De ecclesiastica theologia

For this seems to the inspired prophet Isaiah, who speaks through the Holy Spirit: "And they will worship you, and in you they will pray; because in you is God, and there is no other besides you. For you are God." Do you see how it utterly uproots the contrived malice of those who teach otherwise? And again he adds, if you wish to hear another prophecy of the same prophet confirming one God for us, "I am God first, and I am for the things to come"; for the "I" is indicative of one person, for the two utterances signify one person for us. For having said "I," he also adds "am," so that through the two parts of speech, both pronoun and verb, the unity of the divinity is attested. And if another testimony is needed, I will again provide the same prophet saying, "I am first and I am after these things, and besides me there is no God." If Asterius thinks that the Son is divided in hypostasis from the Father as a son of a man, being scandalized by the human flesh which he took up for our sake, let him show us the one saying these things; for here too the utterance spoken is of one person. Who then is the one saying, "There is no God besides me"? And let him also hear another prophecy saying, "There is no righteous one and savior besides me." If he thinks there are two gods, he must necessarily confess that the other is neither righteous nor a savior. But if he is neither righteous nor a savior, how can he still be God? For it declares that one is righteous and a savior. And again he says, "Before me there was no other, and after me there will not be; I am God, and there will be no one besides me who saves.

But if he wishes to hear another prophetic saying, perhaps spoken to him and to those similarly disposed concerning divinity, let him hear Isaiah himself saying: "Repent, you who are wandering, turn your heart, and remember the former things from eternity, that I am God and there is no other besides me." He did not say "I am a god," so that by the addition of the article he might clearly demonstrate that there is one God. And what of the prophet Hosea? Does he not also bear witness to the same things, saying, "I brought you up out of Egypt, and you shall know no god besides me, and there is no savior except me"? And again Malachi says, "Did not one God create you? Is there not one father of all of you?" But Asterius will perhaps claim that David said nothing about this, although he is the most ancient of the prophets after Moses, and for this reason he is uncertain whether it is fitting to think that there are two gods divided in substance or not. Therefore, lest he say this, I consider it fitting to show him also that David says the same things as the aforementioned holy men: "Hear," he says, "my people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I testify to you. If you listen to me, there will be no new god among you, nor will you worship a foreign god. For I am the Lord your God." He who shows himself and says "I am," is he not clearly saying that there is only one God, that is, himself? All these things Marcellus, and even more than these, gathered together for the denial of the Son of God, not considering through ignorance that such teaching was provided to them on account of the hardness of heart of the Jewish people.

For it was not possible that the Holy Spirit, through the prophets of God, should deliver the complete teaching of piety to men whose minds were imperfect. Thus, indeed, he legislated for them to perform sacrifices, bodily circumcision, observance of the sabbath, abstinence from certain foods, bodily purifications, and bodily blessings, yes, even a land flowing with "milk and honey," but not promises of the kingdom of heaven. And when our savior and lord was asked how, when Moses commanded giving a bill of divorce and dismissing one's wife if one wished, he himself ordained the opposite, he gave a universal answer, saying, "Moses wrote for your hard-heartedness; from the beginning it was not so." Therefore, he would have said the same if someone had asked why, although Moses and the prophets after him commanded worshipping one God, they did not teach them knowledge concerning the Son. For those continually led astray by polytheistic error were not capable of receiving the evangelical grace. Hence, they made the teaching about one God for their hard-heartedness, meanwhile educating them by turning them away from thinking there are many gods and leading them to the introduction of the one.

Thus Moses handed down an imperfect teaching to those of his time because of the imperfection of their understanding, so that he made no mention of the creation of angels in his account of the creation of the world, although the prophets after him not only mentioned angels but also divine powers and holy spirits, the supercelestial ministers of God, concerning whom Daniel, teaching, said, "Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and myriads of myriads stood before him." But all these things Moses consigned to silence in his words, although he was not ignorant of them, having previously received precise knowledge of all things by the divine Spirit; yet he made no mention of them in the creation account as having been made by God. And the cause of this one would say was none other than the hardness of heart of the people, as the Savior himself taught. And you might learn that there are countless other things in the constitution of the universe from the readings of the New Testament that are not at all carried in the writing of Moses; thus he made no mention of principalities nor powers nor world-rulers nor spiritual "wickednesses," against which the divine apostle says the struggle is set for us. What then? Since neither in Moses nor in the other prophets is it possible to find clearly the accounts concerning these things, should the apostle be disbelieved?

or when the same author again mentions the order of the superior beings, saying that Christ sits "at the right hand" of God "above every beginning, authority, power, and lordship, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come," and again when he names thrones, lordships, beginnings, and authorities, saying "for in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or beginnings or authorities," is it not fitting to accept these things because neither Moses nor the other prophets had previously spoken of them? Or shall we say the same about these things, that those who were "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and in ears" were not capable of believing the accounts concerning these things? To whom the prophets of God did not even reveal the upper Jerusalem, just as Paul, clarifying these things for the church of Christ, proclaimed the accounts concerning it, saying "the upper Jerusalem is free, which is our mother," and "you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels, a festival and assembly of firstborn enrolled in the heavens." Let Marcellus speak to these things, if he is able to produce the teaching of these things from the ancient writings.

But if he does not find it, let him give the reason why all these things and countless others akin to them were passed over in silence by the prophets of God, concerning which the same apostle prayed to God on our behalf, "that we might be strong enough to comprehend, together with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the surpassing love of God for knowledge." And our Savior himself revealed very many mysteries concerning the kingdom of heaven, concerning the consummation of the universe, and concerning the promises, sometimes through parables and sometimes in secret, to his disciples, to whom he said, "It is given to you to know the mysteries of God." One would not find the equivalent of these in Moses or in the other prophets. What then? Because these things were not delivered to the Jewish people, being reserved for a suitable time for the church of Christ, should we on this account reject the grace granted to us, or rather give greater thanks to the one who deemed us worthy of such knowledge? In the same way, therefore, it would be fitting to receive the teachings concerning the Son from his New Testament, not being surprised if the men of God did not reveal the knowledge about him to the hard-hearted people, but stored up the word concerning him for a fitting time.

For it did not seem fitting at that time to entrust to men who were being dragged down into polytheistic error the mystery concerning Father and Son, when they did not even reveal the teachings about the subordinate powers, lest on this pretext they should fall into Greek polytheism, they who had fabricated for themselves the god who is "father of men and gods." Therefore, the Word, restraining them from such error, proclaimed the one God, but did not deny that the same is Father; and it taught to worship the true God and exhorted to know no other besides him, but did not deny that he is Father. And if it called him Lord and God and Righteous and Savior, it did not preclude that he is also considered Father of his only-begotten and beloved Son. Whether, then, the Father or the Son says "I am the one who is," the Word would speak truly in either case. For the Father would be "the one who is," being alone "over all, and through all, and in all God," as the divine Apostle taught. And the Son, also being designated "the one who is," would speak truly, being alone the only-begotten Son of the one who is; but also, being the image of the invisible God, in this respect he would be his image, in that he alone was himself "the one who is"; therefore he too would be designated "the one who is," since he is also proclaimed as God and Lord similarly to the Father throughout all of inspired Scripture. This is also to be known from the oracle to Moses; for Scripture says: "And God spoke to Moses and said to him: I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, being their God.

You see how he said he appeared to the fathers. And when did he appear? Again, Scripture bears witness, saying, "And the Lord God appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat by the door." And how did he appear, if not in human form? And whom must one believe this to be but the Son of God? Which indeed he himself sets forth in the Gospels, saying to the Jews, "Abraham, your father, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw and rejoiced." And when they marveled at the word, he added, "Before Abraham was, I am," presenting his pre-existence most clearly. What then does the argument establish, but that he himself is the Son of God, who gave oracles to Moses and said, "I am the One who is"? For he taught that he himself appeared to Abraham. And how he was "the One who is" has been stated. And the great Apostle Paul knows the Son of God as having become the mediator of the legislation through Moses, in what he teaches, saying, "The law, ordained through angels, in the hand of a mediator. And the mediator is not of one." Therefore, the one who gave oracles to Moses was the mediator, mediating from that time for the salvation of men, before he took on flesh. And that this one is Jesus Christ, the same Apostle set forth, saying, "One God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ." So then, whether it is from his own person that the words "I am the One who is" are spoken by Moses, or whether it was the Father who through him uttered this voice, in either case the statement would be true.

Let Marcellus not be at a loss, then, using a syllogism which he thinks inescapable, by which he says: "Whom, then, does Asterius think is the one saying 'I am the one who is'—the Son or the Father?" Then, drawing the conclusion, as if, if the Father were the one who is, the Son would no longer be God, because, by way of contrast to the one who is not, the one who is declares himself to be. 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. In saying these things, he himself has fallen into each absurdity, defining one as the one who is, and denying the other. And which one would he himself know? For either, granting the Father, he will deny the Son, or, accepting only the Son, he will reject the Father. Rather, he will be shown to know neither Father nor Son, granting only one and removing the other from consideration. And if he hears God 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," again, let him not be disturbed in his soul, but let him also hear what follows, connected to these things. For after saying, "You shall have no other gods besides me," he added, "You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness, of anything in the heaven above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I am the Lord your God, a jealous Lord." Do you see how he distinguished, so as not to be carried away by the polytheistic error of the nations, but to know only him as God and Lord? And who was this?

the Son, having the image of the Father in himself, and by his authority ordaining these things for those who are sick with idolatry. For just as "all things came to be through him," the Father having established the substance of all generated things through the Savior, so it was the Father himself who transmitted knowledge of and piety toward him to men through the mediation of the Son. And the Apostle also taught this in so many words when writing to the Galatians, through which he said: "The law ordained through angels, in the hand of a mediator. And the mediator is not of one, but God is one." And if he says, "See, see that I am, and there is no god but me," again it was the Father speaking this through the Son as through an image and mediator. For if, when the prophet Isaiah says, "I have begotten sons and raised them up," and again, "Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me," and again, "I commanded all the stars, and with my hand I made the heaven firm," and all such things, we will not say that Isaiah says these things, but that the God speaking in him says them through him, would it not then be fitting also in the case of the only-begotten Son of God that the Father should be understood to testify these things through him to those in need of such injunctions? And these were idolaters, as the same Scripture teaches, saying: "And the Lord said: Where are their gods, on whom they relied? Whose sacrificial fat you ate, and whose libation wine you drank? Let them arise and help you, and let them be your protectors." For to these is joined: "See, see that I am, and there is no god but me.

Even if, then, he cries out ten thousand times through the prophet, saying, "Besides me there is no god" and "Besides me there is no righteous one and savior" and "You shall know no god besides me, and there is no savior except me," and all other such things as are found in the remaining prophets, he was God, and from him "reconciling the world to himself in Christ," and it was the Father himself who uttered these things through the only-begotten Son, as through an interpreter, to men. And indeed the Son himself taught this in the Gospels, instructing that only one God is to be known, in which he said, "This is the eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent." Therefore he himself was the true God, the one and only, and there is no other besides him, who not only through the prophets but also through his own Son commanded these things at that time to the Jewish nation, which was sick with idolatry. And immediately, then, Isaiah—or rather God through him—having said, "Besides me there is no god. Who is like me?" and further, "You are witnesses whether there is a god besides me," added, "And there were none then. All who mold and carve are vain, making things according to their own desires." And throughout his entire prophecy you would find the lifeless wooden images lamented, and in each prophet likewise you will find the one God proclaimed for the turning away of polytheistic error.

Thus we are also accustomed, in our dialogues with superstitious Greeks, to reserve the teaching concerning Christ for a suitable occasion, while for the present offering them refutations of idolatrous error and establishing by demonstrative arguments that God is one. Let Marcellus now learn—if, having grown old in the episcopate of Christ’s church, he has not yet learned—that for the ancient people the knowledge of the hidden mystery concerning the Son of God was in no way appropriate, since they were prone to slip into idolatry, and that it was reserved for his own church alone, “the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations,” through his grace, in which mystery the doctrine concerning the holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—was contained. But he, having gathered together as much as a Jewish teacher might say when discoursing on circumcision in a Jewish synagogue, prides himself on presenting these things to Christ’s disciples, not knowing that a literal Jew could say more than he. On these points, then, he boasts, while distorting the true theologies concerning our Savior, he does not blush. And immediately he fails to understand the words of the divine apostle, who taught in various ways that he is the image of God, through the passages I have set forth from him, from which it is necessary to understand that the church of God does not proclaim two gods.

For there are not two unbegotten, nor two without beginning, as has often been said by us, nor does it introduce two substances of equal honor set in opposition to each other, and therefore not two gods, but it teaches that there is one principle and one god, and that the same father is of the only-begotten and beloved son, and likewise one image "of the invisible god," which is the same as his only-begotten and beloved son. And even if the apostle, theologizing about the father, says "the blessed and only sovereign" and again "the only one possessing immortality, dwelling in inaccessible light" and again "to the king of the ages, the imperishable, invisible, only god" and again "to the only wise god through Jesus Christ, glory for the ages; amen," and even if still more than these are said in doxology of the one and supreme god, it is necessary to understand that the only-begotten son of god is the image of all these, not as in inanimate matter but as formed in a living son. And even if the savior himself teaches that the father is the only true god, saying "so that they may know you, the only true god," yet one must not shrink from confessing him also as true god, as having this in an image, so that the addition of "only" may fit the father alone as the archetype of the image. For the divine Paul most clearly taught that he is the image and radiance of the father "in the form" of god, as has been demonstrated in the preceding. Just as, then, when there is one subsisting father and one son born from the father, no one in his right mind would say that there are two fathers or two sons, and just as when one king rules

of his image being borne everywhere on earth, no one in his right mind would say there are two rulers, but one, who is honored also through the image. In the same way, as has often been said by us, the Church of God, having received one God to worship, continues to adore the same God also through the Son, as through an image. Not understanding this, Marcellus declared that the image "of the invisible God" is the flesh of the Savior, which the Apostle called "the form of a servant," not considering that all men are formed according to the flesh of the Savior. And he insists that the body which the Savior assumed is the image of the unbegotten and ineffable and paternal divinity, but denies that the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things were constituted—for "all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made"—is the image of God, saying in so many words: "Therefore it is evident that before the assumption of our body, the Word by himself was not an image of the invisible God." You see with what distortion he has used the apostolic interpretation. Thus, when the Evangelist John proclaims and reveals the mystery known hiddenly by Moses and the other prophets, and announces with a great cry that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him," and testifies that "it was the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.

was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him,” and clearly presenting the sonship in saying concerning the father “no one has ever seen God,” and concerning the son “the only-begotten son who is in the bosom of the father, that one expounded,” this wonderful teacher of the words of Christ, having gathered together the commandments of God and the prescriptive words of things to be done from the divine scripture, defines the “in the beginning” word as something of this sort. But hear how he attempts to establish these things, writing in this manner * * * * * of those teaching them, as if ashamed to mention the word, which all the divine scriptures proclaim in this way. For David says concerning him “the heavens were fixed by the word of the Lord,” and again the same “he sent forth his word and healed them.” And Solomon “the wicked will seek me, and will not find me. For they hated wisdom, and did not choose the word of the Lord.” And Isaiah “a law will go out from Zion, and a word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” And again Jeremiah “the wise were ashamed,” he says, “and were terrified and were taken, because they rejected the word of the Lord.” And the prophet Hosea said “they hated the one who reproves at the gates, and abhorred a holy word.” And Micah likewise, himself also mentioning the word, said “a law will go out from Zion, and a word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Having gathered these and things akin to them, he thinks to strengthen his own opinion through these.

Observe how, mixing together the testimonies from divine scripture, he gathered them at once, and the sent word of God, the salvific and healing one, and the one that commands what must be done. For the phrase "they hated the one who reproves at the gates, and they abhorred the holy word"—what word does it posit, if not surely that which commands concerning holy and just actions, and everything rather than confessing the son of God, as if ashamed to mention the son? For we know that the son of God is most properly son and truly only-begotten of God, and we know precisely that he is word, not like the word among humans, but as it is fitting to conceive of God's word, living and subsisting and son. But he who introduces a word that is significative and commanding of what must be done, naturally hesitated to confess the son, whom he in fact denied. Then, writing contradictions to himself, he does not perceive it. For in other places he insists that no one of the former people knew the things concerning the word, for it was a hidden mystery. And he writes thus in these very words: "For what other hidden mystery was there than the

according to the Word; and thus this mystery was previously hidden in God, so that no one of the former people clearly knew the things concerning the Word, but we now enjoy the wealth of the glory and the hidden mystery. And again he adds, the holy apostle and disciple of the Lord John, clearly and explicitly teaching at the beginning of the Gospel, as something previously unknown among men, naming him the Word of the Pantocrator, spoke thus: "In the beginning was the Word." In these things, then, he defines that the mystery concerning God having the Word is hidden, while in the prophetic utterances recently set forth he establishes that all the divine scriptures proclaim the things concerning him, and he gathers very many testimonies about the Word of God. Therefore, he was not unknown to the former people, for all of them knew such words, carrying the prophetic oracles on their lips and in their memory. But the Christian puts forward the scribe of the Jews before us, not hearing the Savior saying, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," and he admires him, confirmed by an oath that "God is one and there is none besides him," not knowing that even "the demons believe and shudder." Observe how from the prophetic scriptures themselves he gathers the things concerning the Word, the teacher of what must be done, which even the children of the Jews will acknowledge knowing, since they received this before us. But not even Sabellius himself was ignorant of such a Word. How then, while striking the Jews and Sabellius, did he say through the words of his that I have set forth that they did not know the Word?

And since it has been shown through the preceding that no one could know God or recognize his Word unless he had taken the image of the invisible God, that is, the flesh, as he himself said—for he maintained that God and his Word are known only through the image, declaring the flesh to be the image—it must be recalled through the present considerations that, apart from the incarnate presence, all Jews knew accurately the Word of God and the words in the prophetic scriptures that command holy works, having studied them from their earliest youth, and they acknowledged God as the maker and creator of all things, just as also the scribe who confirms this by oath. These things, then, serve to demonstrate that the man is a Sabellianizer. It is now time to proceed also to the distorted interpretations of the divine scriptures which he has made, so that everyone who honors the man may learn that he has deviated not only from the right faith but also from the sound reading and contemplation of the inspired scriptures. 3. Chapters of the third book: (a) How Marcellus dared to interpret the divine scriptures in a distorted manner. (b) How the passage “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways” and what is connected with it is understood, and how Marcellus transferred these same things to the flesh of the Savior. (c) Refutation of what has been incorrectly said by him on these passages and a sound interpretation of the same. (d) How Marcellus, not understanding the scriptures, defined the hypostasis of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one. (e) How the Savior taught concerning the Holy Spirit. (f) How the Church teaches concerning Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

7. How Marcellus affirmed that the image of the invisible God is the flesh. 8. How the same declared that the flesh of the Savior is of no benefit. 9. How he dared to say that at the end of the universe the flesh of the Savior would be left desolate of the Word. 10. What the divine Scriptures teach concerning the flesh of the Savior, and that Marcellus held the opposite views. 11. How, not understanding the evangelical saying, he claimed that the flesh of the Savior causes stumbling and is of no benefit. 12. Interpretation of the evangelical expression. 13. How he affirmed that the kingdom of Christ had a beginning four hundred years ago and would have an end at the consummation, distorting the interpretations of the divine Scriptures. 14. Explanations of the sound meaning of the readings. 15. How it is said that all things will be subjected to the Son and he to the Father. 16. How it is said by the Apostle, "Then God will be all things in all." 17. How the divine Scriptures present matters concerning the unending kingdom of our Savior, and that Marcellus declared with bare head that his kingdom would cease. 18. How in the kingdom of the Son all who are deemed worthy of the blessedness of that time will become one. 19. That just as the Father and the Son are said to be one, so also all the saints will be. 20. That as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so also it will be in all the saints. 21. How one must understand the saying, "He who has seen me has seen the Father.

The great evangelist John, then, proclaimed the theology of our Savior in the manner that has been set forth in various ways. But how Marcellus, having denied this, ran aground on Jewish disbelief has been shown by what has been said. And that he also perversely misinterpreted the acknowledged and clear teachings concerning our Savior, you might learn from many other of his expositions, and indeed also from the one that follows. In the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom is introduced speaking in person about herself, going through these things: "I, Wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling, and I have summoned knowledge and understanding. The fear of the Lord hates wickedness, insolence, and pride, and the ways of the wicked; and I have hated the perverse ways of the evil. My counsel and security, I am understanding, and my strength. Through me kings reign, and potentates write justice; through me magnates are magnified, and tyrants through me rule the earth. I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me. Wealth and glory belong to me, and the possession of many things and justice. It is better to harvest me than gold and precious stone, and my produce is better than choice silver. I walk in the ways of justice, and I move about in the midst of the paths of righteousness, so that I may distribute substance to those who love me, and fill their treasuries with good things. If I recount to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to number those from eternity.

The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he established me, in the beginning before he made the earth, before he made the abysses, before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were fixed, and before all hills he begets me. The Lord made regions both uninhabited and the inhabited extremities of the realm beneath the heavens. When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him; when he set apart his own throne upon the winds, when he made strong the upper clouds, and when he placed the springs beneath the heaven as secure, and when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him, fitting them; I was the one in whom he rejoiced daily; and I rejoiced in his face at all times; when he rejoiced, having completed the inhabited world, and he rejoiced over the sons of men. These things Wisdom says about herself in Proverbs. I have purposely and necessarily set forth all of them, showing that it is one person who says these things, no change of the speaker having occurred in the meantime; thus Wisdom is shown teaching these things about herself. And here first it must be observed that she is named simply Wisdom: "I," she says, "Wisdom, have taken up residence in counsel," and it is not said: Wisdom of God. But just as in the Evangelist "In the beginning was the Word" was written absolutely, and again "the Word was with God," and it was not said: the Word of God, so that one might not think him spoken of as a relative thing, nor as an accident in God, but as subsisting and living—hence he adds "and the Word was God," not saying: and the Word was of God—so also with Wisdom; for the Word of God and Wisdom were one and the same.

Therefore, in the Proverbs she is named absolutely, both in the passages set forth and also in those which are spoken in this manner: "Blessed is the man who has found wisdom," and "God founded the earth with wisdom," and "I said that wisdom is your sister," and "Proclaim wisdom, that prudence may follow you," and "For wisdom is better than precious stones," and "Wisdom built herself a house and set up seven pillars," and all other passages akin to these which are contained in the same book. In none of these is wisdom called wisdom of God, but wisdom is named without qualification, so that we may not suppose it to be some attribute belonging to God, as knowledge is in a man who knows, but rather a subsistent and living wisdom, which is the same as the Son of God. But if anyone should suppose that the wisdom spoken of here is a wise disposition in God, in the sense in which we understand God to be wise, let him hear the Scripture saying, "I said that wisdom is your sister." Who would be so mad as to suppose that the God over all and the wise disposition in him is said to be the sister of those who excel among men? But if you take what is said as referring to the Christ of God—for "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God"—there will be no obstacle to the meaning, since he does not disown brotherhood with us either, through an excess of philanthropy. But if God and the wisdom introduced in the Proverbs were one and the same, being a wise disposition understood in him in the sense that God is wise, what prevented God from being written instead of wisdom? So that "Wisdom built herself a house and set up seven pillars" and the things connected with these are said instead of:

God built for himself a house and so forth, and again instead of "I said that your wisdom is a sister" it is said instead of "I said that your God is a brother." But you see how such a phrase strikes the ear, lacking harmony. But if you were to apply the sayings to the Son—for he himself was wisdom—everything will flow smoothly for you, with no impious thought standing in the way, as the apostle Paul also bears witness, who named our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ wisdom with a clear voice, saying, "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God." With these things established somewhere here, it follows, along with all that has been previously set forth from that same person, that the saying "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works" is also spoken. But if he says that he himself was created, he would not say this as having passed from non-being into being, nor as having come into being from non-being like the rest of creation, as some have incorrectly supposed, but as subsisting and living, pre-existing and pre-existing before the constitution of the whole world, and as having been appointed by the Lord, his own father, to rule over all things, with "created" here being said instead of "appointed" or "established." For explicitly, the apostle who said "Submit to every human authority for the Lord's sake: whether to a king as one who is superior, or to governors as those sent through him" named rulers and governors among men as "creation." And the prophet who said "Prepare to call upon your God, O Israel.

because “Behold, he strengthens thunder and creates spirit and announces to men his Christ” and “Let this be written for another generation, and the people who are being created will praise the Lord”—the word “creates” is not taken as referring to something that came into being from non-existence. For God did not then create the spirit when he announced his Christ through it to all men; for nothing is “recent under the sun.” But it existed and pre-existed, and was sent at the time when the apostles were gathered together; when, like thunder, “a sound came from heaven, like a violent breath being borne,” and they were filled with “holy spirit,” and thus they announced the Christ of God to all men, in accordance with the prophecy which says, “Behold, he strengthens thunder and creates spirit and announces to men his Christ,” where “creates” is said instead of “sending down” or “appointing,” and “thunder” signifies the evangelical proclamation in a different manner. And he who says, “Create a pure heart in me, O God,” did not say this as though he had no heart, but prayed that his mind be made pure. Thus also is said, “that the two

creates into one new man” instead of “gathers together.” See whether perhaps this is also the case with “put on the new man created according to God” and “if anyone is in Christ, a new creation,” and whatever other such things one might find while examining the inspired scripture. Do not be surprised, then, if metaphorically also in “the Lord created me the beginning of his ways” the word “created” is used instead of “appointed” or “ranked to rule,” since also in the Gospels, when our Savior says, “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants,” we do not understand the confession of sins as it is said elsewhere, “confess your sins to one another,” to be indicated by the Savior, but rather the thanksgiving for the infants, as if “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” were said instead of “confess.” One could find countless things, if one sought at leisure, spoken by the metaphorical mode throughout the divine scripture, and other things having multiple meanings, and homonymously predicated of different things, concerning which it would be lengthy and not of the present occasion to go through. Thus, then, also here, “the Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works” is said instead of “ranked me to rule over his works.” Therefore it is not simply “created me” that is said, but with the addition “the beginning of his ways for his works.” This the Hebrew expression especially demonstrates.

If, then, one were to examine precisely the true meaning of the divinely inspired scripture, one would find that the Hebrew reading does not contain the phrase "he created me," for which reason none of the other translators have used this expression either. For instance, Aquila has said, "The Lord acquired me as the chief of his ways," Symmachus, "The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways," and Theodotion, "The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his way." And this interpretation would be reasonable. For he himself was the chief of the constitution and salvation of all created things, both visible and invisible, whom the Father begot as a only-begotten son, and having begotten him, he appointed him as the savior of all, recapitulating in him and through him the ordering of the whole, as the divine apostle taught, saying, "to recapitulate all things in Christ, those in the heavens and those on the earth," so that not only did all things come into being through him from non-being into existence, but he also undertakes the providence of the administration of all things, being the Word and Wisdom and Life and the fullness of every good and noble thing, so that through him all things are governed and preserved. And this he himself also demonstrates through the oracles set forth, through which he said, "Through me kings reign, and rulers write justice; through me magnates are magnified, and tyrants through me hold sway over the earth." Thus, by the ineffable words of the universal wisdom and providence of the Son of God, all things are administered.

These things, then, he taught through the preceding statements, and he exhorted them to cleave to him, saying, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me," and he turned them away from the opposite path by what he added, "But I have hated the perverse ways of evils." And indeed these things and those akin to them the Son of God—for he himself was Wisdom—having distinguished, next hands down to those previously benefited by them the mystical knowledge concerning himself, saying, "If I were to announce to you the things that happen daily, I would have to remember to number those from eternity." For if I were about, he says, to teach the things done by me on each day, it is necessary for me also to remember and set forth the works of mine from the beginning of the whole age, as on this account the father who begot me appointed me to rule over all things, in order that I might lead his ways and the works done by him through me. Therefore he accordingly adds, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works," or "The Lord acquired me," according to the interpretation given. For the great possession of God was the only-begotten Son, inasmuch as he is from him.

He had become a son, being his own, but insofar as he is beneficial and salvific to all, he exists and is named the greatest and most precious possession of the father. For nothing else could be a more precious possession to a father than a son. Hence also when the first-formed Adam acquired the first son among men, it was said concerning him, "I acquired a man through God," the Hebrew word containing "kanithi" instead of "I acquired"; and "he acquired" is pronounced "kana" among the Hebrews. Thus it is said concerning Abraham, "the field" "which Abraham acquired," for which the Hebrew contains "kana," the same word being used among the Hebrews also in "the Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways for his works." For here too, with the word "kana" occurring, all the translators have uniformly rendered it as "he acquired"; but "he created" is spoken among the Hebrews, which does not occur in the present passage. There would be a great difference between "he created" and "he acquired," since creation in the more common sense signifies the passage from non-being into being, while acquisition signifies a particular belonging of what pre-exists to the one who acquires. Therefore, when the son of God says, "the Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways for his works," he simultaneously indicated his pre-existence and his particular belonging to the father, together with the usefulness and necessity of his own providence and administration concerning the father's works.

Therefore he next adds: "Before the age he founded me, in the beginning before making the earth, before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were fixed, and before all hills he begets me." Through all these things he indicates what is beneficial and necessary from him for all, namely that he was and pre-existed and pre-existed the whole cosmos and necessarily led it, teaching. For Moses, in his account of the creation, made no mention of the supracosmic and invisible powers due to the imperfection of those being educated through him, but he went through the constitution of the visible world, mentioning four elements at the beginning: heaven, earth, abyss, and water. And he said that two were made by God—for he says, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth"—but he did not similarly mention concerning water and the abyss that these too were created, but simply said, "And darkness was upon the face of the abyss; and the spirit of God was borne upon the water." Necessarily, through the preceding words, the Son of God teaches concerning these things that they are created, and that he himself is before all things and that through him all things were made. Therefore he says: "Before the age he founded me, in the beginning before making the earth and before making the abysses, before the springs of waters came forth." Having mentioned these three—earth, abyss, and water—he adds the fourth last, preserving the better, heaven. Hence he next adds: "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.

Since these matters are clearly set forth by divine scripture and have received from us a brief exposition in summary, let us hear how Marcellus, casting his mind low, insists that all these things are said about the flesh which the Savior assumed, writing verbatim in this manner: Since this is so, it is fitting to consider with the mind this proverbially spoken chapter: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways." For truly the Lord our God created what was not, having made it; for the flesh which the Word assumed, not existing, he created. And he adds: Therefore, if especially at the end of times this new mystery appeared, so that it was predestined before this age, the prophet fittingly said, "Before the age he founded me," clearly meaning the flesh. And again he continues, saying: Then "in the beginning," he says, "before making the earth." What earth is this? Clearly our flesh, which after the transgression became earth again? For it says, "You are earth and to earth you will return." Do you see

How great was his error, having turned aside from the straight path, and having devised for himself a rough, impassable, and almost inextricable road. Observe, then, how he forced himself, enduring to utter a more shameless and impudent statement rather than confess that Wisdom itself is the Son of God. Now, the phrase "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works" he refers to the person of the Savior, acknowledging that it is he who speaks these words in Proverbs. He says, then, in these very words: "Therefore, since the ancient things have fittingly passed away, and all things are about to become new through the newness of our Savior, our Lord Christ cried out through the prophet, saying, 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.'" Having said this, he then lowers the meaning to the flesh of our Savior, adding next: "For truly the Lord our God created, making what was not; for the flesh which the Word assumed did not exist, but was not, 'he created the beginning of his ways.'" And the noble man does not understand that there is one expression and one person that uttered both "I, Wisdom, pitched my tent in counsel" and "The Lord created me"; so that if the latter is referred to the flesh, the former must also be; and Wisdom will be the one speaking both. But if, according to Marcellus, the flesh says "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways," then this flesh would be Wisdom; and the flesh would be the one saying "Through me kings reign" and "Through me magnates are magnified." And how could the flesh say "I will remember to number from eternity," to which it adds "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways"?

And he also shows what the roads are, saying next: "For this has become for us, who are about to live righteously, a road of piety, a beginning of all the roads that follow." And he adds: "He has therefore fittingly called our Lord and Savior the 'beginning of roads,' because he has become the beginning also of the other roads which we have had after the first road," indicating the traditions through the holy apostles who, "with a high" according to the prophecy, "proclamation," proclaimed to us this new mystery. These are Marcellus's words. Now if he did not also accept the scripture of Moses and the prophets after Moses, his explanation might have some plausibility. But since he is not among those who reject the Old Testament, why then did he name the apostles and their teachings "roads," but did not pay attention to the prophets of God who have written countless things about the roads of God? For first, Moses wrote thus: "You will go on the king's road," and "Behold, I have set before your face the road of life and the road of death." And David similarly: "The Lord knows the road of the righteous, and the road of the impious will perish." And Jeremiah: "Stand on the roads and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and see which is the good road, and walk on it." And you will find each of the prophets mentioning the roads of God in various ways.

If, then, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ teaches that he himself is the beginning of the roads of God, saying, "The Lord created me the beginning of his roads for his works," he is certainly older than Moses and the prophets and those even earlier who lived according to the roads of God, but the flesh which he assumed was not older than all of them; the saying is not correctly interpreted as referring to the flesh. Therefore the Savior did not say these things on account of the flesh, but because he pre-exists and leads all the roads of God, which all the God-loving men of old have traveled. Since the divine apostle, saying, "O depth of wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God; how inscrutable are his judgments, and his roads are untraceable," suggests other roads, the providential ones of the universe, through which by ineffable judgment and incomprehensible reasons he governs all things with divine power, it is consistent to say that the one who said, "The Lord created me the beginning of his roads for his works," is also the beginning of these roads. But the one who did not understand the roads of God declared that the flesh of our Savior is the beginning of them. He interprets

And the phrase "for his works," saying "He created me the beginning of his roads for his works." What works does he mean? Concerning which the Savior says, "My Father is still working, and I am working," and again, "I have completed the work which you gave me." Then, as if clarifying the meaning of what has been said, he adds: For who before the demonstration of the facts would have believed that the Word of God, born through a virgin, would take up our flesh and display the whole divinity in it in a bodily manner? And as if giving the complete meaning, he concludes: Therefore this is what "The Lord created me the beginning of his roads for his works" means. And he wrote these things, not being able to raise the eyes of his mind "to the height" and say, like the prophet, "that I may see the heavens, works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you established," nor did he recall the prophetic word through which it is said, "But they do not look upon the works of the Lord, nor do they perceive the works of his hands." For if he had attended to these, he would have known that before heaven and earth and before the whole cosmos, and not only before the visible but also before the intelligible works of God—those existing in substance among incorporeal and supracosmic powers—he who says these things was and pre-existed. But passing on to the phrase "He established me before the age," he again brings the flesh into the midst, speaking thus: Naming this foundation, the economy ordained for him according to the flesh.

as the apostle says, "For no one else can lay another foundation besides the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," and he adds, "he mentions only one age here, from which he said the things concerning Christ were founded, although many ages have passed, as David said, 'the one who exists before the ages.'" And moving on next to the phrase "in the beginning before making the earth," he says that the earth again is the flesh, and he writes thus: "What earth is this? Or clearly our flesh, which after the transgression became earth again? For 'you are earth,' he says, 'and to earth you will return.' For this needed healing." And he says these things, the most wise one, without remembering that he had also earlier said that before making the earth the flesh was created as the beginning of the roads of God. But if he was indicating the flesh through the earth, how is it not necessary to confess that the one who says he is before making the earth preexists the flesh? For he says, "before the age he founded me, in the beginning before making the earth." Therefore, the one saying these things existed before making the flesh. And if he did not mention many ages, but only one, which the Savior also mentioned when he said, "the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage," and thus it is not the flesh which our Savior assumed that existed before the present age, but he himself who teaches these things through Solomon. You see into how great a difficulty the one who has deviated from the straight and royal road has fallen. And in addition to what has been said, he also adds this, saying, "before making the abysses," he says.

Here the prophet speaks proverbially of the abysses as the hearts of the saints, which in their own depth possess the gift of the Spirit. And he does not understand that before the incarnate presence of our Savior, the holy prophets of God partook of the same Spirit—Moses and those even more ancient than Moses. Therefore, of all these abysses, if indeed these were the hearts of the saints, the one who says "before making the abysses" must be more ancient. How then was it possible for these things to be referred to the flesh of the Savior? And indeed, if someone with knowledge of the divine scriptures had been present with him, he would not have so readily declared the abysses to be the hearts of the saints, having considered that "darkness was upon the face of the abyss" according to the testimony of Moses, and that the account concerning them in divine scripture is extensive and difficult to interpret. For the apostle says, "Do not say, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'—that is, to bring Christ down; or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'—that is, to bring Christ up from the dead." In these things, then, he seems

He has called the abyss the regions of Hades. And the Lord himself presents this more clearly, in the oracle to Job saying, "Did you come to the source of the sea, and did you walk in the tracks of the abyss? Are the gates of death opened to you in fear, and did the gatekeepers of Hades, seeing you, cower?" And the evil powers in the abyss, concerning which it is said, "Praise him from the earth, dragons and all the abysses," and also the darkness above the abyss, concerning which Moses said, "And darkness above the abyss"—having learned all these things, if he had diligently, not superficially, encountered the divine scriptures, he would not have dared to call the hearts of the saints the abysses, but would have known how it is also said, "Abyss calls to abyss at the sound of your cataracts," and again, "The abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of water," and again, "Abyss as a garment, its covering." These and things akin to them he would have examined accurately, if he had any concern for understanding them. But now, having declared so offhandedly and carelessly that the hearts of the saints are the abysses, he did not even thus understand that the one who said, "Before making the abysses," taught that he existed before the saints and God-beloved men who have been from eternity, so that from all sides the words in question cannot be applied to the flesh of the Savior. But passing to another passage of the same scripture, he interprets it thus, saying, "What then is this chapter, 'Before the springs of the waters came forth'?" He says it is the holy apostles.

This mystery is set before us by the writing of Exodus, which long ago prefigures the types of the apostles; for since the apostles are twelve in number, it mentions twelve springs. And in saying these things, he does not understand that Israel also had twelve tribes and twelve patriarchs of these, and one book of the twelve prophets, but also there are twelve hours of the day and twelve months of the whole year. Why, then, would the number twelve belong more to the apostles than to all those others, if indeed it were the quantity of the number that provided him with the cause of such an interpretation? He ought to have seen that the prophets of God, inasmuch as they partook of the same Holy Spirit, were not alien to the springs. Hence it is said concerning them in the Psalms, "In the congregations bless the Lord God from the springs of Israel." So that even before those springs, it is necessary to confess that the Son of God is the one who says, "Before the springs of the waters came forth." But hear how he interprets, saying, "Naturally, then, concerning the fleshly birth, the Lord through the prophet Solomon said, 'Before the springs of the waters came forth.'" And he adds, "For thus the Savior said to the sacred springs, 'Go forth and disciple all the nations.'" Then, as if gathering the argument, he brings the conclusion to his own exposition, saying, "It is evident from all sides that the holy apostles were tropically named springs by the prophet." And he wishes the apostles to be the springs, but the prophets do not please him. Why, except that he could not place the flesh of the Savior before those?

And yet, even before the natural perceptible springs, which Moses also mentioned in the account of creation, saying, "A spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth," and again, "A river flows out from Eden to water the paradise," the Son of God existed beforehand, who teaches these things about himself in Proverbs. And does not the one who speaks to Job also mention the springs of the sea, saying, "You came to the spring of the sea, and you walked in the tracks of the abyss"? And since Scripture also teaches that there are certain waters above the heavens, saying, "Praise him, the heavens of heavens, and the waters above the heavens," it follows that those waters, whatever their nature may be, are understood to be some springs, so that he who said of himself that he existed "before the springs of waters came forth" might be shown to be older even than those. But he who has applied his mind to none of these things and is unwilling to exert himself persists in the same arguments, since he also says, while asserting these things, "Before the mountains were established," and "Before all hills, you give birth to me." He calls the apostles and the successors of the apostles mountains and hills, so as to indicate proverbially the just polity that pertains to them in contrast to other men. Therefore, the springs were the same, the mountains were the same, and the hills were the same.

But just as it is not natural, in the case of the visible springs and mountains, to assert that they are the same—for there is nothing common, in terms of quality, between springs of water and the elevations of mountains—in the same way, in the case of things considered allegorically in thought, one must set forth the difference between the springs, mountains, and hills conceived in contemplation. But he who knows nothing thoroughly examined, who confuses everything out of carelessness, has declared that the same things are both springs of water and mountains and hills, and says that all these are the apostles, without distinguishing the manner of the difference. Why, then, did he not also call those perfected in righteousness and piety before the flesh of our Savior mountains and hills in like manner, except that before those it was not possible for the flesh of the Savior to subsist? Therefore, the reference of the words at hand to the flesh of the Savior is forced and constrained. And how would the phrase "he begets me" apply to the flesh? For he said that he was begotten before the springs and before the mountains and before the hills, saying, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works, he established me before the age." If, then, the flesh were to say these things, as Marcellus thinks, how would the flesh say, "He begets me before all hills"? For let the flesh be before the apostles; but how does it say that it was begotten by God? For that the flesh was created, not having existed previously, Marcellus seemed to say. For he said, "The Lord truly created, making what was not, our master God; for he created the flesh, which the Word assumed, not as existing, but as not existing.

We have thus learned that she was created, but how could it be affirmed that she was also begotten by God, when our Savior says, "What is begotten from flesh is flesh," and the Apostle says, "Born of a woman, born under law"? How then could flesh have spoken concerning the God of all, "Before all hills he begets me"? These things, I think, are manifest to anyone as having a forced interpretation. But one could say without force and without any allegorical mode that the Son of God truly affirms these things, since he pre-existed the earth, and he was and existed before the bodily springs of waters came forth, and before the sensibly named abysses, and before the form of the earth was constituted in the elevations of mountains and hills; for "all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be." If someone should ask why he did not teach that he was before the heavens or before the things in the heavens or before the divine and supracosmic powers and spirits beyond them, it will be said to him that the discourse did not yet mention these things, since it was imparting a certain paideia through the Proverbs to those who are infants in soul. This is also evident from the fact that it sometimes says, "Listen, son, to the discipline of your father, and do not reject the laws of your mother," and at other times, "Son, attend to my laws, and compare your ear to my words," and again, "Son, do not neglect the discipline of the Lord, and do not be unstrung when reproved by him," and "Son, if you become good to yourself, you will be good also to your neighbors; but if you turn out bad, you alone will draw the evils.

He might himself also gather countless similar passages from the book of Proverbs, through which the Word appears to be discoursing to souls that are childish. Thus also Moses, being a tutor for the minds of the imperfect, made mention of heaven and earth and the creation of visible things, but not of the creation of angels nor of divine powers nor of holy spirits, because those being instructed by him could not yet receive such teaching. Reasonably, therefore, the Word in Proverbs also made his teaching from things around the earth, such as mountains and hills and springs, as from more familiar things, beginning from a foundation so as to lead those being instructed to better things, and to prepare them to pass from the smaller to the more divine. These things, then, if one does not examine beyond the literal sense; but if one wishes to understand these things more deeply, he will interpret them no more for the apostles than for all the righteous and God-loving men who have ever existed, and from there he will proceed also to the divine and angelic powers, saying that mountains and hills hint at differences of angels and archangels and divine spirits, thrones and lordships and powers and authorities, because indeed these "all things through him and for him" were created, and he is "before all" these, as the divine apostle taught, starting from this, as is likely, because it is said in these passages from the person of the Son of God: "Before the mountains were set, and before all hills, he begets me." He said that the other things were set, but that he himself alone was begotten before the establishment of the things mentioned.

The same apostle knows the heavenly Jerusalem and the heavenly mountain on which he says it exists, declaring: "You have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, a festal assembly and church of firstborn enrolled in the heavens." Therefore, the only-begotten Son of God, preexisting all these things, cryptically indicated the mysteries of his own ineffable generation through the Proverbs. And that he intended these things to be understood would be clear from what he next connects, saying: "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him." There the noble interpreter of the Scriptures stopped, blocked, and advanced no further, because he was unable to smooth out the sequence of the hypothesis he had adopted concerning the flesh of the Savior. For having mentioned flesh up and down and declared that everything was said about the flesh, he reached as far as the mountains and hills, saying these were the apostles, but he willingly consigned the following matters to silence, no longer daring to proceed further with the text. Here, then, he stops his discourse; but after many intervening statements, he abandons the interpretation referring to the flesh and acknowledges that it is the Word of God who said these things. He says in these very words: "Before the world existed, the Word was in the Father. And when the almighty God purposed to make all things in the heavens and on the earth, the generation of the world required an effective energy.

And for this reason, since there is no other besides God—for all things are confessed to have been made by him—then the Word, having come forth, became the maker of the world, he who previously was within, intelligibly preparing it, as the prophet Solomon teaches us, saying, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,” and “When he was setting securely the foundations of the region beneath the heaven, when he was making strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him, fitting them; I was the one in whom he rejoiced.” For the father naturally rejoiced, doing all things with wisdom and power through the Word. These are Marcellus’s words. If, then, he has at last with difficulty admitted that these things were spoken from the person of the Word, it is necessary for him to accept that the entire context of the preceding passages refers to the same Word of God. For the one who said, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,” was the same one who also said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.” For one and the same person was shown to us from the beginning, running through all the preceding passages. Therefore, the one who said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” also added, “He established me before the age,” and “In the beginning, before making the earth,” and “Before the mountains were fixed, and before all hills, he begets me.” And the same one also joined together, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,” and the things that follow these. If, then, it was the Word who said these things, how was he within in God, and

being ungenerated with God and being one and the same with him, he said that he himself was created and begotten; for one and the same person, as I said, was shown to be the one who goes through all the matters at hand. But if he later admitted that these things were said from the person of the Word in God, then his application of them to the flesh of the Savior is forced, and all those things together are revealed to be stale, vain, and superfluous. But if it was the flesh of the Savior that said, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works," according to the interpretation given to him, and if the flesh "before the age" was founded and "in the beginning before making the earth"—earth meaning the flesh, as it seemed to him because it was said, "You are earth and to earth you will return"—and if it was the flesh that said, "Before making the abysses, before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were fixed, and before all hills, he begets me," because it was pre-begotten before the election of the apostles, as it seemed to the most wise one, then it follows that from the person of the flesh is also said, "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him." But no one not out of his mind would ever agree to this interpretation; for the word of truth will cry out loudly against him, showing who it was that went through these things. So then, that the only-begotten Son begotten from God was another, living and subsisting, and existing even before the constitution of all generated things, this he himself demonstrates through what he next adds, saying, "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him"; for he was with him and present to him before the heaven and the things beyond heaven and all things in heaven came to be.

This, then, he intimated by saying, "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him." And how was God preparing, except before it came to be, by legislating and forming the manner in which it was necessary for it to be constituted? The father, then, was forming and preparing, deliberating how such a heaven ought to be constituted, of what magnitude it needed to be, and of what shape, of how many measures and parts, for the sake of the things that would be contained within it, and of those that would be outside it, and of those that would make their course in it; and the son, gazing upon the father's reasonings and alone surveying the depths in him, proceeded to works, serving the father's nods. Therefore it is said somewhere, "Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the highest. Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his powers. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all the stars and the light. Praise him, the heavens of heavens, and the waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for he himself spoke and they came to be, he himself commanded and they were created." But even before the heaven itself and the things beyond heaven and all things in heaven came to be—for all things are inclusively indicated from one—the son of God was, and was present with and accompanied the father while he was still deliberating about the constitution of all these things. Therefore he says, "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.

Then, like a good painter, receiving the archetypal forms from the paternal reasonings, he transferred them to the substances of the works, vivifying and establishing them just as he saw them preexisting in the father's mind. And he himself would be a credible witness of these things, teaching thus in the Gospels: "Truly, truly I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the father doing something; for whatever he does, the son likewise does. For the father loves the son and shows him everything that he himself does." Here one might reasonably inquire how the son makes again what has once been made by the father; but he himself resolved the matter by saying, "For whatever the father does, the son likewise does." Therefore, the things produced by the son are likenesses of archetypal works preexisting in the ineffable reasonings of the father, which the son, gazing intently in the father's mind, made as imitations of what he saw. And his contemplation of the father's depths

He shows that it is the work of paternal love, clarifying further and saying, "For the father loves the son and shows him everything that he himself does." Therefore, as the father reveals his own hidden things, the son, contemplating them, brings into being through works the works of the paternal will. Thus, being with the father and accompanying him as he prepared the heaven and what is upon it, he taught this, saying, "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him." And the father rejoiced even before the world came to be, looking upon his own only-begotten son and, as in an image, seeing himself reflected in him; hence Wisdom says, "I was the one in whom he rejoiced daily." But the son also was filled with gladness, delighting in the vision of the father; this indeed he himself teaches, saying, "And I rejoiced before him at every time, when he rejoiced having completed the inhabited world," here "inhabited world" being understood as the sum of all created things, which, as it was brought from non-being into being through the son, the God of all rejoiced. Now the true account, as presented in brief and concise exposition from the divine scripture, would be something like this. But he who is carried from above downward, having driven his mind onto the flesh of our Savior, deviates and misinterprets the true meaning of the inspired scripture. And also, having turned to the Word, he says that it is the Word himself who, as within the father in reasoning and thought, prepared the heaven. For he said in these very words: Before making the world, the Word was in the father.

But when the almighty God purposed to make all things in the heavens and on the earth, the generation of the world required an effective energy, and for this reason, since there was no other besides God—for all things are agreed to have been made by him—then the Word, having come forth, became the maker of the world, he who previously had been preparing it inwardly in a noetic manner, as the prophet Solomon teaches us, saying, "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him." In these matters it is fitting to consider how, turning a deaf ear, he does not hear the phrase "I was present with him," which clearly signifies the presence of the Son with the Father, but declares, contrary to Scripture, that there is no other besides God before the things that came to be existed; and he did not shudder at uttering this voice, which is a denial of the Son, nor was he abashed by the divine Scripture bearing witness that before the creation of the heaven, the Son alone was present with the Father. For it says, "When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him." For the preposition "with" joined to "to be present" indicates presence together with another in the same place. It teaches, therefore, not simply that he was present, but that he was present together with the Father. And the Father did not simply rejoice, but rejoiced at the presence of the Son; hence it says, "I was the one in whom he rejoiced day by day." And how could his rejoicing before the Father be fitting for a Word that does not subsist, but exists in God himself and acts significatively, when the words "rejoicing" and "before him" plainly present his hypostasis?

But Marcellus, taking no account of these things, denies the Son, and says that the Word, being within God, sometimes goes forth in effective energy, and sometimes is within him not energizing; and he does not see that to say that something is inside and outside of God posits a composite thing and a bodily affection, which it is not lawful to admit concerning the ungenerated and incorporeal nature. And how, when the Word went forth, did he become the maker of the world? Was it by tongue and voice, or surely by the god using speech and dialect? And to whom would he have spoken when no other was with him? And to whom would he have conversed when no one was present? But did he converse with himself, using voice and dialect, so that the Word went forth from him? And why, when the Word was within him, did he not accomplish by effective power those things he wished, since even among men most craftsmen, even when silent, complete their works, and especially when no one is present with them as they work? What then prevented God from establishing all things in some such way, having the Word within him? But he also posits the image of a sculptor conversing with himself and saying to himself: "Come, let us make, come, let us fashion a statue"; for thus, he says, the master God of all said to himself, "Let us make man," as has already been shown many times in the preceding passages, through which, I think, his denial of the Son of God has been laid bare. For to say that God converses with himself, having his own Word within him, would be of some Jewish mindset.

That the Father is the Father of the Word within him, and that the Word within him is his Son, was a mark of Sabellius’s evil opinion, as also, again, is the statement that the three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are one; for this too is Sabellius’s. And this very thing Marcellus, writing somewhere, declared: for it is impossible for three hypostases, being three, to be united into a monad, unless the triad first has its origin from a monad. For he said that the holy Paul sums up in a monad those things which differ in no respect from the unity with God; for only the Word and the Spirit differ from God by unity. Then he attempts to establish this, proceeding next and saying: If, then, the Word appears to have come forth from the Father himself and to have come to us, and the Holy Spirit, as also Asterius confessed, proceeds from the Father, and again the Savior says concerning the Spirit, “He will not speak from himself, but will speak whatever he hears, and will announce to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and will announce to you,” does not the monad appear clearly and manifestly here, by an ineffable word, being expanded into a triad, but in no way undergoing division? For if the Word proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit also is confessed to proceed from the Father, and again the Savior says concerning the Spirit, “He will take from what is mine and will announce to you,” is it not then obvious that some hidden mystery is being unveiled?

For how, if the monad, being indivisible, were not expanded into a triad, could it be possible for him sometimes to say concerning the Spirit that it proceeds from the Father, and sometimes to say, “That one will receive from me and announce to you,” and again, after breathing upon the disciples, to have said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”? For how, if it proceeds from the Father, does it promise to receive this ministry from the Son? For it is necessary, if there are two distinct persons, as Asterius said, either that the Spirit proceeding from the Father does not need the ministry from the Son—for everything proceeding from the Father must be perfect, in no way requiring assistance from another—or, if it receives from the Son and ministers the grace from his power, it no longer proceeds from the Father. And after other things he adds: But if the Gospel says that after breathing upon the disciples he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” it is clear that the Spirit came forth from the Word. How then, if the Spirit came forth from the Word, does the same again proceed from the Father? And he adds after other things: Therefore it is not correctly nor appropriately said that there are three hypostases, having stated this not once but even a second time. Through these and similar arguments, the most wise one attempts to establish that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, with three names placed upon a single hypostasis.

For he did not understand in these matters either how the Son is said to proceed from the Father and the Holy Spirit likewise, nor has he been able to comprehend how the Savior said concerning the Holy Spirit, "That one will receive from me and announce to you," nor how, having breathed upon his own disciples, he said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." This will have an easy solution for those who piously consider, if one were to reason that the Son, always being with and accompanying the Father, was somewhere within, as it were in the innermost sanctuaries and inaccessible places of the paternal kingdom, and then, being sent forth by the Father for the salvation of the human race, he said that he had come out from the Father. This he also indicated elsewhere through a parable, saying about himself, "The sower went out to sow"; for whence did he go out except from the innermost palaces of the paternal divinity? And according to the same reasoning, the Holy Spirit, always standing by the throne of God—since also "myriads upon myriads" stand by him according to Daniel—was sent forth itself, sometimes in the form of a dove upon the Son of Man, sometimes upon each of the prophets and apostles; therefore it too is said to proceed from the Father. And why are you amazed? When even concerning the devil it is said, "And the devil went out from the Lord," and a second time it is said, "And the devil went out from the Lord." You would also find in the case of Ahab, where the scripture adds, "And an evil spirit went out and stood before the Lord and said, 'I will deceive him.'" But these are contrary spirits, and how and in what manner it is said is not the time now to investigate.

The only-begotten Son of God teaches that he himself has come forth from the Father because he is always with him, and the Holy Spirit likewise exists as another besides the Son. This the Savior himself clearly presents, saying, "He will take from me and announce to you." For this would be directly indicative that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one and the same; for that which receives something from another is understood to be other than the giver. And that the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son, the Savior and our Lord himself taught explicitly and distinctly in the clearest words, when he said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive." You see how he says that the Paraclete Spirit is other and different from himself. But if, after breathing on the disciples, he said, "Receive the Holy Spirit," one must not be unaware that the breath was in some way a purification of the apostles' soul, preparing them to be suitable for the reception of the Holy Spirit. For it is not said that he breathed into their face, nor that it was a breath of life, nor that it was the Holy Spirit, as it is written concerning Adam that "God breathed into his face a breath of life," but it is said that he first breathed, and then said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." And his giving the Spirit again presents him as other than that which is given.

For the giver and the gift could not be the same; rather, the provider was the Savior, the gift was the Holy Spirit, and the recipients were the apostles. The breathing was purifying, as I said, of the apostles, or also activating the transmission of the Holy Spirit, for it is possible to understand it in either way. Nevertheless, from these things it is shown that the Holy Spirit exists as another besides him, as also through what follows, in which it is again recorded that he said: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him." To which he adds: "These things I have spoken to you while remaining with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, that one will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I have said to you." You hear how he used the plural form "we will come and make our abode with him," speaking of himself and the Father, and how, speaking of the Holy Spirit, he said "that one will teach you everything" as of another. Such also was the saying: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth." Therefore, the Paraclete was other than him, about whom he taught so much. Naturally, then, he again added, saying: "These things I have spoken to you while remaining with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, that one will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I have said." For I, he says, have spoken these things to you for now, but the Spirit of truth, which my Father will also send, will teach you everything.

will teach you what you have not yet learned because you are not yet able to receive it; but when he comes—I mean the Paraclete—he will complete the teaching, and also implant in you the memory of what is now being said by me. And again he adds: "But when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness concerning me." Through all of which he clearly shows that the one sent by him and the one who will bear witness concerning him is other than himself. He further elaborates the argument by what he adds: "But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I depart. For if I do not depart, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." In saying that he himself departs, he indicated his passion and his subsequent ascent to the Father. Who then is so foolish as to affirm, after so many statements, that the one saying these things and the one about whom these things are said are one and the same, hearing him clearly defining the truth and showing what the truth is, namely that unless he himself departed, the Holy Spirit would never come? And if he sometimes says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit and sometimes that he himself will send it, he surely does not teach contradictory things; for "whatever he sees the Father doing," "these things the Son likewise does," and "as he hears, so he judges.

Therefore, by the judgment of the Father, when the Father wills, at that time the Son, and through him the Savior, sends to his disciples the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, to comfort them and to console them for what they suffered while proclaiming the gospel at the hands of those who persecuted them. And not only to comfort them, but also to teach them the whole truth of the New Covenant, which they were not able to receive from the Savior when he spoke these things to them, because they were still enslaved to the Jewish way of life. And these things he fulfilled in deeds after his resurrection from the dead. After which, having said to Mary, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father,” thereafter, when he had ascended to the Father, he appeared to the disciples, the Holy Spirit having been sent and being with him, and ready and present for the ministry for which it was appointed, at which time he also permits them to touch him. For then “he breathed on them,” and then he gave them a part of the gift of the Holy Spirit, that which produces the remission of sins; for “there are divisions of gifts,” of which he granted them a portion at that time while being with them and present to them, but after this he filled them with a greater and more perfect power. Concerning this, in the Acts of the Apostles he said to them, “But you will receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”; at which time he also promised that they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit, which indeed was fulfilled after his ascension, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent to them in accordance with his words.

Since the matters concerning this topic require more detailed elaboration and clarity, now is not the time to pursue them with precision of inquiry, for this is not our present purpose. Rather, it was necessary to demonstrate that the Paraclete Spirit is distinct from the Son, which has indeed been shown in various ways through what the Savior himself taught, especially in the words: "I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now; when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will relate to you the whole truth; for he will not speak from himself, but will say whatever he hears, and will announce to you the things that are coming. That one will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and will announce it to you." In these words, again, he promises that his disciples will learn from the Holy Spirit what he himself did not teach, speaking of another when he says "when that one comes" and "for he will not speak from himself" and "that one will glorify me" and "because he will receive from what is mine." For to suppose that the Savior says all these things about himself is a terrible and incurable naivety. But indeed, through these words the Savior himself clearly

that the Holy Spirit is other than himself, he taught, excelling in honor, glory, and seniority, and being superior and higher than all intellectual and rational substance, for which reason it is included together with the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity, yet being subordinate to himself. This he demonstrated by saying, "For it will not speak from itself, but will speak whatever it hears"; and from whom it will hear, he clarifies by saying, "It will take from mine and announce to you," that is, from my treasury; for in him "are all the hidden treasuries of wisdom and knowledge." Now he himself, as the only-begotten Son, receives from the Father and hears from the Father, but the Holy Spirit is supplied from him; therefore he says, "It will take from mine and announce to you." Now the God over all is also called spirit, as the Savior himself taught by saying, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth," and he will truly be holy of holies himself, and "resting among the saints." But the Son of God is also spirit, and spirit holy of holies himself, if indeed he is the image of the invisible; therefore it is also said concerning him, "The Lord is the spirit" and "Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord." But since the Holy Spirit is other than the Father and the Son, the Savior, indicating its distinctive property, has called it Paraclete, separating the commonality of the homonymy through the appellation Paraclete, since even the angelic powers would be spirits; for it is said, "He who makes his angels spirits." But none of these can be equal to the Paraclete spirit.

Therefore this alone has been included together with the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity, the Savior having instructed his apostles to transmit the mystery of his regeneration to all those from the nations who believe in him in no other way than by baptizing "them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit": the Father authorizing and bestowing the grace, the Son ministering this grace—for "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"—and the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, being itself that which is supplied according to the divisions of the gifts in it, "for to one through the Spirit is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit," and the things enumerated similarly to these. Now the Holy Spirit naturally dwells only in holy ones, being supplied through the Son to those whom the Father might judge. And this would be its work, to sanctify all those to whom it imparts one or more of the gifts in it, so that prophets and apostles and every God-loving soul, and likely also the better and divine powers, partake of the sanctity from it. But the Son alone, honored with the paternal divinity, would be productive and creative of all generated things, both visible and invisible, and indeed even of the existence of the Paraclete Spirit itself; for "all things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be," and "in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible.

The God beyond all things and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, being an ineffable good and superior to every reasoning, thought, voice, and intention, who presides over all things that ever exist and of whatever kind, including the Holy Spirit itself and also the only-begotten Son, is alone fittingly called the God over all, through all, and in all by the Apostle, who says, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God, Father of all, the one over all, through all, and in all." And He alone would be called "one God and Father" "of our Lord Jesus Christ," while the Son is "only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father." The Paraclete Spirit is neither God nor Son, since it did not receive its generation from the Father in the same way as the Son, but is one of the things that came into being through the Son, because "all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being." These mysteries, then, are transmitted in this way to the holy and catholic Church through the divine utterances. But Marcellus confuses everything, sometimes plunging into the whole depth of Sabellius, sometimes attempting to revive the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and sometimes being plainly refuted as a Jew; for he introduces one hypostasis with three persons and three names, saying that the God, the Word in him, and the Holy Spirit are the same. Then, moving from there to the apostolic theologies concerning Christ, he again uses distorted interpretations.

For the divine apostle explicitly theologizes about the Son of God, saying, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created, both those in the heavens and those on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him; and he himself is before all things, and all things are constituted in him.” This wonderful man again falls back into the flesh and declares that this flesh itself is the image of the invisible God, not hearing that the phrase “who is the image” is expressed with a masculine character. For he somehow applies the “who” to the flesh, claiming that this is indicated as if it were itself the image “of the invisible God.” And again he says that the phrase “he himself is before all things” is spoken about the flesh, not being ashamed to interpret “he himself” as referring to the flesh. And he says that “the firstborn of all creation” is called so because of the flesh, and he persists unswervingly in the flesh, asserting that “the things in the heavens and the things on the earth,” “both visible and invisible,” were created, and he is not deterred from saying that thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers were deemed worthy of creation through the flesh of the Savior in Christ. Already, having set forth the statements of Marcellus on these matters in the preceding writing, and sparing the symmetry of the discourse, I will be content with their testimony. But as for how perverse and forced such an interpretation of the apostolic wording is, I do not think I need further elaboration, because the shamelessness of the exegesis is evident to anyone.

Nevertheless, having said so much about the flesh of the Savior, he does not even preserve it intact for us. For would that he had at least maintained a pious reasoning concerning it. But now, after all that has been said by him about it, he declares that at the consummation of the ages it is left bereft of the Word, writing thus: “If then he confesses that the flesh is of no benefit to him, how is it possible that the flesh, which is from the earth and of no benefit and in the future ages as though it were advantageous to him, should be joined to the Word?” And he repeats the same in another passage, saying: “If then at the time of the restoration of all things, even creation itself will be changed from slavery to freedom—for Paul says, ‘that even creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God’—how then can the form of a slave, which the Word assumed, being the form of a slave, still be joined to the Word on account of it?

You see what utterances he has dared to let loose against the flesh of our Savior, not considering that even before his ascension into the heavens, while it was still on earth before the passion, he so glorified it on the mountain, showing an image of his kingdom to only three of his chosen disciples, that his face flashed and gleams of light shone forth; for the divine scripture says, "His face became like the sun, and his garments white as light." Nor did he understand what kind of body of glory the divine apostle spoke of, and that he taught that even our bodies will be conformed to that body, saying, "who will transform the body of our humiliation into conformity with the body of his glory." Nor did he grasp in what manner the mortal would be swallowed up by life, writing, "on which we do not wish to strip off but to put on over, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life." Being ignorant of these things, he insists that the Word will become one and the same with God as it was before, but the flesh abandoned by the Word—he knows not what will become of it. Listen then to how he says these things: "If someone should inquire about this flesh that has become immortal in the Word, what do we say to him? That we consider it unsafe to dogmatize about matters we have not precisely learned from the divine scriptures. For how is it possible to do this for those who also overturn the doctrines of others?

But we shall say to those who wish to learn from us the precise account concerning this, that, persuaded by the holy apostle, we know that it is fitting for us to behold the hidden mysteries in such a way as he himself said: "For now we see," he says, "through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face," and so forth. Therefore, do not ask me about things which I have not clearly learned from divine Scripture; for this reason, then, I will not be able to speak clearly even about that divine flesh which shared in the Word. Then he who confesses that he can say nothing and has learned nothing from Scripture made such declarations about the flesh, having taken it neither from Scripture nor from others nor having learned it from the Church, but having fashioned it for himself and conceived from his own thought a product foreign and alien to the truth, not even taking to heart the Scripture that says, "Do not add to his words, lest he convict you, and you become false," and "Woe to those who prophesy from their own hearts." See, then, into what great impiety he has fallen.

For he who cast the entire theology concerning the pre-existent only-begotten Son down upon the flesh, and proclaimed it a crown of victory in these very words—for thus he said that the Word of God, through the resurrection, had rendered the human flesh immortal, and, as if binding on a crown of victory, sits at the right hand of the Father—this same man says that it will be desolate and orphaned at the end of the universe, uniting the Word with God but separating the flesh from the activity of the Word, and leaving it, I know not how, immortal and incorruptible, yet soulless and inactive on the part of the Word. And these things again he attempts to establish from the divine readings, which he has not understood. For when our Savior said to those not comprehending the teachings concerning his flesh and blood, “Does this scandalize you? If then you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” he, not attending to the meaning of the statement, supposed that he was repudiating the flesh which he assumed from the holy virgin. Then from this he attempts to construct that after the consummation of the universe the Word in God will leave the flesh desolate of its own activity. He says, then, in these very words: “Concerning the flesh, which he had when he spoke to the disciples, he speaks thus: ‘Does this scandalize you? If then you see the Son of Man departing where he was before? The spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing.’

If, then, he confesses that the flesh is of no benefit to him, how can it be possible for that which is from the earth and of no benefit and which in the coming ages is advantageous to him to be with the Word? Do you see how great a distortion of the evangelical word he employs because he does not understand the saving utterance of the Word, how it is spoken and for what reason? But do you, taking up the evangelical scripture, behold the entire teaching of our Savior, how he did not discourse about the flesh which he assumed, but about the mystical body and blood. For when he had fed the multitudes with the five loaves, and this great wonder had been provided to those who saw it, most of the Jews, disparaging what had happened, said to him, “What sign then do you perform, that we may see and believe?” Then they compared the manna in the wilderness, saying, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from the heaven to eat.’” To these things the Savior answered, “Truly, truly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from the heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from the heaven.” Then he adds, “I am the bread of life,” and again, “I am the bread that came down from the heaven,” and again, “The bread which I will give is my body.” And again he adds, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him." As he was expounding these and similar matters rather mystically, some of his disciples said, "The saying is hard; who can hear it?" To them the Savior answered, saying, "Does this scandalize you? What if you should see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no benefit at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." By these words he taught them to hear spiritually what was said concerning his flesh and blood. For do not suppose, he says, that I mean the flesh which I wear, as if it were necessary to eat it, nor do I command you to drink the perceptible and bodily blood; but know well that "my words which I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life," so that these very words and discourses are the flesh and the blood, of which whoever partakes, as if always nourished by heavenly bread, will partake of heavenly life. Therefore, he says, let not this which I have said about eating my flesh and drinking my blood scandalize you, nor let the literal hearing of what I have said about flesh and blood disturb you; for these things "are of no benefit" when heard perceptibly, but it is the spirit that gives life to those able to hear spiritually.

But the novel interpreter of the evangelical teachings, understanding none of these things, listen to how he writes, saying in these very syllables, having touched the human body and shown it to the beholders, "Does this scandalize you?" he said. "If then you see the Son of Man ascending, where was he before? The spirit gives life, the flesh avails nothing." To whom one might say: And whence to you, O noble one, the addition of things not found in the evangelical scripture? For that the Savior, having touched the human body and shown it to the beholders, said "Does this scandalize you?" you fabricate from yourself, and you dare to make the addition from yourself. This presumption, having taken from himself, he thinks to prepare from this that the flesh of the Savior will be left bereft of the activity of the Word, saying, "If then he confesses that the flesh avails him nothing, how is it possible that the flesh, which is from the earth and avails nothing and in the future ages as beneficial to him, should be united with the Word?" Thus, then, he set out to misinterpret the evangelical saying ignorantly and unscientifically. And of the apostolic sayings likewise he made perverse interpretations. For instance, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter said concerning our Savior, "Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration," not understanding the meaning of the saying, he attempts from this to circumscribe the kingdom of Christ, claiming that some limit and term of his kingdom is indicated by the phrase "until the times of restoration.

He says that this same thing is established also through the Psalm which declares, "Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool under your feet," and that the apostle Paul said for this reason, "For he must reign until he places his enemies under his feet." For he supposed that "until" and "up to" are indicative of a limited time. Listen, then, to how he writes verbatim, saying: For this reason, it seems to me,

both the almighty God, the Lord, says to him, "Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool under your feet," appearing to separate him only in activity because of the human flesh and, as it were, defining for him a certain stated time of the sitting at the right hand, thus he says to him, "until I place your enemies as a footstool under your feet." And this prophetic saying of David, interpreting it more clearly for us, the holy apostle spoke somewhat as follows: "For he must reign until he places his enemies as a footstool under his feet." Therefore, his economy and reign according to the human aspect seem to have some limit. And after other things he adds: And for this reason the Acts of the Apostles, concerning this man whom the Word of God assumed and who, having been assumed, sits at the right hand of the Father, teach thus, saying, "Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration," and these also, as it were, defining some limit and term. To which, after other things, he adds: How then could the form of a servant, which the Word assumed, being a form of a servant, be united with the Word through him?

Clearly and explicitly, in a brief span of time, the inspired Paul has said that the economy of the Word in the flesh has occurred for our sake and has both a beginning and an end, speaking thus: "Then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father." Through such statements, Marcellus has also failed to understand the body "of the glory" of the Son and denies his unending kingdom, not noticing that, according to a certain peculiar custom of Scripture, the word "until" is customarily taken. Thus, for example, the Savior said to his disciples, "Behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age," not abolishing his being with them also after the end, but teaching that now he will be with them "until the end," overseeing and guarding all those who are his disciples, and after the end he will be with them in a superior way, declaring them partakers of his kingdom.

Thus also the statements, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet," and "Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration," have not been spoken as if he will no longer exist after these things, but as one who is to arise from the paternal throne at the time of the consummation and make a second descent from heaven, concerning which the apostle teaches, saying, "That the Lord himself, at a command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we the living who remain, together with them, will be snatched up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord." Therefore the Savior must remain in heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father "until the consummation," and at the consummation itself, having made his glorious and second coming, he will receive his saints to be always with him, not for a limited time but for an infinite eternity; for he says, "Thus we will always be with the Lord." Therefore the saints, being always with him, will enjoy his kingdom in the promised kingdom of the heavens. But the noble one, not understanding this, though the divine apostle said concerning our Savior, "For he must reign until he places his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy, death, is abolished, and again, "But when all things are subjected to him, then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all things in all." Using this custom, he also misinterprets these things, understanding, I know not how, that the Son will be subjected to the Father instead of the Word being united to God. For when was he not united to him, if indeed he was the Word eternally existing in God? How then does he say "then" "he will be subjected" "to God and Father"? It is necessary to attend to the mind, that the Apostle said that all things will be subjected to the Son himself, and that he teaches that he himself will be subjected to the Father by the same subjection, saying, "But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all things in all." Then he does not hear "all things in all"; for he says that God will not be "all things" in the Son, but "in all things"—which would rather seem to signify some conjunction and union of all things, if God is to be all things in all. But he interprets the subjection of the Son as a union of the Word, which will become one and the same with the Father, as it was before, as he himself said.

If, then, he defines union as the subjection to the Father, it would follow that the subjection of all things to the Son signifies the same union with him, so that the Son would no longer exist by himself, nor would the multitudes of the saved that are to be subjected to him live their own life, but there would be some kind of coalescence and confusion of the whole, the Son and all the rest becoming one and the same, and not only that, but also God himself. For if all things are united to the Son by being subjected, and the Son is united to the Father by being subjected, see what follows from the argument. But just as the Apostle, in saying that "all things" will be subjected to the Son, did not indicate a union, but the obedience from free choice and the glory and honor which all things will render to him as savior and king of the universe, in the same way, his being subjected to the Father would signify nothing other than the glory and honor and reverence and magnificence and the voluntary obedience which he himself will render "to God and Father," when he has prepared all to be worthy of the Father's divinity. For the present, as when they are not worthy of this, he himself, like a common savior of all, exercises a corrective rule over the imperfect and a therapeutic rule over those in need of healing, subduing the enemies of the kingdom under his feet; which the Psalm declares, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord.

Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet. But when he places the enemies under his feet and establishes those worthy of his kingdom in unending life, then indeed the enemy of all, death, will be abolished as the last enemy, for no one will die any longer, but those worthy of the kingdom will then live in eternal life, and death will likely be idle, having no one to put to death. With these things thus prepared for the Son of God, all the saints will be subjected to him in a saving submission: living eternally by him who is life, becoming wise by him who is wisdom, and being made learned by him who is Word. Thus also they will become Christs, anointed with the fragrance of his Spirit, and will be revealed as luminaries of the new age, receiving their lights from him, and they will be sons of God, adorned with the Spirit of adoption, and those who are subjected to him will partake of the remaining powers in him, so as to become righteous from his righteousness and holy from his holiness. And since the Word was God, he will not begrudge them his divinity, so that the apostle’s prophecy will be fulfilled, that the saints will become heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ. Indeed, they will also use heavenly bodies similar to the sun, moon, and stars, and in this they will partake of his glory; this is set forth by the same author saying, from whom we expect the savior, Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humility into the form of his glorious body, according to the power by which he can subject all things to himself.

You see how, by his ability to subject all things to himself, he will also effect a transformation of our body into the “form like the body of his glory” and make our body such. And if our body will be “form like the body of his glory,” how much more will the body of his own glory be a partaker of his own kingdom? And if our body will be swallowed up by life, as the apostle testified when he said, “on which we do not wish to put off but to put on, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life,” how much more will his own body, as having served his own divinity, be swallowed up, not only by life as ours is, but also by his own divinity? Let no one therefore inquire or be perplexed within himself as to what one ought to think about the Lord’s body, hearing Paul clearly say that “the mortal must be swallowed up by life,” and that our body will be “form like the body of the glory of Christ according to the power of his ability to subject all things to himself.” Therefore he will subject all things to himself.

And one must understand the salvific submission in this way, according to which “the Son himself will be subject to the one who subjected all things to him,” making a submission that is unspeakable, ineffable, and befitting him alone, when, having surrounded all those under him like a chorus, he will lead them “to God and Father,” offering to him the glory, honor, reverence, and majesty as to the cause of all good things, when also the conclusion of the apostolic teaching will attain its end, declaring “that God may be all things in all.” This very thing we shall also understand from another promise, through which it is said from God himself: “I will dwell in them, and I will walk among them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” But now, in the present age, the promise proceeds only to a few worthy ones and partially, according to “we know in part, and we prophesy in part”; but after the consummation of the whole, when the new age has arrived, he will no longer dwell in a few, but in all who are then worthy of the kingdom of the heavens. Thus, then, he will be “all in all,” that is, “dwelling in them and walking among them” and not deigning to be “their God” while claiming all as his people. In this way, then, he will be in them as he is said to be in the Son himself, as he himself teaches saying, “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” And “all things” will be in them by his offering himself to all, according to the capacity of each to partake of his divinity.

of the thrice-blessed hope and of the unending and incorruptible life, which will be established in this end, in which God will be "all in all," filling all with the ineffable light of his divinity's radiance, while the Son will exult and rejoice in the accomplishment, placing like a crown those deemed worthy of blessedness through him, and under the oversight of the Father will complete the ageless and unending kingdom, the oracles concerning him then being fulfilled, including those spoken by the angel Gabriel to the all-holy virgin about the one to be born from her, that he "will reign for the ages, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Then reigning, the Son of God will deliver all those ruled by him to his own Father, not ceasing from the kingdom nor withdrawing from it, for the divine apostle did not say that he would cease from the kingdom—for that would contradict Gabriel's prophecy to the virgin that he would reign "for the ages and of his kingdom" there would be "no end"—but that he would deliver "the kingdom," that is, those ruled by him, "to God and Father." For having perfected all under him, as if brightened by the accomplishment, he will deliver them to the Father, having received them as a kind of deposit; which he himself teaches by saying, "All things were delivered to me by my Father.

Therefore, as a good guardian, he will preserve the deposit whole and in every way strengthened, and will deliver it to God, and like a high priest he will present to him all those consecrated under him, clad in white and flashing with the incorruptible bodies of the resurrection as with the most brilliant robes, so that they may not only enjoy the kingdom under him but also be filled with the ineffable goods of the Father. For thus it will be, according to the Apostle, "God all in all," when the Son brings those who are ruled by him to him, so that this whole may come to be—I mean, that the Father be "all in all." For just as previously he was in the Son according to "the Father in me and I in the Father," so then he will be also in all those perfected under the Son. For the Apostle did not say that the Son would cease from the kingdom and that God would reign, but that the Son would "deliver the kingdom to God and Father," showing the deposit safe and sufficient for the service and priesthood of the Father, and that God would be "all in all," as God dwelling and walking about "in them" and becoming everything to them. For of some he will be master, of others king, of others something else; but of all collectively he will be God, becoming everything to them by the divine virtues and powers in him. This is the end of the thrice-blessed hope that the great Apostle outlined, saying, "so that God may be all in all.

But in all things he will be present to all, proportionally to each one's capacity, supplying the various conceptions of his own divinity to all, while for his only-begotten Son alone he will preserve the exceptional and paternal glory, honor, and kingdom, which is unshared by all the rest. And if it is necessary to seal these things with a prophetic seal, I will use as a witness for the secure confirmation of what has been said the prophetic spirit through the prophet Ezekiel, who utters these very things in such words: "Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will seek my sheep and inspect them. As a shepherd seeks his flock on a day when there is darkness and cloud in the midst of separated sheep, so I will search out my sheep." And after other things: "And I will save my sheep, and they will no longer be for prey, and I will judge between ram and ram. And I will set over them a shepherd, and he will shepherd them, my servant David, and he will be their shepherd; and I the Lord will be to them a god, and David will be ruler among them; I the Lord have spoken, and I will make a covenant with David." And after other things he reiterates the same prophecy, saying: "And I will deliver them from all their iniquities which they have sinned in them, and I will purify them, and they will be to me a people, and I will be to them a god; and my servant David will be ruler among them; and he will be shepherd of all of them." And again he adds: "And David my servant will be their ruler forever." Observe in all this how God is said not to be shepherd or ruler, but to be god to those deemed worthy of the blessed end.

Of these same things it is prophesied that David will become ruler and shepherd, David here covertly signifying Christ because he was born "from his seed." This is clear from the fact that David died before the time when these things were spoken. The prophet Daniel more clearly declares these things, naming the Son of God the Son of Man in such plain terms, just as the writing of the holy Gospels is accustomed to call him. He speaks in this manner: "I was watching in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of the sky, one like a Son of Man was coming, and he reached the Ancient of Days; and he was brought to him. And to him were given the rule and the honor and the kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, tongues will serve him; his authority is eternal authority which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed." You see that in these things also the prophet presents the kingdom as imperishable and ageless and unending not of the Word in God, but of the Son of Man, and clearly teaches that the Son of Man is other than the Ancient of Days, having received the imperishable kingdom from the Ancient of Days, that is, from the Father himself. But Marcellus defines that one and the same is, and one hypostasis underlying two names; and further, that his kingdom

He dares to circumscribe and declares shamelessly that there will be an end of Christ's kingdom after the time of judgment, writing in this manner: "Here the apostle reveals to us a very great mystery, asserting that there will be an end of Christ's kingdom—an end then, when everything is subjected under his feet." And he elaborates the argument somewhere thus: "We said in our earlier statements that our Lord Christ had a beginning of his kingdom, using proofs from the divine scriptures." And he adds: "And altogether it is possible, having an abundance of countless texts for testimony, to show that the man received a beginning of his kingdom through the Word. If, then, he received a beginning of his kingdom no more than four hundred whole years ago, it is nothing strange if the apostle says that he who obtained this kingdom so short a time ago will deliver the kingdom to God." And after other things he adds, saying: "What then do we learn about the human flesh which the Word assumed for our sake less than four hundred years ago? Whether the Word will have this also in the future ages, or only until the time of judgment?" So Marcellus dared to speak such things. But the prophets of God, defining Christ's kingdom as unending, say that after the time of judgment he will hold the beginning of the new age. For see how the prophet Ezekiel, having set up a judgment of the sheep of God, after their judgment appoints David as their shepherd and prophesies that the same will be their ruler.

But Daniel, having previously said, "I watched until thrones were set, and an Ancient of Days was seated, and his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire, his wheels were blazing fire. A river of fire drew before him; a thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand ten thousands stood before him; he held a judgment, and books were opened," having foreseen these things, next he beholds the Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days upon the clouds of heaven and receiving the imperishable kingdom. Therefore, even then, more eminently and more excellently than now, he will begin to reign over those worthy of blessedness. The Gospel bears witness to these things, in which the Savior himself seals the prophetic words, delivering the discourses concerning the consummation to his own disciples, through which he taught these things, saying, "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his throne of glory; and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right:

Come, the blessed ones of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And how these things accord with what is said in the prophecy concerning sheep and concerning the judgment of rams, observe, and how the king, the Son of Man, is introduced after the judgment of the sheep, and his father is God. For he himself taught this, saying, "Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, the blessed ones of my father,'" analogously to the David named in the prophecy, whom the word teaches will be a shepherd and ruler of the sheep, about to shepherd and rule the flocks of God under the overseer God. And it is necessary to fix the mind on that which is said by the apostle in the phrase "when he abolishes every principality and every authority and power," which the prophecy hinted at by saying, "And I will destroy evil beasts from the earth." For what else would the beasts that formerly troubled the sheep be but the opposing powers? When these are removed, the new and fresh age, purified of all evil, will have as king the Son of Man, or, according to the prophecy, which hints obscurely, a shepherd and

David as ruler, because he was "from the seed" of David, but God is said not to possess a shepherd or a ruler, but God himself, by a conception superior to that of shepherd, ruler, and king, in the magnificence of divine power, will preside not only over the sheep but also over the shepherd himself. For it says, "My servant David will be their shepherd; and I will be their Lord God." And he calls David a servant because the Savior and our Lord assumed "the form of a servant" from "the seed of David." And this was the thrice-blessed end, according to which, when our Savior confirms the promised kingdom of heaven to those worthy of it, the God over all and his Father, the highest good of all, will give himself to those ruled by the Son, becoming "all in all." This our Savior and Lord himself again demonstrates, sending up the great prayer on behalf of his disciples "to the God and Father," through which he entreats, saying, "That all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one just as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into the one, that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me. Father, what you have given me, I wish that wherever I am, they also may be with me, that they may behold the glory that you gave me.

This is the great intercession of our Savior on our behalf, that we may be with him wherever he is, and that we may behold his glory, and that he may love us as his own father loved him, and that what he granted to him he may also grant to us, and the glory which he gave to him he may also give to us; making us all one, so that we may no longer be many but all one, united to his divinity and the glory of the kingdom, not by a blending of one substance but by the perfection of supreme virtue. For this he taught when he said, "that they may be perfected." For thus, having been perfectly wrought by him in wisdom, prudence, justice, piety, and every virtue, we shall be joined to the ineffable light of the paternal divinity, becoming lights ourselves from our connection with him, and being perfected as sons of God by participation in the communion of his only-begotten, by partaking of the radiances of his divinity. And indeed in this manner we shall all become one with the Father and the Son. For just as he himself said that he and the Father are one, declaring, "I and the Father are one," so also he prays that we all, in imitation of him, may partake of the same unity; not as Marcellus would have it, with the Word being united to God and joined to the substance, but as the truth itself testified, the Savior himself saying, "The glory which you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into the one." For thus also then the apostolic saying will attain its end, which declared, "that God may be all in all.

And since Marcellus and those who Sabellize in the same manner as he are accustomed to use three sayings, attempting to show that the Father and the Son are one—sometimes harping on "I and the Father are one," sometimes on "the Father is in me and I in the Father," and on "he who has seen me has seen the Father"—against the saying "I and the Father are one" one must bring forward to them the preceding words in which he prays for his disciples, that they too may all attain the same unity. For he says, "that they may be one as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into the one." And against the saying "the Father is in me and I in the Father" we shall again set forth his own utterance, in which, praying for them, he said, "just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, and I have given them the glory which you have given me." By these words he clearly shows that the Father is in him in the same way as he wishes him to be in us—not that, being one in hypostasis, he is one.

He himself and the Father are, but that the Father, having imparted to him his own glory, he likewise, imitating the Father, imparts to his own. Therefore he says, "And I have given to them the glory which you gave me, that they may be one as we are one." "As you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us." Thus then the Father and the Son are one according to the communion of glory, of which, imparting the same union to his own disciples, he deemed them worthy. And again, thus the Father was in him and he in the Father. As the divine apostle also teaches concerning all who are worthy of the heavenly kingdom, saying, "Then God will be all in all," as also it is said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them," but also we "live and move and have our being in him." And all these things are said concerning us, who subsist and live according to our own hypostasis and have nothing in common with the paternal divinity. Why then should one wonder if also concerning the Son similar expressions are used, which do not abolish his hypostasis nor teach that he is both Father and Son, but set forth the special and exceptional honor and glory of the Father towards him, of the only-begotten and divine communion? Thus then also "he who has seen" him "has seen the Father," because he alone and no other is the image "of the invisible God" and "the radiance of the glory and the character of his hypostasis," existing "in the form of God" according to the apostolic teachings.

Just as one who has seen the royal image precisely modeled after the king and reproduces the forms of the likeness through painting imagines the king, in the same way—indeed beyond all reason and every example—one who, with a clear mind and purified eyes of the soul enlightened by the Holy Spirit, gazes upon the magnitude of the power of the only-begotten Son and Lord, and considers how "in him dwells the entire fullness of" the Father's "divinity" and how all things "came to be through him" and "in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible," and reflects that the Father begot only him, the only-begotten Son, in every respect made like him, will by power also see the Father himself through the Son, beheld by those purified in mind, of whom it is said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." So let these matters be exercised by us, who have set brevity as our aim, as if in summary. But since the matters concerning this topic require very extensive treatment, whoever cares for their accurate comprehension, having applied his mind to the evangelical and apostolic readings, will at leisure gather the whole understanding from them. Indeed, of the countless other things haphazardly heaped together in Marcellus's treatise, of the very many things said contrary to the intention of scripture, and of other forced statements preserving no coherence, I consider the common refutation to have been made evident to the right-minded through what we have examined, and I will be content with these.