On Ecclesiastical Theology (Book 1 – Book 2)

On Ecclesiastical Theology

continued

Chapter 20

1 So the first thing to show is that he made this statement in ignorance, without knowledge of the divine Scriptures. First (a), the divine evangelist John himself, who called him Word, did not wait long but immediately, right alongside, named him God, saying, “and the Word was God.” He could have said, “and the Word was of God,” but he did not say this, so that no one would say he was like the word among human beings. Instead he calls him God, and so shows the surpassing greatness of the dignity befitting God that belongs to him. 2 Second (b), moving on to another thought in praise of him, John named him Light, and by this very name showed that he existed before the taking up of the body, 3 In that passage he says about the Baptist: “That man was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light, which enlightens every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own things, and his own people did not receive him.”

4 Do you see how in these words he called him not only “Word,” as Marcellus thought, but also God and light? He taught that he existed before, and that the world came to be through him. Just as he had said earlier that all things came to be through God the Word, and that “without him” nothing came to be, so he says the same of the light: “the world,” he says, “came to be through him.” 5 So the light and God the Word are one and the same. When he says at one time that the world, and at another that all things, came to be through him, he shows the Son’s role as God’s servant in the work. The evangelist could have said, “All things were made by him,” and again, “the world was made by him.” He did not say “by him” but “through him,” so as to refer us to the Father’s authority as the maker of all things.

6 But he also says, “the world did not know him.” Yet all human beings acknowledge the God over all by their natural understanding. The children of the Jews acknowledge him first of all, being led by the hand from the writings of the prophets, as Marcellus himself showed as he went on. 7 So the one whom “the world did not know” was someone other than the God over all: God and Word, who both was and was called light. This is not a light perceived by the senses, and does not shine on the eyes of flesh as the sun does. If it did, the nature of irrational animals would share in it too. As it is, he teaches what kind of light it was, saying, “It was the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.” So this rational light belonged to human beings alone. 8 For this reason he made the souls that were created “in his image and likeness” intelligent and rational, by a power that is intelligent and rational. Just as this light was not perceived by the senses, so neither was the One who is beyond all things, God himself. For “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” And indeed the Father was light that cannot be approached, as the divine apostle teaches when he says, “dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”

9 But the other “was in the world,” “enlightening every man coming into the world.” The world, he says, came to be through this light, that is, through the Son, while the greater One, the Father, is the one by whom the whole is held together. So these are three fitting and reverent titles of the powers of the Son of God, which the theologian of Scripture took up together at the start: the Word, God, and the light. 10 Next, the same writer adds a fourth, calling him “only-begotten,” where he says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only-begotten from a father, full of grace and truth.” So he was already called God’s only-begotten before he took flesh. For even if, as he says, “the Word became flesh” for our sake, still it was to us that he deigned to show his own divinity. We were not looking at the flesh (for that was “the form of a servant”), but at his glory, which is seen with a pure mind apart from the body. “We beheld his glory”: an unspeakable glory, beyond all mortal reckoning, such as one might imagine to be the “glory” of the “only-begotten” Son of God.

11 This glory was “from the Father.” Do you see that he did not say, “and we beheld his glory, glory as of a word,” although he had just said, “the Word became flesh”? He said this to teach what kind of Word the Father had caused to exist: not a mere spoken word. (For how could such a thing have become flesh?) So he had to call him “only-begotten.” 12 He also teaches that this is his glory, by which he is understood to be God’s only-begotten Son. And he says that the glory belonged to him from no other source than from the Father. For he did not have the glory as something unbegotten, or without beginning, or owned by himself, but as received from the Father. He himself made this clear when he said, “Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.”

13 The Father answers him, saying, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The same evangelist establishes the Son’s own distinct existence still more strongly when he adds: “John bears witness about him and has cried out, saying: This was the one who comes after me, who has come to be before me, because he was first, before me. For from his fullness we have all received.” 14 But although John cries out that the Savior “was first” before him, the new Sabellius does not hear it. Yet John the Baptist came before the Savior in his birth according to the flesh. How, then, is it testified that the Savior was before him? For in the birth according to the flesh, the Savior was not before John. 15 So it was in respect of being the only-begotten of God that he was “first,” before John, and “has come to be before” him. Can these words be applied to the Father and God of the universe? Or to a Word with no being and no substance of its own in God, who is simply the same as God? And how could the words “has come to be before me” be said of a word that has no real existence? Who would be so mad as to suppose that John the Baptist said of the God of the universe, “has come to be before me” and “he was first, before me”?

16 So these words show that the one spoken of as God existed before John’s birth and came to be before him. He is established not only as Word, but also as God, light and only-begotten, existing and named as such before his coming in the flesh. 5. Where the evangelist got this knowledge, he himself shows by saying next: “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.” You see from whom he learned his theology: from the Son. 17 For he says it was not Moses, nor any of the prophets after Moses, nor any of the angels or higher powers, but “the only-begotten Son himself” who explained this. So the invisible God did not give the explanation; the only-begotten Son, having become visible, gave men the explanation concerning the Father. Clearly, then, he is other than the invisible God. And he also existed beforehand, not in the Father’s mind, as Marcellus supposed, but in his bosom. Just as the Savior has promised that we shall rest in the bosoms of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so the Son was “in the bosom of the Father.” He was not one and the same with the Father, since neither shall we be the same as the holy fathers.

18 But note, besides, that once John has named him Word, called the same one God, named him light, called him only-begotten and confessed him Son of God, he no longer calls him Word. From then on he records the Savior himself as not calling himself Word, but Son, only-begotten, light, life, truth and countless other things. We can hear him teaching somewhere in these terms: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish.” And again: “For God did not send the Son into the world 19 to judge the world.” And again: “But whoever does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” Here again God was the one giving and “sending the Son as savior of the world,” while the Son was the one sent, clearly other than the one who sends. For this reason, it seems to me, our Savior himself said the following words, which were recorded against Marcellus himself and against those who begrudge the Son his nature: “Is it not written in the law that I said, ‘You are gods’?

20 If he called those men gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be set aside, do you say of the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” You hear how often the Savior himself named himself not Word but Son, and called himself only-begotten. 21 You also hear how he taught that he had been sent, and had been sanctified by the Father before he was sent. And he puts to shame those who hesitate to confess him Son of God, by teaching from the divine Scripture that men who were mortal by nature were called not only sons of God but even gods. So it should not be thought blasphemy to confess as both Son of God and God “the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world.” 22 So what should become of the man who, after so many such sayings, dared to say that he is Word and nothing else? Marcellus has said in so many words (no. 34), “and for this reason he does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, so that through such a confession he might bring it about that man, by fellowship with him, becomes by adoption a son of God.” After saying this, I do not know with what eyes Marcellus could look these testimonies in the face, or with what lips he could speak against so many of them.

23 The Saviour also showed that he is light, in agreement with what has already been set out about light. He says, “I am the light of the world.” And again, “I am the light, and the truth, and the life.” And once more, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness more than the light.” 24 And if anyone asks where he has come from, the one who said, “He who comes from above is above all,” and “He who comes from heaven testifies to what he has seen and heard,” will answer. Who was “the one who comes from heaven”? Surely not the flesh which the Saviour took up? Not at all. Plainly it was he himself, the light and the Word and God and the only-begotten and the Son, being all these things himself. So “what he has seen and heard,” it says, “he testifies.” Therefore he both saw and heard before he came to earth.

25 Whom did he see, if not the Father? Whom did he hear, if not the Father? And he taught that he is not a mere spoken word that signifies something, but truly a living Son with his own real existence, since he says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” Let us believe, then, that because he loves “the Son, the Father has given all things into his hand.” 26 We must pay careful attention to the word “all.” It takes in the existence of everything that has come into being. Through it one can see the greatness of the power of the Son of God, by considering how great and what kind of hand it was that received from the Father the existence of all things. 27 For if the whole heaven and world is great, and the realms beyond what is seen are far better and more excellent, made up of bodiless, incorruptible, rational and divine powers, and everything else that escapes our mind and is unknown to our understanding, then the one hand of the only-begotten Son of God, which grasps all of these together, shows the excellence of his immeasurable power.

28 The Son himself shows this again in another saying: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” Then, as if we were at a loss to know who and how great the one is who received so great a trust, he says: do not search, and do not ask. For it is not in the nature of things for him to be known by human beings. Even for higher and more divine powers, an exact grasp of the Son of God is not possible. 29 So after saying, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father,” he added, “and no one knows the Son except the Father.” Let every unspeakable account of the Son of God therefore be silent. Let the knowledge of his begetting from the Father be left to the Father alone. Let no one go further in his inquiry into his unspeakable nature and being. Let his own teaching about himself alone be made firm for us by the grace of faith, since it plainly teaches that all things have been handed over to him by the Father.

30 So God gave and handed over for the sake of improvement and benefit, making the handover as to a saviour, a physician and a steersman of the whole. The Son received, and like a faithful keeper of a deposit he held what was given. He did this not as a word without being or substance, but as truly the only-begotten Son, beloved of the Father. 31 7. Further, he also called himself the bread of life, saying, “I am the bread of life,” and “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” And he made very plain how he was living, setting it out in these words: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, 32 “…and the one who eats me, he too will live because of me.” He taught the same thing elsewhere when he said, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son also to have life in himself.” So he was the bread of life, and he existed in heaven, watering and feeding the angelic powers by the power of his divinity. He was all this before he came to earth. He was a Son having life “in himself,” just as the Father has life “in himself.”

33 For what is special and peculiar to the unbegotten, divine life of the Father is this: because of it, he alone is said to “have immortality,” according to the divine apostle. The Son would also have it alone, as the image of the Father, who is such in this respect too. Yet he has the life described, not as without beginning, not as unbegotten, and not as his own acquisition, as the Father has it, but as one who received it from the Father. 34 For he says, “he gave the Son also to have life in himself, just as the Father has life in himself.” So the one gave and the other received. And he alone has received this privilege: he does not have to obtain life from somewhere outside himself, as the other living things do, but has it welling up in himself, in the way the Father has it in himself. Therefore everything that shares in life lives by the supply of the Son. He alone has life welling up in himself, because the Father gave him this gift, so that those who were going to be made alive through him might enjoy it.

35 This is what he himself teaches when he says, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who eats me, he too will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven.” You see how, even while he was in heaven, he was the bread of life. That is why it is said somewhere, “Man ate the bread of angels.” So even before he was sent by the Father, he was in heaven and lived because of the Father. 36 He was not a spoken word that merely signifies, nor one and the same thing as God. He was a subsisting being who had a life of his own, which the Father had given him. 37 Going on, he set out the superiority of the Father’s glory and said, “As the Father taught me, so I speak these things. And the one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that please him.” Notice carefully that it says “always.”

38 For he says: it is not only now, when I am speaking with people on earth through flesh, that I do what pleases the Father, but always. He also testifies that he speaks what he has learned from the Father as from a teacher. So he gives the Father the title of teacher, and he is clearly someone other than the Father, since everyone who is taught by someone is different from the one who teaches. 39 But if the Word was in God, and is called rational (“logical”) only because he signifies the thoughts of the Father, how could he be his own teacher? How, if he is inseparable from God, could he say that he had been sent? How, if he is one and the same as God, could he testify that he does what pleases him? And if Marcellus replies to this that the Word spoke these words while in the flesh, what shall we say to that, given that he refuses to confess that he is a Son, and says he is only a Word?

40 How was he in the flesh when he said these things? Was he living and subsisting, and existing apart from the Father? Then who was the Father at that time, if he did not have his own Word in himself but subsisted without a Word? Suppose the Word dwelt in the flesh while he spent time on earth. If he was apart from the Father, living and subsisting and moving the flesh as a soul does, then he was clearly different from the Father, and again there were two subsistences, himself and the Father. 41 Then all of Marcellus’s labor is shown to be futile, since he defines the Word who became flesh as a living, substantial and subsisting Word. But suppose the Word who dwelt in the body was not apart from God, but was so united and joined to God as to be one and the same with him. Then Marcellus will necessarily have to grant one of these: either that the Father himself was in the flesh, or that the Son was subsisting by himself and working in the body, or that he was the soul of a man, or, if none of these, that the flesh moved by itself, though it was without soul and without reason.

42 If Marcellus says it was the Father, then in his view the Father is the one who was born, who suffered, and who endured every work that belongs to human experience. When Sabellius said this, the church of God charged him with impiety. But if it is not permitted to say that the Father became man, then those who are taught by Christ must confess that it was the Son, since he is the one who teaches this. 43 But if Marcellus denies that this one has a real existence, it is time for him to suppose that Christ was a mere man, made up of body and soul, differing in nothing from the common nature of human beings. But this doctrine too has been driven out of the church. In former times the Ebionites held it, and more recently the man from Samosata and those called Paulinians after him, and they suffered the penalty of an evil name.

44 What then is left after this, except to bring in the flesh alone, with no one dwelling in it, moving like the automata of conjurers? And how could the flesh, the body by itself, without someone working in it, say, “As he taught me, so I speak”? How could the flesh say, “I always do what pleases him”? How could the flesh say that it had been sent by the Father? Is it holy to call God the Father of the flesh, or rather the Father of the one who dwells and works in it? Who then was this? Was it the word in God, who is himself God according to Sabellius? Or was it, as it is holy and true to say, the living and subsisting only-begotten Son of God? 45 But if Marcellus says neither of these, he will necessarily be forced to accept a human soul, and for him Christ will be a mere man. Then he is no longer a Sabellian, but our new writer will be a Paulinian. But suppose he says that the word in God, being nothing other than a word, one that signifies or one that acts, dwelt in the flesh.

46 How then could this word say that it lives a life of its own, apart from the Father? How could it have been sent, if it was always joined and united to God? How could it say that the Father is its teacher? How could it say of itself, “I always do what pleases the Father”? For these are plainly the voices of a Son who subsists and lives. And all through the Gospel, the one who prays to the Father, who glorifies the Father, who asks to be glorified by the Father, what else does he show except that he himself has real existence? He shows it most of all when he says, “The testimony of two people is true. 47 I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.” Through all these passages the Savior himself has shown that he lives, and yet he never once called himself “Word.” He called himself Son, light, only-begotten, bread of life, anything rather than Word.

48 He teaches that he has a word, saying, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,” but he does not say that he himself is the Word. How then, after all this, is the man not ashamed who declares that he is only Word and nothing else? Listen to how he wrote: (no. 37) “So it is clear from every side that no other name fits the eternity of the Word except the one the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, spoke at the beginning of the Gospel.” 49 And again (no. 37): “to show that if any name is new and recent, it came to him from the new and recent economy in the flesh.” 50 And again (no. 42): “Therefore before he came down and was born through the virgin, he was only Word. For what else was he before taking human flesh, he who came down ‘in the last days,’ as he himself wrote, and was born of the virgin? He was nothing other than Word.”

51 This much one can say and declare against Marcellus because he does not confess the Son of God. The evangelist would cry out loudly to him: “What are you saying, man? I did not call him only Word, but also God, and ‘the light that enlightens every person coming into the world,’ and the only-begotten Son, the one ‘in the bosom of the Father.’” 52 So let no one slander the theologian. Let him listen carefully to what kind of Word he laid down, since right beside it he joined the words “and the Word was God” and added “all things were made through him.” But the Savior of all himself is not called Word even once. He is called Son of God, only-begotten, light, life, truth, anything rather than Word. 53 8. But if Marcellus says that these things were spoken from the New Testament, the answer is that “In the beginning was the Word” also comes from no other place than the New Testament. So the Gospel is one and the same, and the same evangelist who called him “Word” also wrote down everything else about him.

54 9. The divine apostle Paul also says, “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” It is clear that he means the Son of God who existed before his coming in the flesh, the one “through whom all things” came to be. Paul does not call him “Word” but “Lord Jesus” and “Christ.” Yet if, as Marcellus holds, God and the Word within him were one and the same, it would have been enough for the apostle to say, “For us there is one God, the Father, 55 from whom are all things.” The thought would have been complete, and the statement sufficient in itself, introducing God as the maker of the universe. But even a Jew could say that. The herald of the church teaches us, in addition to the first point, not to be ignorant of the second as well.

56 What is this second point? “And one Lord, Jesus Christ.” So he adds the second article in order, saying “for us” (for even if not for all, he means, yet for us) “one Lord, Jesus Christ.” And why this one is also “one Lord for us” after the one God, he shows by adding, “through whom are all things.” For since “all things came to be through him,” it is reasonable that we who know this believe him to be Lord of the universe, after the God who is over all. 57 That he was not speaking of the flesh, but of God the Word, is clear from his adding “through whom are all things.” For he says, “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” The same thing is said of the light and of the Word who existed beforehand. So Jesus Christ himself was the light and the Word, “through whom all things” came to be, and not the flesh. For he would never have said “through whom are all things” of the flesh, in such a disconnected way.

58 10. The same Paul also knows how to call the Son of God, who existed before the flesh, “Christ.” In the same way he calls him a rock, in what he writes about those who lived with Moses in the wilderness: “For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” And he seals the same point after other things, saying, “Let us not put Christ to the test, as some of them tested him and were destroyed by the serpents.” 59 He confirms this still further when he says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown great, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, considering the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.” And he establishes it most clearly of all in the words, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and being found in appearance as a man.”

60 You see that before he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, he was, he already existed, and he was “in the form of God.” And who was this? No one other than Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ was himself God the Word, even before he took flesh. 61 For we must listen carefully to the divine apostle when he says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” and then makes clear who this Jesus Christ was, by adding, “who, existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” 62 Can the saying here be taken to refer to the flesh? Does it fit to say “who” and “existing” of the flesh? Surely it was not flesh that “emptied itself, taking the form of a slave”? That would be ridiculous. So let us examine how it is said: “who, existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself.” Now if he were a Word with no existence of his own, never standing apart from God but being within him, at one time in rest and silence, at another in activity,

63 And how could this “Word” have been “in the form of God,” if he were himself God only in potential? How could he “not consider it robbery to be equal with God,” if he were himself God? And how could he “humble himself, becoming obedient” to the Father? For one to obey another points to two persons. 64 Marcellus has used the human word as his illustration, so we should ask whether it makes sense to say this of a human word: “who, being in the form of a man, did not consider it robbery to be equal to a man, but emptied himself by becoming obedient to the man.” How could the word that is naturally part of a man do this, when it is one and the same thing as the man? So he who was “in the form of God” will not be a bare, non-subsisting word. He is truly the only-begotten Son of God, who “did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” The divine apostle also called him Jesus Christ, knowing exactly that he existed before the flesh.

65 11. Besides this, the same apostle called him the mediator of God. He said that the giving of the law through Moses was placed in his hand, in the words: “The law was ordained through angels, in the hand of a mediator. But a mediator is not of one, but God is one.” You hear how he refers to God in his own right and names the angels, and brings in the mediator between them, saying, “A mediator is not of one.” So even before he became man, in the days of Moses, he was acting as mediator in the giving of the law. 66 12. The same apostle also calls him high priest, saying: “Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.” 67 13. Moreover, the apostle knows him as the radiance of glory, the exact imprint of God, and as Son and heir, when he says: “At the end of these days he spoke to us in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages; who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his substance.” Here too, just as it was said above of the Word, “all things came to be through him,” and of the light, “he was in the world, and the world came to be through him,” and of Jesus Christ, “for us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,

68 through whom are all things,” notice how in the same way it is said of the same one, “through whom he also made the ages.” 14. It is worth paying attention here to how he is named “radiance.” I think the word points to the Son’s begetting from the Father. The Son is often named, and God has been called Father. So that we would not fall into thinking of this in the manner of the begetting of living creatures, the apostle uses an image more fitting for God. 69 He says of the Father, “dwelling in unapproachable light,” and he defines the Son as the radiance of the Father’s light. So the radiance is the offspring of the first light, brought into being not in the way mortal creatures are begotten, but according to the example given. It is fitting, then, that he also calls him the image “of the invisible God,” because he is “in the form of God,” and because he is the “radiance” and the “exact imprint of his substance.”

70 For this is why, writing about him, he said: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” 71 These things are said about the divinity of the Son of God, even if Marcellus does not think so. The divine apostle would not have said so much about the flesh. That would be foolish and unthinkable, and the sense of the wording would also be incoherent. For how would it fit to say of the flesh “who is the image,” when, if it were about the flesh, he would have had to say “which is the image”? 72 15. In another place the same apostle again called him the image of God, saying: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine in their hearts.”

73 Here we should also notice that the divine apostle gave a defining statement about Christ when he called him the image of God. He did this so that no one would suppose there are two Gods, but one God over all. For if “there is one God, and there is no other besides him,” then the one who is made known through the Son, as through an image, must be that same God. 74 That is why the Son is also God: the Father’s form is impressed in him, as in an image. The divine apostle shows this when he says at one time, “who, existing in the form of God,” and at another defines him as “the image of God.” So, along with his other titles, the Son was, and was called, “the image of God” before his coming in the flesh. These few texts, out of countless ones, I have gathered from the New Testament, to keep my discourse in proportion.

75 16. The prophets of God who lived long ago also honored the same Son with various titles of divinity. One of them called him the Spirit of God. He said, “A rod will come out of the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from the root, and the Spirit of God will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,” and so on. By these words he plainly pointed to the one “of the seed of David according to the flesh” and to God the Word who dwelt in him. So the divine apostle sometimes said, “The Lord is the Spirit,” and sometimes, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Another prophet likewise calls him Spirit, saying, “The Spirit [before] our face, Christ the Lord.” And in the Gospel it is plainly said of him, “Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations.”

76 17. Another of the prophets called him life and light, when he addressed God and said, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light.” For who was the fountain of life and the light that is with God, if not the one who says in the Gospels, “I am the light of the world,” and “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”? That is why the prophet again prays to God and says, “Send out your light and your truth; they will lead me.” 18. Zerubbabel also proclaimed him as truth and was thought worthy of the prize of victory. For when he stood before the king of the Persians, it is recorded that he said, “And truth remains and is strong forever, 77 and lives and prevails forever and ever. With it there is no respect of persons, but it does what is just and keeps away from all that is unjust and evil.” To this he adds, “And to it belong the strength, the kingdom, the authority and the majesty of all ages.” By saying that truth lives, conquers and prevails, he most forcefully showed that it has a real substance of its own. In keeping with this, the Savior himself, by naming himself the truth, put his seal on Zerubbabel’s testimony.

78 19. He also named him a river, the one who said, “The rushing streams of the river make glad the city of God.” 79 20. And the one who said, “The mountain which God was pleased to dwell in,” has already called him a mountain. This is why in Daniel a stone was cut “from a mountain” “without hands,” and again the same stone was seen set back on a high mountain. The mountain signifies his preexistent divinity, and the stone his humanity. 80 21. They also called him righteousness, as the one who said, “Who has raised up righteousness from the east?” 22. And they called him the sun of righteousness, as the one who said, “For those who fear me the sun of righteousness will rise, and healing is in its wings.” And another says, “The sun will set upon the prophets” “who lead my people astray.” For these words could not apply to the visible sun, nor even to the Word in the flesh.

81 23. Solomon also names him wisdom in Proverbs, saying, “Wisdom built herself a house and set up seven pillars,” and so on. And that wisdom existed before the world, living and subsisting, he himself taught, speaking in her person with these words: “I, wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling, and I have called on knowledge and thought.” Then he goes on to say, “Through me [kings] reign, and rulers write righteousness; through me the great are made great, and tyrants hold power through me.” 82 24. Solomon also called him the tree of life, and Lord, when he said: “She is a tree of life to all who hold fast to her, and to those who lean on her as on the Lord she is secure.” 83 25. David, the father of Solomon, in the Psalms also named him both Lord and priest. At one time he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand.” At another he says, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

84 26. The same David also knew how to confess him as God, saying: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” For who else could this be, a God anointed here by God, but the very one who was proclaimed Christ because of the Father’s anointing? 85 27. This same one was also the beloved of God, as the heading of the psalm shows when it says, “A song for the beloved.” 86 28. Isaiah called him the arm, saying: “The Lord will uncover his holy arm before all the nations.” 29. David likewise knew him as both righteousness and salvation, and so he said: “The Lord has made known his salvation; before the nations he has uncovered his righteousness.”

87 And again: “Proclaim his salvation from day to day.” And again: “Who will give the salvation of Israel out of Zion?” And: “Show us your mercy, Lord, and grant us your salvation.” 30. But why should I go through them one by one, when the lover of learning can gather such things from the whole of God-inspired Scripture? There it is clear that God’s people, enlightened by the divine Spirit, had knowledge of the only-begotten Son of God. That knowledge was then unspoken, and it was hidden from the crowds of the Jewish people. So they spoke of him in various ways, under veiled titles. For the grace of the proclamation of the theology concerning him was being kept for his coming. His church throughout the whole world has received it as a mystery once hidden and passed over in silence, and she is proud of it. 88 The divine apostle teaches this as well when he says: “according to the stewardship of God given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations — but now revealed to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see how the Son of God was a mystery hidden before, but now revealed.

89 For this reason God’s prophets spoke of him as God in a hidden way by the prophetic Spirit, while the multitude of the Jewish nation remained ignorant of the hidden mystery. So they were taught to know one God, because they were constantly being dragged off into the error of many gods. But they did not know that God is the Father of an only-begotten Son. For this mystery was being kept for the church from the nations, 90 given to her as a special favor. For in him, as the apostle says, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” But through all these passages the Word of God, who was “in the beginning with God,” has been shown to be not only called Word, as Marcellus supposes. He is also Son and only-begotten, light and bread, Jesus and Christ and Lord, high priest, radiance, exact imprint, image, firstborn of all creation, fountain of life, truth, river, righteousness, sun of righteousness, wisdom, tree of life, Lord and God, beloved, priest, arm, righteousness and salvation. And he was named all these things while existing before the flesh, as the Scriptures I have set out have shown.

91 For what reason, then, does Marcellus pass over all these and stop at “Word” alone? He does not move on to the other titles, but says only that he is God’s Word, a Word that signifies: at one time resting quietly in God, at another speaking or acting by activity alone. Is it because he is plainly a Sabellian, and does not believe in the Son of God, nor recognize the mystery that existed long before but has been revealed only to the church of Christ through his grace? 92 But suppose Marcellus says that the hidden mystery was this: that God has a word within himself and uses a word. For that is what he thinks, writing in this way (no. 45): “What else was the hidden mystery but the matter of the Word? This mystery was hidden in God so completely in earlier times that no one of the former people clearly knew what concerned the Word.” If he says this, let him learn that every Jew who has not come to know the Christ of God would also agree that God has a word and is not without reason.

93 Sabellius himself would say this too, and so would every Greek and barbarian who holds that God exists, without any dispute. For the moment he says “God,” he also thinks of him as wise, rational, powerful, just and good. What kind of mystery, then, was hidden, if everyone agrees to it? Who would not say that wisdom, power, life, light, truth, righteousness, word, and everything fine and good are in God? Or rather, that he himself is all these things, and anything higher and better than these which we do not know? For self-taught nature forces every human being to confess these things about God. From this we are also taught that the Son is all these things, 94 since he is the only-begotten Son and heir of the Father and has everything the Father has. That is why he is said to be in the form of God and the image of God, according to the divine apostle, who says, “who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,” and again, “who is the image of God.”

95 So the mystery “hidden from the ages and from the generations” was not this, that God is rational. Nor was this “now revealed,” since all people know it by natural understanding. But if someone asks what it was, the apostle answers. He says, “But now it has been revealed to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you.” 96 So the mystery was Christ, and clearly the Son of God. For this reason the prophets of God earlier honored him in a hidden way with various titles. They concealed what could not yet be spoken, and kept its disclosure to all in reserve for his grace. So when Marcellus, after so many witnesses from the Scriptures, insists that the Word who was “in the beginning,” before taking flesh, was nothing other than a word and was called by no other name, and that he received various titles only when “the Word became flesh,” being nothing but a word before that, how would he not be exposed as ignorant and without understanding of the divine writings? But now that this point is settled, let us next look at the new Sabellius, as though he had come back to life.

Book 2

Table of contents

The second book of the work on the church’s theology contains the following. 1. How Marcellus revived the teaching of Sabellius. 2. How he is also shown to be judaizing in his teaching. 3. How he defined the Word of God, being in God, as without beginning and unbegotten. 4. How he said that the Word and God are one and the same. 5. That in saying these things he denied the Son. 6. How the church speaks of the Son as God. 7. How the church proclaims the monarchy of the Father. 8. By what words Marcellus denied the Son of God. 9. A refutation of the man’s false teaching. 10. That he did not rightly understand the words “In the beginning was the Word.” 11. That he said at one time that the Word of God is spoken, and at another that he is internal, like the word in human beings. 12. That the evangelist did not set out his theology of the Word in the way Marcellus supposed. 13. In how many ways the meaning of the term “word” is understood. 14. How the gospel’s teaching about the Word ought to be explained. 15. Quotations of Marcellus’s own words, in which he plainly denied the Son of God by saying that he is a spoken word and an internal word. 16. A refutation of the man’s false teaching. 17. An explanation of the true meaning of “the Word.” 18. Why the evangelist called the Son “the Word” at the start of his writing. 19. How Marcellus, appealing to the Old Testament scriptures about one God, denied the Son of God just as the Jews did. 20. Why Moses and the prophets did not hand down to the Jews the theology of the Son in plain terms. 21. That it was the Son of God who spoke to Moses and to Abraham. 22. That in the prophets also the Father was made known as God through the Son. 23. That the church does not proclaim two Gods. 24. How Marcellus likened the only-begotten Word to the words of God that give commands about things to be done. 25. How he contradicted himself in his own writings.

Chapter 1

1 After the testimonies from the divine Scriptures that I have set out, which show that the Son of God was not named only “Word” before his coming in the flesh (as Marcellus supposed) but had countless other names too, let us now look at the phantom of Sabellius, as if it had popped up out of the earth. For he dared to say that the God over all, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was born of the holy virgin and himself suffered. He wrote it this way (Fr. 49): “What was it, then, that came down before he became man? Surely it was, he says, the Spirit. For if anyone wished to say something other than this, the angel who said to the virgin, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you,’ will not allow it.” But if he says it was Spirit, let him listen to the Savior saying, “God is Spirit.”

2 By these words he said that the God of the universe, of whom our Savior and Lord taught, “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth,” was the Spirit who came upon the virgin. This is simply Sabellius made new again. 3 He goes on. Jeremiah the prophet had spoken plainly about the Savior’s becoming man: “After this he was seen on the earth and lived among human beings.” Marcellus refers that saying to the Father, in these very words (Fr. 50): “But the Father seems to be in the Word, even if Asterius and those who think the same as he does do not think so.” 4 He does the same with the Savior’s suffering. He sets down from Jeremiah’s Lamentations, “The breath of our face, the Lord’s anointed [Christ the Lord], was taken in their destructions,” and adds (Fr. 51): “Here too the prophet speaks in the same way about the Word who took our flesh.” And he goes on to say (Fr. 51): “A spirit could never be the maker of a shadow. And that God himself is Spirit, the Savior said: ‘God is Spirit.’ And that God is light, he himself teaches us when he says, ‘I am the light.’” Do you see how he carries over what was said about the Savior to the deity of the Father?

5 And again he does away with the real existence of the Son, declaring outright that before the creation of things that have come to be there was nothing else except God alone. He writes this, word for word: “Asterius calls the authority given to him ‘glory,’ and not only glory but ‘glory before the world,’ not realizing that when the world had not yet come to be, there was nothing else except God alone.” And again he confirms the same thing, saying: “Heaven and earth and everything in the heavens and on the earth have been made by God. If, then, he believes this, he must also agree to this, that there was nothing else except God.”

Chapter 2

1 You see that he is flatly denying, like a Jew, the only-begotten Son of God, “through whom all things” came to be. For if nothing else existed except God before the world came into being, then the Son did not exist. And how then did “all things come to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be”? So the Jew, who denies the Christ of God, knows of nothing before the world came into being except God alone, and Marcellus bears witness with him. But the church of Christ boldly and proudly says: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, 2 through whom are all things.” And when it says “through whom are all things,” it knows him to be before all things. So the man who says that before the world came into being there was nothing else except God alone is lying against the truth. For along with the one God, his only-begotten Son also existed before the world was established, and was with the Father. This is what the one who said it also taught the church: “At the end of these days he spoke to us in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages.”

3 And in Proverbs, through Solomon, the Son himself teaches about himself, saying: “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.” Moreover, he himself “was the light that enlightens every person coming into the world,” since “he was in the world, and the world came to be through him.” But if “the world came to be through him,” it is clear that he existed before the world. 4 So God was not alone before the world was established; his only-begotten Son was with him. The Father looked on him and rejoiced, as the Son teaches, being himself the wisdom, when he says in Proverbs: “I was the one in whom he delighted day by day.” And the Son himself, gazing on the Father’s thoughts, was filled with gladness. This is why he says: “And I was glad before him at every time.” These are the devout and divine mysteries which the church of Christ has received and guards. But the man who says that “when the world had not yet come to be, there was nothing else except God alone”

5 shows himself to be one of two things: either a Jew or a Sabellian. For if he flatly denies the Son and brings in God alone, he will be a Jew, denying the Christ. Or if he accepts the title “Son” only as a word, while claiming that the one God is himself both Son and Father together, he will be reviving Sabellius. For if nothing else existed before the world except God, then either he himself will be both Father and Son, or he will have no Son at all.

Chapter 3

1 But Marcellus seems to say that the Son is the Word within God himself, by which he is understood to be rational. The result is that God is his own Father, and in turn his own Son. Listen, then, to his own words, in which he writes in this way: “For before all creation there was a kind of stillness, as one would expect, 2 since the Word was in God. For if Asterius believes that God is the maker of all things, it is clear that he too will agree with us that the one always exists, never having received a beginning of being, while the others have been made by him, and made out of things that did not exist.” You see how, having established God as without beginning, he said that the Word, being in him, was in stillness before creation. And going on, he adds next: “If, then, he believes this, he must also agree to this, that there was nothing else except God.” So the Word, being in the Father, had his own glory.

3 From this, naturally, Marcellus says that the Word is eternal, that is, unbegotten, writing as follows: “Do you hear, then, the agreement of the Holy Spirit, who through many different persons bears witness to the eternity of the Word?” And again: “And for this reason John begins from the eternity of the Word, saying, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’” By using three testimonies in a row he wants to show the eternity of the Word. 4 And how he claimed that the Word is united to God and was begotten together with him, you can hear from his words, which run something like this: “We know that the economy according to the flesh differs by being a matter of the man, but we believe that the eternity according to the Spirit is united to the Father.”

Chapter 4

1 In this way, then, having granted that the Word is in God, he goes on to declare that the Word is one and the same with him, writing word for word as follows: “For if the examination were of the Spirit alone, the Word would reasonably appear to be one and the same with God. But if the addition according to the flesh in the Savior is examined, the Godhead seems to be expanded only in activity. So reasonably it is truly an undivided monad.” 2 And again, going on, he says: “It is not, then, because of an exact agreement in all words and works, as Asterius said, that the Savior says, ‘I and the Father are one,’ but because it is impossible for the Word of God to be separated from God, or God from his own Word.” Now if God and the Word in him were one and the same, as Marcellus thinks, then the one who was born of the holy Virgin, became flesh, became man, suffered the things written, and died for our sins was himself the God over all. This is exactly what Sabellius dared to say, and the church of God counted him among the godless and blasphemers.

Chapter 5

But suppose Marcellus says that the Word of God is the one who became flesh. Yet he defined him as inseparable from God, giving an undivided monad and one hypostasis of God and of the Word in him, so that, according to him, the one who became man is nothing other than the God over all. But if it is an undivided monad, and God and the Word in him are one and the same, whom could one call Father and whom Son, when the underlying subject is one? In this way Marcellus, by bringing in one and the same person as “Son-Father,” was reviving Sabellius.

Chapter 6

1 The church of God, however, also recognizes the undivided monad, confessing one origin, the one, unbegotten and unoriginate God. And it proclaims as Savior the only-begotten Son begotten from him, truly existing, living and subsisting. He is not without origin and not unbegotten, so that it may not set up two origins and two gods; rather he was begotten from the Father himself and has the one who begat him as his origin. 2 For this reason the church has received the teaching to believe in one God, Father Almighty, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. This holy and mystical faith gives the new birth in Christ to those who are enlightened through it. But Marcellus says that the monad is expanded in activity. That has a place with bodies, but not with the incorporeal, unspeakable and inexpressible being. 3 For God is not expanded by acting, nor contracted by not acting. He does not act at all as human beings do, nor is he moved as human beings are. Being an undivided monad, God begot his only-begotten Son from himself, without being divided and without undergoing any change, turning, flux or suffering.

4 For when he commands, directs or gives law, he does not do these things as human beings do, speaking with tongue and lips. Nor, when he looks upon the ordering of the whole, does he gaze with eyes as we do. For with his unspeakable, divine power he has already anticipated “the things that are not” and sees them as though they already exist and stand firm. 5 Nor, when he makes and creates, does God take material that already lies before him and build with hands and fingers, as the craftsmen among us do. Again, by an inexpressible and incomprehensible power he gave existence to the whole substance of all created things, out of things that did not exist. If, then, he made everything by means that we cannot express or reason out, why should we be anxious that we might be saying that some suffering happened to him in the begetting of the Son, as happens with mortal creatures? He brought the Son into being above all things and before all things, not in any way known to mortal nature, but in a manner known to himself alone.

Chapter 7

1 But you are afraid, man, that by confessing two hypostases you will bring in two first principles and fall away from the divine monarchy? Then learn this. There is one God, without beginning and unbegotten, and the Son has been begotten from him. So there will be one first principle, one monarchy and one kingdom, since the Son himself also ascribes to his Father the place of first principle. For “the head of Christ is God,” according to the apostle. 2 But are you anxious that whoever confesses two hypostases, of Father and Son, must accept two Gods? Know this too: the one who grants two hypostases, of Father and Son, is not forced to speak of two fathers or two sons. He will grant that one is the Father and the other the Son. In the same way, then, the one who posits the two hypostases is not forced to grant two Gods.

3 For we do not define the two as equal in honor, nor both as without beginning and unbegotten. We say that one is unbegotten and without beginning, and the other is begotten and has the Father as his beginning. For this reason the Son himself also teaches that his Father is his own God, where he says, “I am going up to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” 4 So God, who is Father, is shown to be God even of the Son himself. 5 For this reason the church proclaims one God, who is also God of the Son. But the Son, when he is himself compared with the Father, will no longer be God of the Father himself. He is the only-begotten and beloved Son, “the image of the invisible God” and the “radiance” of the Father’s glory. He reveres, worships and glorifies his own Father, claiming him as God, even his own God. It is written that he prays to him, gives thanks to him, and becomes “obedient to the point of death” to him.

6 He confesses that he lives “because of the Father,” that he can do nothing without the Father, and that he does not do his own will but the Father’s. He says in these very words: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” And again: “I cannot do anything from myself. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me.” And that the one who sent him was other than himself, he shows by saying next: “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is not true. 7 There is another who bears witness about me.” Then, after mentioning the Baptist, he teaches that the Father is his witness, saying, “And the Father who sent me, he himself has borne witness about me.” And he adds, “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced that I am going to the Father, because my Father is greater than I.”

8 By all these words he shows himself to be other than the Father. He also shows the Father’s surpassing glory, by saying that the Father has sent, while he himself has been sent and has come down from heaven “not to do his own will but the will of” the one who sent him. And what could Marcellus say to this, when he hears these things taught by the one who came down from heaven? Surely he will not claim that even now it is the Savior’s flesh that says these things, for the flesh did not come down from heaven. 9 Whom, then, will he say it was who came down from heaven and taught these things? God himself, or the Word joined to him? But if he says it was the Father, he exposes himself openly as Sabellius, and the Savior himself will refute him as a liar when he says, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me,”

10 and “I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge,” and “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me,” and “My Father is greater than I.” To think that the Father says these things would be the height of madness. 11 But suppose he says that what has been set before us is spoken by the Word that is naturally joined to God, his very thought, by which God reasons and thinks inwardly within himself. Then how could God’s inner reflection, the thought within him, have come down from heaven? How could it, having become in the flesh that it took up, go through these words? And how could the Word within God say that he has come down “not to do his own will, but the will of the one who sent” him? 12 In these words the Son of God shows his reverence toward the Father. But when he stands at the head of all created things, which came into being through him, as the Savior, Lord and Creator of them all (“for all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”), then he may rightly be proclaimed God, Master, Savior and King.

13 For this reason his church has been taught to revere him, worship him and honor him as God, having learned to do this from him. 14 The Savior himself says, “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” He plainly commands that he be honored, not in the way the prophets are, nor angels, nor their various powers, but in a way like the Father himself. For the Father himself willed this: “He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor him just as they honor the Father.” 15 Thomas called Didymus knew these things exactly, since he belonged to the company of the twelve disciples. In brilliant words he acknowledged him as both God and Lord, saying, “My Lord and my God.” So it is right that we too worship only the Son, and no one else, with divine honor, just as we honor the Father. And in this the Father is honored through the Son.

16 He teaches this very thing when he says, “The one who honors the Son honors the Father who sent him.” When we honor an image of a king that has been sent out, we honor the king himself, who is the original of the image. In the same way the Father is honored through the Son, just as he is also seen through him. 17 “For the one who has seen” the Son “has seen the Father.” He sees the unbegotten Godhead, as in an image and a mirror, stamped with its likeness in the Son. “For he is the radiance of eternal light, and a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.” The Son received all these things from the Father, and has his glory from him and from the Godhead, as a true and only-begotten Son. But the Father has received nothing from anyone. He is himself the beginning, the source and the root of all good things, and so he may rightly be proclaimed the one and only God.

Chapter 8

1 But Marcellus, who knows nothing of this, does not want the Son to have been truly begotten from the Father, as a living Son with his own real existence. Instead he says that he came forth from God as a word, one that signifies or commands something. Hear him say this openly in these words (Nr. 31): “To say that he was begotten before the ages seems to be consistent. For what comes forth from a father who sends it out becomes his offspring. But the other point he has not taken up soundly or reverently. For to say that the one who came forth from him is not a word, and that this is the true manner of begetting, but that he is truly a Son only, tends to give those who hear the impression of a human appearance.” 2 Then, to show that the Word was not begotten from the Father either, he says word for word (Nr. 28): “So the holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, when he spoke of his eternity, became a true witness to the Word, saying, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ making no mention here of any begetting of the Word.” In this way he denies the Son of God. He used to say that the Word in God is at one time inside God, at another time proceeds from God, and at yet another time will run back up to God and be in him,

3 as it was before. Listen to how he says this, in these words (Nr. 108): “But now I believe the divine Scriptures, that God is one. His Word came forth from the Father so that all things might come to be through him. But after the time of judgment, and the setting right of all things, and the destruction of every opposing power, ‘then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him,’ ‘to God and Father,’ so that in this way the Word may be in God just as he was before, before the world existed. For when nothing existed before except God alone, and all things were going to come to be through the Word, the Word came forth with active power, being the Word of the Father.” 4 And again he sets out the same thought more plainly, writing as follows (Nr. 54): “For before the world existed, the Word was in the Father. But when almighty God purposed to make everything in heaven and on earth, the coming-to-be of the world needed an active power. And for this reason, since nothing else existed except God (for it is agreed that all things were made by him), the Word then came forth and became the maker of the world. He had earlier been preparing it within, in thought.”

5 And once more, after all this, he adds (Nr. 34): “And for this reason he does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of man, so that by this confession he might bring it about that man, through fellowship with him, becomes by adoption a son of God. And after the end of his work he is united again with God, as Word, fulfilling what the apostle said: ‘Then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.’ For at that time he will be what he was before.” After saying all this about the Word who is in God, according to whom we understand him to be rational, Marcellus has fallen into terrible difficulty. He has dared to say that the Word who is in God once came to be outside God, and again, after the time of judgment, will be inside him, so that he is united with him in God as he was before.

Chapter 9

1 So it is time for us to put our questions to him and have him answer. What, then, are we to think about the time in between, when the Word of God was outside God? How did he come forth? And in what condition was God, if he did not have his own Word in himself? For if the Word will be in God at the consummation of all things, as he was before the time of the consummation, how will he be the Word who came forth from God? If he came to be, subsisting in himself, as one distinct from God, then Marcellus’s labor is in vain. But if, even after coming forth from God, like the spoken word in us he remained inseparable from the Father, then he was always and continually in God, even when he was at work. 2 Why, then, does he send it off to the time of judgment, saying that only then will he be united to God and will be as he was before? For if he will then be as he was before, then the Word who came forth from God will not be what he was earlier. God himself will also be unlike himself. Long ago he had the Word in himself, and at the consummation of all things he will take him back and then become as he was before; but in the time between he would have been in an unlike state. And the Word likewise, having come to be outside God, will not be before the consummation of all things what he was before.

3 What account could be more impious than this? For the words “was,” “will be,” “came to be at one time,” and “is again going to be” all indicate change in time. They are foreign to an essence that is timeless, without beginning, unbegotten and unchanging. Of that essence it is fitting to think only of being: that it always exists without variation, in the same way and in the same manner. It is not diminished, not contracted, not stretched out, not spread abroad. It has no outside and inside to itself. It does not become one thing at one time and another at another. It is not one thing first and then something else, and then restored again to its former state. 4 These are the things Marcellus dared to suppose. He says that God existed long ago, and he pictures a kind of stillness belonging to God alone. In this he follows the founder of those godless heresies, who set out his godless teachings by saying, “There was God, and silence.” After the silence and stillness, he says, the Word of God came forth at the beginning of the making of the world, in effective activity. So the Word was no longer what he had been before, resting quietly in a silent God, but was now active, having come forth from God. And how, then, did he come forth?

5 Surely by the uttering of an articulate voice, with God sounding out and speaking just as men do. At any rate, this is what he thought when he wrote as follows (Fr. 55): “For just as all things that have come to be were made by the Father through the Word, so also the things spoken by the Father are made known through the Word.” 6 And again (Fr. 56): “For everything the Father says, he is seen to say everywhere through the Word. This is clear from ourselves too, comparing small things with great and divine ones: we also do everything we wish, as far as we are able, to say or to do, by means of our own word.” 7 If, then, the Word came forth from the Father in this way, in effective activity, where did Marcellus get the idea of fixing the time of the end as the limit of the Word’s activity? For he says the Word will be in God at that time just as he was before, and before he had him resting quietly in a silent God. So there will be a kind of stillness after the end as well, since the Word will be about to do nothing. But before the creation of created things, he says, nothing existed except God, and since nothing existed, it was natural that he should picture stillness for himself.

8 At the time of the end, however, the prophet Daniel foretells that there will be tens of thousands before the throne of God. He says, “A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.” 9 All the sons of the age to come will be there then, too: the blessed souls of patriarchs, prophets and apostles, the holy spirits of martyrs, and all the sheep of our Savior, who will be set at his right hand and will hear, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” 10 Since so many will exist then and will live an immortal life after the time of judgment, why will the Word of God not be active then too? Where did Marcellus get the notion to declare that God will no longer speak to the saints at that time, nor make use of his active Word, but will be as he was before, evidently silent and at rest within himself? He often gave this impression by saying that the Word will be then just as he was before; and before, as he himself said, he was in stillness.

11 So God will fall silent then. Before that he speaks and uses his Word as active, but then, in the very kingdom of heaven that was promised, he deprives his saints of his own Word and of the wisdom in him. You see over what a cliff he has gone, having taken no one’s hand to guide him, and not the divine Scriptures either. All of this, at any rate, he put together for himself from a single phrase that he had not understood. 12 For when he turned to his proofs from the new covenant, he was hard pressed on every side. He found only one expression that fit his bad doctrine, and as if he had come upon a lucky find, he clung to that alone. Even this was not spoken in the person of our Savior but in the person of the evangelist, who gave him that name, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Starting from there, he took him to be nothing other than a word like the one we know in ourselves, and so he denied the Son.

Chapter 10

1 Yet the great and divine evangelist did not call him only “Word,” as we have often said, but also God, light, Son and only-begotten. And the evangelist records that the Savior himself never calls himself “Word” anywhere in Scripture. Throughout the whole Gospel he calls himself life, light, only-begotten and Son of God, truth, resurrection, bread of life, vine, shepherd, and countless other things, as has already been shown. 2 Why, then, with so many titles before him, does he not stop at the mere word for any of the others, and instead examine the meaning of what is said, yet for “Word” alone insist that the Son is called this in the strict sense, as though he were nothing other than a word? He writes in these very words (Nr. 40): “not called Word by misuse of the term, though the false teachers of other doctrines burst with rage, but being Word properly and truly.”

3 And again (Nr. 39): “Let him learn, then, that the Word of God has come, not as one named Word by misuse of the term, as they say, [but] as one who is truly Word.” And once more (Nr. 43 = 81): “Formerly, as I have often said, he was nothing other than Word.” And again (Nr. 42): “Before he came down and was born through the virgin, he was Word only.” For what else was he, before taking on human flesh, the one who came down “in the last days,” as Marcellus himself wrote, and was born of the virgin? He was nothing other than Word. To Marcellus, as he says these things, it would be fair to put this question: And where, my good man, do we get 4 “nothing other” and “only,” which you add? We know exactly what is written: “In the beginning was the Word.” And not only that, but also “and the Word was God,” and “it was the light that enlightens every human being,” and “he was the only-begotten Son,” and all the other titles that have been collected. But that he was Word only, and nothing other than Word, no one could show to have been said.

5 So where does this bold addition come from? For why should someone not rather say that he is Son only and nothing other than Son? Why not God and nothing other than God? Why not light of the world and nothing other than that? Why not life and nothing else? And the same question could most justly be put about similar titles. 6 But just as anyone who said this would be proved wrong (for he is all these things together, being one Son of God, and anything higher than these, counted worthy of each different title according to each conception of the divine powers in him), 7 so too in the case of “Word,” whoever says that he is Word only and nothing else could rightly be said to err. Only the evangelist John called him Word, and not that alone but other names too. The Savior himself declared himself light, truth, life, only-begotten Son, and the rest, but never Word. How is it not absurd, then, that for the names he gave himself, Marcellus does not say that he is one of these and nothing else, yet for the evangelist’s word about him, which called him Word, he insists that he was nothing other than Word?

8 But, he says (Nr. 40), “properly and truly being Word.” Why not also properly and truly being God? For it was not one man who called him Word and another who called him God. One and the same evangelist taught that he is both God and Word, saying “and the Word was God,” and the same man also named him light. Why then is he not properly and truly only-begotten Son, and all the other things that the Master and Savior himself testified about himself through the evangelist? But Marcellus passes over everything else and says that he is properly and truly Word alone. He adds that he was only Word, and from this he falls into a likeness with the human word.

Chapter 11

1 When he hears him called light, he does not fall into thinking of bodily light, nor does he say that he is like the sun’s brightness. But when it comes to “Word,” he presents him as a spoken expression, like the human one. So he says that the Word at one time rests quietly in God, and at another time goes forth from God, becoming inside him and outside him, by likeness to the word among us, which is called the inward word and also the word uttered aloud through the voice. 2 He says in these very words: “Everything the Father says, he is seen to say everywhere through the Word. This is clear from ourselves too, as far as small things can be compared with great and divine ones: for we also do everything we wish to say and do, as far as we are able, by means of our own word.” And again he says: “Before the whole work of creation there was, as one would expect, a kind of stillness, since the Word was in God.” Then he adds: “For since nothing existed before except God alone, and since all things were going to come into being through the Word, the Word came forth with active power.”

3 After saying so much about the Word, listen to how he tries to explain the voice of the Gospel. He writes: “The holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, at the beginning of the Gospel teaches clearly and explicitly what had been unknown among men before. Calling him the Word of the Almighty, he said: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’” By using more than one testimony, he shows the eternity of the Word. 4 And again he says: “By using three testimonies in succession, he wants to show the eternity of the Word.” And he adds once more: “So that by saying ‘In the beginning was the Word’ he might show that the Word was in the Father in power (for God is the beginning of everything that has come to be, ‘from whom are all things’), and by saying ‘and the Word was with God’

5 he might show that the Word was with God in active operation (‘for all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being’), and by saying that the Word was God he might show that he does not divide the Godhead, since the Word is in God and God is in the Word. For he says, ‘The Father is in me, and I in the Father.’” By all this Marcellus does away with the real existence of the only-begotten Son of God, and calls the divine evangelist to witness for his own false teaching, as though the evangelist knew nothing other than a Word, sometimes active and at other times resting in God, and nothing other than God himself.

Chapter 12

1 Yet the great evangelist, who is also the theologian, mentions the Word three times in the same passage, and not once did he call him “the Word of God.” For he did not say, “In the beginning was the Word of God,” but without qualification, “In the beginning was the Word,” leaving us to ask what kind of Word he was. And again he said, “And the Word was with God,” though he could have said, “And the Word of God was in God.” Nor did he say, “And the Word was of God,” so that we would not suppose him to be some activity of God, one that signifies something or produces something. 2 Marcellus, however, supposing that he is the eternal Word of God, that is, unbegotten, has often defined him so. He does not see that if he says the Word is something other than God, there will be two eternal things (the Word and God), and there will no longer be one first principle. But if he says that the eternal is one, defining God and the Word as the same, he will confess Sabellius openly, bringing in, as Sabellius did, the one who is Son-Father.

3 So on his view the Father will be the one who was begotten and who suffered. He himself will be the one who prays to himself, and who says he has been sent by himself and calls himself his own Son and only-begotten, not speaking truly but lying in irony. What other account could be more impious than this? But come, let us see what kind of Word the evangelist proclaims to us when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Chapter 13

1 Now the word “logos,” when it is spoken in the Greek language, offers many meanings for reflection. First, the logos is what is laid down in the rational soul, by which we are able to reason. Second, besides this, there is another, which signifies something through the tongue and articulate voice. And in a third way, there is the one set down by the writer in writing. 2 Fourth, we are also accustomed to call “word” (logos) the seed-like or plant-like principle. By it, things that have not yet come into being lie hidden in the seeds as a potential, and are on the point of coming out into the light in actual fact. Fifth, besides these, people also use “word” in another way for the knowledge of some art or science, the grasp of all such matters of study, as in medicine, architecture or geometry.