De ecclesiastica theologia

Of the Ecclesiastical Theology, Book 1. This first book contains: 1. That Marcellus falsely accused Sabellius while holding the same opinions as him. 2. That the grace of Christ bestowed upon the church of God the exceptional knowledge concerning Father and Son. 3. That the heterodox erred in various ways in their teaching concerning the Son. 4. That those who do not confess that the Son of God subsists call themselves Christians in vain. 5. How Marcellus denied the Son of God, imitating the heresy of Sabellius. 6. How the church of God believes. 7. How the heterodox have variously fallen away from the theology concerning the Son. 8. A presentation of the sound and ecclesiastical orthodoxy. 9. That the Son did not subsist in the same way as the many created things. 10. That, having alone been generated from the Father, he alone is fittingly called both God and only-begotten Son. 11. How the church recognizes one God, even while accepting that the Son is God from God. 12. That his generation from the Father is ineffable. 13. That the superintendence of the Son is necessary and salutary for all. 14. That the church justly rejected Marcellus, who held the same opinions as Sabellius. 15. With what words Marcellus attacked Sabellius, pretending not to hold the same opinions as him. 16. How he is caught by his own statements holding the same opinions as Sabellius. 17. How he denied with his bare head the hypostasis of the Son. 18. How he asserted that before the incarnation the Son was nothing other than a word alone, similar to that among men. 19. How the divine scriptures named the Son of God not only Word but also countless other titles even before the incarnation.

Twenty partial citations and interpretations of the proofs from divine scripture, in thirty chapters in total. I thought that the citations of the words of Marcellus himself, which I collected in the preceding sections, would suffice for the refutation of them. For they contained the denial of the Son of God so manifestly and unalterably that even without any rebuttal the argument in them would be shunned by the nurslings of the church of God. 1. But since I considered whether some might be swept away by the extensive citation which the man used to confirm what he thought would support him, I judged it necessary to set forth the refutation of these things at present, so that everyone might learn that not a single passage of inspired scripture provided testimony in harmony with him who denies the Son of God, but that all of them plainly uttered the opposite voice, correcting his incorrect misinterpretations of the divine scriptures without distortion.

I will join to the detection of these things the theology of our savior, having nothing newer to say, nor any wise and personal discovery of my own, but putting forward the uncorrupted teaching of the church of God, which, having received it from the eyewitnesses and earwitnesses of the Word from the beginning, she preserves. But before the examination of these things, since I found in the course of his treatise that Sabellius is attacked by him, I was astounded at the man's stupidity, that he did not spare from slander the one whom he ought rather to have praised, as having become of the same opinion and same mind as himself. I did not think it right to pass over this matter in silence, but to hand over the refutation of this also in the present writing. For that the ministers of God were slandered by him, even if it brought blame to him and good repute to those freed from communion with him, yet it had some plausibility to disparage what was not pleasing to him; but to be unaware that he was cutting himself through the defamation of one of the same mind seems to me to be both shamelessness and insensibility. And that this is so, he would be his own refutation, introducing God as Father-Son according to Sabellius, even if not in so many words, yet in truth, by abolishing the hypostasis of the Son, and defining one God, and calling this one both his own father and again his own son. For having given that the Logos is in God, and having defined this as one and the same with him, he said that he is called father of this; and that the Logos is his son, not truly being a son in the subsistence of essence, but properly and truly being Logos.

He indicates, then, that he does not use the term "Word" in a catachrestic sense, but as a Word that exists properly and truly, and as nothing other than Word. But if it is nothing other, it is clear that he was not properly and truly Son, but was named catachrestically, in name and title only. And by saying that the Word is one and the same as God, the Word that became flesh and was born of the virgin, he declared him to be God. This is precisely what the church of God long ago rejected when Sabellius uttered it, enrolling him among the godless heretics. For confessing one God, in contradistinction to the polytheistic error of the Greeks, was first received by the children of the Jews. But that the same one is both Father of an only-begotten Son is a special gift that the saving grace has bestowed upon the church. The church knows only Jesus Christ as Son, and no other—not according to the generation of the flesh which he assumed (for this it has been taught to call the form of a servant and son of man), but according to that generation from God the Father himself before all ages, unknown to all; according to which the fullness of the Father's divinity established him as both Son and God, not drawing upon a divinity that is his own possession and separate from the Father, nor some unoriginate and unbegotten one, nor a foreign divinity from elsewhere and alien to the Father, but filled from the Father's own participation, as if from a source flowing forth upon him. For the great Apostle taught that "in him dwells the whole fullness" of the Father's "divinity." Therefore one God is proclaimed by the church of God, "and there is no other besides him"; and one only-begotten Son of God, an image of the Father's divinity, and for this reason God.

This theology, which the many could not comprehend, they devised various paths of error: some posited the Son as God but denied the man he assumed; others supposed a mere man, ignoring the God in him; others, from fear of seeming to introduce a second God, defined the Father and Son as the same. The Church of God, turning away from these, prides itself on the evangelical proclamation of truth, boasting that it has one God over all, and also one only-begotten Son, God from God, Jesus Christ, whom it acknowledges as the same Savior and Son become man, being Son of God before becoming man, and becoming this which he was not through the ineffable excess of the Father’s philanthropy. The word of truth thus cries out from the person of the Church; but those who deny the Son of God, asserting that there is one God and nothing else, why do they vainly trouble the Church, when they ought to converse in the synagogues of the Jews? And why do they impale themselves on blasphemous words, slandering the one God with two appellations, if they suppose the same Father and the same Son? For whose Father is he, if no Son subsists? And whose Son will he be, if the begetter does not pre-exist? But being one, he himself will surely be the one who was incarnated, suffered, and completed the mortal life among men. Yet the Church of God drove Sabellius far away for saying these things, as impious and blasphemous; and Marcellus now attempts to renew these things, using an implausible argument as a pretext.

For he, rightly defining one God, says that this same one has in himself a word united and conjoined with him; and then he calls one part of the one God father, and the other son, as if there were in him some double and composite substance. And how much better than this, in a choice of evils, is he who does not divide the unoriginate and unbegotten and divine power but confesses the same to be so in bare word, and how much better than either is the Jew, who does not divide the one God into father and son in the manner of Marcellus, nor introduces the same as son-father after Sabellius, but worships God while recognizing and expecting his Christ, proclaimed through the prophets to come, whom when he came, since they did not receive him, they have suffered and will suffer punishment for their disbelief in him. But those who have it as their prayer to believe in the one who has arrived will recognize these three: the one "from the seed of David" and the same holy virgin, and the son of God pre-existing and substantially subsisting who dwelt in him, and the father of this one, God, by whom he himself continually confesses to have been sent. "For us," then, "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 assumed for our sake. But neither was the body he assumed the same as the son of God who assumed it, nor could the son of God himself be thought one and the same with the one who begot him. With these three thus underlying, those who grant two but remove the third would be rejected from the church.

Now some of the heterodox, godless men, having rejected the flesh of the Savior and said that he appeared on earth by some kind of phantasm, have been the first to miss the mark of the truth. But those who have accepted the incarnate economy, yet denied the preexisting Son of God, have devised various pathless ways for themselves, as I said. Some have said that he was a mere man, in no way superior to the common nature of all except by the preeminence of virtue; others have dogmatized that the God of the universe himself dwelt in the body, and have claimed that he himself was called Son because of the economy he underwent as a man. These, positing two—God and man—have deprived themselves of the third, having denied the Savior himself, the only-begotten Son of God. Of these, Sabellius long ago, and now Marcellus, carried away by the same opinion, have insisted that they know the God over all well, like the unbelieving Jews; and they have agreed upon the second, the flesh from the holy virgin; but the third, the very head of our salvation, the Son of God, they have thrust aside, and being light and truth, they have together with the denial of the Son fallen away from the light of truth. Hence you will hear them confessing one God and honoring the flesh of the Savior, but while accepting the Son of God who dwelt in the flesh with voice and lips, they reject him in deed. For one must seek the Son of God, truly living and subsisting, neither being the same as the body he assumed, nor being the same as God the Father.

For neither would one be pious in calling the God beyond all things a son—for of what would he be a son who is clothed in the beginningless and unbegotten divinity?—nor would one who says that the only-begotten son of God is himself the father escape the penalty for blasphemy. Therefore, cutting straight the royal and direct road, the Church of God has rejected the other deviations, and to her own nurslings she hands down the knowledge of divine grace, teaching them to confess, in accordance with the mystery of regeneration itself, belief in one God, father almighty, providing this theology as complete, precise, and whole: which hands down one God, separating from Hellenic and polytheistic error, knows him as father, separating from Jewish teaching, and confesses him as almighty, turning away from the impiety of the godless heterodox. For none of the heterodox would say that the father of Christ is himself the almighty God, just as no Jew would confess that God is father, not knowing the only-begotten son, nor would any Greek affirm only one.

would know God. Therefore, purging the error of all these, the Church proclaims the one God, teaching that he is both Father and Pantokrator, Father of Christ alone, and God, Creator, and Lord of all the rest. Thus it also hands down Jesus Christ as the only-begotten son of God, born from the Father before all ages, not being the same as the Father, but existing and living in himself and truly being a son, God from God, light from light, and life from life, born from the Father for the salvation of all by ineffable, unspeakable, and utterly unknown and incomprehensible to us words, and not having subsisted like the other created things, nor living a life similar to those born through him, but being the only one begotten from the Father himself and being life itself. For it was fitting for the God over all to put forth this only-begotten offspring before every created thing and before all ages, like a foundation and unbreakable base of the things that were to come into being through him. Therefore, before all things that were to be, he begot the son like a ray of light, a source of life, and a treasury of good things, "in whom are all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge," according to the divine apostle.

of such great goods the only good Father established the Son, who is self-life, life-giving to all, and self-light, "the true" light, illuminating every intellectual and rational substance, and self-word and self-wisdom, wisely and rationally establishing and administering all things, for which reason he alone and no other is proclaimed and is the only-begotten Son of God. Hence one might justly reproach those who have dared to call him a creature, as having come into being from non-existence like the rest of the creatures. For how will he still be Son? How will he be only-begotten of God, if he claims the same nature as the rest of the creatures? For by that nature he would rather be brother to them, not Son of God, and he will be one of the many generated things, since he would have shared in the commonality of creation from non-existence. But the divine oracles do not teach thus about him. Rather, when they give instruction about the existence of generated things, they testify that all things came to be through him: "For all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be," and "in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible," and "all things were created through him and in him; and he is before all things and all things are constituted in him," according to the apostolic teachings.

But when he introduces the theology concerning him, he separates him from all the rest, and knows him as Lord and Master and Creator and God and Savior of all, and declares him alone and no other to be the only-begotten Son of God, and calls him alone wisdom and word and life and light, and "image of the invisible God" and "radiance of eternal light," and teaches to glorify countless other things akin to these concerning him, showing in this way the particular relationship of the paternal divinity to him alone as to an only-begotten son. Therefore the paternal voice also proclaimed him alone as beloved son at the streams of the Jordan, bearing witness with a great cry: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." And it repeats the testimony also at the Transfiguration on the mountain, sealing the same word concerning him. So then, since God of all himself provided this testimony for him, and the evangelist explicitly teaches that he is the only-begotten son by saying "No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten son or 'only-begotten God' who is in the bosom of the Father, that one explained," and also since the Savior himself seals these things in his teachings about himself, by saying "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life," after these utterances, the one who says the son is generated from non-existence and a creature brought forth from non-being

In defining it, he has escaped notice, granting it the name alone, but denying that it is truly a son. For that which has come into being from non-being could not truly be a son of God, any more than any other of the things that have been generated. But the true son of God, having been born from him, as from a father, would reasonably be called both only-begotten and beloved of the father; and in this way he would also be God. For what would the offspring of God be, if not that which is made like the one who begot it? Now a king founds a city, but does not beget a city; he is said to beget a son, but not to found him; and the craftsman would be a maker, but not a father, of that which is crafted by him, while of the son who has sprung from him he would not be called a maker. And indeed the God of all would fittingly be called father of the son, but founder and maker of the world. But if one should ever find it said somewhere in Scripture, "The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways for his works," one must examine the sense of the passage, which I will set forth shortly, and not, like Marcellus, from a single expression shake the most fundamental doctrine of the Church. For he too, having once heard that the Son is Logos, fell back upon the human being and denied his subsistence. And how is it pious to compare him, who is witnessed to be son both by himself and by the father, with the rest of the generated things? How will he be only-begotten while being numbered with the multitude of things that have come into being? And indeed, from the very appellation, the son presents the natural relation to the father, just as again the name "only-begotten" touches both upon the race and upon the generation itself, and upon his being alone and that no other shares in the sonship with him.

But these men seem to have suffered the same affliction as Marcellus. For he, out of fear of speaking of two gods, put forward the denial of the Son, rejecting his hypostasis. But these men, while granting two hypostases—one unbegotten and the other created from non-being—posit one God; but the Son will no longer be for them either the only-begotten, nor indeed Lord, nor God, having no share in the Father’s divinity, and being compared to the rest of creation, insofar as he was brought into being from non-being. But not so the Church: it proclaims the Son of God as God and Lord, and teaches that he is truly Son and God—not after the manner of the many who are called sons and gods by title, concerning whom it is said, “I said, ‘You are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you,’” but in that he alone, begotten of the Father himself, “existed in the form of God,” and was “the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation.” Hence the Church has learned to honor, revere, and worship him alone as her Lord, Savior, and God. But if fear arises in them that they might seem to proclaim two gods, let them know that even with the Son being confessed by us as God, that one alone would be God—the only one without beginning and unbegotten, who possesses divinity as his own, and who has become the cause for the Son himself both of being and of being such as he is; through whom the Son himself confesses that he lives, saying plainly, “Just as the living Father sent me, so I live through the Father,” and “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son to have life in himself.

Therefore, he teaches that the Father is God both of us and of himself, in the words: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." And the great apostle teaches that God is the head of the Son himself, and the Son is the head of the church, saying in one place, "God is the head of Christ," and in another, concerning the Son, "And he gave him as head over all to the church, which is his body." Thus, he himself would be the leader and head of the church, while his head is the Father; in this way, the Father of the only-begotten Son is one God, and the head of Christ himself is one. And since there is one principle and one head, how could there be two gods, and not rather that one alone who acknowledges no one higher nor any other cause of himself, but possesses the divinity of monarchical authority as his own, without beginning and ungenerated, and who imparted to the Son of his own divinity and life, he who through

himself, having established all things, the one who sends him, the one who commands him, the one who gives orders to him, the one who teaches him, the one who entrusts everything to him, the one who glorifies him, the one who exalts him, the one who appointed him king of all, the one who entrusts all judgment to him, the one who also wishes us to obey him, the one who commands him to hold the throne at the right hand of his majesty, addressing him and saying, "Sit at my right hand," the one who, through all these things, is also God of the Son himself, to whom his only-begotten child, obedient, "emptied himself, humbled himself, took the form of a slave, became obedient unto death," to whom he also prays, whom he obeys when he commands, to whom he gives thanks, whom he teaches us to consider "the only true God," and whom he confesses to be greater than himself, whom he wishes us all to know, above all these things, to be also his own God. The Father, in turn glorifying him who thus glorifies his own Father, appointed him Lord and Savior and God of all and co-throned with his own kingdom. The Church of God, instructed in these things, knows him to be both God and Lord and Savior for herself, and the only-begotten Son of the God over all, and deems it right to call no other of the created beings God, but knows only this one as God, whom alone the Father begot from himself, just as he himself through Solomon sets forth, saying, "Before the mountains were fixed, and before all hills, he begets me," here hinting at mountains and hills as the divine and supramundane powers.

If someone were to inquire further and ask how God might have begotten, and how the one who is beyond all things could be father, the boldness of the question will be silenced by the one who said, "Do not seek what is deeper than you, and do not examine what is higher than you. What you have been commanded, ponder that; you have no need of the hidden things." And Paul, having said, "O depth of wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God; how inscrutable are his judgments and untraceable his ways," should persuade the one who dares to go further not to attempt the unattainable. Or let him first say himself, concerning what he claims has come into being from non-existence, how and in what manner it subsisted, when it previously existed nowhere and in no way. For surely, unlike the craftsmen among us, he did not take pre-existing matter in his hands and fashion the whole. And just as that which is by nature impossible for humans—I mean bringing what does not exist at all from non-being into being—became possible for him, and he became the maker of all things not in a human manner, but by ineffable and inexpressible reasons for us, so also, and much more, the generation of his only-begotten would be inscrutable and untraceable, not only for us, as someone might say, but also for all powers superior to us. For how could things far inferior in nature, standing below and very far from the ineffable and divine substance, attain to the comprehension of that which is beyond and highest? And how could things that previously did not exist, but were brought through him from non-being into being, and for which he became the cause of their existence, have knowledge of the first generation?

or we, who are of yesterday, clothed in "skin and flesh," bound together with "bones and sinews," and not even knowing the things concerning ourselves, shall we make a risk-free inquiry into the unspeakable, meddling with how the Father begot the Son? That even the countless things at our feet escape our knowledge is clear from this. For who could say how the soul is confined to the body, how it departs, how it was originally infused, what its form is, what its shape, what its appearance, what its essence? Not to mention meddling with the subject of demons, nor that of the substance of angels, nor that of the principles, thrones, and dominions, nor that of the powers and world-rulers. If we are at a loss in all these things, why should we investigate the knowledge of the beginningless and unbegotten divinity? Why ask about the unattainable, how God became father of the only-begotten Son, as if the paternal voice were insufficient for us as testimony of the beloved, whom he proclaimed by saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him"? If indeed

he bids us hear him, obeying the royal law, let us hear the beloved son. And what he wishes us to know concerning himself, he will set forth, saying, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." So then we must believe him, that we may obtain eternal life, for he says, "he who believes in him has eternal life"—not he who knows how he was begotten from the father, for no one would have a share of eternal life if indeed it has been said that "no one knew the father except the son, nor did anyone know the son except" the one who begat him alone, "the father." Therefore faith suffices for us for salvation, which provides that we know God the father almighty, and that his only-begotten son is named savior, who indeed, among other things, also handed down these things, saying, "that which is begotten from the flesh is flesh, and that which is begotten from the spirit is spirit." And "God is spirit." Hence it follows to understand that that which is begotten from God would also be God. And to the extent that the God beyond all is alienated and separated in nature from earthly flesh, to that extent one must understand that the manner in which the father begets the son is also alienated from the generation of flesh. For he does not emit anything, nor is he altered, nor is he moved passively, nor does he undergo any of the things known to us at all, when he brings him into existence. For he was not a body, so that one might reckon effluence or diminution or extension or change or alteration or flux or a part or passion in his case.

Beyond all these things, he posits the generation as ineffable for us and beyond reckoning, indeed as unsearchable and untraceable for every created nature. Now the sun also generates its ray, and the Son is called "the radiance of eternal light" and "the radiance of the glory," yet not according to the perceptible image of light; for he posits him beyond every paradigm by ineffable and incomprehensible words, and this one as only and only-begotten. But let every mouth of impious and godless men who have suffered from the polytheistic error be stopped up, those who, casting down the exceptional and peculiar generation of the only-begotten Son into a multitude, have named a father "of men and of gods," mixing together men with gods and introducing a father consubstantial and the same for these. Yet these men put forth this impious and godless utterance by demonic energy, positing gods consubstantial and co-passible with the mortal, passible, and sinful race of men and a common father of these, surely in some way likened to his children; but the ecclesiastical herald proclaims to all one only-begotten Son of one God, whom he posits for the salvation and providence of all created beings.

Since the nature of things that have come into being, possessing difference in bodies and incorporeal beings, in ensouled and soulless, in rational and irrational, in mortal and immortal, is not able to approach the God who is over all and above all, nor to partake of the radiances of his divinity because of the excess of deficiency from the better, and would have slipped far away and very far due to weakness of nature, had it not met with a saving God as helper, the paternal philanthropy fittingly established his only-begotten Son over all, passing through all things, overseeing all things, and pouring forth his provisions from himself. For the father who begot him appointed him alone as shepherd and savior, guardian and protector, physician and helmsman of all things together, both those in heaven and those on earth, entrusting to him alone the rudders of the constitution and administration of the whole, which he teaches by saying himself, "All things were delivered to me by my father," and again, "For the father loves the son, and has given all things into his hand." And he, like a wise helmsman, having received the lot from his father, having embarked upon the whole cosmos, looking upward toward his father, guides and steers the whole, neither overlooking the smallest of things needing his provision nor disdaining the most insignificant. Therefore, indeed, to the

is present to all, distributing what is suitable to each, and like a physician providing the appropriate means for the salvation of the whole. Hence, naturally, he did not disdain the human way of life, but even long before, he provided his assistance to men who from eternity were lovers of God, appearing here in human form to the ancestors of the Hebrews, there ordaining suitable laws for their descendants, and already through prophets he issued oracles to all later men about his future theophany that would shine forth. And as the time for these things drew near, he fulfilled in deeds the outcomes of ancient oracles, and then he was present, mingling with mortal life, associating with it, and he himself was the only-begotten son of God, as in a divine image, in the instrument of the body, conversing with the human race through teachings, healings, and secret instructions of divine wisdom. And already he advanced even to the gates of death, by exceeding love for humanity at the paternal nod, so that he might deem even those there worthy of his grace, drawing them up to the life with him. Thus "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself"; and he underwent the incarnate economy, being before it and pre-existing, honored with the divinity of paternal glory.

He did not consider it a "prize" "to be equal to God," but rather emptied himself and, "taking the form of a slave, humbled himself, becoming obedient" to the father "unto death," so that, just as "death" "through one sinning man" gained dominion over the whole race, so also eternal life might reign "through his grace" over those who believe in him and are made known through him to God and his father. Naturally, then, the church, proclaiming these things, rejected Sabellius as one who counterfeits a spurious coin, even though he, like Marcellus, claimed to know one God and that there is no other besides him. And the first heralds of our savior himself called the Ebionites, in the Hebrew tongue calling them poor in understanding, those who said they knew one God and did not deny the body of the savior, but did not know the divinity of the son. And the church fathers declared the Samosatene alien to the church of God, even though he taught that Jesus Christ is of God and likewise confessed one God over all, like Marcellus, because he did not confess that Christ is both son of God and God before the incarnation. But this man was driven far from the church as one impious toward Christ; Sabellius, as one offending against the father himself, whom he dared to call son, received the same punishment as the godless heretics. Fearing that he might suffer the same, Marcellus devised a newer contrivance for his error, defining that God and the word in him are one, but granting him two appellations, father and son.

It did not escape notice nor go undetected, but was eventually caught in his own nets. Yet even before being captured, struck in conscience, he rushed to blaspheme Sabellius in order to dispel suspicion. And how he slandered the man, naming him explicitly, listen to him writing these things about him in these very syllables: "For Sabellius himself, having slipped from the right faith, knew neither God accurately nor his holy Word. For he who did not know the Word was ignorant also of the Father. For 'no one knows the Father,' he says, 'except the Son,' that is, the Word; for the Word provides through itself the knowledge of the Father. For thus also to those Jews of that time who thought they knew God but rejected his Word, through whom alone God is known, he said, 'No one knows the Father except the Son and to whom the Son reveals him.' For since it was impossible to know God otherwise, he teaches men to know him through his own Word, so that he too erred in not knowing accurately the Father and his Word." These things Marcellus wrote, of the Sabellianizing

cleansing himself of suspicion up to voice and word; but in intention and in agreement with that man he is caught, pierced by the same darts as he, as it seems to me * * * * * and it would have been a matter of prayer that he not fall into the same things; but now he appears to err worse than that man. For the one perhaps erred in ignorance; but the one who confesses that the man was in error, and then drives himself onto the manifest precipice of the same impiety, would be worthy of no forgiveness. But let us examine what has been said. First, then, that he said that neither Sabellius nor the Jews knew God because they did not know the Logos, we must consider what sort of Logos he posits: for if it is the Son of God, the only-begotten, the subsistent and living one, then not even he himself knew this. For immediately, when our Savior mentioned the Son in various ways and many times proclaimed himself only-begotten Son and never called himself Logos, and taught through all the Gospels that he is the Son of God, on which account he also blesses Peter for saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and testifies that knowledge came to him through revelation from the Father, saying, "Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, because not flesh and blood revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father," this wonderful man, as if his ears were stopped up, writes these things verbatim and for this reason does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, so that through such a confession he might prepare man to become Son of God by adoption through communion with him.

You see how he does not dare to confess him as son of God, lest he fall from the doctrine of Sabellius; but he calls him son of man, because of the flesh he assumed. And he names word throughout his entire treatise, continually marking it, as if he were nothing other than word. And in those places where he blames Sabellius, he cites the sayings of the Savior, through which he said, "No one knows the Father except the Son and to whom the Son reveals," but as if correcting them, he again names word instead of son, speaking thus: "For no one," he says, "knows the Father except the Son," that is, the word, and he adds, "For the word provides knowledge of the Father through itself," and he adds, "It was impossible to know God otherwise than through his own word," and again he places word instead of son and calls him his own word; and in such very brief phrases he often mentioned word, but son not even once. But he also alters the very saying of the Savior, substituting "that is, the word" for "the son," as if the signification of son were not more fitting to the appellation of the Father; whence naturally the Savior aptly fitted the pairing of son to that of the Father, while he, having declined to say son, babbles word up and down, and though he accuses Sabellius of denying the son, he does the same thing as that man, pretending, by the slander against him, to think he avoids suspicion of evil doctrine. If, then, he blames Sabellius for denying the son of God, he ought first to blame himself.

But if he accused Sabellius of not knowing what he himself defined as Word, that was not a correct accusation. For neither Sabellius nor the Jews themselves, who deny the Christ of God, were ignorant of the Word which Marcellus says is in God, through whom he gave oracles to Moses and the prophets; and anyone would say that not only Jews but also Greeks know this accurately. For who would not acknowledge that God is rational, as well as wise and good and powerful? Sabellius would not deny knowing this; but because he did not confess that the Son of God is living and subsisting, existing and pre-existing the flesh, for this reason of agreement with Marcellus he was likewise expelled from the Church of God. And how Marcellus thought the same as Sabellius would be evident from the fact that he declared God and his Word to be one and the same, at one time saying in these very words, "For if the examination of the Spirit were made alone, the Word would reasonably appear to be one and the same with God"; and at another time comparing the Word of God to human speech and adding that it is one and the same with the man, the Word in him, separated by nothing other than the mere activity of action. For this reason he sometimes declared that before the constitution of the world there was nothing else besides God, and again said in these very words, "When the world had not yet come into being, there was nothing else except God alone"; and at another time he compared the Word of God to our significant speech, in which he wrote as follows: "Just as all things that have come into being have come into being by the Father through the Word, so also all things that are said are signified by the Father through the Word.

And indeed, having declared him to be a significant Word in these matters, proceeding next he presents him as inseparable in hypostasis, being one and the same with the Father, speaking somewhere thus: "This, I think, is easy for those who are right-minded to know even from some small and humble example among us. For it is not possible to separate the word of a man in power and hypostasis. For the word is one and the same with the man, and is separated by nothing other than the activity of action." And again he uses the same image in what he says: "For whatever the Father says, he appears everywhere speaking through the Word. And this is evident even from ourselves, if we compare small things to great and divine ones; for we too do all that we wish, as far as possible, to say and do by our own word." One must think that these words are no more fitting to be heard as spoken by Marcellus than by Sabellius, unless perhaps Marcellus mocks Sabellius for not shamelessly daring to name the significant Word in God as Son, as he himself thinks. For he was not so lacking in reason as to attribute a word like that of men to the God over all, nor was he so foolish as to call a non-subsistent word Son of God. Therefore Sabellius, saying that God is one and denying the Son, accordingly asserted that the same is Father and Son, following the hypothesis given to him. But Marcellus, likewise granting that God and the Word in him are one and the same, confesses that Sabellius was mistaken in vain, but not himself.

For either it was necessary to accept that one, or also to blame him, or, blaming that one, to avoid the similar evil opinion, and not, like a sculptor, to represent God as conversing with his own thought and his own reasoning, and as giving commands to himself, saying: "Come, let us make, come, let us fashion a man." For thus he said that God had spoken the words "Let us make man," and he never supposed that in God there is at one time an internal word as in a man, and at another time a significant word like the uttered word in us. For these things would be more tolerable to hear from Sabellius or from some Jew who openly denies the Son of God than from a Christian speaking. But he, as if priding himself on the Jewish teaching, introduces into the Church of Christ this impious and atheistic dogma concerning the non-existence of the Son of God, constructing throughout the whole of his laboriously written treatise that before the world came to be there was nothing else except God alone, so as to exclude the Son from entrance. But he also boasts, vaunting that he knows one God, as if we too do not say this, we who have received that the Son of God is truly Son, and have learned from him to acknowledge one God, that he himself is God and at the same time Father of the only-begotten Son, who is indeed his own Son, born from him before all ages, and called not only Word before the assumption of flesh, as this noble man defines, but also countless other names. And in this too he lies against divine Scripture, insisting that before the incarnate presence he was called nothing else but Word.

Listen, then, how he affirms in these very words, writing in such a manner that it is evident from all sides that no other name befits the eternity of the Word than that which the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, spoke at the beginning of the Gospel. For since after the assumption of flesh, Christ and Jesus are proclaimed, as well as Life and Way and Day and Resurrection and Door and Bread and whatever else is named by the divine scriptures, it is not fitting for us to be ignorant on this account of the first name, that he was Word. For this reason also the most holy evangelist and disciple of the Lord, being very vigilant in spirit, recalling the beginning from above and nothing more recent, said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," in order to show that if any new and more recent name exists, this arose for him from his new and recent incarnation and economy. And he adds next: Therefore, before descending and being born through the virgin, he was only Word. For what else was it that descended "in the last days," as he himself wrote, and was born of the holy virgin, before assuming human flesh? Nothing other than Word. And again he adds: For previously, as I have often said, there was nothing other than Word. And he further adds, saying: For the Word "was in the beginning," being nothing other than Word; but the man united with the Word, not existing previously, became man, as John teaches us: "And the Word became flesh." For this reason, therefore, he appears to mention only the Word.

For whether the divine scripture mentions the name Jesus or Christ, it clearly names the Word of God that exists after the human flesh. And if someone should claim to be able to show that the name Christ or Jesus was applied to the Word alone even before the New Testament, he will find this said prophetically. And after other matters he adds, saying: Reasonably, then, before the descent this was, as we have often said, Word; but after the descent and the assumption of flesh it has received various appellations. These are the things through which Marcellus is caught, denying the Son of God who is and lives and is truly Son, while introducing a bare Word. And it has been shown through his own words set forth earlier what sort of Word he supposed him to be, using the example of human speech and saying that he is one and the same with God. And indeed, having set this as his starting point, he proceeded consistently from the hypothesis given him to slander the divinely inspired scripture and to make distorted interpretations of it. Of these matters it has seemed good to me to examine briefly at present, and to show to those who are ignorant that no scripture agrees with him as he innovates and deviates from sound faith, but on the contrary all speak against and testify against his incorrectly adopted interpretations. This is what those who honor the man ought especially to demonstrate, lest any of them, through inexperience with the divine readings, should think that he has attained the goal of truth.

And this must first be examined, which indeed he has first dared to declare, that before being born through the virgin, the Son of God was called by no other name than Word. For he asserts that he was nothing before the incarnate presence except Word, nor was he named otherwise except prophetically, for he claims that he was and was named Word and nothing else, but after the incarnate presence he received various appellations. This then must first be shown, that he has declared this ignorantly and without knowledge of the divine scriptures. 1. For first, the divine evangelist John himself, who indeed called him Word, 2. not long after but immediately and at once named him God, saying, "and the Word was God." For he could have said, "and the Word was of God," but he did not say this, lest anyone should claim that he was like the word among men, but he calls him God, thus showing the supernatural character of the divine dignity about him. 3. And moving on to another conception of the doxology concerning him, he named him Light, indicating by this very fact that he pre-existed the assumption of the body, in the passages concerning the

Baptist says, "That one was not the light, but to bear witness concerning the light, which illumines every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him." You see how in these words he named him not only Word, as Marcellus thought, but also God and light, and taught that he pre-existed and that the world came to be through him. For just as he had previously said that all things came to be through the Word of God and that nothing came to be "without him," so also through the light: for "the world," he says, "came to be through him." So that the light and the Word of God are one and the same. And by saying that at one time the world and at another time all things came to be through him, he presents the ministerial role of God. For the evangelist, though able to say, "All things came to be by him," and again, "And the world came to be by him," did not say "by him" but "through him," in order to refer us to the creative authority of the Father over all things. But also he says, "The world did not know him." Now all men acknowledge the God over all by natural conceptions, and especially the children of the Jews, guided by the prophetic writings, as Marcellus himself shows as he proceeds. Therefore this one, whom "the world" "did not know," was another, being God and Word, existing and named light. But light not perceptible by sense, nor illuminating the eyes of the flesh like the sun. For in that case the nature of irrational animals would also partake of it. But now he teaches what kind of light it was, saying, "It was the light that illumines every man coming into the world.

Only this rational light existed among humans. Therefore, by its intellectual and rational power, it fashioned the souls made "according to his image and likeness" as intellectual and rational. But just as it was not a perceptible light, so also that which is beyond all things, God himself, was not. For "God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." For the former was an unapproachable light, as the divine apostle teaches, saying, "inhabiting an unapproachable light, whom no one has seen nor can see"; the latter "was in the world," "illumining every man coming into the world." But also the world, he says, came to be through this light, the superior one, that is, the Father, who constitutes the whole through the Son. These three, then, are the auspicious and pious appellations of the powers of the Son of God taken together by the theologian at the beginning of his writing: the Word, and God, and the Light. Fourth. And now the same author adds a fourth, calling him the only-begotten, in the words, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only-begotten from a father, full of grace and truth." Therefore, the only-begotten of God existed even before taking on flesh.

For even if, he says, "the Word became flesh" especially for our sake, nevertheless we, to whom he deigned to manifest his own divinity, not looking to the flesh—for that was "the form of a servant"—but to his glory, which is contemplated outside the body by a pure mind, "we beheld his glory," a glory ineffable and surpassing all mortal reasoning, such as one might conceive as the "glory" of the "only-begotten" Son of God. And this glory was "from the Father." Do you see how he did not say, "And we beheld his glory, glory as" of the Word, although he had previously said "the Word became flesh"? But in order to teach what sort of Word he posited—that it was not merely significative; for how and in what way was it possible for such a one to become flesh?—he necessarily called him "only-begotten." And he teaches that this glory of his is that by which he is conceived as the only-begotten Son of God. And he says that this glory belongs to him from no other source than from the Father; for he did not have the glory as unbegotten, nor as without beginning, nor as his own possession, but received it from the Father. This indeed he himself sets forth, saying, "Father, glorify me with the glory which I had before the world existed with you." And the Father responds, saying, "And I have glorified and will again glorify." And even more the

The same evangelist establishes his hypostasis by adding, "John bears witness concerning him and cries out, saying: 'This was the one coming after me, who has become before me, because he was before me. For from his fullness we all have received.'" But though John cries out that he "was before" him, the new Sabellius does not hear. And yet, according to the flesh, John the Baptist preceded the Savior's birth; how then does he testify that he has become before him? For in the fleshly birth the Savior was not before him; therefore, in that he was the only-begotten of God, he "was before" John and "has become before" him. Are these things then to be referred to the father and god of all, or to an insubstantial and non-subsistent word in God that is the same as God? And how could it be possible for "has become before me" to be said of a word that does not subsist? And who would be so mad as to think that John the Baptist said "has become before me" and "that he was before me" concerning the god of all? Therefore, through these things it is shown that the one who is theologically spoken of pre-existed John's birth and became before him, and he is established not only as word but also as god and light and only-begotten, existing and named before the incarnate presence. 5. Whence the knowledge of these things came to the evangelist, he himself will reveal by saying next, "The only-begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father, that one expounded." You see from whom he learned the theology of the son.

For it is not Moses who says this, nor any of the prophets after Moses, nor any angel or higher power, but the "only-begotten son himself explained this." Therefore, the invisible God did not explain it, but the only-begotten son, having become visible, made the explanation about the Father to men, being clearly other than the invisible God. And he pre-existed not in the mind of the Father, as Marcellus thought, but in his bosom; just as the savior has promised us to rest in the bosoms of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so also the son was "in the bosom of the Father," not being one and the same with the Father, since we ourselves will not be the same as the holy patriarchs. But observe in these matters how, after once naming him Logos and God, he also proclaims him the same, calls him light, says he is only-begotten, and confesses him as son of God, he no longer names him Logos, but thereafter records the savior himself as not calling himself Logos, but son and only-begotten and light and life and truth and countless other things, just as it is possible to hear him teaching somewhere thus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish," and again, "For God did not send the son into the world to judge the world," and again, "But he who does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten son of God." And here again, God gave and "sent the son as savior of the world," while the one sent was clearly other than the one who sent.

Therefore, it seems to me that through the following words, as if addressed to Marcellus himself and to those who begrudge the nature of the Son, our Savior himself is recorded as having said: "Is it not written in the law that I said, 'You are gods'? If he called those gods to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be dissolved, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you say that I blaspheme, because I said, 'I am the Son of God.'" You hear how many times the Savior himself named himself not Word but Son, and addressed himself as only-begotten, and how he taught that he was sent and sanctified before being sent by the Father, and how he shames those who hesitate to confess him as Son of God, teaching from the divine scripture that not only sons of God but also mortal men by nature were called gods; therefore, one should not consider it blasphemous to confess as both Son of God and God "whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world." What then should have happened to him after so many utterances?

having dared to say that he is Logos and nothing else, and having stated in so many words that for this reason he does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, so that through such a confession he might prepare the man, by means of communion with him, to become Son of God by adoption. For when Marcellus said these things, I do not know with what eyes he was able to look at, or with what lips to contradict, such numerous testimonies. And the Savior presents himself as light, in agreement with what was previously set forth concerning light, saying, “I am the light of the world,” and again, “I am the light, and the truth and the life,” and again, “that the light has come into the world, and men have loved the darkness more than the light.” And if one should ask, whence has it come, he who said, “He who comes from above is above all,” and “He who comes from heaven bears witness to what he has seen and heard,” will answer. And who was “the one coming from heaven”? Was it the flesh which the Savior assumed? By no means. But he himself, clearly the light and the Logos and the God and the Only-begotten and the Son, being himself all these things, “what he has seen,” then, this one, “and what he has heard,” it says, “he bears witness to.” Therefore he both saw and heard before coming to earth. And whom did he see but the Father? And of whom did he hear but the Father? And thus he taught himself not as a significant word, but as a truly living and subsisting Son, so as to say, “The Father loves the Son, and has given everything into his hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life.” Let us therefore believe that “the Father, loving the Son, has given everything into his hand.

One must pay careful attention to the word "all," which encompasses the existence of all created things, through which one might see the magnitude of the power of the Son of God, having understood by how great and what kind of hand he has received from the Father the existence of all beings. For if indeed the whole heaven and cosmos are great, and even far greater and more excellent than these are the things beyond the visible, subsisting in incorporeal, imperishable, intellectual, and divine powers, and all those things that escape our mind and elude our knowledge—of all these, one hand of the only-begotten Son of God, grasping the virtue of his infinite power, displays its excellence. This indeed the Son himself again sets forth through another utterance, saying, "All things were delivered to me by my Father." Then, as if we were at a loss as to who and how great was the one who received such a deposit, he says, "Do not seek, do not ask. For it is not in its nature to be known by men, nor even by the better and more divine powers is the precise comprehension of the Son of God possible." Therefore, having first said, "All things were delivered to me by my Father," he added, "And no one knows the Son except the Father." Let every ineffable discourse concerning the Son of God be kept silent, and let the knowledge of his generation from him be entrusted to the Father alone; let no one go further inquiring about his secret nature and essence, but let only his own teaching about himself be confirmed for us by the grace of faith, clearly instructing that all things were delivered to him by the Father.

Therefore, God gave and handed over for improvement and benefit, making the delivery as to a savior, physician, and helmsman of all things. The Son received and, like a faithful depositary, held the gift, not as a substance-less and hypostasis-less word, but as truly being the only-begotten and beloved Son of the Father. 7. Moreover, he called himself the bread of life, saying, "I am the bread of life," "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." And how he was living, he explained most clearly, articulating in the words, "Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will also live because of me." He also taught this in other sayings, saying, "For just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave the Son to have life in himself." Therefore, he was both the bread of life and existed in heaven, watering and nourishing the angelic powers with the power of his divinity, and he was all this before coming to earth; he was a Son having life "in himself," just as the Father has life "in himself." For the exceptional and distinctive character of the Father's unoriginate and divine life, on account of which it is said, according to the divine apostle, that "he alone has immortality," the Son alone would possess, since he is the image of the Father and corresponds in this respect. But he has the said life not as unoriginate, ungenerated, or self-owned like the Father, but as having received it from the Father. For thus it says, "And he gave the Son to have life in himself, just as the Father has life in himself." Therefore, the one gave, and the other received.

And he alone received this privilege, so that life is not procured for him from some external source as for the other living beings, but he has it welling up in himself, as in the Father. Therefore, all things that partake of life live by the supply of the Son; but he alone has life welling up in himself, the Father having granted him this for the enjoyment of those who are to be given life through him. This he himself teaches, saying, "Just as the living Father sent me, and I live through the Father, so he who eats me will also live through me. This is the bread that came down from heaven." You see how, while existing in heaven, he was bread of life. Hence it is said somewhere, "A man ate the bread of angels." And before being sent by the Father, therefore, he was in heaven and lived through the Father, not as a significant word nor as being one and the same with God, but as subsisting and having his own life, which the Father gave him. And proceeding further, he said, indicating the preeminence of the Father's glory, "Just as the Father taught me, I speak these things. And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him." Observe carefully how it is said "always." For he does not say, now, when I converse with men through flesh on earth, I do what is pleasing to the Father, but also always. And he testifies that he speaks these things, which he learned from the Father as from a teacher; therefore, he acknowledges the Father as teacher, being clearly other than him, since everyone who is a disciple of someone is other than the teacher.

If the Word was in God, on account of which he might be called rational, being a kind of signifier of the Father's thoughts, how could he become his own teacher? And how, being inseparable from God, did he say that he himself had been sent? And how, being one and the same with God, did he testify that he did what was pleasing to him? But if Marcellus should say in response to these things that the Word spoke these utterances while in the flesh, what shall we say to this regarding the fact that he does not confess him to be Son, but only Word? And how was he in the flesh when he said these things? Was he then living and subsisting and existing outside the Father? And who was the Father then, not possessing his own Word within himself, but subsisting without the Word? And when the Word dwelt in the flesh, while he made his sojourns on earth, if he was outside the Father, living and subsisting and moving the flesh like a soul, he was evidently other than the Father, and again there were two hypostases, he himself and the Father, and all of Marcellus's labor is exposed as vain, defining the substantial Word as living and subsisting, having come into the flesh. But if the Word dwelling in the body existed outside God, yet was united and conjoined with God so as to be one and the same with him, he will necessarily grant either that the Father himself is in the flesh, or that the Son subsists in himself and is active in the body, or that he is a human soul, or, if none of these, that the flesh moves of its own accord, being without soul and without reason. If, then, he should say it is the Father, the Father will be for him the one who was born and suffered and underwent every human-like action, which indeed the church indicted Sabellius for impiety when he uttered this.

If it is not lawful to say that the Father became incarnate, then it is necessary to confess that the Son, teaching those who were his disciples, did this. But if Marcellus denies that this one subsists, then it is time to suppose that he is a mere man composed of body and soul, differing in no way from the common nature of men. But this doctrine also has been expelled from the Church; indeed, those who formerly thought this—the Ebionites, and more recently the man of Samosata and those called Paulianists after him—suffered punishment for their blasphemy. What then remains after this except to introduce the flesh alone, without any inhabitant, moving like the automata of wonder-workers? And how could the flesh, and the body itself apart from that which activates it, have said, "As he taught me, so I speak"? How could the flesh have said, "For I always do what is pleasing to him"? How could the flesh have said that it itself was sent by the Father? Is it pious to call God the father of the flesh, or rather of that which dwells and acts in it? Who then was this? Was it the Word in God, being himself God according to Sabellius, or—what is pious and true to say—the living and subsisting only-begotten Son of God? But if he says neither of these, then of necessity a human soul will be posited, and Christ will be for him a mere man; and he will no longer be a Sabellian but a Paulianist, this new author. But if he says that the Word in God, being nothing other than a word, a signifying or active word, dwelt in the flesh, how could this one have said that he lived a life separate from the Father? How could he have been sent, being always conjoined and united with God?

How then does he say that the Father is his own teacher? How did he say that he himself always does "what is pleasing to the Father"? For these would be the words of a subsisting and living Son, and throughout the whole Gospel, he who prays to the Father, who glorifies the Father, who asks to be glorified by the Father, what else does he show but that he himself subsists, especially when he says, "The testimony of two men is true. I am the one testifying about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me"? Through so many things the Savior himself, having presented himself as living, nowhere named himself Word, but Son and Light and Only-begotten and Bread of Life and everything rather than Word. And he teaches that he has a Word, saying, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word," but he does not say that he himself is the Word. How then, after all this, does he who declared him to be only Word and nothing else not blush? Listen, then, to how he wrote, saying, "So that it is evident from all sides that no other name befits the eternity of the Word than that which the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, said at the beginning of the Gospel." And again, "In order to show that, if there is any new and more recent name, this came from his new and recent economy in the flesh." And again, "Therefore, before descending and being born through the virgin, he was only Word. For what else was it, before taking on human flesh, that descended 'in the last days,' as he himself wrote, and was born from the virgin? It was nothing other than Word.

So much is it possible for Marcellus to say and declare because he does not confess the Son of God. To him the evangelist would have cried out loudly: What do you say, man? Did I call him only Word? But also God, and "light that enlightens every man coming into the world," and only-begotten Son, the one "in the bosom of the Father." Let no one then slander the theologian, but let him listen accurately to him, what sort of Word he posited, immediately adding "and the Word was God" and appending "everything came to be through him." But according to the Savior of the universe himself, he is never once named Word, but Son of God and only-begotten and light and life and truth and everything rather than Word. 8. If he should say that these things are spoken from the New Testament, it will be said to him that "in the beginning was the Word" also came from no other source than it. So then one and the same gospel, the same evangelist who called him Word also wrote all the rest about him. 9. And the divine apostle Paul, saying "For us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," is clear

...is the Son of God before his incarnate presence, "through whom all things" came to be, not naming him Word, but Lord Jesus and Christ. But if, according to Marcellus, God and the Word in him were one and the same, it would have sufficed for the Apostle to say, "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things." For the thought was complete and the statement self-sufficient, presenting God as the maker of all. But even a Jew could say this. The herald of the Church, however, in addition to the first, teaches that the second also is not to be ignored. And what was this? "And one Lord Jesus Christ." Hence he adds the second, saying in sequence, "For us—for even if not for all, yet for us," he says, "there is one Lord Jesus Christ." And why, after the one God, this also, "For us one Lord," he explains by adding, "through whom all things." For since "all things came to be through him," it is fitting that for us who know this, he is believed to be Lord of all after the God over all. And that he was not speaking about the flesh, but about the divine Word, is clear from his adding "through whom all things." For he says, "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." This indeed is said both about the light and about the pre-existent Word. Therefore, Jesus Christ himself was the light and the Word, "through whom all things" came to be, but not the flesh. For he would not have spoken the "through whom all things" in such an unconnected way about the flesh. 10.

The same Paul knows how to name the Son of God, who preexists the flesh, Christ, calling him a rock in accordance with the same, when he writes about those who spent time with Moses in the desert, saying, "For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ," and he seals the same after other things, declaring, "Let us not tempt Christ, just as some of them tempted and were destroyed by the serpents." And he confirms this very thing even more, saying, "By faith Moses, having become great, denied being called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, considering the reproach of Christ a greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt." And he establishes this most clearly of all in what he declares: "Let this be thought among you which is also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was found in appearance as a man." You see that before emptying himself and taking "the form of a servant," he was and preexisted and "existed in the form of God." And who was this? No one other than Jesus Christ. Therefore, he himself was God Word Jesus Christ even before taking on flesh. For one must listen carefully to the divine apostle saying, "Let this be thought among you which is also in Christ Jesus," and clarifying thereafter who this Jesus Christ was, by what he adds, saying, "who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." Is it not then possible here to interpret the saying as referring to the flesh? Does it not suit the flesh to say "who also" and "existing"?

But was it not flesh that "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave"? Yet that is absurd. Come then, let us examine how it is said, "He who exists in the form of God did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself." If indeed he was a non-subsistent word, in no way subsisting outside of God, but being within him, sometimes at rest and in silence, sometimes in activity, how then was he "in the form of God," being himself God in potential? How did he "not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God," being himself God? How did he "humble himself, becoming obedient" to the Father? For the act of one obeying another would be indicative of two persons. And since Marcellus uses the word among humans as an image, one must ask whether it is possible to apply to the human word the statement: "He who exists in the form of a man did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to a man, but emptied himself, becoming obedient to the man"? And how could the word innate in a man do these things, being one and the same with the man? Therefore, it is not a bare word and

He will be without substance, but truly the only-begotten son of God, "who exists in the form of God," who "did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave," whom the divine apostle also called Jesus Christ, knowing accurately that he pre-existed the flesh. 11. In addition, the same apostle named him mediator of God, saying that the law of Moses was given through his hand, by the words: "the law ordained through angels, in the hand of a mediator. But the mediator is not of one, and God is one." Do you hear how, distinctly calling God and naming angels, he introduces the mediator between them, saying, "but the mediator is not of one"? He was therefore mediating the legislation even before the incarnation, in the time of Moses. 12. And the same apostle calls him high priest, saying: "Therefore having a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God." 13. Moreover, he knows the same as a radiance of the glory and a character of God, and son and heir, saying: "at the end of these days he spoke to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all, through whom he also made the ages; who is a radiance of the glory and a character of his substance." And here, just as above it was said concerning the Word, "all things came to be through him," and concerning the light, "it was in the world, and the world came to be through him," and concerning Jesus Christ, "to us one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things," see how similarly it is said concerning the same, "through whom he also made the ages." 14.

It is worthwhile to fix the mind on these things, how it is named "radiance"; for I think the word is indicative of the generation of the Son from the Father. For although "Son" is often named and God is designated "Father," lest we fall into the modes of generation of living beings and suppose some such manner in the case of God, the Apostle has used a more God-befitting image, saying concerning the Father "dwelling in inaccessible light," and defining the Son as a radiance of the paternal light, so that the radiance is an offspring of the first light, not subsisting according to the generation of mortal living beings, but according to the example mentioned. Fittingly, therefore, he also calls him an "image of the invisible God," because he exists "in the form of God," and because he is a "radiance and character of the substance." For on account of these things, writing about him he said, "who is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, because in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and into him; and he is before all things and all things stand together in him." For these things have been 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 much concerning the flesh. For that is foolish and unintelligible, besides which the interpretation of the phrasing would be incoherent; for how would it be fitting to say concerning the flesh "who is an image," when it would be necessary, if at all, to say "which is an image." 15.

And again in another place the same author names him an image of God, saying: "But if our gospel is also hidden, it is hidden among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that the illumination of the gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine in their hearts." There it is also fitting to fix the mind, how the divine apostle uttered a definitive statement concerning Christ, calling him an image of God, so that no one might suppose there are two gods, but one who is over all. For if "there is one God, and there is no other besides him," he himself would be the one who is known also through the Son as through an image. Hence the Son is also God, because of the formation of the Father in him as in an image. This indeed the divine apostle sets forth, at one time saying "who exists in the form of God," at another time defining him as "image of God." Therefore, along with the other appellations, the Son was also "image of God" before the incarnate presence, and

has been named. But these things are from the new covenant, a few out of thousands, gathered by us for the sake of symmetry of discourse. 10. And the prophets of God who lived long ago also honored him with various theologies. For one called him spirit of God, saying: "A rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from the root, and the spirit of God will rest upon it, a spirit of wisdom and understanding," and so forth. For he clearly indicated through these things the one "from the seed of David according to the flesh" and the divine Word who dwelt in him. Hence the divine apostle sometimes said, "But the Lord is the spirit," and sometimes, "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God." And another likewise calls him spirit, saying: "Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord." And in the gospel it is clearly said about him: "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul has delighted. I have given my spirit upon him; he will bring judgment to the nations." 17. And another of the prophets named him life and light in addressing God and saying: "Because with you is the source of life, in your light we will see light." For who was the source of life with God and the light, if not he himself who said in the gospels, "I am the light of the world," and "I am the way and the truth and the life"? Therefore again the prophet, beseeching in prayer to God, says: "Send forth your light and your truth; they will guide me." 18.

truth, and Zorobabel, having named him, was deemed worthy of victory, when it is recorded that before the king of the Persians he said, “And truth abides and prevails forever, and lives and rules for eternity upon eternity. And it is not possible to take bribes in her presence, but she does what is just, and abstains from all that is unjust and wicked.” To which he adds, “And her strength and kingdom and authority and greatness endure through all ages.” For having said that truth lives and conquers and prevails, he most clearly set forth her hypostasis. In accordance with this, the Savior himself, naming himself truth, sealed the testimony of Zorobabel. 19. And he was called a river by him who said, “The rushings of the river gladden the city of God.” 20. And he was also called a mountain by him who said, “The mountain which God chose to dwell in.” Hence also in Daniel, a stone cut “from a mountain” “without hands,” and again the same was seen restored to a high mountain, the mountain signifying the preexistence of his divinity, the stone his humanity. 21. And they called him righteousness, as he who says, “Who raised up righteousness from the east?” 22. And a sun of righteousness, as he who said, “To those who fear me, a sun of righteousness will rise, and healing in its wings.” And another says, “The sun will set upon the prophets” “who lead my people astray”; for these things would not apply to the perceptible sun, nor to the incarnate Word. 23.

And he calls him wisdom, Solomon in Proverbs saying, “Wisdom built herself a house, and set up seven pillars,” and so forth. And that wisdom was pre-cosmic, living and subsisting, he himself taught, speaking in her person, uttering these words: “I, wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling, and I have summoned knowledge and understanding,” then adding further, “Through me kings reign and rulers decree justice, through me magnates are magnified, and tyrants through me hold sway.” 24. But also Solomon called him a tree of life and lord, saying, “It is a tree of life for all who cling to it, and for those who lean upon it as upon a lord, it is secure.” 25. And Solomon’s father David in the Psalms called him both lord and priest, at one time saying, “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand,’” and at another declaring, “The Lord swore and will not repent; you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” 20. And the same acknowledges and confesses him as god, saying, “Your throne, O God, is for the

...eternity of eternity, the rod of righteousness is the rod of your kingdom. You loved justice and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your fellows." For in these words, who else could be the one anointed by God but he who, because of the paternal anointing, is proclaimed Christ? 27. This same one was also beloved of God, which the superscription of the psalm indicates, containing "a song for the beloved." 28. Isaiah called him the arm, saying, "The Lord will reveal his holy arm before all the nations." 29. And David together knew him as righteousness and salvation, whence he said, "The Lord made known his salvation, before the nations he revealed his righteousness," and again, "Proclaim from day to day his salvation," and further, "Who will give from Zion the salvation of Israel?" and "Show us, Lord, your mercy, and grant us your salvation." 30. And why need I recount each one, when it is possible for the studious to gather such things from all of inspired scripture, through which the men of God, illuminated by the divine Spirit, manifest the knowledge of the only-begotten son of God, which was then ineffable and hidden from the multitudes of the Jewish people. Hence they proclaimed him variously with concealed appellations. For the grace of the proclamation of the theology concerning him was reserved for his coming, which his church, having received like some ancient hidden and silent mystery, now exalts throughout the whole world.

This indeed is what the divine apostle teaches, saying: "According to the economy of God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations—but now has been revealed to his saints, to whom God wished to make known what the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the nations is, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." You see how it was a mystery hidden before, but now revealed: the Son of God. For this reason the prophets of God, by the prophetic spirit, theologically spoke of him mystically, while the multitude of the Jewish nation remained in ignorance of the hidden mystery. Hence they were taught to know one God, because they were continually being swept away by polytheistic error, but they were ignorant that God, being Father, had a Son, the only-begotten; for this mystery was reserved for the Church from the nations, granted to it by exceptional grace, for in it are, according to the apostle, "all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge." But through so many passages, the Word of God, who "in the beginning was with God," has been shown not only to be called Word, as Marcellus thinks, but also Son and only-begotten and light and bread and Jesus and Christ and Lord and high priest and radiance and character and image and firstborn of all creation and source of life and truth and river and righteousness and sun of righteousness and wisdom and tree of life and Lord and God and beloved and priest and arm and righteousness and salvation.

and being all these things and pre-existing the flesh, he was named, as the cited scriptures have shown. On what account, then, does Marcellus, disregarding all these things, fix upon the Word alone, not passing over to the other titles, but asserting that he is only the Word of God and a significant Word, sometimes resting in God, sometimes speaking or acting by energy alone, or because he plainly Sabellianizes and does not believe in the Son of God nor recognize the mystery that pre-existed long ago, but was revealed only to the Church of Christ through his grace? But if he should say that the mystery is unknown, that God has the Word in himself and uses the Word—for this seems to Marcellus writing in this manner—what other hidden mystery was there than that concerning the Word? And this mystery was so hidden in God beforehand that no one of the earlier people clearly knew the things concerning the Word. If, then, he should say this, let him learn that every Jew who has not recognized the Christ of God would also confess that God has the Word and is not without reason. And this Sabellius himself and every Greek and barbarian who posits that God exists would undoubtedly affirm; for as soon as one says "God," one also conceives him as wise, rational, powerful, just, and good. What kind of mystery, then, was hidden that is confessed by all? For who would not say that in God there is wisdom, power, life, light, truth, justice, Word, and everything that is good and noble?

rather that he is all these things and something higher and better than these and unknown to us; for self-taught nature compels every man to confess this about God. Hence we are taught that the Son is all these things, since he is the only-begotten Son and heir of the Father and possesses all that the Father does. Therefore he is said to be in the form of God and the image of God, according to the divine apostle who said, "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God," and again, "who is the image of God." So it was not that God is rational which was "the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations," nor was this "now revealed" which is known to all men by natural notions; but if one were to ask what it is, the apostle answers, saying, "but now it was revealed to his saints, to whom God wished to make known what the wealth of the glory of this mystery is among the nations, which is Christ in you." Christ, then, was the mystery, clearly the Son of God. Therefore the prophets of God mystically glorified him with various appellations beforehand, concealing the ineffable and reserving the revelation of him to all by his own grace. When, then, after so many testimonies of the scriptures, Marcellus insists that the Word in the beginning, before taking on flesh, was nothing other than Word and was not designated by any other name, but then received various appellations when "the Word became flesh," being nothing other than Word before this, how would he not be convicted of ignorance and lack of understanding of the divine writings?

But when this is established, let us then, as if he had come back to life, observe the new Sabellius. 2. Book 2 of the treatise On Ecclesiastical Theology contains the following: (a) how Marcellus renewed the opinion of Sabellius; (b) how he is also convicted of Judaizing in his opinion; (c) how he defined the Word of God, being in God, as unoriginate and unbegotten; (d) how he said that the Word and God are one and the same; (e) that in saying these things he denied the Son; (f) how the Church theologizes about the Son; (g) how the Church proclaims the monarchy of the Father; (h) with what expressions Marcellus denied the Son of God; (i) refutation of the man's false opinion; (j) that he did not correctly interpret "In the beginning was the Word"; (k) that he sometimes called it the prophoric Word of God, sometimes the immanent Word, similarly to that in humans; (l) that the evangelist did not set forth the theology concerning the Word as Marcellus thought; (m) in how many ways the meaning from the term "Word" is understood; (n) how one ought to interpret the evangelical teaching concerning the Word; (o) quotations of Marcellus's own words by which he denied the Son of God, clearly asserting that he is prophoric Word and immanent Word; (p) refutation of the man's false opinion; (q) interpretation of the true meaning of the Word; (r) why the evangelist, beginning his own writing, named the Son "Word"; (s) how Marcellus, citing the Old Testament passages about one God, similarly to the Jews denied the Son of God; (t) why Moses and the prophets did not openly hand down to the Jews the theology concerning the Son.

21. That the Son of God was the one who appeared to Moses and to Abraham. 22. That in the prophets also the Father was spoken of theologically through the Son. 23. That the Church does not proclaim two gods. 24. How Marcellus likened the only-begotten Word to the words of God that are precepts for actions. 25. How he wrote contradictions to himself.

After the cited testimonies from the divine readings, through which it was shown that the Son of God was not only named Word before the incarnate presence, as Marcellus supposed, but also countless other things, come then, let us observe the phantom of Sabellius as if it had sprung up from the earth. He dared, then, to say that the God over all, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, was born of the holy virgin and himself suffered, writing in this manner: "What then was that which descended before the incarnation? Certainly, he says, a spirit. For if he should wish to say something other than this, the angel who said to the virgin, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you,' will not permit him. And if he says it is spirit, let him hear the Savior saying, 'God is spirit.'" Through these words, he said that the God of all, about whom our Savior and Lord taught when he said, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth," is the spirit that came upon the virgin, thus openly renewing Sabellius.

And proceeding further, when the prophet Jeremiah clearly said concerning the incarnation of the Savior, "After this he was seen on earth and lived among men," he refers the oracle to the Father, stating in these very words: "But it seems that the Father is in the Logos, even if Asterius and those who think the same as he do not agree." And also concerning the suffering of the Savior he does the same thing. For after citing from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, "The spirit of our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their corruptions," he adds, "Here likewise the prophet speaks concerning the Logos who took our flesh," and he continues, saying, "A spirit that creates a shadow could never come to be. But that spirit is God himself, for the Savior said, 'God is spirit.' And that God is light, he himself teaches us, saying, 'I am the light.'" You see how he transfers what is said about the Savior to the divinity of the Father. And again he abolishes the hypostasis of the Son, declaring with bare head that before the creation of the generated beings there was nothing else except God alone. He writes thus verbatim: "The authority given to him Asterius calls glory, and not only glory but pre-cosmic glory, not understanding that when the cosmos had not yet come into being, there was nothing else except God alone." And again he confirms the same thing, saying, "Heaven and earth and all things in the heavens and on the earth were made by God. If, therefore, he believes this, he must also agree that there was nothing else except God." You see a veritable Jew, denying the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things came into being.

For if nothing other than God existed before the generation of the world, then the Son did not exist; and how then were "all things made through him, and without him nothing was made"? The Jew, then, who denies the Christ of God, knows nothing before the generation of the world except God alone, with Marcellus bearing witness to him; but the Church of Christ boasts with all boldness, saying, "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." And when it says "through whom are all things," it knows him before all things; so that he who says that nothing other than God alone existed before the generation of the world speaks falsely of the truth. For together with the only God, his only-begotten Son also existed before the constitution of the world, and was with the Father. For this is what also taught her the one who said, "At the end of these days he spoke to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages." And in the Proverbs, through Solomon, the Son himself teaches about himself, saying, "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him." But also he himself "was the light that illuminates every man coming into the world," since "he was in the world, and

The world came into being through him." But if "the world came into being through him," it is clear that he pre-existed the world. Therefore God was not alone before the constitution of the world, but his only-begotten Son was with him, at whom the Father rejoiced, as Wisdom herself teaches, saying in Proverbs, "I was the one in whom he rejoiced day by day." And the Son himself, gazing upon the Father's thoughts, was filled with joy, wherefore he says, "And I rejoiced before him at all times." These pious and divine mysteries the Church of Christ, having received, preserves. But he who says that before the world existed there was nothing other than God alone shows himself to be one of two things: either a Jew or a Sabellian. For either, by directly denying the Son and introducing only God, he will be a Jew denying Christ; or, while accepting the appellation "Son" in word only, he claims that he himself is the one God, both Son and Father together, and thus revives Sabellius. For if before the world there was nothing other than God, then either he will be both Father and Son, or he will have no Son. But Marcellus seems to affirm that the Word in God himself, by which he is conceived as rational, is the Son; so that he is his own Father, and again he is his own Son. Listen, then, to his own words, through which he writes in this manner: For before all creation there was a certain quiet, as is likely, the Word being in God.

If, then, Asterius has believed that God is the maker of all things, it is clear that he will also agree with us that God always exists, never having taken a beginning of being, while the things that have come into being have been generated by him and have come into being from non-being. You see how, having posited God as without beginning, he said that the Word, being in him, was in repose before the creation; and proceeding further he adds: "If, then, he believes this, it is necessary that he also agree to that, namely, that besides God nothing else existed." Therefore the Word had his own proper existence, being in the Father. From this, naturally, he also says that the Word is eternal, that is, ungenerated, writing thus: "You hear, then, the harmony of the Holy Spirit, which through many and diverse persons testifies to the eternity of the Word." And again, for this reason he begins from the eternity of the Word, saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," using three successive testimonies to demonstrate the eternity of the Word. And how he asserted that the Word was united with God and co-eternal with him, it is possible to hear him speaking somewhere thus: "We know that the economy according to the flesh pertains to the man, but we have believed that the eternity according to the spirit is united with the Father." In this way, then, having placed the Word as being in God, he subsequently declares that it is one and the same with him, writing verbatim thus: "For if the examination of the spirit alone were made, the Word would reasonably appear to be one and the same with God; but if the addition according to the flesh in the case of the Savior were examined, the divinity seems to be extended only in activity.

So that it is reasonably a truly indivisible monad. And again, proceeding, he says: Not, then, because of the precise agreement in all words and deeds, as Asterius said, does the Savior say, "I and the Father are one"; but because it is impossible for either the Word of God or God to be separated from his own Word. If, then, God and the Word in him were one and the same, as Marcellus thinks, then the one who came to be in the holy virgin and was incarnate and became man and suffered the recorded things and died for our sins would himself be the God over all—which thing, when Sabellius dared to assert, the Church of God numbered among the godless and blasphemous. But if Marcellus says that the Word of God is the one who became incarnate, yet he defined it as inseparable from God, positing an indivisible monad and one hypostasis of God and of the Word in him, so that according to him the one who became man is to be understood as nothing other than the God over all. But if it is an indivisible monad, and God and the Word in him are one and the same, then whom would one call Father, and whom Son, when the subject is one? Thus indeed Marcellus

introducing the Son-Father as one and the same, he renews Sabellius. But the Church of God recognizes the indivisible monad, confessing one principle, the one unbegotten and unoriginate God; and it designates as Savior the only-begotten Son born from him, precisely existing and living and subsisting, who is not unoriginate nor unbegotten, so as not to posit two principles and two gods, but born from the Father and having the one who begot him as his origin. Hence it has received the faith in one God, 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 illuminated by it. But Marcellus says the monad is expanded in activity, which holds for bodies, but no longer for the incorporeal and ineffable and inexpressible substance. For it is neither expanded in acting nor contracted in not acting, nor does it act or move at all like humans; but being an indivisible monad, God begot his only-begotten Son from himself, not being divided nor undergoing alteration or change or flux or any affection. For neither does he do these things by commanding or enjoining or legislating, speaking with tongue and lips like humans, nor does he gaze upon the ordering of the universe using eyes like us, since even "things that are not" he, by ineffable and divine power, beholds as already existing and subsisting.

But neither does He, in making and creating, like the craftsmen among us, take pre-existing matter and work it with hands and fingers; rather, by an ineffable and incomprehensible power, He established the substance of all generated things from non-being into being. If, then, He made everything by means ineffable and unsyllogizable to us, why should we be anxious, lest we say that some passion occurred in Him, like that in mortal animals, at the generation of the Son, which He brought forth beyond all and before all, not in any manner known to mortal nature, but in the way known only to Him? But are you afraid, O man, that by confessing two hypostases you might introduce two principles and fall away from the monarchic divinity? Learn, then, that since there is one unoriginate and unbegotten God, and the Son is generated from Him, there will be one principle, one monarchy, and one kingdom, because the Son himself designates his own Father as his principle. "For the head of Christ is God," according to the Apostle. But are you anxious, lest it be necessary to admit two gods for the one who confesses that there are two hypostases of Father and Son? Know this as well: that the one who posits two hypostases of Father and Son is not compelled to speak of two fathers, nor of two sons, but will posit one as Father and the other as Son. In the same way, then, the one who posits the two hypostases is not compelled to posit two gods. For we do not define them as equal in honor, nor both as unoriginate and unbegotten, but one as unbegotten and unoriginate, the other as generated and having the Father as its principle.

Therefore the Son Himself teaches that God is His own Father, in the words: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." Thus God the Father is shown to be God even of the Son Himself; hence one God is proclaimed by the Church of the Son. But the Son, when He is compared to the Father, is no longer God of the Father Himself, but His only-begotten and beloved Son, and "image of the invisible God" and "radiance" of the Father's glory; and He reveres, worships, and glorifies His own Father, acknowledging Him as God even of Himself, to whom He is recorded as praying, to whom He gives thanks, to whom He becomes "obedient unto death," and confesses that He lives "through the Father" and can do nothing without the Father, and does not do His own will but the Father's. For He says in so many syllables: "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me," and again, "I can do nothing by myself; as I hear,

I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me. And that the one who sent him was other than himself he shows by saying further, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true; another is the one who testifies about me." Then, having mentioned the Baptist, he teaches that the Father is his witness, declaring, "And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me," and he adds, "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because my Father is greater than I." Through all these things he shows himself to be other than the Father. And he sets forth the preeminence of the Father's glory by saying that the one sent, while he himself was sent and came down from heaven, "not to do his own will but the will of him who sent" him. And what would Marcellus say to these things, hearing these teachings from the one who came down from heaven? For surely he will not now say that the flesh of the Savior speaks these things; for the flesh did not come down from heaven. Whom then will he say came down from heaven and taught these things? Either God himself or the Word united with him? But if he should say the Father, having openly uncovered Sabellius, the Savior himself will refute him as lying, saying, "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me," and "I cannot do anything by myself; as I hear, I judge," and "I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me," and "My Father is greater than I.

For to think that the Father says these things would be the utmost madness. But if he says that the innate Word in God and his mind, by which he reasons and inwardly thinks within himself, expounds the matters at hand, how could the thought of God and the mind in him have descended from heaven? How, when it became in the flesh which he assumed, did it expound these things? How would the Word in God say that he has descended "not to do his own will but that of the one who sent him"? Through these things the Son of God manifests his reverence toward the Father. But when he leads all created things that have come into being through him, as being the savior and lord and creator of all—"for all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being"—then he would be proclaimed both God and master and savior and king. Therefore his church has been taught to worship and adore and honor him as God, having learned to do this from him himself. For the savior himself says, "For the Father judges no one, but has given the entire judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father," explicitly commanding that he be honored not like the prophets nor like angels or their superior powers, but similarly to the Father himself. For the Father himself, having willed this, "has given the entire judgment to the Son, so that all may honor him just as they honor the Father.

This Thomas Didymus, being precisely aware of these things, since he was one of the chorus of the twelve disciples, in brilliant words both called and inscribed him as God and Lord, saying, "My Lord and my God." For this reason it is fitting for us to revere only the Son and no other with divine honor, just as we honor the Father, and in this the Father is honored through the Son; which indeed he himself teaches, saying, "He who honors the Son honors the Father who sent him." For just as, when we honor an image of a king that has been sent down, we would honor the king himself, the prototype of the image, in the same way the Father would be honored through the Son, as also he is seen through him. For "he who has seen" the Son "has seen the Father," the unbegotten divinity, seeing it characterized in the Son as in an image and a mirror; "for he is the radiance of eternal light, and the unblemished mirror of the energy of God, and the image of his goodness." All these things he received from the Father, from him and from the divinity the

He has received this glory as a genuine and only-begotten son. But the Father has not received anything from anyone, but being himself the beginning, source, and root of all good things, he would fittingly be proclaimed as one and only God. But Marcellus, being ignorant of these things, does not truly wish the Son to have been born from the Father as a living and subsisting Son, but asserts that he came forth as a word signifying something or a command of God. Listen then without concealment to him saying this in these words: he seems to have said consistently that he was born before the ages, for the offspring becomes a product of the father who sent it forth. But the other point is no longer taken up by him soundly or piously. For to assert that what came forth from him is not a word, and that this is the true manner of generation, but only a true son, usually provides some impression of human appearance to the hearers. Then, showing that the word was not born from the Father, he says verbatim: "Thus the holy apostle and disciple of the Lord John, recalling his eternity, became a true witness of the word, saying 'In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God,' mentioning nothing of the word's generation here." Thus denying the Son of God, he sometimes said that the word in God was within God, and sometimes that it proceeded from God, and at other times that it would return into God and be in him as it was before. Hear how he says these things in these words: "Now I believe the divine scriptures, that God is one.

And his Word came forth from the Father, so that all things might come to be through him; but after the time of judgment and the correction of all things and the annihilation of all opposing activity, "then he himself will be subordinated to the one who subordinated all things to him," "to God and Father," so that the Word may be in God in the same way as he was before the world existed. For when nothing existed before God alone, and all things were to come to be through the Word, the Word came forth in an active energy, being the Word of the Father. And again he sets forth the same thought more clearly, writing thus: before the world existed, the Word was in the Father. But when the all-powerful God purposed to make all things, both in the heavens and on earth, the generation of the world required an active energy; and for this reason, since there was nothing else besides God—for all things are agreed to have been made by him—then the Word, coming forth, became the maker of the world, he who had previously been preparing it intelligibly within. And again, after all this, he adds, saying: and for this reason he does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, so that through such a confession he might prepare man, through communion with him, to become a son of God by adoption; and after the end of the action, again, as Word, he is united with God, fulfilling that which was said by the apostle: "then he himself will be subordinated to the one who subordinated all things to him, so that all things may be, and in all things, God." For at that time he will be what he was before.

Having said so much about the Word in God, by which we understand him to be rational, Marcellus has fallen into a terrible difficulty, having dared to say that the Word in him once came to be outside God, and again within him after the time of judgment, so that he might be in God united with him, just as he was before. It is time, therefore, for him to answer us as we ask. What then in the intervening time, when the Word of God was outside, is it proper to conceive? How did he come forth? In what state was God, then, not having his own Word within himself? For if at the consummation of the universe the Word will be in God, just as he was before the time of the consummation, how will the Word that came forth from God exist? For if he subsisted separately and became other than God, Marcellus’s labor is in vain; but if, having come forth from God, like the uttered word in us, he remained inseparable from the Father, then he was always and throughout in God, even when he was active. How then does he refer to the time of judgment, then

saying that he will be united with God and will be as he was before? For if he will then be as he was before, neither will the Word that proceeded from God exist as it was before, but God himself will be unlike himself, having formerly had the Word within himself and at the consummation of the universe receiving it back and becoming then as he was before, while in the intervening time he is in a dissimilar state. And the Word likewise, having come to be outside God, will not be before the consummation of the universe what it was before. And what discourse could be more impious than these? For the "was" and the "will be" and the "having once come to be" and the "being about to be again," being indicative of change in time, would be alien to the timeless, beginningless, ungenerated, and unalterable substance, upon which it is fitting to conceive only "being" and to be unchangeably always in the same state and in the same manner, neither being diminished, nor contracted, nor extended, nor unfolded, nor having anything outside or within itself, nor becoming different at different times, nor being one thing formerly and then becoming something else and again being restored to its original state. These are the things that Marcellus dared to suppose, saying that God existed formerly and depicting for himself some quietude along with God, after the manner of that leader of the atheistic heretics who, in propounding his atheistic doctrines, declared: "There was God and silence," and after the silence and quietude the Word of God proceeded forth at the beginning of the creation in an active energy, so that it no longer is what it was when it was at rest in the silent God before, but it acts, proceeding from God.

And how then did he proceed? Surely in some way like the utterance of articulate speech, that is, with God speaking and talking similarly to humans. This at any rate seemed to him when he wrote in this manner: for just as all things that have come to be by the father have come to be through the Word, so also all things said by the father are signified through the Word. And again: for everything that the father might say, he appears everywhere saying it through the Word. This is also evident from ourselves, if we compare small things to great and divine ones: for we too do everything we wish, as far as possible, both to say and to do, by means of our own word. If then the Word proceeded from the father in this way by an active energy, whence did it occur to Marcellus to limit the time of the Word's energy to the time of the consummation, at which he claims the Word will be in God, just as it was before? For before, he posited it as being at rest in a silent God. Therefore also after the consummation there will be some silence, with the Word about to do nothing. But before the constitution of generated things, he says, there was nothing except God, and since there was nothing, he naturally fashioned silence for himself.

At the time of the consummation, the prophet Daniel prophesies that there will be myriads before the throne of God, saying, "Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him," and all the sons of the coming age will then be there, as well as the blessed souls of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, the holy spirits of martyrs, and all the sheep of our Savior that will stand at his right and hear, "Come, the blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Since so many will then exist and live an immortal life after the time of judgment, why will the Word of God not be active then as well? Whence did it occur to Marcellus to declare that God will no longer speak to the saints then, nor use his Word actively, but will be, as he was before, silent and at rest within himself? For he represented this by often saying that he will then be as he was before; and he was before, as he himself said, in quiet. Therefore, God will then fall silent, having previously spoken and used his Word actively, but then, in the very promised kingdom of heaven, he will deprive the

his saints. You see into what a precipice he has fallen, using no guide, nor the divine scriptures. For he has composed all these things from a single phrase which he has not understood. For immediately, proceeding to the proofs of the new and novel covenant, he was driven from all sides, being hard-pressed, and finding only one expression that contributed to his own evil doctrine, as if encountering some windfall, he clung to this alone, which was not even spoken from the person of our Savior but from the person of the evangelist, by which he named him, saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Starting from this, then, as if the Son were nothing other than a word similar to that known among us, he denied him. And yet the great and divine evangelist himself called him not only Word, as has often been said by us, but also God and Light and Son and Only-begotten; and he records that the Savior himself calls himself Word nowhere in scripture, but throughout the 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 things, as has already been shown. Why then, when there are so many, does he not stop at the expression in all the rest but investigate the meaning of what is said, while in the case of the Word alone he says it is used literally, as if it were nothing other than a word? For he writes in these very words, saying, "He was not called Word catachrestically, even if the heterodox teachers burst with falsehood, but he exists as Word literally and truly.

And again, let him learn that the Word of God has come, not a Word named by catachresis, as they themselves say, but being a true Word. And again, previously, as I have often said, it was nothing other than Word. And again, before descending and being born through the virgin, it was Word alone. For what else was it, before taking up human flesh, that descended "in the last days," as he himself wrote, and that was born of the virgin? It was nothing other than Word. To Marcellus saying these things, it would be just to put such a question: And whence, O sir, do you add "nothing other" and "alone"? For we know precisely that "in the beginning was the Word"; and not only that, but also "and the Word was God" and "it was the light that enlightens every man" and "it was the only-begotten son" and all the other things that have been enumerated. But that it was Word alone and nothing other than Word, no one could demonstrate as having been said. Whence, then, the audacity of the addition? For why would one not rather call it son alone and nothing other than son? And why not God and nothing other than God? Why not light of the world and nothing other than this? And why not life and nothing other? And concerning similar things, one might most justly propose the same. But just as someone, if he were to say this, would be convicted of error—for all these things are together, being one son of God and something higher than these, deemed worthy of different appellations according to each conception of the divine powers in him—so also concerning the Word, he who says it is only Word and nothing other would rightly be said to be mistaken.

For only the evangelist John called him Word, and not only this but also other things, while the Savior named himself light and truth and life and only-begotten son and the rest, but never Word, how is it not absurd, concerning the names he himself gave himself, not to say that he is one of these and nothing else, but concerning the evangelist's utterance about him, which called him Word, to insist that he was nothing other than Word? And yet he says he is Word in the proper sense and truly existing. But why not properly and truly existing God? For it is not that one who called him Word is different from the one who called him God; the same evangelist taught him as both God and Word, saying "and the Word was God," and the same also named him light. Why then not properly and truly only-begotten son and all the other things which the Lord and Savior himself testified about himself through the evangelist? But he, passing over everything, says that he exists as Word alone in the proper and true sense; and he adds that therefore he is only Word, and from this he falls into the likeness of human word. And when he hears him called light, he does not fall into corporeal light, nor does he say he is like the radiance of the sun, but concerning the Word he gives him a significative character and makes him like the human word; so that sometimes he says he is at rest in God, sometimes he proceeds from God, and becomes both within and outside him, in likeness to the word among us, the so-called internal word and the word uttered through voice.

He says then in these very words: "For everything that the Father says, he appears to be saying everywhere through the Word. This is evident even from ourselves, if we compare small things to great and divine ones; for we too do everything that we wish, as far as possible, to say and do through our own word." And again he says this: "For before all creation there was a kind of silence, as is likely, the Word being in God." Then he adds: "For since nothing existed before except God alone, and all things were to come into being through the Word, the Word came forth in effective activity." Having said so much about the Word, listen to how he attempts to interpret the evangelical utterance, writing thus: "The holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, clearly and explicitly teaching at the beginning of the Gospel, naming him Word of the Almighty, previously unknown among men, spoke thus: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Not using a single testimony, he signifies the eternity of the Word." And again he says: "Using three successive testimonies, he wishes to demonstrate the eternity of the Word." And again he adds: "So that by saying 'In the beginning was the Word,' he might show that the Word was potentially in the Father—for God is the beginning of all things that have come to be, 'from whom are all things'—and by saying 'and the Word was with God,' that the Word was with God in activity—'for all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be'—and by saying that the Word was God, not to divide the divinity, since the Word is in him and he is in the Word.

For in me," he says, "is the Father, and I in the Father." Through such statements Marcellus, abolishing the hypostasis of the only-begotten son of God, calls the divine evangelist as a witness for his own evil opinion, as if he knew nothing other than a word, sometimes active and at other times at rest in God, and being nothing other than God himself. Yet the great evangelist and theologian, having mentioned the Word three times in the same passage, never once called it 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 Word it was. And again he said "and the Word was with God," when he could have said: and the Word of God was in God. But also "and the Word was God," not "and the Word was of God," he said, lest we suppose it to be some kind of signifying or creative energy of God. This is precisely what Marcellus, thinking it to be an eternal Word of God, that is, unbegotten, has often defined; not seeing that if he asserts the Word to be other than God, there will be two eternal beings, the Word and God, and there will no longer be a single principle; but if he says the eternal is one, defining the same God to be the Word, he will confess Sabellius outright, introducing the one as Father-Son according to that man. Therefore the Father will be for him both born and suffering, and he himself will be the one praying to himself and saying he was sent by himself, and his own son and only-begotten, not speaking truthfully but with irony falsely claiming. And what other discourse could be more impious than this?

But let us see what sort of account the evangelist proclaims to us, saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now the term denoting the Word, expressed in the Greek language, suggests a manifold meaning from its consideration. For (1) the Word is called that which is implanted in the rational soul, by virtue of which reasoning is present in us; (2) and besides this, another, that which signifies something through the tongue and articulate voice; (3) and in a third manner, that which is composed in writing by the writer; (4) and we are accustomed to call Word also the seminal or vegetative, by virtue of which things not yet grown are potentially stored in seeds, about to come forth into the light by actuality before long; (5) and besides these, they are accustomed to name Word in another way that which is scientific, comprehending some art or science and all such theorems, for example, medical or architectural or geometrical. Since, then, various modes are presented from the term "Word," and the evangelist has said absolutely, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," it is fitting to apply the mind and understand that the evangelist here delivers some strange thing of a Word beyond those known to us, having said "Word" absolutely, and added the strange and paradoxical character of its peculiar power in the phrase "and the Word was God." For do not suppose, he says, that this is one of those relative things, like the Word in the soul, or that heard through voice, or that existing in bodily seeds, or that subsisting in mathematical theorems.

All these, being relative terms, are conceived in another underlying substance. But the divine Word does not require another underlying substance in which to subsist, but exists by himself, living and subsisting, since he is God. For "the Word was God." But when you hear him called God, he says, do not suppose that he is without beginning and unbegotten like his own Father, but learn that "in the beginning was" this divine Word. And what beginning he subsists from, he clarifies next, not saying "and the Word was the God" with the addition of the article, so as not to define him as the God over all, nor yet "in the God," so as not to reduce it to human likeness, but he said "and the Word was with the God." For if he had said "and the Word was in the God," as an accident in a subject and as one thing in another, he would have introduced God as composite, positing him as a substance without the Word and the Word as an accident to the substance. This is what Marcellus thought, bringing the Father and the Son together into the same thing, calling the substance the Father and the Word in him the Son, not considering that one who grants this, positing God without the Word, would fall into an atheistic and impious doctrine, admitting a God without reason, having reason as an accident in him but not being reason himself.

It is necessary to confess one divine thing, ineffable, good, simple, uncompounded, uniform, which is beyond all things, being itself God, itself mind, itself word, itself wisdom, itself light, itself life, itself beauty, itself good, and whatever one might conceive as superior to these, or rather beyond all mind and beyond every thought and reflection; and that his only-begotten son, as an image of the father, having sprung from him, being in every way and in all respects most similar to the one who begot him, is himself also God and mind and word and wisdom and life and light, an image of the beautiful and good himself, not being the father himself but the only-begotten son of the father, not being the unbegotten and without beginning himself but the one who sprang from him and who acknowledges the one who begot him as his beginning. But if Marcellus, contradicting these things, should claim that God and the word in him are the same, defining God as uncompounded and simple, then it is time for him neither to confess him as father nor as son, but outright to put forward the Jew or to introduce Sabellius, who claims that father and son are the same; so that according to him, "In the beginning was the word" is equal to "In the beginning was God," and "And the word was with God" is equal to "And God was with God," and likewise the third is the same as "And God was God," which, besides being incoherent, would be most irrational. And how will "All things came to be through him" have a place, when the subject is one? For it does not say "by him

Nor have all things come into being from him, but "through him." The preposition "through" signifies a ministerial role, as the same evangelist proceeds to show, saying, "The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." For just as the law, not being human nor belonging to Moses himself but from God, appointed Moses as servant and minister for its delivery to men, and for this reason it is said "the law was given through Moses," so also "grace came through Jesus Christ," the Father having wrought it through Christ. In like manner, therefore, it is said also that "all things came into being through him," another having made them, while he ministered; so that one must seek another, the maker of all things, who through the one being theologized established all things. And who could this be? But he would not be able to say. Things being thus, it is necessary to confess that the one being theologized by the evangelist is not the God over all nor the Father himself, but his only-begotten Son, not having accrued to the Father nor being in him as in a subject nor being one and the same with God, but being truly a Son, living and subsisting, being in the beginning and being toward God and being God, through whom he creates all things; so that one might rightly, taking it more clearly, say instead of "In the beginning was the Word," "In the beginning was the Son," and instead of "and the Word was toward God," "and the Son was toward the Father," and instead of "and the Word was God," "and the Son was God." Thus would also fit what follows, for "all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

Naturally, therefore, the divine evangelist said that he was in the beginning, giving him a beginning—clearly, the generation from the Father; for everything generated from something has the one who generated it as its beginning. He did not, however, similarly add "and the Word was in God," but "the Word was toward God," teaching that the one who was generated and acquired the Father as his beginning is not far from the Father, nor cut off and standing apart somewhere far from him, but is present with him and is with him; which indeed he taught earlier in Proverbs, first saying "before all mountains he begets me," then adding "when he prepared the heaven, I was present with him." Thus, then, the Word—clearly, the only-begotten Son—was toward his own Father, God, being with and present with him always and forever; which indeed he set forth by saying "and the Word was toward God." And since it was necessary for us to know also of what rank he was, he necessarily added "and the Word was God." For how was the one generated from the one and only unbegotten God not going to be God? For if "that which is generated from flesh is flesh, and that which is generated from spirit is spirit," according to the saving teaching, consequently that which is generated from God would be God. Therefore "the Word was God"; and a creative and demiurgic God of all things. Which indeed the evangelist himself set forth by subsequently adding "all things came into being through him.

Now the pedagogical law through Moses, in the account of the creation of the world, introducing God as the maker of the universe and handing down elements and introductions to piety, taught by saying, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth" and what follows these, through which it exhorted the Jewish people, who were being educated, to consider the world as having been created, so as not to worship the creation "beside the creator." But how God and through whom he fashioned all things, Moses no longer transmitted to those under him; rather, "grace and truth through Jesus Christ," proclaiming the mystery that had been passed over in silence by Moses, inaugurated a newer and more mystical teaching for the church of God, crying out plainly to all for all to hear: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and "Everything came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be," and adding to these, "What came to be in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness," and what follows these, through which the Son of God and

It teaches the exceptional qualities of the divine light and the life in it, and how through it all that was said by Moses and even things beyond these were constituted. But Marcellus, knowing none of this, is caught sometimes Judaizing, sometimes Sabellianizing, according to the Jew asserting that before the constitution of the world there was nothing except God alone, while the Church confesses that before the constitution of the world the Father and the Son exist, and according to Sabellius declaring that the Son and the Father are one and the same, and sometimes introducing him as immanent Logos, sometimes as uttered Logos. For even if he pretends not to accept these terms, he is clearly evident from the fact that he sometimes says he is within God, and at other times that he proceeds from him through effective activity, from which he also likens him to human speech. But the divine evangelist did not posit the Logos he theologizes in any of the ways described, but as it was fitting to conceive the only-begotten Son of God, being Logos in that he constituted all things by reason and nothing of beings came to be without reason, and God and only-begotten in that he alone truly was Son of the God over all, a genuine and beloved Son, in all things made like his own Father. Therefore he was truly light in that he illuminates the intellectual and rational light to souls made in his image. Therefore he does not say that he is light for all, but only for men; for he said, "It was the light that illuminates every man coming into the world." And thus he truly existed as life, in that he provides the stream of his supply to all living things.

And according to each conception of the divine powers in him, you would find his titles to be both representative and true. For in all respects the Son of God was truth, which he himself demonstrates by saying, "I am the truth." But the new author neither understands nor knows these things, nor does he know that he is ignorant of them, though he boasts of knowing how they are constituted. Come then, let us take up again and hear how he likens him to the human word, both the internal and the uttered, writing in this manner: "This, I think, is easy for the right-minded to know even from some small and humble example among us. For it is not possible to separate the human word in power and substance; for the word is one and the same with the human, and is separated by nothing other than the activity of its operation." In these things he has used the uttered word as an image, and the internal word in those where he says: "For God did not need some other preparation, such as matter or some other human thing, for the construction, but this preparation in his own mind. Since it was impossible for God to conceive of the construction of the heaven without word and the wisdom inherent in the word, he fittingly said, 'When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.'" Then proceeding further, he also presents the word of God as internal, writing thus: "For who, either of the holy angels or of righteous men, was so trustworthy as to annul the punishment determined for him by God himself, unless it was the word himself who was present and who also formed? To whom the Father said, 'Let us make man'?

Next he clarifies what sort of Word he introduces, saying: "But if one uses a small and human example like ours, as through an image to examine divine action: just as if a skilled sculptor, wishing to fashion a statue, first contemplates its forms and features within himself, then conceives of its width and length as is fitting, examines the proportion of the whole in each part, and having prepared the suitable bronze material and having preformed the future statue in his own mind, and having thought to see it mentally, being conscious that reason cooperates with him—with which he reasons and by which he is accustomed to do everything (for nothing done without reason is good)—when beginning this perceptible work, he exhorts himself as to another, saying: 'Come, let us make, come, let us fashion a statue'; so the master God of all, making the living statue from earth, exhorts not another but his own Word, saying, 'Let us make man.'" Through these words he clearly attributed to God both an internal Word, with which one reasons, and a spoken Word, with which one converses, supposing that the Word in us and the Word in God are something of this sort. Now all these things, being denials of the Son of God, need no further elaboration. But I think it is fitting to ask this much: if indeed there was one God and nothing else—neither Father nor Son—why did Scripture falsely invent such names? And why does Marcellus himself pretend, calling the one who is not Son but Word "Son"?

And since he has used the example of the word among men, it must be said that not every man has a son, even though he is rational and possesses the innate word within himself; therefore, a son is something other than the word. So if one claims that God has the word within himself and nothing else, by which he thought and with which he conversed with himself, saying "Let us make man," why does he vainly name a son? Why does he pretend to be of the Church? Why, not believing in the Son of God, does he pretend to believe, disguising himself by calling the word in God the son, when the example clearly teaches that the innate word in the soul is far removed from a son who is born from someone and subsists, lives, and acts on his own? But, he will likely say, it is not I, but the divine evangelist who called him the Word; therefore it would be consistent for us to agree with this. Yes, I say so myself. However, I think it is not proper to understand the utterance otherwise than by being disciples again of the evangelist himself, who teaches what sort of Word he defined. And he clearly presents what sort he was, adding next and saying: "And the Word was God"; for he could have said: "And the God was the Word," with the addition of the article, if he considered the Father and the Son to be one and the same, and that the Word itself was the God over all, but he did not issue the text in that way. For he would have had to say either "the Word of God" or "the God was the Word," with the addition of the article, if he were making the text agree with Marcellus's thought. But as it is, he presents the Word itself as being God, just like the God to whom it was.

For having said, "And the Word was with God," he adds, saying, "And the Word was God," almost teaching us more clearly, first, that God, the Father of the Word, with whom the Word was, is to be considered the God beyond all; then, after him, not to be ignorant that his Word, the only-begotten Son, was not himself the God over all, but that he also was God. For the conjunction "and" joins the divinity of the Son to the Father. Therefore he says, "And the Word was God," so that we may see God, the one over all, with whom the Word was, and also hear the Word himself as God, as an image of God, and an image not as in inanimate matter, but as in a living Son most exactly assimilated to the archetypal divinity of the Father. Since Marcellus seemed to compare the Word of God to the human word, and we shall say how much better it is, using the human word as an image, to use this example rather and to say that the father of the word among us is the mind, being other than the word. For the mind, whatever and of what sort it is in substance, no man has ever known; but like a king seated in his inner chambers in secret, it deliberates on what is to be done; while the word from it, as a son born from the inmost recesses of a father, becomes known to all outside. Then some partake of the benefit of the word, but the invisible and unseen mind, the father of the word, no one has ever seen.

Similarly, then, and rather beyond every image and pattern, the perfect Word of the all-king God, not composed of syllables, phrases, and names like the spoken word of men, but as the living and subsistent only-begotten Son of God, proceeds from the paternal divinity and kingdom, and distributes to the whole world the supplies from himself, pouring forth to all created things participation in life, word, wisdom, light, and every good, while the Father and God of all is beyond, unattainable and inaccessible to all, like the invisible and unseen mind, concerning whom it is said, "dwelling in unapproachable light." But the Father would be unapproachable and inaccessible to all, while the Son is nearer to all, since he governs all things by the Father's nod; therefore it is not said of the Father, but of the Son, "He was in the world, and the world was made through him"; and the one was beyond all and above all, "dwelling in unapproachable light," while the other extends through all and in all with providential care, so that only in this respect does he bear the image of human speech. But these things having been demonstrated by us, it is likely that one of the lovers of learning will ask: Why then did the evangelist, at the beginning of his writing, proclaim the only-begotten Son of God as Word? To this we will reply: Because of the ancient prophecies concerning him that were hidden.

For since in the case of each prophet it is said, "the word of the Lord which came to Isaiah," and "the beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea," and "the word of the Lord which came to Joel," and "the word of the Lord came to Jonah," and "to Micah" similarly, and to the rest of the prophets in like manner, to each prophet the phrase "came" was attached, the divine scripture accurately and necessarily indicating that it was not in any of the prophets, but came to be in each, according to the capacity of each to receive it, as it approached that capacity and provided to each soul the spirit appropriate to it from itself. And so naturally in the present case the evangelist was about to proclaim the economy of the Word, no longer teaching that he came to be in relation to some other, as in the case of the ancients, but that he himself took on flesh and became man. Then, since he was about to proclaim to all his saving advent among men, saying next, "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," he necessarily goes back to the beginning, showing who and what sort the Word was who became flesh yesterday and the day before, and he theologizes him, at once proclaiming both the knowledge of him and his theophany among men. Then, since the ancients had already learned from the divine readings about the Word that came to be in each prophet, he proclaims the more divine and exceptional beginning of him, which none of the prophets had so openly and unveiledly revealed to men. Therefore, with a great voice, delivering 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 came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be." For if, he says, you have long since been taught by the earlier divine scriptures, being instructed from of old, that the word of the Lord came to such and such a prophet, and again similarly came to another, and yet again to another, yet now it is necessary to proclaim to all not how it came to be, but how it was in the beginning, and that "he was God" and that "all things came to be through him," and that this same divine Word, "through whom are all things," by the philanthropy of the Father "became flesh and dwelt among us." These things were proclaimed by John, the great disciple and apostle of Christ, teaching all men the new and novel mysteries of the Savior. Not that God was rational, nor that he conversed with himself and said to himself "let us make man," nor that he used words that give commands about what must be done. For these things anyone who denies the Son of God would say. Which indeed Marcellus does, taking refuge in the old scripture as in a hiding place, and attempts to gather together what was commanded to the childish people of the Jews concerning not worshipping idols but knowing and revering only one God. Therein he found the teaching about the one God, which was then usefully and opportunely handed down to the idolatrous Jews. And indeed here

having fled and fortified himself, as it were, in a stronghold of Jewish hard-heartedness, he put forward the denial of the Son of God. Listen, then, to what sort of expressions he uses, writing verbatim as follows: "Whom, then, does Asterius think the one saying 'I am the one who is' to be—the Son or the Father? For, looking to the human flesh which the Word of God assumed and because of it imagining in this way, he said that there are two hypostases of Father and Son, thus separating the Son of God from the Father as one might separate a son of a man from his natural father." And he adds next: "If, then, he will claim that the Father, separating himself from the Son, said these things to Moses, he will not confess that the Son is God. For how is it possible that the one saying 'I am the one who is' does not also agree that he says he is the one who is by way of contrast to the one who is not? But if he should claim that the Son, separated in hypostasis, says this 'I am the one who is,' the same will again be thought to be said about the Father; and each of these is impious." And again, attempting to show that the Father and the Son are one, he writes thus: "For he himself confesses, saying, 'In me is the Father, and I in the Father.' And that this is not said simply or without purpose is clear also from another apostolic saying: for the one who said 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism' said 'one God and Father, who is over all and through all and in all.'" You see that not even here does he depart from the agreement, but even here he has suffered the same thing.

Having said "one Lord," he then said "one God," so that whenever he mentions the one Lord, he may also include the Father, and whenever he speaks of the Father, he may testify that the Word of God is not outside. Having said these things, Marcellus next gathers many scriptures from the Old Testament to prove that there is no Son for God. For claiming that God is an indivisible monad, he represents the same as being Father and the same as being Son, writing in this manner: "What then? If we do not, attending to the Spirit, consider the monad to be indivisible in power, shall we not sin, since the Word clearly teaches us, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone'?" And the same is proclaimed also through the Gospel according to Mark: for when a certain scribe came to him and inquired what was the first of the commandments, he answered him, speaking thus: "First of all: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength. This is the first; and the second is like 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 truly said that God is one and there is none besides him.'" But the scribe, who seems to have learned piety through the Law, appears to praise the saying of the Savior, "Hear, O Israel," saying "the Lord your God is one," and confirming by oath that it is well said.

For truly," he says, "you have spoken that God is one and there is no other besides him." But those who boast of knowing the mysteries of the New Testament wish to fashion a second God, separated in substance and power from the Father. To these he adds, establishing that God is one and that there is no son, by these words. That divine scripture knows to call the monad both Lord and God has already become clear from the preceding passages, through which God said to his servant Moses: "And God said again to Moses: 'Thus you shall 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.'" Do you see how, showing us one person here, it addresses the same as both Lord and God? And again, similarly, 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, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods besides me.'" Do you hear how through the

He declares that God is one by means of the pronoun. And again a little later he says, "I am the Lord your God," calling himself Lord and God. And what do we learn from another scripture? "And you shall know today," he says, "and you shall not be perverted in your mind, that the Lord your God, this God is in the heaven above and on the earth below, and there is none besides him." And again in the same Deuteronomy he says, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; 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 besides me; I will kill and make alive; I will strike and heal." How then does Asterius, pretending to follow the holy scriptures simply and fearfully, not know this passage saying, "the Lord your God, this God is in the heaven above and on the earth below, and there is none besides him," and that "he is one" and besides him another "there is not"? And after other things he adds again, saying, how then will the holy prophet Jeremiah not openly convict him of teaching otherwise? For prophesying to us concerning the Savior, he spoke thus: "This is our God; no other will be reckoned with him. He discovered every path of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he appeared on the earth and lived among men." And again he adds, saying, but the Father seems to be in the Word, even if it does not seem so to Asterius and to those who think the same things as he.