law, ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one." ^B Thus, He who spoke with Moses was the mediator, even before the assumption of flesh, the mediator of human salvation. That this was Jesus Christ, the same Apostle demonstrated by saying, "One God, one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus." Whether, therefore, it is spoken in His own person before Moses, "I am who I am," or whether it was the Father who uttered this voice through Him, in either case the statement is joined with truth.

Let not Marcellus any longer be perplexed, using what he considers an inescapable syllogism, where he writes: "Whom then does Asterius think to be the one who said, 'I am'? The Son or the Father?" adding thereafter: "For if it were the Father who was thus saying, 'I am,' then the Son is not God, because in contradistinction to him who does not exist, He says 'I am.' But if, regarding the Son as distinct in substance, one says that He uttered this very same thing, 'I am,' it will be thought that the same thing is again ^C asserted concerning the Father." Either of these, he says, is impious; and yet, having established these points, he himself falls into an absurdity, while positing that one is *the One who is*, and denying the other. But which one, pray tell? Perhaps he himself knows. For if he admits the Father, he will deny the Son; or, if he admits the Son alone, he will annihilate the Father. Or rather, he will be convicted of having established neither Father nor Son, when he admits only one, and removes the other. However, when he hears God saying, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall have no other gods before me," let him not be troubled, nor in his mind ^D

but let him attend to what follows immediately. ^A For when He had said, "You shall have no other gods before me," He added: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of all that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor shall you serve them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God." You see how He enjoined this one thing, that they might not be led astray by the polytheistic error of the Gentiles, but might know only the Lord and God Himself. Who, then, was this? It was the Son, having the image of the Father in Himself, who, out of His own authority, gave these things as commands to those suffering from idolatry. ^B For just as all things are said to have been made by the Father through the Savior, who undertook the substance of all things that are generated, so it was the Father Himself who, through the Son as mediator, communicated piety and the knowledge of Himself to men. This the Apostle also taught, writing to the Galatians with these very words, where he said: "The law was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not for one; but God is one." And elsewhere He says, "See that I am He, and there is no God besides Me." ^C It was the Father who said these things through the Son, as through an image and mediator; for when we hear the prophet Isaiah saying, "I have begotten and raised up children," and again, "Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me," and again, "I ordered all the stars," and, "With my hand I established the heaven," and other similar things, we shall not say that Isaiah spoke these things, but rather God speaking in him—and is it not also appropriate that the Father should bear witness to these things ^D through the Only-begotten Son of God to those who stood in need of such commands and admonitions? For these were idolaters, as the same Scripture teaches, saying: "And the Lord said: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted, of whose sacrifices you ate the fat, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them arise and help you, and become a shelter for you." For joined to these is the saying, "See, see that I am He, and there is no God besides Me."

CHAPTER XXII.

That the Father was also preached as God in the prophets through the Son.

If, therefore, He cries out a thousand times through the prophet, saying, "Besides me there is no God, and besides me there is no righteous one and Savior, and you shall not know a God besides me, and there is no one who saves besides me," and whatever other things of the same kind are brought forward in the rest of the prophets, it was God who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and it was the Father Himself, who, through the Only-begotten Son, as if through an interpreter, was insinuating these things to men; but the Son also...

in the Gospels, ^A delivered the same, teaching that one must know only one God, in those things where He said: "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." This, therefore, was the true God, who is one only, and there is no other besides Him; not only through the prophets, but through His own Son, He was enjoining these things at that time upon the people of the Jews who were given to idolatry. Immediately, therefore, Isaiah—or rather God through him—saying: "Besides Me there is no God. Who is like Me?" and so forth; "You are witnesses," He added, "if there is a God besides Me," and: "They were not then, who fashioned and carved, all vain, doing what pleased them." And through the whole of his prophecy, you may find the inanimate idols ^B lashed, and among each of the prophets alike, you will find one God proclaimed, so that men may be turned away from the multitude of gods. In the same way, we are accustomed, in any meeting with pagans, to reserve the teaching concerning Christ for an opportune time, and for the present to propose the refutation of the idolatrous error, and to establish the unity of God with demonstrative arguments. Let Marcellus therefore learn, if he who has grown old in the episcopate of the Church of Christ has not yet learned, that the understanding of that hidden mystery concerning the Son of God was by no means suitable for that ancient people, who were prone to idolatry, and that for His Church alone that mystery, hidden from the ages and from generations, was reserved to be opened by His grace. In which mystery the account concerning the holy Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was indeed comprehended. But he has collected many things into one, ^C as many as a master of the circumcised people of the Jews might have heaped up while preaching in a Jewish synagogue, and he boasts that he is presenting these to the disciples of Christ, while he is ignorant that a Jew according to the flesh would have brought forth many more. For these things he insults; but he is not ashamed that he perverts the most true theological account concerning our Saviour.

CAP. XXIII. That the Church does not preach two gods.

In the first place, he does not understand the saying of the divine Apostle, who teaches in diverse ways that He is the image of God, in the words proposed by me: from which it was fitting that he should understand that the Church of God does not preach two gods. For it believes neither in two unbegotten ^D nor in two without beginning, as has been said by us not once, nor does it assert two substances introduced as opposites and equal in honor: and therefore it does not preach two gods, but one principle and God, teaching that the same is the Father of the Only-begotten and beloved Son, and likewise also one image of the invisible God, which

^A is the same with the Only-begotten and beloved Son of His. Even though the Apostle, in speaking of the Father, says, *Who is the blessed and only Potentate*, and again, *Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto*, and again, *Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God*, and again, *To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be glory for ever and ever. Amen*.

Although many more things could be alleged for the doxology of the one and over-all God, of all these one must understand the Only-begotten Son of God to be the image—not as though formed in inanimate matter, but as fashioned in the living Son. And even if the Savior Himself teaches that the Father alone is the true God, saying, *That they may know thee the only true God*, yet we must not hesitate to confess Him also as true God, as if by image, and possessed of this; so that the addition of *only* may be adjusted to the Father alone, inasmuch as He is the archetype of the image.

Most clearly, therefore, did the divine Paul teach that He is the image and effulgence of the Father and that He existed in the form of God, as has been shown by the things mentioned before. Just as, therefore, ^B since there is one subsistent Father, and one Son born from the Father, no prudent person would say there are two fathers or two sons; and just as when one king holds power, while his image is carried everywhere throughout the land, no prudent person would say there are two kings, but rather one, who is honored through and in his image—in the same manner, as we have often said, the Church of God, having received to worship one God, persists in worshipping the same God through the Son, as through His image.

Marcellus, not perceiving this, declared that the image of the invisible God is the flesh of the Savior, which the Apostle has called *the form of a servant*, not reflecting that all men, according to the flesh, are fashioned after the Savior. And while he insists that the body which the Savior assumed is the image of the unbegotten and ineffable and paternal divinity, he denies that the Only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things subsist (*For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made*), is the image of God, writing in these very words: "Wherefore it is manifest ^C that before the assumption of our body, the Word by Himself was not the image of the invisible God."

See with what perversion he uses the apostolic interpretation. While the evangelist John was evangelizing and revealing the mystery hidden to Moses and the rest of the prophets, and with a great cry was proclaiming, *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made*, and was bearing witness that He was the light lighting every man coming ^D into the world—*He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not*—

by which words he clearly signifies the sonship, when he says of the Father: *No one has ever seen God*, and of the Son: *The only begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed Him*.

Chapter XXIV. How Marcellus likens the only begotten Son, the Word, to words of God that instruct in things to be done.

This admirable teacher of Christ's words—gathering from the divine Scriptures, from wherever he can, the precepts of God and those words that serve as reminders of things to be done—writes of such a kind, [saying]: *In the beginning was the Word*. Note, however, how he wishes to prove this; for he writes: ^A “The doctor ^B and teachers, while they scarcely fear to make mention of the Word, because in this manner all the divine Scriptures preach [it]. For one says: *By the word of the Lord the heavens were fixed* [Ps. XXXII, 6]. And again the same: *He sent out His Word and healed them* [Ps. CVI, 20]. And Solomon says: *The wicked shall seek me, and shall not find; for they hated wisdom, and the word of the Lord they did not choose* [Prov. I, 29]. Isaiah also: *From Sion there shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem* [Isa. II, 3]. And Jeremiah: *The wise are ashamed, he says, and are terrified, and have spoken, because the word of the Lord they have rejected* [Jer. VIII, 9]. And Oseas [the prophet] also: *They hated, he said, him who reproves in the gates, and the holy word they have abominated* [Ose. IX, 15]. Micah also, in like manner, making mention of the Word, says: *From Sion there shall go forth a law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem*.” ^C After he has heaped up these and similar things, he believes his own opinion is confirmed by them. Observe, however, how he has gathered together at one time diverse testimonies from the divine Scriptures, joining the salvific and healing Word of God sent to us with the word that serves as an admonition of things to be done. For that which says, *They hated him who reproves in the gates, and the holy word they have abominated*, what kind of Word does it suggest to us? Assuredly, it wishes to confess anything rather than the Son of God, as if he feared to make mention of Him. We indeed know the Son of God to be most properly the Son, and the truly only begotten of God: and we know Him also to be the Word; but not like some human word. ^D Yet it appears that when there is a living, subsisting Word of God, as if existing as the Son, he, introducing instead an indicative Word and a prompter of things to be done, is undeservedly reluctant to confess the Son of God, whom in reality he has denied.

^A

CHAPTER XXV. How he writes things contrary to himself.

Furthermore, he does not understand that he writes things contradictory to himself. In one place, he asserts with confidence that no one at all of that ancient people knew anything about the Word. For it was a hidden mystery, he says. His words are as follows: “For what else was the hidden mystery than that concerning the Word? For this mystery was so entirely hidden in God in former times, that no one of that former people understood this fact at all. But to us is now granted the enjoyment of the riches of his glory and of that most recondite mystery.” And immediately he adds: “But the most holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, clearly and plainly at the beginning of the Gospel, as one teaching what was previously unknown among men, names him the Word of the Almighty, ^B thus saying: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’” In these passages, therefore, he determines that the mystery that was hidden was this: that God had a Word. Yet, in the prophetic voices cited a moment ago, he establishes that all the divine Scriptures proclaim the things concerning him, and he gathers very many testimonies concerning the Word of God. The mystery was not, therefore, unknown to the former people; for they all knew such words by heart, and carried the prophetic oracles in their memory. But the Christian puts forward to us the scribe of the Jews, not heeding what the Savior said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” and he admires him ^C as he confirms with an oath, “There is one God, and there is none other beside him,” as if he did not know that “the demons also believe and shudder.” But observe how, out of the prophetic Scriptures themselves, he gathers those things concerning the Word that are a prompter of things to be done—which even the children of the Jews will acknowledge they recognize, as having received them before us. Furthermore, not even Sabellius himself was ignorant of such a Word. How, therefore, lashing out at the Jews and Sabellius, does he say they did not know the Word, through the words of his I have set forth? And since the same man has declared ^D in what preceded, that no one was able to know God, nor to recognize his Word, unless he had taken the image of the invisible God—namely, the flesh, as he himself said (for he maintained that God and his Word were to be known only through the image, calling the flesh the image)—we must remember, through what has been set forth, that without the incarnate presence, all the Jews knew accurately the word of God, and the words that are in the divine prophetic Scriptures, which are admonitory of holy works, studying them from their tenderest years; and they confessed God to be the Maker and Creator of all things; just as also the scribe, who by an oath confirms *

^A that this man Sabellianizes. It now remains for us to run through the Scriptures, which he has corrupted by a perverse interpretation, so that all those who hold this man in honor may understand that he has not only deviated from the true faith, but also that he does not unfold or examine the most holy and divinely inspired Scriptures except in a perverse manner. These things, then, serve as proof that he Sabellianizes. ^B It is time now to move on and examine the perverse interpretations of the divine Scriptures which he has made, so that everyone who respects the man may learn that he has gone astray not only from the correct faith, but also from a sound reading and contemplation of the divinely inspired Scriptures.

REFUTATIONS AGAINST MARCELLUS

OF EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI

ON ECCLESIASTICAL THEOLOGY

BOOK THREE

EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI

ON ECCLESIASTICAL THEOLOGY AGAINST MARCELLUS

BOOK THREE

CHAPTERS OF THE THIRD BOOK

1. How perversely Marcellus dared to interpret the divine Scriptures. 2. How the passage, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways," and the things joined thereto, are to be understood, and how Marcellus transferred these things to the flesh of the Savior. 3. A refutation of the passages incorrectly cited by him, and a sound interpretation of the same. 4. How Marcellus, not understanding the Scriptures, defined the hypostasis of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one. 5. How the Savior taught about the Holy Spirit. 6. How it is handed down that the Church is to think about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 7. How Marcellus asserted that the flesh of the Savior was an image of the invisible God. 8. How he himself declared that the flesh of the Savior was of no profit. 9. How he dared to say that at the consummation of the world, the flesh of the Savior is to be abandoned and left deserted by the Word. ^C 10. What the divine Scriptures teach concerning the flesh of the Savior, and how Marcellus thought the opposite. 11. How, not understanding the evangelical voice, he said the flesh of the Savior gives offense and profits nothing. 12. Interpretation of the evangelical word. 13. How he says the kingdom of Christ had a beginning.

^A 14. Explanation of the right and sound sense of the passages. 15. How it is said, "All things shall be subjected to the Son, and he himself to the Father." 16. In what sense it was said by the Apostle, "God will be all in all." 17. How the divine Scriptures set forth the endless kingdom of our Savior, and that Marcellus with brazen face asserted that his kingdom would have an end. 18. How in the kingdom of the Son all who are deemed worthy of that blessedness will be. 19. That just as the Father and the Son are said to be one, so all the saints will be one. 20. That as the Father is in the Son ^B and the Son in the Father, so he will be in all the saints. 21. In what sense that which is said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," must be understood.

CAP. I. How perversely Marcellus dared to interpret the divine Scriptures.

The great evangelist John proclaimed the theology of our Savior in the way previously set forth, in many different ways. But how Marcellus, by denying this, broke out into Jewish unbelief, has been made manifest by the things that have refuted him. And how he also perversely interpreted the doctrines concerning our Savior that are acknowledged and clear, you may learn not only from many other of his expositions, ^C but especially from that which is in the Proverbs of Solomon. Wisdom is introduced personified, setting forth these things concerning herself: "I, Wisdom, have dwelt in counsel, and I have called upon knowledge and understanding. The fear of the Lord hates evil, and arrogance and pride, and the ways of the wicked; and I have hated the perverted ways of the evil. Mine is counsel and safety; mine is understanding, and mine is strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By me the great ones are magnified, ^D and tyrants rule the earth. I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find grace. Riches and glory are mine, and possession of many things, and justice. It is better for me to be harvested than gold and precious stone, and my fruit is better than choice silver. I walk in the paths of justice, and I associate in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may divide sustenance to those who love me, and I will fill their treasuries with good things. If I recount to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to count those from of old. The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age...

foundations were made; before the deeps were made; before the fountains of waters welled forth; before the hills were settled, and before all the hills, he begets me. The Lord made the desolate lands, and the inhabited summits under the heavens. When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him. When he was setting apart his own throne upon the winds. When he was making strong the clouds above, and setting secure the fountains under the heavens, and making strong the foundations of the earth, I was by him, fashioning. I was the one delighting day by day; I rejoiced in his presence at every time, when he rejoiced at the finishing of the inhabited world, and rejoiced at the sons of men.

Chapter II

These things Wisdom says of herself in Proverbs. I have necessarily transcribed the whole passage, so that it might appear that it is one and the same person saying all these things, and that there is no change of person interposed. Wisdom, therefore, teaches and shows these things concerning herself. Here it is first to be noted that she is absolutely termed Wisdom: "For I," she says, "pitched my counsel," and it is not added, "the Wisdom of God." But just as it is written by the evangelist, *In the beginning was the Word* ^A, it is written absolutely; and again, *The Word was with God* ^B, and it is not said, "the Word of God," lest one should think him to be spoken of as something relative, or as a certain accident of God, but as subsistent and living. Hence he adds, *And God was the Word*, not saying, "And the Word was of God." In the same way, he speaks concerning Wisdom. For the Word of God and Wisdom were one and the same. Wherefore she is called Wisdom absolutely in the Proverbs, not only in the aforementioned passages, but in these besides: *Blessed is the man who finds wisdom* ^C. *God by wisdom founded the earth* ^D. And, *Say to Wisdom: You are my sister* [E]. And, *Proclaim wisdom, that understanding may be present to you*. *Wisdom is more excellent than precious stones*. *Wisdom built for herself a house, and raised up seven pillars*, and others akin to these found in the same book. Everywhere it is called Wisdom absolutely, but never "the Wisdom of God," so that we might not deem it a certain accident of God, as knowledge is in an intelligent human being; but rather a subsistent and living Wisdom, which is the same as the Son of God. But if anyone should surmise that this Wisdom is a certain wise habit in God, according to which God is said to be wise, let him hear the Scripture saying, *Say to Wisdom, You are my sister*. For who would be so insane as to think that God, who is over all, and his...

^A wise habit regarding human virtues, should be called a sister? But if you take what is said here as referring to Christ—for Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God—it will not at all hinder the understanding, since, on account of his immense love for the human race, he does not refuse this fraternity.

But if God and the wisdom introduced in the Proverbs, which is understood as a certain wise habit in him, in so far as God is wise, were one and the same thing, what would prevent God from being written here instead of Wisdom? So that, where it is said, *Wisdom has built her a house, and has set up seven pillars*, and what follows, it might be said instead: God has built himself a house, etc.; and again, instead of saying, *Say that Wisdom is your sister*, it should be said, Say that God is your brother. But you see how such a statement strikes the ear, as it possesses no harmony.

If, however, you take these sayings to refer to the Son—for he himself is Wisdom—everything will flow smoothly for you, and no impious notion will stand in your way, as the blessed apostle Paul bears witness for you, who clearly proclaims our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ as to be called the Wisdom of God, where he says: *Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God*. ^B Having established these things, it follows, after all the points set forth above, that the statement, *The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works*, is also spoken from his own person.

But if anyone says that he was created, he does not say this because he wished it to be understood that he had passed from non-being into being, nor that he was produced from non-being after the manner of other creatures, as some have incorrectly supposed, but that, subsisting, living, pre-existing, and pre-subsisting before the foundation of the whole world, he was appointed ^C by the Lord, his own Father, as ruler of all—the word *created* here being used instead of *appointed* or *ordained*.

Indeed, the apostle clearly called rulers and governors among men a *creation*, when he said: *Be subject to every human creation for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as those sent by him*. And the prophet who said: *Prepare yourself to call upon the God of Israel; because, behold, he who establishes thunder and creates spirit, and announces his Christ unto men*. And the verse, *Let this be written for another generation, and the people that is created shall praise the Lord*; he has used the word *creating* in reference to what already existed from non-existence. For God did not *then* create the Spirit, when he announced his Christ through him to all men; for there is nothing new under the sun. ^D But it was, and pre-existed, and was being sent at the time when the apostles were gathered together; when, like thunder, a sound came from heaven, as of a violent rushing wind, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit; and thus they announced the Christ of God to all men, in accordance with the prophecy that speaks of him.

^A For the word "creating" is used here instead of "sending forth" or "appointing," since the "thunder" signifies in another sense the preaching of the Gospel. And he who said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God," did not say this as if he did not possess a heart, but he prayed that his own mind might be made pure. It is said in the same way, "That he might create the two into one new man," ^B meaning instead, "that he might bring together." See whether the following is not of the same kind: "Put on the new man, who has been created according to God," and also, "If therefore anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation," and whatever else one might find of this sort by searching the divinely inspired Scripture. Do not be amazed, then, if even in that passage, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways," the word "created" is used metaphorically for "constituted" or "appointed" to rule, particularly since even in the Gospels it is said by our Savior, ^C "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to little ones." This does not mean a confession of sins, as is ✈ elsewhere stated, "Confess your sins to one another," but it signifies a thanksgiving for the sake of the little ones—as if he were saying, "I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth"—since the verb "to confess" is used there. One would find thousands of such things, if one had the leisure to investigate the way in which metaphors are used throughout the entire divine Scripture, and other expressions that have a manifold meaning. ^D There are also other things that are homonymously used for different objects, which it would take too long to discuss at the present time. Thus, even here, "The Lord 65 created me the beginning of his ways for his works" is stated instead of "appointed me to rule over his works." Therefore, it is not said simply "he created me," but with the addition 66 "the beginning of his ways for his works." The Hebrew language exhibits this most clearly. If anyone were to desire to investigate the true meaning of the divinely inspired Scripture, he would find that the Hebrew reading does not contain "he created me," which is why none of the other interpreters have used that word. Immediately, then, Aquila says, "The Lord 67 acquired me as the head of his ways"; Symmachus says, "The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways"; and Theodotion says, "The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his way." This interpretation indeed holds reason. For he whom the Father begot as the Only-begotten Son was himself the head of the constitution and salvation of all created things, both visible and invisible, as it pertains to their origin and their well-being. For when he begot him, he established him as the Savior of all, gathering together in him and through him the arrangement of the universe, as the divine Apostle taught, saying, "To gather together all things in Christ, those which are in the heavens and those upon the earth."

^A And that he might not only bring all things as they came forth from non-being into being, but also receive into Himself the providence of the administration of all things, in that He is the Word, and Wisdom, and Life, and the fullness of all that is good and perfect; so that through Him all things are governed and preserved. He himself indicated this in the divine oracles set before us, saying: "By me kings reign, and potentates decree justice. By me magnates are exalted, and tyrants by me rule the earth." Through the ineffable words of the total wisdom and providence of the Son of God, therefore, all things are administered. He taught these things by means of the previously stated passages, and urged us to cling to Him, saying: "I love those who love me; and those who seek me shall find me." He also turned us away from the contrary path, where he added: "I have hated the perverse ways of the wicked." These things and those akin to them the Son of God, for He Himself was Wisdom, gave as commandments, and then in the following passages ^B He delivers the mystical knowledge of Himself to those whom He had previously benefited, saying: "If I shall tell you the things that are happening from day to day, I must also call to mind the things from the beginning of time." For if, He says, I were to recount the things done by me each day, it is necessary that I also call to mind my works from the beginning of all time, and demonstrate that it was for this purpose that the Father who begat me appointed me to rule over all things, and to be the leader of His ways and of the works performed by Him through me. Thus, He consequently adds, "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works," or, "The Lord possessed me," according to the interpretation provided. For the only-begotten Son was the great possession of God, in that ^C He was begotten of Him, as His Son; and in that He was established as beneficial and saving to all, He was and was named the greatest and most precious possession of the Father. For no possession could befall a father more honorable and pleasing than his son. Whence also the first-formed Adam, when he first possessed a son, as a man said: "I have possessed a man through God"; since 'canithi' in the Hebrew tongue stands for "I have possessed." But "he possessed" is pronounced ^D 'cana' among the Hebrews. Thus, therefore, it is said in the case of Abraham: "The field which Abraham possessed," for which the Hebrew contains 'cana'; the same term being used among the Hebrews as in "The Lord created [or possessed] me the beginning of His ways for His works." And here, since the term 'cana' is used, all the interpreters have agreed in rendering it "possessed"; but the other [term], "created," is rejected by the Hebrews and is not found in the present writing. There is indeed a great difference between "created" [Greek: *ektise*] and "possessed" [Greek: *ektēsato*]; for the former signifies in the common conception the procession of creatures from non-being to subsistence, while the latter [signifies] that of a pre-existing thing.

Regarding the voice "created"

^A There is a vast difference for the Hebrews between the term

has created

has possessed

creation

possession

These things being so clearly set forth in the Divine Scriptures, and having been explained by us in a brief, summatory narration, let us hear how Marcellus, casting his understanding down to the earth, insists that all these things were spoken concerning the flesh which the Savior has taken, writing word for word in this manner: ^D "This being so, it is consistent to consider that proverbial head, 'The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.' For the Lord our God truly created that which was not. For the flesh, which the Word has taken, he created, since it did not exist, but was not." And he adds: "Therefore, even if this new mystery is revealed at the most recent of times, yet, for that very reason, not without cause has the prophet said that it was foreseen, 'Before the age he established me,' and clearly the flesh." But again...

he adds, saying: "Then, in the beginning, he says, before he made the earth." Which earth? This one, clearly, our flesh, the earth which came to be again after the transgression. "For earth you are," he says, "and into earth you shall return." You see how much he has erred, deviating from the straight path, conceiving for himself a path that is rough, impassable, and as it were impenetrable. Behold, then, how he preferred to utter every sort of shameless and impudent speech ^A rather than confess that he—the Son of God—is Wisdom itself.

He refers the utterance, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works," to the person of the Savior, confessing him to be the same one who speaks these things in Proverbs. He says to them, therefore, in these very words: "Wherefore, given that the old things have passed away, and all the new things were to be through the novelty of our Savior, our Lord Christ proclaimed through the prophet, saying: 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.'" Having said this, he casts his mind down to the flesh of our Savior, adding in the following: "For the Lord our God truly created that which was not. For the Word took upon himself our flesh, which did not exist, and when he took it, he made it the beginning of his ways."

And the good man does not understand that it is one single expression and one single person who said, "I, Wisdom, have built ^B a counsel," and, "The Lord created me." So that if the one is referred to the flesh, the other must necessarily be so as well; and Wisdom will be the one who says both. But if, according to Marcellus, the flesh says, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways," then the flesh would be Wisdom; and the flesh would be the one saying, "Through me kings reign, and through me nobles are magnified." How, then, could the flesh say, "I will remember to recount the things from the age"? To which he adds, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways." And he shows what these ways are by saying next: "For he has become for us who intend to live justly the path of piety; the beginning of all the paths after this." And he adds, "He has rightly called the Lord our Savior the beginning of ways for this reason, because he became the beginning of the other ways that we have entered into after the first way," indicating the traditions received ^C from the divine apostles, who, according to the prophecies, together with that supremely high proclamation, announced to us this new mystery. Thus far Marcellus.

CHAPTER III

If Marcellus did not accept the Scripture of Moses and the prophets after Moses, his explanation might perhaps have had some semblance of reason; but since he is not among those who reject the Old Testament, why on earth does he... ^D

call the apostles and their teachings "ways," but fail to attend to the prophets of God, who have written myriad things concerning the ways of God? ^A For first of all, Moses wrote, saying, "Go by the royal road;" and, "Behold, I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death." And David likewise: "The Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly shall perish." Jeremiah says, "Stand in the ways, and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and see which is the good way, and walk in it." And you will find that each of the prophets has in his own way made mention of the ways of God. If, therefore, our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ teaches that He Himself is the beginning of the ways of God, saying, "The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways for His works," He would necessarily be older than both Moses and the prophets and all those who lived according to the ways of God before them. But the flesh that He assumed was not older than all of these; therefore, they do not interpret that oracle correctly regarding the flesh. The Saviour, then, did not say these things because of the flesh, but because He pre-existed and was the guide of all the ways of the Lord, in which all those loved by God in ancient times have walked. Since the divine Apostle also said, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past tracing out," and indicates thereby another kind of way—that which provides for the governance of the universe, through which, by an ineffable judgment and reasons beyond comprehension, He governs all things by His divine power—it is surely consistent to affirm that He who said, "The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways for His works," is also the beginning of these ways. ^C Marcellus, not understanding the ways of the Lord, decreed that they were the flesh of our Saviour; and he interprets that saying also in this sense: "He created me as the beginning of His ways for His works." What works does he mean? Those, of course, of which the Saviour says, "My Father is working until now, and I am working," and again, "I have finished the work which You have given me." He continues, as if clarifying the meaning of these words: "For who, before the demonstration through works, would have believed that the Word of God, born through a Virgin, would take up our flesh and show the whole Godhead dwelling in it bodily?" And as if he had fully explained the meaning, he adds: "This, then, is 'the Lord created me as the beginning of His ways for His works.'" And he wrote these things because he was unable to lift the eyes of his mind upwards, nor speak as the prophet did, "When I look at the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have established," nor remembering the prophetic saying through which it is voiced, "The works of the Lord do not look to Him, and they do not understand the works of His hands." If, there-

- ^A fore, he had applied his mind to these things, he could have understood that before heaven and earth, before the entire world, and not merely before visible things but also before the intellectual works of God, which shine forth in incorporeal and super-mundane powers, He was and pre-existed, who speaks these things. But transitioning to the passage, "Before the age He founded me," he again brings the flesh into the middle, saying thus: "Calling this a foundation, the economy preordained according to the flesh. Just as the Apostle also says: 'For no one can lay another foundation besides the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.'" And he adds: "He mentions one age here, from which he says the things concerning Christ were founded, although many ages had passed, as David affirms: 'Who was before the ages.'" ^B And passing on then to the phrase, "In the beginning, before He made the earth," he again asserts that the earth is the flesh. He writes thus: "What is this earth? Or is it not clearly our flesh, which after the transgression became earth? 'For earth you are,' He says, 'and to earth you shall return.' For it was necessary that this one receive healing." And he says these things, not remembering, for all his wisdom, that it is said "before the earth was made," the flesh is called the beginning of the ways of God. But if he indeed wished to indicate the flesh through the earth, how is he compelled to confess that He who says He existed before the earth was made did not exist before the flesh? For "before the age," He says, "He founded me, in the beginning, before He made the earth." Therefore, He who says these things existed before He made the flesh. ^C And if he did not mention many ages, but one, of which the Savior also was mindful when saying, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage," and thus the flesh which our Savior assumed did not exist before this present age—but He Himself who teaches these things through Solomon—you see into what straits he has fallen, who has departed from the straight and ^D royal road. To the things previously said, he adds these also, saying: "Before He made the abysses," he says; "here the prophet calls the hearts of the saints abysses, proverbially, which contained in their own depth the gift of the Spirit." And he does not understand that before the incarnate presence of our Savior, the holy prophets of God participated in the same Spirit, Moses and those even older than Moses. Therefore, it is necessary that He who said, "Before He made the abysses," be older than all these abysses, if indeed these were the hearts of the saints. How then was it possible that these things be referred to the flesh of the Savior? And yet, if any knowledge of the divine Scriptures were present to him, he would not

had he possessed any knowledge of the Scriptures, he would not have so lightly ^A and easily determined that the hearts of the saints are these abysses. For Moses instantly adds that darkness was upon the abyss; and manifold is the word concerning them which is sown in the divine Scriptures, but it is inextricable. For the Apostle says, "Say not, Who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ up from the dead." In these passages he seems to have called the regions of Hades the abyss. And the Lord himself makes this clearer in his discourse with Job, saying, "But have you come to the fountain of the sea, or have you walked in the footsteps of the abyss? Do the gates of death open to you for fear, and did the doorkeepers of Hades tremble when they saw you?" And there are also evil powers in the abyss, of whom it is said, "Praise him from the earth, you dragons and all abysses." And furthermore, "Darkness was upon the abyss." Concerning which Moses said, "And darkness was upon the abyss." Whoever could have learned all these things, had he merely applied diligent and not neglectful work to the divine Scriptures, ^B would not have called the hearts of the saints abysses; for he would have understood how it is said, "Abyss calls to abyss at the voice of your cataracts"; and again, "The abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of water"; and again, "The abyss is as a garment, his covering." He would have understood these things and those akin to them more exactly, if any concern for the grasping of these matters had entered his mind. But now, having with such ease and such looseness pronounced the hearts of the saints to be the abysses, he did not even understand that, even according to this interpretation, he who said, "Before he made the abysses, I was present with them," did not wish to teach that he preceded in time those holy and God-beloved men who have been from the ages, so that it would be entirely impossible to adapt those aforementioned words to the flesh of the Savior. But he, ^C having moved on to another expression of the same Scripture, interprets it also in this sense: "[R. XX] And what then does that chapter mean, 'Before the fountains of waters came forth'? He says they were the divine apostles. This mystery is presented to us by the Scripture in Exodus, where the types of them are commemorated. For it mentions twelve fountains there, since the apostles were the same number." When he says these things, he does not notice that there were also twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve of their patriarchs. Twelve, likewise, are the prophets comprised in one book. But also, there are twelve hours in the day, and twelve months in the whole year. Why, then, did the number twelve pertain to the apostles rather than to all of those? If, then, someone’s quantitative number provided him with the cause for an interpretation of this kind of discourse, he ought to have grasped that even the prophets of God, ^D insofar as they participated in the same Holy Spirit, were not from the fountains these strange ones.

^A For this reason it is said concerning them in the Psalms: *In the churches bless God the Lord from the fountains of Israel* (Ps. LXVII, 27). So it is necessary for us to confess that the Son of God existed before those fountains, He who said: *Before the fountains of the waters came forth* (Prov. VIII, 24). But hear how he interprets this, saying: "Wherefore not undeservedly did the Lord say through the prophet Solomon, 'Before the fountains of the waters came forth,' concerning His generation according to the flesh." He adds: "For thus did the Savior say to the holy fountains, *Go, teach all nations* (Matt. XXVIII, 19)." Then, as if summarizing his argument, he brings the conclusion to his discourse, saying: "It is clear from every side that the holy apostles the prophet called fountains figuratively." The Apostle wishes them to be named fountains, but the prophets do not please him. Why so? Surely because he could not provide for the flesh of the Savior before them. ^B And yet, even before those fountains sensible by nature, of which Moses also made mention in the cosmopoeia, saying, *And a fountain went up from the earth, and watered all the face of the earth* (Gen. II, 6), and again, *And a river went out from Eden to water the garden* (ibid. 10), there pre-existed the Son of God, who teaches these things about Himself in the Proverbs. And He who spoke with Job also mentions the fountains of the sea, saying: *Hast thou come to the fountains of the sea? or hast thou walked in the tracks of the abyss?* (Job XXXVIII, 16). Seeing that Scripture also teaches that there are certain waters above the heavens, where it says, *Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens* (Ps. CXLVIII, 4), it is consequential that we discern what is the nature of those waters, and who are the fountains of those waters, so that He might be declared more ancient than these, ^C He who says that He existed when those fountains of waters had not yet come forth. But Marcellus, turning his mind to none of these, nor applying any effort to investigating them, persists in his own opinion. For those words also, *Before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills He begat Me* (Prov. VIII, 25), he interprets in the same way, saying that mountains and hills are the apostles and the successors of the apostles, so that proverbially, beyond the custom used among others, he might signify a just form of managing the commonwealth. Therefore, fountains, and mountains, and hills signify the same thing. But just as it is not according to nature that the fountains and mountains which are discerned by the eyes are the same—for the fountains of waters have nothing in common with the summits of mountains—so in the same way, ^D even in those things which are to be understood allegorically, a distinction must be established between those things which are understood by fountains, hills, and mountains. But he, understanding nothing with careful reflection, but mixing everything together—which is the levity of his own mind—designates them as the same throughout in every respect: fountains of waters, and mountains, and hills. These...

he says are all the apostles, without bothering to distinguish the mode of their difference. Why then did he not also designate those who were perfected in righteousness and piety before the incarnation of the Savior as mountains and hills? It is because he could not have substituted the Savior’s flesh before them. Therefore, the reference of the aforementioned expressions to the flesh of the Savior is forced and constrained.

How, moreover, will you adapt the saying, “He begets me,” to the flesh? For He claimed to be begotten before the fountains ^A and before the mountains and before the hills, saying, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me.” If the flesh, then, were saying these things—as it seems to Marcellus—how could the flesh say, “Before all the hills he begets me”? For let the flesh be before the apostles; but how does it say that it was begotten by God? For surely Marcellus seemed to mean that the flesh was created when it did not exist before. For he said, “Truly our Master God created that which was not. For the Word took flesh which did not exist, but He created that which was not.” We have understood, therefore, that it was created; but how could it be said to be begotten by God, when the Savior says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and the Apostle also says, “Made of a woman, made under the law”? How, then, could the flesh have said concerning the God of all, “Before all the hills he begets me”?

It seems to me manifest to everyone that these interpretations have a forced character. But one could state this ^B of the Son of God simply, and without any allegorical mode, since He pre-existed the earth and was and persisted before the physical fountains of waters came forth, and before the things commonly called abysses, and before the shape of the earth was fashioned by the rising of mountains and hills. For “all things were made through him, and without him not one thing was made.” But if anyone should ask here why He did not say He pre-existed before the heavens, and before those things which are in the heavens, or those divine and super-celestial powers and spirits which are beyond, it will be said to him that the Word mentioned these things for the time being, because He was delivering a certain pedagogy through the Proverbs to those who are infants in their souls. And this is evident from the fact that it is said at one time, “Hear, my son, the instruction ^C of thy father, and do not reject the laws of thy mother,” and at another time, “My son, turn thy mind to my laws, and lend thine ear to my words.” And again, “My son, do not despise the instruction of the Lord, and do not fail when you are reproved by him; and, my son, if you are upright, you will be upright for yourself and for your neighbors. But if you turn out wicked, then you alone will certainly drain the evils.” Countless things similar to these, from the Proverbs—

the Book of Proverbs, through which the Word appears, conversing with the souls of the young. Thus, Moses too, being a pedagogue to the minds of the immature, made mention of the creation of the heaven and the earth and of things visible; but not of the creation of the angels, nor of the divine powers, nor of the holy spirits, because those who were being instructed by him could not yet grasp the teaching concerning these. ^B Justly, therefore, does the Word in the Proverbs, for the sake of such as these, frame his teaching from the mountains and hills of the earth and from the springs, as from things more familiar; and, having made a start from things placed lower down, he leads those being educated by the hand, as it were, so that he may prepare them to cross over from the smaller things to the more divine. These things, then, are so, if one does not inquire more curiously beyond the letter. But if one wishes to understand these things more deeply, he will refer them not so much to the apostles as to all the righteous and God-beloved men who have ever existed; and he will also cross over from there to the divine and angelic powers, understanding that by mountains and hills are signified the differences of angels and archangels and divine spirits—thrones, lordships, principalities, and powers. ^C But the divine Apostle, inspired, as it is right to believe, by God, teaches that all these things were created through him and for him, and that before all these he himself existed, when he used these words in the person of the Son of God: “Before the mountains were established, before all the hills, he begat me.” And he says that all other things were made, but that he alone was begotten before the constitution of the things aforementioned. The same Apostle also knows the heavenly Jerusalem and the heavenly mountain on which it is built, where he says: “You have approached Mount Sion, and the city of the living God, the Jerusalem in heaven, and to myriads of angels, a gathering, and to the Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.” ^D Since the Only-begotten Son of God pre-existed all these things, he cryptically hinted at the mystery of his own ineffable generation through the Proverbs. And that he wished this meaning to be understood is evident from what he straightway adds: “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.” Here now the noble interpreter of the Scriptures stopped, excluded, and could not pass over, because he was unable to clarify the sequence of the subject matter concerning the flesh of the Savior that had been assigned to him. For having made mention of the flesh above and below, and having proposed that all things were spoken concerning the flesh [X] (for he reached as far as the mountains and hills, which he supposes to be the apostles), he willingly passed over in silence what follows, not daring to advance further in the Scriptures. And so he fastened a clasp to his discourse. After very many things had been transacted in the intervening discourse, he recoils from that carnal acceptance, having confessed that the Word of God [...]

is the one who said these things. He says, therefore, in these words: ^A "For before the world was, the Word was in the Father. But when Almighty God proposed to create all things that are in heaven and on the earth, the genesis of the world required an effective operation, and for this reason, there being nothing else apart from God (for all things are acknowledged to have been created by Him), then the Word, proceeding forth, became the creator of the world, He who even before was intellectually preparing it within, as the prophet Solomon teaches us: 'When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him,' and, 'When He set the fountains that are under heaven firm,' and, 'when He strengthened the foundations of the earth, I was with Him, fitting them in. I was that in which He delighted.' ^B Without doubt, the Father truly rejoiced when He was making all these things wisely and powerfully through His Word." Such is Marcellus. If, therefore, he has now with difficulty acknowledged that these things were spoken in the person of the Word, he is necessarily compelled to confess that the entire structure of the things said there is to be referred to the same Word of God. For He who said, "When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him," is the very same Word who also said, "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works," since one and the same person ^C was shown to us at the beginning of this passage, who also proceeded through all the things mentioned. He, therefore, who said, "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works," subjoined that, "Before the ages He founded me," and, "In the beginning before He made the earth," and, "Before the mountains were established; and before all the [hills]," He begets me. And the same One also subjoined to, "When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him," the things following these. If, therefore, it was the Word who said these things, ^D how was He within in God and co-unbegotten with God, being one and the same with Him, and yet professes that He was created and begotten? For if, as he said, one person was demonstrated, the one who traversed all the things mentioned, and if he has now belatedly acknowledged that these things were spoken from the person of the Word who was in God, then the things pertaining to the assignment to the flesh of the Savior are forced for him. And all those things are at once revealed as insipid, foolish, and empty. But if the flesh of the Savior spoke, "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works," as it seemed best to him to interpret, and if the flesh is founded before the ages, and "in the beginning before He made the earth" (meaning by earth the flesh, according to what was said, "Earth you are, and into the earth you shall return"), and if it was the flesh that said, "Before He made the deeps, before the fountains of waters burst forth, before the mountains were established, He begets me before all the hills," because that flesh had indeed been brought forth before the election of the apostles, as it pleased this wise man, then it follows certainly that the remark, "When He prepared the heavens," is also in the person of the same flesh.

But no one who has not lost his senses would ever agree to this interpretation; for the word of truth will cry out with a loud voice against him, and will teach who it was that spoke these things. ^A Since, therefore, the only-begotten Son, who was born of God, was another, living and subsistent, existing even before the constitution of all created things—which he himself points out through what he subsequently adds, saying, "When He prepared the heavens, I was present with Him"—for He was with Him, and was present with Him, before the heaven itself was made, and the things beyond the heaven, and all that is in the heaven. This, then, He hinted at by saying, "When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him." But how was God preparing, before it was brought into being, decreeing and determining the manner in which it was necessary for it to be constituted? ^B The Father, therefore, was determining and preparing by conceptualizing how it was necessary for such a great heaven to be constituted; which needed neither magnitude, nor what kind of shape, measure, and parts, for the sake of the things destined to be contained within it and those that would be outside it, and for the sake of those who would make their course within it. But He, looking intently at the Father's thoughts and alone beholding the depths within Him, set Himself to the work, ready to serve the nods of His Father. Whence it is said somewhere, "Praise the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels: praise Him, all His hosts. Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all stars and light. Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens; and the waters that be above the heavens let them praise the name of the Lord. For He spoke and they were created; He commanded and they were established." ^C Nevertheless, even before this heaven and the things beyond the heaven and all that is in the heaven were made (for through one, all things are shown to have been created in a comprehensive way), the Son of God existed, and was still with the Father as He was deliberating concerning the constitution of all these things. Therefore He says, "When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him." Then, like a good painter, taking the archetypal ideas from the paternal thoughts, He transferred them to the substances of his works. Forming and substantiating such things and such-like, in the way they lay preconceieved in the Father's mind. Of these, He Himself would be a trusty witness in the Gospels, teaching thus: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, ^D the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it. For whatever things He does, the same also the Son does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that He Himself does." Here, one might rightly and deservedly ask how those things which the Father made once, the Son made again in the same way? He Himself answers the question, saying: "Whatever the Father does, the same also the Son does in like manner." Wherefore the things the Son does bear the likeness of the archetypal works which already existed beforehand in the hidden mind of the Father. And looking steadily at these in the paternal mind, He works according to their likeness.

^A And the contemplating of the depths of the Father by the Son, as he proceeds to explain, shows that the works are of the Father's love, when he says, "For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does." Since, therefore, the Father shows His own hidden things, the Son, beholding them, creates by His works the works of the paternal counsel. Thus, then, being with the Father and present with Him as He was preparing the heaven and the things therein, this He taught, saying: "When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him." And the Father ^B even before He founded the world, rejoiced in Him, looking upon His own only-begotten Son, and as it were in a mirror beholding Himself in Him. Wherefore Wisdom says, "I was that in which He rejoiced daily." But the Son Himself also was filled with joy, rejoicing at the sight of the Father. This He Himself teaches, saying, "I was rejoicing before Him at all times." For He rejoiced having finished the inhabited world—the inhabited world being understood here as the completion of all generated things, which were brought from non-being into being through the Son, the God of all things rejoicing.

This, then, is the true account, as it is presented briefly ^C and in summary from the divine Scripture. But he, having let his mind descend from above to the flesh of our Savior, has gone astray, perverting at the same time and depraving by his interpretation the true meaning of the divinely inspired Scripture. But also, transitioning to the Word, he says that He Himself was within the Father, as if by deliberation and thought, having prepared the heaven. He speaks, indeed, in these express words: "Before the world was founded, the Word was in His Father; but when God Almighty proposed to produce all things which are in heaven and on earth, the production ^D of the world required an operative efficacy. And for this reason, since there was nothing else besides God (for it is admitted that all things were made by Him), then the Word, proceeding forward, became the maker of the world, having already beforehand intellectually prepared it within, as the prophet Solomon teaches us, 'When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him.'" Here it is to be noted how he of his own accord has become dull: for he did not acknowledge that "I was present with" signifies the presence of the Son with the Father. On the contrary, he questions the Scripture itself, saying that before the world was produced, there was nothing at all besides God. Which utterance he did not shudder to deliver, even though by it the Son is denied. Nor was he moved by the reverence of the sacred Letters, which testify that before the production of the world He Himself was alone present with the Father. For, He says, "When He was preparing the heavens, I was present with Him." For the preposition "with," being annexed to "presence," signifies the presence of one with another. He does not say, therefore, simply...

that He was present, but that He was present ^A with the Father; and the Father did not simply rejoice, but rejoiced in the presence of the Son. Therefore He says, "I was that in which He rejoiced daily." And that He should even "rejoice" before the Father—how would this be fitting for a Word that is not subsistent? But for Him to be in God Himself and to be actively operative in a meaningful way, explicitly demonstrates His subsistence, the very fact of His rejoicing and being before Him. Yet Marcellus, taking no account of these things, denies the Son. He says that the Word, being inside in God, at one time goes forth by His operative faculty, and at another time rests inside within Him, inactive. And he does not see that to speak of something being inside and outside of God supposes some composite thing and a bodily passion, which it is not pious to admit regarding an unbegotten and incorporeal nature.

But how, having gone forth, did the Word ^B become the creator of the world? Was it by tongue and voice? Surely, God must have used a language; and with whom would He have conversed, when no one else was present? With whom would He have spoken, when no one was there? But He conversed with Himself, using voice and language, so that the Word might proceed from Him. And yet, who would not hold that He could have accomplished these things at will, through His operative faculty, while the Word was within Him? Since, even among men, most craftsmen accomplish their own works while silent, and especially when no one is present with them while they work; what then prevented God from established all things in this way, having the Word in Himself?

But he even proposes the image of a sculptor conversing with his own mind and saying to himself, "Come, let us make; come, let us mold a statue." For thus, they say, the Creator of all, God, said to Himself, "Let us make man," as has often already been demonstrated in what has preceded, through which I think his denial of the Son of God has been laid bare. For to say that God, having His Word inside, spoke to Himself in this way, would be the sentiment of some Jew; but to say that He is the Father of the Word that was in Him, and that His Son is the Word that was in Him, is a mark of the Sabellian wickedness. ^C And he even proposes the image of a sculptor conversing with himself and saying to himself, "Come, let us make; come, let us mold a statue." For thus, they say, the Master of all, God, said to Himself, "Let us make man," as has already often been shown through what has preceded, through which I think the denial of the Son of God by him has been stripped bare. For indeed, for Him to say that God conversed with Himself, having His own Word inside, would be the sentiment of some Jew; but to say that He is the Father of the Word that was in Him, and that His Son is the Word that was in Him, was a mark of the Sabellian wickedness.

CAP. IV. How Marcellus, not understanding the Scriptures, [postulates] one...

substance of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Just as it is of Sabellius to say that there are three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—so too did Marcellus himself decide in his writings, affirming: "For it is impossible that three substances, existing as they do, should be united into a monad, if the Trinity does not first have its beginning from the monad; for those things," he said, "the holy Paul spoke of as being 'recapitulated' in a monad, which in no way pertain to the unity of God. For it is the Word and the Spirit that alone pertain to the unity of ^B God." He then attempts to establish this by proceeding next and saying: "If, therefore, the Word were seen to have come forth from the Father Himself and to have come to us, while the Holy Spirit, as Asterius also confessed, proceeds from the Father; and again the Savior says concerning the Spirit: 'He shall not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears, He shall speak; and He shall announce to you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me, because He shall take of My own, and shall announce it to you.' Is it not clearly and plainly apparent here ^C that the monad, in an ineffable way, is extended into a triad, yet by no means endures division? For if the Word is confessed to go forth from the Father, then the Spirit also must go forth from the same Father. And if the Savior speaks concerning the Spirit: 'He shall take of My own, and shall announce it to you,' it is certainly not something set down in a straightforward manner, but rather a certain hidden mystery is revealed. For unless the monad, being indivisible, were dilated into a triad, how is it to be conceded that the Savior sometimes speaks of the Spirit as proceeding from the Father, and at other times says, 'He shall take of My own, and shall announce it to you'; and again, that He breathed upon His disciples and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'? ^D For if He proceeds from the Father, how can He receive this ministry from the Son by promise? It is necessary, indeed, if there are two divided persons, as Asterius was saying, that either the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, should not stand in need of a ministry delegated by the Son (for whatever proceeds from the Father is necessarily perfect, and stands in need of no other's assistance), or, if He takes from the Son, and dispenses the grace from His power, He no longer proceeds from the Father." And after other things, he adds: "But if the Gospel said that when He had breathed on the disciples He said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit,' it is evident that the Spirit went forth from the Word. How, then, if the Spirit went forth from the Word, does the same again proceed from the Father?" And he adds, after other things: "Not rightly, then, nor consistently, did he say that there are three substances: and not on that one occasion, but—"

also a second time." By ^A these and similar things, the wise man attempts to show that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, as if three names were being declared concerning one substance. For he did not understand in these matters how the Son is said to proceed from the Father, and the Holy Spirit likewise; nor was he able to conceive how the Savior spoke concerning the Holy Spirit: "He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you," nor how, having breathed upon his disciples, he said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." But one who views these things piously will find an easy solution, if one considers that the Son, always existing with and present beside the Father, was somewhere within, as it were, in the inner chambers and inaccessible reaches of the paternal kingdom; then, for the sake of procuring salvation for the human race, he says that he has come having been sent forth by the Father. This he also made manifest elsewhere in a parable: "A sower went out to sow." For from where would he have gone out, if not from the inmost penetralia of the divine nature of the Father? In the same manner, ^B the Holy Spirit also always and continuously assists at the throne of God, since ten thousand times ten thousand stand by Him, according to Daniel. Furthermore, He was sent—now in the form of a dove upon the Son of Man, now upon each of the prophets and apostles; whence He also is said to have proceeded from the Father. And why do you wonder, when it is even said concerning the devil: "And the devil went out from before the Lord," and a second time it is said again: "And the devil went out from the Lord." And you might also find in the case of Ahab what the Scripture adds: "And there went out a lying spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said: I will deceive him." But these are contrary spirits, and it is not the time to investigate how or in what way it is spoken of them; but the only-begotten Son of God teaches that He Himself has come forth from the Father because He was always with Him, and likewise that the Holy Spirit is someone other than the Son. This the Savior Himself shows clearly, saying: "He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you." For this would be directly ^C demonstrative that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one and the same; for that which receives from another is conceived of as being different from the giver.

CHAP. V.

How the Savior taught concerning the Holy Spirit.

And the fact that the Holy Spirit is other than the Son, the Savior and our Lord explicitly and most clearly teaches in the most manifest words, where He thus addresses His disciples: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world ^D

^A cannot receive. You see how He says that the Paraclete Spirit is another and distinct from Himself. But if, by breathing upon the disciples, He said, "Receive the Holy Spirit," we must not be ignorant that that breathing was a kind of purification of the souls of the apostles, preparing them ^B to be fit for the reception of the Holy Spirit. For it is not said that He breathed into their faces, nor that it was a breath of life, as it is written of Adam, that "God breathed into his face the breath of life"—but rather it is said that He breathed [upon them] first, and then said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." To give the Spirit Himself, however, clearly teaches that He is distinct from the thing given. The giver, therefore, was not the same as the thing given. The Savior was the one bestowing, while the Holy Spirit was the gift bestowed, which the apostles received. This breathing was a [purification], as I have said, of the apostles, or at least a working of the communication of the Holy Spirit, in whichever way you may interpret it. From this it is evident that the Holy Spirit is someone else, distinct from Him—as is also written in the things that follow, in which He says again: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." To these He adds: "These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all that I have spoken to you." ^C You hear how He uses the plural: "We will come, and we will make our home with him," speaking of Himself and the Father; but when He speaks of the Holy Spirit, as if of another, He says: "He will teach you all things." Such also was that which He said: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth." Consequently, the Paraclete was someone else, distinct from Him, concerning whom He taught so much. With good reason, therefore, He added again, saying: "These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all that I have spoken to you." For I, He says, have spoken these things to you until now, but the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will also send, He will teach you all things—those which you have not yet learned, because you are not able to comprehend them. But when He, the Paraclete I mean, has come, He will complete the teaching, and will at the same time call to your memory ^D those things which are now being said by me. "And He," He further says, "the Paraclete whom I will send from my Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness concerning me." In all these things He openly declares that He whom He was about to send, and who was to bear witness concerning Him,

^A was another and distinct from Himself. He further elaborates on the discourse as He goes on, while adding: "I tell you the truth, it is beneficial for you that I depart. For if I do not depart, that Paraclete will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you." By saying that He was to depart, He here signified His own passion and His ascent to the Father thereafter. Who then is so foolish as to maintain, after so many utterances, that the one who speaks these things and the one of whom these things are spoken are one and the same, especially when he hears Him clearly declaring in explicit words that He is telling the truth, and explaining what that truth was—namely, that unless He Himself departed, the Paraclete would not come?

But if it is objected that it is said at one time that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, ^B and at another that He Himself will do so, He is certainly not teaching things that are contrary to Himself. For all things that He sees the Father doing, the Son likewise does; and just as He hears, so He judges. Therefore, according to the judgment of the Father, and when the Father wills, and then when our Savior the Son wills, He sends the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, to His disciples, that He may console, comfort, and exhort them to endure patiently the proclamation of the Gospel, on account of which they were to be harried. And not only to console them, but moreover to instruct them in all the truth of the New Covenant, which they could not receive when taught by the Savior while He was still ^C among them, because they were enslaved to the Jewish mode of life.

He fulfilled these things in actual deed after His resurrection from the dead, when He said to Mary, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father." Afterward, however, as one who had ascended to the Father, He appeared to His disciples, with the Holy Spirit being sent and accompanying Him, and ready and standing by for the ministry to which He was appointed, at which time He also permitted Himself to be touched. For then He breathed upon them, and then He gave them a portion of the gift of the Holy Spirit, that which is productive of the forgiveness of sins; for there are distributions of gifts, a portion of ^D which was bestowed upon them while He was then with them and present with them. After this, He filled them with a greater and more perfect power, concerning which He said to them in the Acts of the Apostles, "But you shall receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," when He also promised that they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit. This very thing was fulfilled after His ascension, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent upon them, just as He Himself had foretold. But since this passage requires an even greater and more clear elucidation, it is not appropriate to dwell upon it at present.

^A Furthermore, it was necessary to demonstrate that the Paraclete Spirit is other than the Son, which indeed I have shown by the various things the Saviour Himself taught, among other statements, specifically where He said, "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you." In these words, He promises again that His disciples would learn from the teaching of the Holy Spirit things which they had not learned from Him. As He speaks of another, saying, "When He comes," and, "He will not speak on His own authority," and, "He will glorify me," and furthermore, "He will take what is mine," for it is a grievous and ^B deep-seated habit to suppose that the Saviour is speaking of Himself here. But in truth, the Saviour clearly taught through these words that the Holy Spirit is someone other than Himself, a being who excels in honour, glory, and excellence, and who is higher and above every intellectual and rational substance; therefore, He is included in the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity, yet is subordinate. This He makes clear by saying, "He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak." From whom does He hear? He clarifies this by saying, "He will take what is mine, and declare it to you"—that is, from my treasury. For in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Consequently, He, as the only-begotten Son, receives from the Father and hears from the Father, while the Holy Spirit is provided from Him; therefore He says, "He will take what is mine and declare it to you."

The God who is over all is indeed called Spirit, just as the Saviour Himself taught, saying, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." And He shall be truly the Holy of Holies, and He resides in the holy. But the Son of God, ^C since He is God, is also Spirit, and the Holy of Holies of the saints, if indeed He is the image of the invisible God. For this reason it is said of Him, "The Lord is the Spirit," and, "The Spirit of our countenance is Christ the Lord." But since the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son, the Saviour indicates His proper character by calling Him the Paraclete. He applies a name common to the property [of the Spirit] through the designation of "Paraclete," since angelic powers are also spirits: "Who makes His angels spirits," for so it is said. But none of them is to be compared to the Paraclete Spirit; ^D whence He alone, as Spirit, is included in the most holy and blessed Trinity. Nor did the Saviour act otherwise...

when He commanded the apostles to announce to those from among the nations who should believe in Him, that they should baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: with the Father presiding and bestowing the grace, the Son administering this grace—for grace and truth came through Jesus Christ—and the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, Himself being the one who is bestowed according to the ^A distributions of gifts within Him. For to one, through the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another, faith in the same Spirit; and those things enumerated in like manner to these.

CAP. VI. What the tradition of the Church is concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, then, is by nature apt to dwell only in the holy, being bestowed through the Son upon those whom the Father might approve. And this would be His own work: to sanctify all those to whom He imparts one or even more of the gifts that are in Him, as also to the prophets and apostles and every soul dear to God; and it is likely that the higher and divine powers also partake of the holiness from Him. But the Son alone, being honored with the paternal Godhead, would be the maker and creator of all things that have come to be, both visible and invisible, and indeed ^B of the very existence of the Paraclete Spirit Himself. For *all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made*; and, *In Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are on the earth, whether visible or invisible*. But the God who is above all, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, being an ineffable good, and beyond all calculation and thought and every word and conception, and being the sole leader of all things whatsoever, both those that exist and whatever they happen to be, and of the Holy Spirit Himself, and furthermore of the Only-Begotten Son, is rightly proclaimed by the Apostle ^C as the God who is over all, and through all, and in all, when he says: *One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all*. And though He alone might be rightly called the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Son the Only-Begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, yet the Paraclete Spirit is neither God nor Son; since He did not receive His generation from the Father in the same way as the Son, but is one of those things that came to be through the Son, seeing that all things ^D through Him

^A came to be, and without Him not one thing came to be. These matters, then, are taught in this way by the holy Catholic Church, and the mysteries have been sealed by the divine words. Marcellus, however, mixing everything together, sometimes plunges into the whole depth of Sabellianism, sometimes attempts to renew the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and sometimes is caught being a Jew outright; for he introduces one substance in three persons, as if it were a three-named entity, claiming that the God, the Word in Him, and the Holy Spirit are all the same. Passing from there to the apostolic theology concerning Christ, he has again used distorted interpretations. For when the divine Apostle openly declares the Son of God and says, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in Him all things were created, both those in the heavens and those upon the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or lordships, whether principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and all things consist in Him" [Col. I, 15-17].

CAP. VII. How Marcellus asserted the flesh to be the image of the invisible God.

This distinguished man, finally fallen upon the flesh, affirms it to be the image of the invisible God: although he does not observe that which he does not remark, namely that the masculine form "Who" (ὅς) is used, and not that which (ἥ) would be used for "image" (εἰκών). But he says that the article, having been attributed to the flesh, declares that it itself is that image of the invisible God. He also states that the phrase "He himself is before all things" was said of the flesh; nor was he ashamed to say "He himself," of the flesh. But he also says that He was called the firstborn of all creation on account of the flesh: "He remains," he says, "immutably regarding the flesh, having created all things as much in the heavens as on the earth, whether visible ^B or invisible." Nor does he shrink from saying that thrones, and lordships, and principalities, and powers obtained their creation in Christ through the flesh of the Savior. But since I set forth Marcellus's words on these matters in the previous book, so that my discourse does not grow beyond measure, I shall be content with having exhibited those testimonies there. ^C But how distorted and violently forced this interpretation of the apostolic saying is, there is no need, I think, for me to pursue at greater length, since how impudent that interpretation is must be sufficiently well-known to everyone.

CAP. VIII. How the same man declared the flesh of the Savior to be of no avail.

Nevertheless, he who has discoursed at such length concerning the flesh of the Savior does not preserve it whole and sound for us. It would have been desirable that he at least choose to think piously herein. But now, after all that has been said by him concerning it, ^D

^A he proclaims that it must eventually be left naked, empty, and destitute of its Word at the end of the age. For he writes: "If indeed he writes that his flesh profits nothing, how can it come to pass that he wrote that that which is from the earth, and profits nothing, must dwell with the Word in the age to come, as if it were to profit much?"

CAP. IX.

He inculcates this same thing once more elsewhere, saying: "If, therefore, in that time of the restoration of all things, Paul taught that the creation itself is to be transferred from servitude into liberty (for he says that even the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God [Rom. viii, 21]), how then could it still be possible that that form of a servant, which the Word assumed, being the form of a servant, should ^B any longer dwell with the Word through it?"

CAP. X.

You see into what sort of language he has dared to break forth against the flesh of our Savior; yet he did not perceive that even before its assumption into the heavens, and before his passion, while he was still dwelling on earth, he glorified it on the mountain. There, he represented the image of his kingdom to only three chosen disciples, so that his face might shine, and radiate with the brightness of light. For the holy Scripture says: His face was made as the sun, and his garments as white as snow [Matth. xvii, 2]. ^C But neither did the divine Apostle understand what manner of body of Christ’s glory he spoke of, nor how he taught that our own bodies would be made conformable to that body, saying: Who [Phil. iii, 21] shall change the body of our humility, that it may be made like to the body of his glory. Nor did he understand in what way this mortal is to be swallowed up by life [II Cor. v, 4], when he wrote, saying: Wherein we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up by life. Ignorant of all these things, he asserts that the Word is to exist ^D as one and the same with God, just as he was before, while the flesh, abandoned by the Word, he knows not what or where it will ever be. But hear now how he speaks: "But if anyone should ask concerning this flesh, which in the Word has become immortal, what we think, we shall say that we believe it is certain to hold to and stand upon what is safe regarding those things of which we have not been taught by the sacred letters. How will those follow this path who subvert the dogmas of others?"

^A To those, however, who demand from us an exact account of these matters, we say that we must obey the holy Apostle, who taught that hidden mysteries are to be investigated in the manner he himself established: "For we see now," he says, "as if through a mirror in an enigma; but then face to face," and what follows. Do not, therefore, question me about things which are not clearly set forth and delivered in the holy Scriptures; from such I can conclude nothing certain regarding the flesh of which the Word was a partaker. He who confesses that he cannot answer from the Scriptures, confesses at the same time that he has learned nothing certain from the Scriptures. Such a man knew nothing of this flesh: having not received it from the Scriptures, nor having acquired it from others, nor having been taught by the tradition of the Church, but having invented it for himself and devised from his own brain a phantom foreign and alien to the truth. Nor was it in his mind what the Scripture says: "Do not add to His words, lest He reprove you, and you be found a liar"; and, "Woe to those who prophesy from their own hearts."

Observe, however, into what great impiety he has fallen. For he who cast down the whole of that theological system concerning the pre-existent only-begotten Son unto the flesh, and—in most eloquent terms—all but bestowed upon it the laurel of victory as a prize, is the same man who says that [the flesh] will be empty and void at the consummation of the world. While he unites the Word to God, he separates the flesh from the operations of the Word, and leaves it—I know not where—destitute: immortal, certainly, and incorruptible, yet lifeless and, deprived of the Word, idle of every operation. These are the things he seeks to establish from readings of the Scriptures which he has not understood. For when our Savior, speaking to those who did not grasp the discourse regarding His flesh and blood, said: "Does this scandalize you? If then you should see the Son of man ascending where He was before? It is the Spirit that vivifies; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."

CHAP. XI

Not grasping the sense of the words, he thought that He here ^D rejected the flesh which He had assumed from the holy Virgin. And from this, he subsequently wishes to prove that, after the consummation of the world, the Word of God will leave His flesh completely stripped of every operation.

He says ^A to them in these very words: "Regarding the flesh, which He possessed while conversing with the disciples, He speaks thus: 'Does this scandalize you? If, then, you see the Son of Man ascending where He was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh (85) profits nothing.' If, then, He confesses that the flesh profits Him nothing (86), how is it possible for that which is from the earth, which profits nothing, and which will not be advantageous to Him in the coming (87) ages, to continue with the Word?" You see with what great distortion of the evangelical word he makes use, because he does not understand the saving voice of the Word, as it is said, and for what reason it is spoken.

CHAP. XII.

Interpretation of the evangelical word.

But do you, having taken up the evangelical Scripture, consider the entire teaching of our Savior, how He was not speaking of the flesh which He had assumed, but of His mystical body and blood. For since He had fed the multitudes with the five loaves, and had presented this great miracle to those who had seen it, and the majority of the Jews, disparaging the event, said to Him: "What sign, then, do You perform, that we may see and believe?" then they brought forward the manna in the wilderness, ^B saying: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" To these things the Savior answered: "Amen, amen, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven." And He adds: "I am the bread of life." And again: "I am the bread that came down from heaven." And once more: "And the bread which I will give is My body." And again He adds: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." ^C When He was discoursing on these and such-like matters more mystically, some of His disciples said: "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" To whom the Savior answered, saying: "Does this scandalize you? If, then, you see the Son of Man ascending where He was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." By these words He was instructing them to understand spiritually the things said concerning ^D His flesh and blood. For do not think that I speak of the flesh which I wear, as if it were fitting for you to eat it, nor imagine that I command you to drink a sensible and corporal blood:

but know well that the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life, so that these words and His sayings are the flesh and the blood, of which he who partakes, being nourished as if by heavenly bread, shall partake of the heavenly life. Therefore, He says, let not this offend you, which I have spoken concerning the eating of My flesh and the drinking of My blood; nor let the superficial hearing of the things spoken by Me concerning flesh and blood disturb you; for these things, if heard sensibly, profit nothing, but it is the Spirit that gives life to those who have the capacity to hear spiritually. But this new interpreter of evangelical doctrines, understanding none of these things, listen to how he writes, saying in these very syllables: "Touching His human body and showing it to those who were present, He said: Does this offend you? If therefore you see the Son of man ascending where He was before; the spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing." To whom one might say: Whence, my good man, comes this addition of yours, which is not found in the evangelical Scripture? For that the Savior touched His human body and showed it to those who were present and said, "Does this offend you?" is not to be found in the Evangelist; you invent it, and have dared to concoct this addition from ^B your own brain. And this bold act, having been taken from himself, he has brought to the point where he says that the flesh of the Savior is to be abandoned by His Word, stripped of all operation; if, therefore, he confesses that the flesh profits nothing, how then does it happen that what is of the earth and profits nothing, is to be present with the Word in the world to come as if it were of any benefit to Him? In this manner he has broken forth to interpret the divine Scripture unlearnedly and ignorantly. But he also set about to interpret the apostolic sayings in the same perverse manner.

CHAPTER XIII

^A and Lord said to him: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. By operation alone he appears to separate him on account of the human flesh, and as has been said, to circumscribe him by a time, as long as he was to sit at his right hand: therefore he says, Until I make your enemies my footstool for your feet." This prophetic testimony of David the blessed Apostle explained more clearly, saying thus: "For he must reign, until he has put his enemies as his footstool for his feet." Thus the dispensation and kingdom of his according to man seems to have a certain limit. And after other things he adds: "And for this reason the Acts of the Apostles concerning this man, whom the Word of God assumed and having assumed sits at the right hand of the Father, ^B teach thus, saying: 'Whom heaven must receive until the time of restoration': and these, as if defining a certain limit and term." To which after other things he adds: "How can it be that the form of a servant which the Word assumed, being the form of a servant, should be co-united with the Word? Therefore, for a certain very short time, namely that which is past and future, this dispensation according to the flesh of the Word has manifestly and clearly come to fulfillment for our sake, which, as it had a beginning, so it is to have an end, the divine Paul teaches in these very words: 'Then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and even the Father'."

CHAPTER XIV. Exposition of the sound sense of the Scriptures.

^C Through all these things and such like Marcellus ignored the body of the glory of the Son, and denies his interminable kingdom, not in the least noticing that according to a certain custom of the Scripture, that "until" is wont to be received. Thus the Savior addressed his disciples: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age," not denying that he would be with them even after the consummation, but teaching that he will not leave them in the present age until the consummation: but that he will care for and govern all those who have been discipled to him; and after the consummation, he will be with them in a more excellent way, showing them to be partakers of his kingdom. So also is that taken, ^D "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"; and "Whom heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all things," which is not said as if heaven would not receive him afterwards, but that at the time of the consummation he was to rise from the paternal throne, and to make a se

second descent from heaven, concerning which the ^A Apostle teaches, saying, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a cry, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." The Savior, therefore, must remain in heaven and be seated at the right hand of the Father until the consummation; but at the very consummation of all things, making his glorious and second coming, he shall take his saints to be with him forever—not for some limited time, but for an infinite age. For he says, "We shall ever be with the Lord." Therefore, the saints being always with him, they shall enjoy his kingdom in the kingdom of heaven which has been promised. But that distinguished man ^B not understanding these things, when the divine Apostle has spoken concerning our Savior, "For he must reign, until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death," and again, "But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all," uses this customary distortion of his and misinterprets these things; I know not how he hears that the Son is to be subjected to God and the Father, instead of being united—as if he were not united! If indeed he were the Word, eternally existing in God, how then does he say that at that time he will be subject to God and the Father?

CHAP. XV.

How it is said that all things shall be subjected to the Son, and he himself to the Father.

Attention must be paid to the thought, how the Apostle said that all things would be ~subjected ^C to the Son himself, and how he teaches that by the same subjection the Son himself is to be subjected to the Father, saying, "But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all." Then he does not understand "all in all": for he does not say that God will be all in the Son, but "in all"; which seemed rather to signify a certain coalition and consummation of all things, if God is to be all in all. And he understands the subjection of the Son as the union of the Word, and interprets it, [as one] who was to be one and the same with the Father, as he had been before. But if he wishes the subjection to the Father to be a union with the Father, necessarily that subjection of all things to the Son will also signify a similar union with the Son: so that neither should the Son be any longer per se, ^D but neither should the multitude of those being saved, who are to be subjected to him, subsist per se, or live their own proper life: but that there should be a confusion and coalition.

^A For if all things are to the Son, and the Son is united to the Father in being subjected, see what follows from the argument. But just as the Apostle did not indicate a union when he said, *All things shall be subjected to the Son*, but rather the obedience proceeding from free will, and the glory and honor which all things shall render to him as Savior and King of all; in the same way, for him to be subjected to the Father signifies nothing else than the glory and honor and reverence and majesty and voluntary subjection which he himself shall render to God and the Father, when he has made all worthy of his paternal divinity. For so long as they are not worthy of this, he himself, anticipating them, as a kind of common Savior of all, administers a kingdom for the correction of the imperfect and the healing of those who need healing, subjecting the enemies of his kingdom under his own feet. Which the Psalm also indicates, saying, *The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make thy enemies the footstool of thy feet* (Ps. CX, 1). When he shall have placed his enemies under his feet, and established those worthy of his kingdom in interminable life, then also the last enemy, death, ^B shall be abolished. For since no one will any longer be dying, but those worthy of the kingdom will then be living in eternal life, it is to be expected that death will be rendered idle, no longer having any whom it might put to death. These things being thus prepared, all the holy ones shall be subjected to the Son of God with a saving subjection, in that he is life, to live in him an immortal life; in that he is wisdom, to become wise; in that he is the Word, to be perfected by the Word; and in that he is Christ, to be anointed with the fragrance of his goodness. And they shall be revealed as the luminaries of the new age, receiving light from him; and they shall be sons of God, adorned with the spirit of adoption, and those who are to be subjected to him shall partake of the rest of his powers, so as to become righteous from his righteousness, and holy from his holiness. And since the Word was also God, he will not begrudge them his divinity, so that the Apostle spoke truly, prophesying that the holy ones shall be *heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ* (Rom. VIII, 17). ^D Moreover, they shall also use heavenly bodies, similar to the sun and moon and stars, and in this too shall they partake of his glory. Which the same [Apostle] also sets forth, saying, *From whence also we expect a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform the body of our humiliation*, conformable to the

^A body of His glory, according to the working of the power by which He is able to subject all things to Himself. Do you see how He is able to subject all things to Himself, and will cause the transformation of our body to become conformable to the body of His glory, and will bring our body ^B— [the previous page's ending—translating onward:] to be so? But if our body shall be conformable to the body of His glory, how much more shall His glorious body be a participant in that glorious kingdom? And if our body is to be swallowed up by life, as the Apostle bore witness, saying, *For we do not wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that the mortal might be swallowed up by life*, how much more shall His body, being as it were the minister of His divinity, be swallowed up, not by life alone, as is ours, but also by His very divinity? Let no one, therefore, ask or doubt within his own mind what the future of the Lordly body shall be, when he can hear Paul speaking clearly, that the mortal must be swallowed up by life, and that our body shall be conformable to the glorious body of Christ, according to that working by which He is able to subject all things to Himself. For He will subject ^C all things to Himself: and we must understand such a saving subjection to be that according to which the Son Himself shall be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him, for He will render to Him, as it were, an ineffable and indeterminable subjection, one becoming to Him alone, when He shall present to God and the Father all those who submit to Him, one by one, joined together like a choir; offering to Him glory, and honor, and veneration, and magnificence, as the fount and cause of all good things.

CHAPTER XVI.

How it was said by the Apostle, *That God may be all in all.*

and taking all men as His own people. ^A Yet it will not be in them in the way it is said to be in the Son, as He teaches by saying, *The Father is in me, and I in the Father*; but He will be *all in all* to them, in that He shall offer Himself to all, extending to each the capacity to partake of His Godhead, in proportion to one’s ability; for the blessed hope and the unending and incorruptible life will be established in this end, in which God shall be *all in all* (15), filling all with the ineffable light of the rays of His Godhead.

Meanwhile, the Son, exulting with joy and rejoicing in the achievement, as if crowning Himself with a garland by means of those who have been deemed worthy of blessedness through Him, while the Father looks on, will continue in an ageless and unending kingdom. Then shall the oracles concerning Him be fulfilled, both others and especially those spoken by the angel Gabriel to the most holy Virgin regarding Him who was to be born of her: *That He shall reign forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.*

^B Reigning at that time, the Son of God will deliver all those who are under His reign to His own Father, not ceasing from the kingdom, nor withdrawing from it. For the divine Apostle did not say that He would cease from the kingdom; for he would have written things contrary to what Gabriel prophesied to the Virgin—that He would reign forever and that there would be no end to His kingdom—but he said that He would deliver His kingdom to the Father: that is, those over whom He held sway. For those who have been perfected by Him, and ^C illuminated, as it were, by His own glorious achievement, He will deliver to the Father as a manifest deposit—which He Himself teaches, saying: *All things have been delivered to me by my Father*. Wherefore, like a virtuous guardian of this deposit, He will deliver it to God safe and sound, just as a High Priest, presenting those who serve under Him—all clothed in white, and shining as with most brilliant robes in their incorruptible bodies of the resurrection—so that they may not only enjoy the kingdom under Him, but may also be filled with the ineffable goods of His Father.

For thus, according to the Apostle, shall God be *all in all*, when the Son brings those whom He rules to Him, so that this whole state may come to pass, namely, that the Father may be *all in all*. ^D For just as He was previously in the Son, according to that saying, *The Father is in me, and I in the Father*, in the same manner He will then be in all those who have been perfected through the Son. For the Apostle did not say that the Son would abdicate His own kingdom and cease to be God, but that the Son would deliver the regnum to God and the Father, safe and [secure...]

and manifesting it as sufficient for the worship and priesthood of the Father. And that God would be "all in all," as God dwelling in and walking among them, and becoming all things to them. For to some He shall be Lord, to others King, to others something else, but to all collectively God, becoming all things to them by His divine virtues and powers. The great Apostle inscribed this as the end of our thrice-blessed hope, saying, "That God may be all in all." But He will be "all" in all things ^B proportionately to the capacity of each, granting the various manifestations of His divinity to all; yet He will keep the exceptional and paternal glory and honor and kingdom—which is shared with no one else—for His only-begotten Son alone.

CHAPTER XVII.

How the holy Scriptures teach concerning the indeterminable kingdom of our Savior; and how Marcellus dared openly to assert that His kingdom would have an end.

But if we wish to seal these things with a certain prophetic ^C seal, so that what has been said may be confirmed more securely, I shall use as a testimony the prophetic Spirit who teaches these very things through the prophet Ezekiel in these words: "Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will seek out my sheep, and I will visit them; as the shepherd seeketh his flock in the day when the darkness and cloud are in the midst of the scattered sheep, so will I seek out my sheep." And after some other things: "And I will save my flock, and it shall be no more for a prey, and I will judge between ram and ram; and I will raise up over them a shepherd who will pasture ^D them, my servant David; and he shall be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and David shall be prince in their midst. I the Lord have spoken, and I will make a covenant with David." And after other things, he repeats the same prophecy saying: "And I will deliver them from all their iniquities in which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince in their midst and shepherd of them all." And again he adds: "And David my servant shall be their prince forever." Observe, then, in all these things that God is not called shepherd or prince, but is said to be God to those who are deemed worthy to attain the blessed end; whereas David is said to be the prince and shepherd of these very same people—where, under the guise of David, Christ is signified, in that He was of his seed. That this is so...

is clear from the fact that David had died long before the time of which these things were spoken. ^A Daniel the prophet declares these things more clearly, explicitly calling the Christ of God the Son of Man, by which name the writing of the holy Gospels is also accustomed to call Him. He speaks in this manner: “I was watching in a vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there was coming as it were a Son of Man; and He reached up to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before Him; and to Him was given the authority, and the honor, and the kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him. His authority is an eternal authority, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed.” You see how, in these words also, the prophet shows that the kingdom is not that of the Word who is in God, but that of the Son of Man, which shall be incorruptible, unaging, and endless. He clearly teaches that the Son of Man is a being other and distinct from the Ancient of Days, having received the incorruptible kingdom from the Ancient of Days, that is, from the Father Himself. But Marcellus insists that they are one and the same, and that one substance is signified by two names. Furthermore, he even dares to circumscribe His kingdom, and ^B with such shamelessness he asserts that there will be an end to Christ's kingdom after the time of judgment, writing in this way: “The Apostle reveals to us a very great mystery here, saying that Christ's kingdom will have an end, and that the end will be when all things have been subjected under His feet.” And he elaborates on this point, saying: “We said in our preceding arguments that our Lord Christ had a beginning of His kingdom, using the testimonies of the Scriptures to demonstrate this.” He adds: “Certainly, there are countless testimonies available to us, and indeed in abundance, that He who is man obtained the beginning of His kingdom through the Word. If, therefore, He took this beginning not more than four hundred years ago, what is the wonder if the Apostle said that He who received His kingdom before so short a time would deliver the same kingdom to His Father?” A little later he concludes: “What then are we taught concerning that human flesh which the Word assumed for our sake less than four hundred years ^C ago? Will the Word retain it in the future age, or only until the time of judgment?” These are the things that Marcellus dared to say. But the prophets of God, defining Christ's kingdom as endless, declare that He will begin the new age after the time of judgment. For observe how the prophet Ezekiel posits a distinction between the sheep of God, and after the judgment appoints David as shepherd over them, whom he also prophesies will be their prince. But Daniel, when he had prefaced: “I was watching until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat: His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head as pure wool: His throne was a flame of fire: His wheels were burning fire. A river of fire was rushing forth from His presence: thousands of thousands were ministering to Him, and ten times

ten thousand stood before Him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened. llbracketA Having foreseen these things, he next beholds the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days, and receiving the incorruptible kingdom. And so, even then, He shall possess, in a different and more excellent way than He holds now, the authority to reign over those who are worthy of that blessedness. The Gospel witnesses to this, in which the Savior Himself confirms these prophetic sayings while delivering to His own disciples the sermons concerning the end of the ages, through which He taught these things, saying: "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and all nations shall be gathered before Him: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." llbracketB Note, however, how these things agree with what is said by the prophet about the sheep and the discernment of the rams, and how, after that discernment of the sheep, this King, the Son of Man, is introduced—God Himself being His Father. This He Himself taught by saying: "Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father,"

inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

^A

CHAP. XVIII.

That in the kingdom of the Son all who are accounted worthy of that happiness will be one.

CHAP. XIX.

That just as the Father and the Son are said to be one, so also will all the saints be.

are one," so also He prays that we all may participate in this unity according to His imitation. It is not as Marcellus would have it, that the Word is united to God and conjoined substantially, but rather, as the truth itself, the Savior, bore witness when He said: "The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one. I in them and Thou in Me, that they may become perfectly one." Thus, in this way, that which the Apostle said will also attain its end: "That God may be all in all."

And since Marcellus, and those who follow the same Sabellian manner of thinking as he does, are accustomed to using three testimonies by which they endeavor to show that the Father and the Son are one—namely, the text: "I and the Father are one"; ^B and secondly: "The Father in Me, and I in the Father"; and thirdly: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," which they always have on their lips—the text, "I and the Father are one," must be countered by those things we have already brought forward, where He intercedes for the disciples, that they all might become participants in the same unity. For He says: "That they may be one, even as We are one. I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one."

To that other text, "The Father is in Me, and I in the Father," we shall again oppose His own voice, through which, interceding for them, He said: "As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us... and the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them." By these words, ^C He clearly indicates that the Father is in Him in the same way that He also wills Him to be in us. It is not that He and the Father are one in a single hypostasis, but rather that because the Father has imparted His own glory to Him, He likewise, in imitation of His Father, imparts it to His own. Wherefore He says: "And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one. As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us." Thus, then, the Father and the Son are one according to the communion of glory, which, since He imparts it to His disciples, He also deemed them worthy of the same unity.

CAPUT XX. That as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, so shall He also be in all His saints.

Again, the Father was in Him and He in the Father in such a way as the blessed Apostle concludes ^D concerning all those who shall be worthy of the kingdom of heaven, where He says: "Then shall God be all in all," in the manner in which He said: "I will dwell in them and walk among them." But also the saying: "In Him we live and move and be." These things are indeed all said concerning us, who nevertheless exist and live in our own proper hypostasis; and we have nothing in common with the paternal...

^A divinity. What wonder is it then, if similar expressions are brought forward even concerning the Son? They do not abolish His hypostasis, nor do they teach that He is both Father and Son, but they serve to set forth the special and preeminent honor and glory of the Son’s unique and divine communion with the Father.

CAPUT XXI. How that saying must be understood: "He who has seen me, has seen the Father."

Thus, therefore, he who has seen Him has seen the Father, because He alone—and no one else—is the Image of the invisible God, and the radiant light of His glory, and the express character of His hypostasis, existing in the form of God, according to the apostolic teachings. For just as he who has seen a royal image, accurately ^B portraying the king, by contemplating the features of the form imprinted by the drawing, imagines the king to himself; in the same way, or rather, beyond all measure and reason, and beyond any model whatsoever, he who has watched with a clear mind and with eyes of the soul that are purified and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, while contemplating the magnitude of the power of the only-begotten Son and Lord, and having considered how within Him dwells all the fullness of the paternal divinity, and ^C as all things were made through Him, and in Him all things were created, those in the heavens and those upon the earth, things visible and things invisible; and having considered that the Father begat Him as His only-begotten Son alone, in all things assimilated to Himself in power—that man will also behold the Father Himself, seen through the Son, by those whose minds are purified, concerning whom it has been said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

These things, then, have been worked out by us as an epitome, for we had proposed ^D brevity to ourselves as a goal. Yet many things that pertain to this subject stand in need of much more labor; and whoever cares for an accurate grasp of these matters will, by fixing his mind upon the evangelical and apostolic readings, gather from them at his leisure the whole sense. Indeed, there are ten thousand other things brought together incoherently in the treatise of Marcellus, and very many things said contrary to the intention of Scripture, and others that are forced, and which observe no consistency at all—things which, to those who are wise, have become a manifest common refutation through the things we have examined. With these I shall be satisfied.

The end of the books of Eusebius against Marcellus.