On Ecclesiastical Theology (Book 2 – Book 3)

On Ecclesiastical Theology

continued

Chapter 14

1 So the word “Word” suggests several different senses. The evangelist said without qualification, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We should therefore pay close attention and learn that here the evangelist hands down a kind of “word” unlike anything we already know. He says “Word” without qualification, but then adds the strangeness and surprising character of its own special power in the words “and the Word was God.” 2 It is as if he were saying: do not suppose that this Word is one of those things that exist only in relation to something else, like the word in the soul, or the word heard through the voice, or the word in bodily seeds, or the word that lies in mathematical studies. All of these exist in relation to something else, and are understood to rest in another substance that exists before them. But God the Word does not need some other prior thing in which to come to be and so exist. He is living and subsisting by himself, since he is God. For “the Word was God.”

3 And when you hear that he is God, he says, do not suppose that he too is without beginning and unbegotten, as his Father is. Learn instead that “in the beginning was” this God the Word. What kind of beginning he has, the evangelist makes clear next. He does not say “and the Word was the God,” adding the article, so as not to mark him out as the God over all. Nor does he say “in God,” so as not to lower him to a human likeness. He says, “and the Word was with God.” 4 For if he had said “and the Word was in God,” he would have been treating the Word as something that happens to belong to a underlying subject, giving one thing in another. He would then be bringing in a God who is composite, supposing a substance without a word, with the word as something added to the substance.

5 Marcellus thought this, and so he brings the Father and the Son together into one, calling the substance the Father and the Word in him the Son. He did not reckon that anyone who grants this is supposing God to be without a Word. Such a person would fall into a godless and impious teaching, accepting a God without reason, who has a word as something added in him but is not himself Word. 6 What is required is to confess that the One beyond all things is a single divine being: unspeakable, good, simple, uncompounded, of one form. He is himself God, himself mind, himself Word, himself wisdom, himself light, himself life, himself the beautiful, himself the good, and whatever better thing anyone could imagine beyond these. Rather, he is above all mind and beyond all thought and reflection. 7 And his only-begotten Son, as the image of the Father sprung from him, is in every way and in all respects most like the one who begot him. He too is God, mind, Word, wisdom, life and light, and the image of the beautiful and good itself. He is not himself the Father but the Father’s only-begotten Son. He is not himself the unbegotten and beginningless one, but the one sprung from him, who names the one who begot him as his beginning.

8 But if Marcellus objects to this and says that God and the Word in him are the same, defining God as uncompounded and simple, then it is time for him to confess neither Father nor Son. He would plainly be putting forward the Jew’s position, or bringing in Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. So according to him, “In the beginning was the Word” would be equal to “In the beginning was God,” and “the Word was with God” would be equal to “God was with God.” 9 The third phrase would likewise be the same as “and the Word was God,” and all this would be not only incoherent but utterly absurd. And how could “all things were made through him” have any place if there is only one underlying subject? For the evangelist does not say that all things came into being by him or out of him, but “through him.” The preposition “through” indicates service, as the same evangelist shows when he goes on to say, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The law was not of human origin, and it did not belong to Moses himself; it came from God, and Moses is described as the servant and minister of its being delivered to men. That is why it is said, “The law was given through Moses.” In the same way “grace came through Jesus Christ,” since the Father brought it about through Christ.

10 So also “all things were made through him” is said in the same way: one made them, and the other served in the making. The result is that anyone who says this must look for some other maker of the universe, one who brought all things into being through the one called God. And who could that be? He could not say. 11 Since this is so, we must acknowledge that the one called God by the evangelist is not the God over all, not the Father himself, but the Father’s only-begotten Son. He is not an attribute of the Father, nor something existing in him as in an underlying subject, nor one and the same thing as God. He is truly a Son, living and with a real existence of his own, who was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God, and through whom he creates all things.

12 So anyone who restated the passage more clearly would rightly say, in place of “In the beginning was the Word,” “In the beginning was the Son”; in place of “and the Word was with God,” “and the Son was with the Father”; and in place of “and the Word was God,” “and the Son was God.” In this way the next statement also fits: “All things were made through him, and without him not one thing was made.” 13 So it is fitting that the divine evangelist said “in the beginning” of him, giving him a beginning. He plainly means his begetting from the Father, for everything begotten from someone has the one who begot it as its beginning. Yet he did not go on in the same way to say “and the Word was in God,” but “the Word was with God.” He teaches that the one who was begotten, and who has the Father as his beginning, is not somewhere far from the Father, nor cut off and standing at a distance from him, but is present with him and is together with him.

14 This is also what he taught in Proverbs. First he said, “Before all the hills he begets me,” and then he added, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.” So the Word, clearly the only-begotten Son, was with his own Father, God, always and at all times, being with him and present beside him. 15 This is what the evangelist showed when he said, “And the Word was with God.” But since we also needed to know what dignity he had, he necessarily added, “and the Word was God.” For how could the one begotten from the one and only unbegotten God fail to be God? If, according to the Savior’s teaching, “what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” then it follows that what is born of God must be God. Therefore “the Word was God.” 16 He is God, the maker and creator of all things. The evangelist showed this too, when he next added, “All things were made through him.” The law, which was a tutor, delivered through Moses, introduced God as the maker of the universe in the account of creation. It taught the first elements and introductions to reverence for God, saying, “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and what follows.

17 By these words it urged the people of the Jews, whom it was training like a tutor, to believe that the world was created, so that they would not worship the creation instead of the Creator. 18 But Moses did not go on to teach those under him how God made all things, or through whom. That was left to “grace and truth through Jesus Christ.” It announced the mystery that Moses had kept silent about, and it began a newer and more hidden teaching in the church of God. It cried out plainly, for all to hear: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “All things were made through him, 19 and apart from him not one thing was made.” To these it added: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness,” and what follows. By these words it teaches about the Son of God, the special qualities of the divine light and of the life in him, and how everything Moses spoke of, and everything beyond it, came into being through him. But Marcellus knows none of this. At one time he is caught Judaizing, at another Sabellianizing.

20 Like the Jew, he says that before the world was established there was nothing but God alone. Yet the church confesses that before the world was established there were the Father and the Son. Like Sabellius, he declares that Son and Father are one and the same, and at one time he presents him as the word within, at another as the word spoken. 21 For even if he pretends not to accept these terms, it is still clear from his saying that at one time the Word is inside God, and at another comes forth from him in effective action, and from the fact that he likens him to the human word. But the divine evangelist did not set forth the Word he speaks of as God in any of these ways. He taught us to think of the only-begotten Son of God as he deserves. He is Word, because by the Word God established all things, and apart from the Word nothing that exists came to be. He is God and only-begotten, because he alone was truly Son of the God over all: a genuine Son in reality and beloved, made like his own Father in every respect.

22 So too he was truly light, because he shines the light of mind and reason into souls made in his image. For this reason the evangelist does not say he is the light of all things, but only of men. For he said, “There was the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.” In the same way he was truly life, because he supplies the stream of life that comes from him to all who live. And for each way of thinking about the divine powers in him, you would find titles of his that are true and that express them. For in every respect the Son of God was truth, as he shows himself when he says, “I am the truth.”

Chapter 15

1 But the new writer neither understands nor knows these things, nor does he know that he is ignorant of them, though he boasts of knowing how they came to be. Come, then, let us take up his words again and hear how he likens him to the human word, both the one in the mind and the one spoken. This is how he writes: “This, I think, is easy for sensible people to grasp even from a small and humble example taken from ourselves. For no one can separate a man’s word from him in power and substance. The word is one and the same with the man, and is separated from him by nothing else but the activity of the action.” 2 In these words he has used the spoken word as an image. But he uses the inner word where he says this: “For God needed no other preparation for the construction, such as matter or anything else of human kind, but only this preparation in his own mind. Since it was impossible for God to think out the construction of heaven without the Word and the wisdom that goes with the Word, it was natural for him to say, ‘When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.’”

3 Then, going on, he presents the Word of God as inner at the same time, writing thus: “For who among the holy angels or righteous men was so trustworthy as to release the penalty that had been set on man from the face of God, if not the Word himself, who was present with him and formed with him, to whom the Father said, ‘Let us make man’?” 4 Next he makes clear what kind of “word” he has in mind, when he says: “But suppose someone used a small, human example like ourselves and examined the divine action through a kind of picture. Take a skilled sculptor who wants to form a statue. First he studies its outlines and features within himself. Then he considers how wide and how long it should be to look fitting, and he works out the proportion of the whole in each separate part. He prepares the suitable bronze and sketches the coming statue in his own mind, so that he thinks he sees it with the mind. He knows that the word works together with him, the word by which he reasons and by which he is accustomed to do everything (for nothing done without reason is beautiful). Then, as he begins this visible work, he urges himself on as if he were speaking to someone else: ‘Come, let us make, come, let us form a statue.’ In the same way God, the Master of all, when he made the living statue from the earth, urged on no one else but his own Word, saying, ‘Let us make man.’” Through these words he plainly attributes to God both an inward word, by which one reasons things through, and a spoken word, by which one converses. He assumes that the word in God is of the same kind as the word in us.

Chapter 16

1 All this amounts to a denial of the Son of God, and there is no need to work over it further. But I think it fitting to ask this much. If God were one and nothing else, neither Father nor Son, why did the Scripture falsely use such names? Why does Marcellus himself pretend, calling him not “Son” but “Word,” and then “Son”? And since he has used as his example the word that is in human beings, we must say that not every man has a son, though every man is rational and has within himself the word that is natural to him. 2 So a son is something other than the word. If, then, Marcellus says that God has a word within himself and nothing else, the word by which he thought and by which he spoke to himself when he said, “Let us make man,” why does he pointlessly use the name “Son”? Why does he put on a show for the church? Why does he pretend to believe in the Son of God when he does not believe, disguising himself by calling the word in God “Son”? His own example clearly teaches that the word planted in a soul is very far from a son, who is begotten from someone, who has his own existence, and who lives and acts in his own right.

3 But he will probably reply: “It was not I but the divine evangelist who called him ‘Word,’ so it follows that you should agree with him.” Yes, I say so too.

Chapter 17

1 Yet I think we should understand the term in no other way than by learning again from the evangelist himself, who teaches what sort of word he meant. He shows plainly what sort of being this was by adding next: “and the Word was God.” He could have said, “and the Word was the God,” with the article added, if he thought that the Father and the Son were one and the same, and that the Word himself was the God over all. But he did not write the Scripture that way. 2 For if he were making the Scripture agree with Marcellus’s thought, he would have had to say either “the Word was God’s” or “the Word was the God,” with the article added. As it stands, he shows that the Word himself is God, just like the God with whom he was. For after first saying, “and the Word was with God,” he adds, “and the Word was God.” He all but teaches us outright, first, to regard as God the one who is beyond all things, the Father of the Word himself, with whom the Word was. Then, after him, we are not to be ignorant that his Word, the only-begotten Son, was not himself the God over all, but that he too was God.

3 For the word “and” joins the Son’s deity to the Father. That is why he says, “and the Word was God”: so that we may see the God over all, with whom the Word was. Hear also that the Word himself is God, as the image of God. He is an image not as in lifeless material, but as in a living Son, made exactly like the original deity of the Father. 4 Marcellus thought it right to compare God’s Word with the human word. But if he was going to use the human word as an image, he should have used this comparison more fully, and it would have served him far better. He should have said that the father of the word in us is the mind, which is something other than the word. No one among men has ever known what the mind is in its essence, or what kind of thing it is. Like a king seated within his own private chambers, it deliberates in secret about what must be done. But the word that comes from it, born as it were out of the father’s innermost recesses, becomes known to everyone outside.

5 Then people receive benefit from the word, but the unseen and invisible mind, the father of the word, no one has ever seen. 6 In the same way, or rather beyond every image and example, the perfect Word of God, the King of all, is not made up of syllables, verbs and nouns like the spoken word of men. He is the only-begotten Son of God, living and having real existence. He proceeds from the Father’s deity and kingship, and he waters the whole world with the supplies that come from him. He pours out, as into pools, a share of life, reason, wisdom, light and every good thing to all created beings. But the Father and God of all is beyond everything, beyond the grasp and the reach of all, like the unseen and invisible mind. This is why he is also said to be “dwelling in unapproachable light.” 7 So the Father is unapproachable and beyond the reach of all. The Son is nearer to all, since he steers all things by the Father’s nod. This is why the words “he was in the world, and the world came to be through him” are said not of the Father but of the Son. The Father was beyond the universe and above all things, “dwelling in unapproachable light.” The Son extends through all things and in all things with caring providence. So the comparison with the human word holds only in this respect. Now that we have shown this, one of the lovers of learning may well ask:

Chapter 18

1 Why did the evangelist, at the beginning of his writing, call the only-begotten Son of God “the Word”? To him we will answer: because of the prophecies about him that had long been hidden. For it is said of each prophet, for example, “the word of the Lord which came to Isaiah,” and “the beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea,” and “the word of the Lord which came to Joel,” and “the word of the Lord came to Jonah,” 2 and likewise “to Micah,” and in a similar way for the rest of the prophets the word “came” was attached to each one. The divine Scripture was marking out, precisely and of necessity, that the Word was not in any of the prophets, but came to each one separately. He approached each according to what that person’s capacity could receive, and supplied from himself the Spirit that suited each soul. Now the evangelist was about to announce the good news of the Word’s work in a way the mind can grasp. He teaches that the Word did not come to some other person as he did to the ancients, but that he himself took flesh and became man. Then, since he was going to proclaim the Word’s saving arrival among men for all, he says next, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Of necessity he runs back to the beginning, to show who and what kind of being the Word was, who had become flesh only yesterday and the day before.

3 He speaks of him as God, announcing together the knowledge of him and his appearing among men as God. Then, as though the ancients had already learned from the divine readings about the Word who came to each prophet, he himself proclaims the Word’s more divine and distinctive beginning, which no prophet ever showed to men so openly and uncovered. 4 So with a loud voice he handed on to all this hidden and secret mystery about the Word, and cried out: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be.” 5 For he says: If you were trained by the earlier divine Scriptures and learned long ago that the word of the Lord came to this prophet, and likewise came to another, and again to another, yet now it is necessary to announce to all, not how he came, but how he was in the beginning. It is necessary to announce that “he was God,” and that “all things came to be through him,” and that this same God the Word, “through whom are all things,” by the Father’s love for mankind “became flesh and dwelt among us.”

6 John, the great disciple and apostle of Christ, proclaimed this good news. He was teaching all people the new and fresh mysteries of the Savior. He did not mean that God was “rational,” or that God reasoned with himself and talked things over with himself when he said, “Let us make man,” or that God made use of words that give orders for things to be done. Anyone who denies the Son of God would say such things. 7 Marcellus does just this. As if to a hideout, he runs to the old Scripture and tries to collect the commands given to the Jewish people, who were still like infants, not to worship idols but to know and revere one God only. There his teaching about the one God found its opening. It was handed down usefully and at the right time to Jews who were prone to idolatry. Having fled there, and having fenced himself in, as in a stronghold, with the hardness of heart of the Jews, he put forward a denial of the Son of God.

Chapter 19

1 Listen, then, to the words he uses. He writes as follows, word for word: “Whom, then, does Asterius suppose is the one who says, ‘I am the one who is’? The Son or the Father? For he said that there are two hypostases, looking to the human flesh which the Word of God took up and imagining things this way because of it, and he said they belong to a Father and a Son. In this way he separates the Son of God from the Father, as someone might separate a son of man from his natural father.” 2 He goes on to add: “If, then, he will say that it was the Father, separating himself from the Son, who said these things to Moses, he will be admitting that the Son is not God. For how is it possible for the one who says, ‘I am the one who is,’ not to agree that he says he is ‘the one who is’ in contrast to what is not? But if he claims that it is the Son, a separate hypostasis, who says this, ‘I am the one who is,’ the same thing will in turn be thought to be said about the Father. Each of these is impious.”

3 And again, trying to show that the Father and the Son are one, he writes this: “For he himself confesses, saying, ‘The Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ That he did not say this casually or without purpose is clear also from another apostolic saying. For the one who said, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism,’ also said, ‘one God and Father, who is over all and through all and in all.’ You see that here too he does not depart from agreement, but the same thing holds. For having said ‘one Lord,’ he then said ‘one God,’ so that whenever he mentions the one Lord he includes the Father, and whenever he speaks about the Father he testifies that the Word of God is not outside him.” 4 After saying this, Marcellus goes on to collect many more passages from the Old Testament to prove that God has no Son.

5 Claiming, then, that God is an undivided monad, he set out that the same one is Father and the same one is Son. He writes in this way: “What then? If we did not pay attention to the Spirit and hold that the monad is undivided in power, would we not be sinning, when the Word clearly teaches us, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone’?” 6 He proclaims the same thing through the Gospel according to Mark as well. A certain scribe came up to him and asked which was the first of the commandments, and he answered him: “The first of all is: Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength. This is the first. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

7 There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “Well said, Teacher; you have said truly that God is one and there is no other besides him.” 8 But the scribe, who seemed to have learned the worship of God through the law, is shown praising the Savior’s saying, “Hear, Israel,” which says “the Lord your God is one,” and confirming as with an oath that it was well said. For he says, “You have said truly that God is one and there is no other besides him.” Yet these men, who boast that they know the mysteries of the New Testament, want to invent a second God, separated from the Father in hypostasis and power. 9 To these things he adds, to prove that God is one and that there is no Son (no. 68): “That Scripture knows how to call the unity [monad] Lord and God has already become clear from what was said before, where God said to his servant Moses: ‘And God said again to Moses: Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ You see how, showing us one person here, he calls the same one Lord and God.”

10 Again, in the same way, Scripture says: “And the Lord spoke all these words, saying: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods besides me.” You hear how, by the pronoun, he shows that there is only one God. 11 And again a little later he says, “I am the Lord your God,” declaring himself to be Lord and God. And what do we learn from another passage? “And you shall know today,” it says, “and not be turned aside in your mind, that the Lord your God, he is God in heaven [above] and on the earth below, and there is none besides him.” And again in the same Deuteronomy it says: “Hear, Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole mind.”

12 And again in the same book: “See, see that I am, and there is no God besides me; I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal.” How then did Asterius, who pretends to follow the holy Scriptures simply and with fear, not recognize this passage, which says, “The Lord your God, he is God in heaven [above] and on the earth below, and there is no one else besides him,” and that “he is one,” and that besides him there is no other? 13 And after other remarks he adds to these things again, saying (no. 68): “How then will the holy prophet Jeremiah not plainly refute him for teaching something different? For prophesying to us about the Savior he spoke thus: ‘This is our God; no other will be reckoned alongside him. He found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. After this he appeared on the earth and lived among men.’”

14 And again he adds, saying (no. 50): “But it appears that the Father is in the Word, even if it does not seem so to Asterius and those who think the same as he does. For this is what seems right to the divinely inspired prophet Isaiah, who says through the Holy Spirit: ‘And they will worship you, and in you they will pray; for in you is God, and there is no other besides you. For you are God.’ Do you see how he overturns by the roots the crafty mischief of those who teach something different?” 15 And again he continues (no. 67): “And if you also want to hear another prophecy of the same prophet confirming that God is one for us: ‘I am God,’ he says, ‘the first, and for the things to come I am.’ For the word ‘I’ points to one person. The two expressions signify one person for us. For having said ‘I,’ he adds also ‘am,’ so that through the two parts of speech, pronoun and verb, the unity [monad] of the Godhead is attested.”

16 “And if he should need another testimony, I will again offer him the same prophet, saying: ‘I am the first and I am after these things. And besides me there is no God.’ If Asterius supposes that the Son is divided from the Father in substance [hypostasis], like a son of man, he is being offended by the human flesh which he took on for our sake. Let him show us who it is that says these things;” 17 “for here too the statement is that of one person. Who then is the one who says, ‘There is no God besides me’? Let him also listen to another prophecy that says, ‘There is no righteous one and savior besides me.’ If he thinks there are two gods, he must confess that the other is not righteous and not a savior. But if he is neither righteous nor a savior, how can he still be God? For the text declares that there is one righteous one and savior. And again it says: ‘Before me there was no other, and after me there will be none; I am God, and there will be no one saving apart from me.’”

18 If he also wants to hear another prophetic saying, perhaps one spoken against him and against those who think the same way about the Godhead, let him listen to Isaiah himself, who says: “Repent, you who go astray; turn back in your heart, and remember the former things from of old, for I am God, and there is none besides me.” 19 He did not say “I am God” without the article, so that by adding the article (“the God”) he might show plainly that he is the one God. And what of the prophet Hosea? Does he not give the same witness, 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, “Has not one God 20 created you?” he says. “Do you not all have one Father?” But perhaps Asterius will say that David said nothing about this, even though he is older than the other prophets except Moses, and that therefore he is unsure whether we ought to think there are two gods divided in substance, or not. So that he may not say this, I think it fitting to show him that David too says the same things as the holy men already mentioned: “Hear, my people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I will testify against you. If you listen to me, there shall be no new god among you, and you shall not worship a foreign god.

21 For I am the Lord your God.” The one who points to himself and says “I am” — is it not clear that he is saying there is only one God, that is, himself?

Chapter 20

1 Marcellus piled up all these texts, and still more than these, to deny the Son of God. In his ignorance he did not consider that this kind of teaching was given to them because of the hardness of heart of the Jewish people. For it was not possible for the Holy Spirit, speaking through God’s prophets, to hand over the full word of true godliness to people whose minds were not yet mature. 2 So it was that he gave them laws to perform sacrifices, bodily circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, abstinence from certain foods, purifications of the body, and bodily blessings. He also gave them the promise of a land flowing with “milk and honey,” but not the promise of the kingdom of heaven. Our Savior and Lord was asked how it was that, when Moses commanded that anyone who wished should give a certificate of divorce and send his wife away, he himself gave the opposite command. He gave a general principle in reply, saying, “Moses wrote this for your hardness of heart, but from the beginning it was not so.”

3 He would therefore have said the same thing if someone had asked why Moses and the prophets after him, while urging the worship of one God, did not teach the people the knowledge of the Son. Those who were constantly being led away by the error of many gods were not able to receive the grace of the gospel. So, because of their hardness of heart, they framed their teaching about the one God. For the time being they were training them like children, turning them away from supposing there were many gods and leading them toward the introduction of the one. 4 Moses handed down an incomplete teaching to the people of his day because their understanding was incomplete. So he made no mention at all of the creation of angels in his account of the making of the world. Yet the prophets after him mentioned not only angels but also divine powers, holy spirits, and God’s servants above the heavens. Daniel teaches about them when he says, “A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”

5 But Moses passed over all of these in silence. He was not ignorant of them, since he had already received exact knowledge of everything by the divine Spirit. Still, he made no mention of them in the account of creation as things made by God. 6 One could give no other reason for this than the hardness of heart of the people, just as the Savior himself taught. You can also learn from the readings of the New Testament that there are countless other things in the constitution of the universe that are not found at all in the writing of Moses. He did not mention rulers, authorities, world-rulers, or the spiritual forces “of wickedness,” against which the divine apostle says our wrestling is set. 7 What then? Since the teaching about these things cannot be clearly found in Moses or in the other prophets, are we to disbelieve the apostle? Or, when the same apostle again mentions the order of the higher beings, saying that Christ sits “at the right hand” of God “far above every rule and authority and power and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come,”

8 And again, when Paul names thrones, lordships, rulers and authorities, saying, “For in him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities,” should we not accept this teaching just because neither Moses nor the other prophets spoke of these things beforehand? Or shall we say the same about these things too: that the “stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears” were not able to be trusted with teaching about them? The prophets of God did not reveal to such people even the Jerusalem above. Paul made the teaching about it plain to the church of Christ and cried out, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother,” and, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the festal gathering and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven.”

9 Let Marcellus answer this, if he is able to bring forward the teaching on these matters from the ancient writings. 10 But if he cannot find it, let him give the reason why the prophets of God kept silent about all these things, and about countless other things like them. The same apostle prayed to God about such things on our behalf, “that we may be strong enough to grasp, together with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge.” 11 Our Saviour himself also revealed a great many mysteries to his disciples about the kingdom of heaven, about the end of all things, and about the promises. Sometimes he did this through parables and sometimes in secret teaching. To them he said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of God.” One could not find the like of these things in Moses or in the other prophets.

12 What then? Since these things were not handed over to the people of the Jews, but were kept for the church of Christ until the right time, should we on that account reject the grace given to us? Or should we give greater thanks to the one who counted us worthy of such knowledge? In the same way, then, it is right to receive the teachings about the Son from his own new covenant. We should not be at all surprised if the men of God did not uncover the knowledge of him to a hard-hearted people, but kept the teaching about him in store for the fitting time. 13 For at that time it did not seem suitable to hand over the mystery of the Father and the Son to men who were being dragged down into the error of many gods. For the same reason the prophets did not uncover the teaching about the lower powers to them, so that they would not fall, on that pretext, into Greek polytheism. The Greeks had invented for themselves a god who was “father of men and gods.”

14 So the Word, to hold them back from such error, proclaimed the one God. Yet he did not deny that this same God is Father. He taught them to worship the true God and urged them to know no one besides him, but he did not deny that he is Father. And if he called him Lord and God and righteous and Saviour, he did not thereby rule out thinking of him as Father of his only-begotten and beloved Son. So whether it is the Father or the Son who says “I am the one who is,” 15 the word would be true either way. For the Father could be “the one who is,” since he alone is “over all, and through all, and in all, God,” as the divine apostle taught. And the Son also would speak truly in being called “the one who is,” since he is the only Son, the only-begotten, of the One who is. Moreover, being the image of the invisible God, he is his image in this respect: that he alone was himself “the one who is.” For this reason he too may be called “the one who is,” since he, like the Father, is proclaimed both God and Lord throughout all of God-inspired Scripture.

Chapter 21

1 This can also be learned from the word spoken to Moses. For Scripture says, “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 that he had appeared to the fathers. And when he appeared, Scripture again bears witness, saying, “The Lord God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, as he was sitting at the door of his tent.” How did he appear, if not in human form? And whom ought we to believe this was, if not the Son of God? The Son himself made this plain in the Gospels when he said to the Jews, “Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” 2 When they marveled at the saying, he added, “Before Abraham was, I am,” showing most plainly that he existed before. What, then, does the word establish, if not that it was the Son of God himself who spoke to Moses and said, “I am the one who is”? For he himself taught that he had appeared to Abraham. And how he was himself “the one who is” has already been explained.

3 The great apostle Paul also knows that the Son of God became the mediator of the law given through Moses, where he teaches, “The law was ordained through angels, by the hand of a mediator. But a mediator is not of one.” So the one who spoke to Moses was the mediator, acting as mediator for the salvation of human beings from that time on, before he took flesh. 4 The same apostle showed that this mediator is Jesus Christ, when he said, “One God, and one mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus.” So whether the words “I am the one who is” are spoken to Moses in the Son’s own person, or whether it was the Father who uttered this voice through him, the statement is true either way. 5 Let Marcellus, then, not be at a loss, as though he were using an inescapable argument, as he thinks, when he says (no. 57): “Whom, then, does Asterius suppose to be the one who says ‘I am the one who is’—the Son or the Father?” Then he goes on to conclude that if the Father is the one who is, the Son will no longer be God. (No. 58) “For the one who is says that he is so in contrast to what is not. But if Asterius should claim that the Son, as a separate subsistence, is the one who says ‘I am the one who is,’ the same thing will in turn be thought to be said of the Father. And either of these is impious.”

6 In saying this, Marcellus himself has fallen into both absurdities: he lays down that the one who is, is one, and denies the other. And whom he himself takes this one to be, he could hardly tell. For if he grants it to the Father, he will deny the Son; or if he accepts only the Son, he will reject the Father. More truly, he will be shown to know neither Father nor Son, since he grants only one and removes the other from the scene. And even 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. 7 You shall have no other gods besides me,” here again let him not be troubled in his soul, but let him also hear the words joined to it. For after saying, “You shall have no other gods besides me,” he added, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them; for I am the Lord your God, a jealous Lord.”

8 You see how he was warning them not to be swept away into the polytheistic error of the nations, but to know him alone as God and Lord. And who was this? It was the Son, who has the image of the Father in himself, giving these commands by the Father’s authority to people sick with idolatry. For just as “all things came to be through him,” the Father having established through the Savior the substance of everything that has come to be, so it was the Father himself who handed down to human beings the knowledge of himself and reverence for him, through the mediator, the Son. 9 The apostle also taught this in these very words when writing to the Galatians, where he said, “The law was ordained through angels, by the hand of a mediator. But a mediator is not of one, but God is one.” 10 Even when he says, “See, see that I am he, and there is no God except me,” it was again the Father speaking, as through an image and mediator, that is, through the Son. Consider Isaiah the prophet. He says, “I begot sons and raised them high,” and again, “Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me,” and again, “I gave orders to all the stars, and with my hand I made the heaven firm,” and much else of this kind. We do not say that Isaiah himself speaks these words. We say that God, who speaks in him, speaks through him. Would it not be just as fitting, then, in the case of the only-begotten Son of God, that the Father should give this testimony through him to people who needed such commands? These people were idolaters, as the same Scripture teaches when it says, “And the Lord said: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted? You ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings. Let them rise up and help you, and let them be your shelter.” For it is with these words that the saying is joined: “See, see that I am he, and there is no God except me.”

Chapter 22

1 GREEK: (translate) Even if he cries out ten thousand times through the prophet, “There is no God except me,” and “There is no righteous one and savior except me,” and “You shall know no God except me, and there is no savior apart from me,” and whatever else of this kind is found in the other prophets, it was still God who, from that very time, was “reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” And it was the Father himself who spoke these things to people through the only-begotten Son, as through an interpreter. The Son himself also handed this on in the Gospels, teaching that we should know only one God, when he said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” 2 So the true God himself is the one and only God, and there is no other besides him. At that time he gave these commands to the idolatrous Jewish nation, not only through the prophets but through his own Son. Take Isaiah (or rather God through him). He said, “There is no God except me. Who is like me?” and then, “You are my witnesses whether there is a God except me.” He went on to add, “And they did not exist then. Those who mold and those who carve are all worthless, doing what pleases themselves.”

3 Throughout the whole of his prophecy you would find the lifeless idols being cut down. In each of the prophets likewise you will find the one God proclaimed to turn people away from the error of many gods. This is also our own custom. In our discussions with superstitious pagans, we keep the teaching about Christ for a suitable time. Meanwhile we bring them proofs against the error of idolatry, and we establish by demonstrative arguments that there is one God. 4 So let Marcellus learn, if he has grown old in the oversight of Christ’s church and still has not learned it: the knowledge of the hidden mystery concerning the Son of God was in no way suited to the ancient people, who were prone to slip into idolatry. Only for his own church was “the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations” kept in store through his grace. In that mystery was contained the teaching about the holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

5 But Marcellus has gathered together just the sort of arguments that a Jewish teacher might offer when speaking about circumcision in a Jewish synagogue. He sets these before Christ’s disciples and prides himself on it. He does not realize that a Jew according to the flesh could say even more than he does. He boasts of these things, yet he is not ashamed to twist the true teachings about our Savior.

Chapter 23

1 Right away, then, Marcellus fails to understand the words of the divine apostle, who in the passages I have set out taught in various ways that the Son is the image of God. From them he ought to have understood that the church of God does not proclaim two gods. For, as I have often said, she introduces neither two unbegotten beings nor two without beginning, nor two substances set over against each other on equal footing, and therefore not two gods. She teaches that there is one source and one God, who is himself the Father of the only-begotten and beloved Son. In the same way she teaches one image “of the invisible God,” and that this image is the same as his only-begotten and beloved Son. The apostle, speaking of the Father in theological terms, says, “the blessed and only Sovereign,” and again, “who alone has immortality, 2 dwelling in unapproachable light,” and again, “to the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God,” and again, “to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory for ever. Amen.” Even if still more is said in praise of the one God over all, we must understand that the only-begotten Son of God is the image of all of these things. He is not an image in lifeless matter, but one formed in a living Son. And even if the Savior himself teaches that the Father is the only true God, saying “that they may know you, the only true God,” we must not shrink from confessing that the Son too is true God, since he possesses this as an image does. The word “only” is added for the Father alone, as the archetype of the image, and so it fits him.

3 The inspired Paul taught most clearly that the Son is the image and radiance of the Father and “in the form” of God, as has been shown in the earlier passages. Now when there is one Father who exists and one Son born from the Father, no one in his right mind would say that there are two fathers or two sons. In the same way, when one king rules and his image is carried about everywhere on earth, no sensible person would say there are two rulers, but one, who is honored also through the image. In the same way (as I have often said), the church of God, having received the teaching to worship one God, continues to worship that same God also through the Son, as through an image. 4 Marcellus did not understand this, and declared that the image “of the invisible God” is the flesh of the Savior, which the apostle called “the form of a servant.” He did not reckon that all human beings also are formed in the likeness of the Savior’s flesh. So he insists that the body the Savior took up is the image of the unbegotten, ineffable, fatherly Godhead, but he denies that the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things came into being (“for all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be”), is the image of God. He says in so many words (no. 82): “It is therefore plain that before the taking up of our body the Word, considered in himself, was not the image of the invisible God.” You see how great a distortion he has made of the apostle’s interpretation.

5 Yet John the evangelist proclaimed the mystery that had been known in hidden form to Moses and the other prophets, and uncovered it, crying out with a loud voice, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 6 All things came to be through him.” He also bore witness that “there was the light that enlightens every person coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him.” And he set forth the Sonship clearly, in saying of the Father, “No one has ever seen God,” but of the Son, “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him,”

Chapter 24

1 This admirable teacher of the words of Christ gathers the commandments of God and the sayings that direct what we are to do from the divine Scripture, and on that basis he defines the Word “in the beginning” as something of that kind. Listen to how he tries to establish this. He writes as follows (no. 41): * * * * * “But those who teach them seem ashamed to mention the Word, whom all the divine Scriptures proclaim in this way. David says of him, ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm,’ and again the same David says, ‘He sent out his word and healed them.’ Solomon says, ‘Evil men will seek me and will not find me, for they hated wisdom and did not choose the word of the Lord.’ Isaiah says, ‘Out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’ And again Jeremiah says, ‘The wise were put to shame and terrified and were caught, because they rejected the word of the Lord.’”

2 The prophet Hosea also said, “They hated the one who reproved in the gates, and they detested a holy word.” Micah likewise, mentioning the word himself, said, “Out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Marcellus gathers these passages and others like them, and thinks that by them he strengthens his own opinion. 3 But notice how he has thrown together in a muddle the testimonies from divine Scripture: the word of God that is sent out, the word that saves and heals, and the word that commands what is to be done. For what kind of word does “They hated the one who reproved in the gates, and detested a holy word” suggest, if not a word that commands holy and righteous actions? He is willing to confess anything rather than the Son of God, as though he were ashamed to mention the Son. We know that the Son of God is Son in the truest sense and truly the only-begotten of God. And we know precisely that he is Word, not like the word found in human beings, but as it is fitting to understand a Word of God: living, subsisting, and a Son. But the man who brings in a Word that merely signifies and commands what is to be done was naturally reluctant to confess the Son, whom in fact he was denying by his deed.

Chapter 25

1 Then he also fails to notice that he is contradicting himself. In other places he insists that none of the earlier people knew anything about the Word, because it was a hidden mystery. He writes in these very words (no. 45): “For what other hidden mystery was there than the one concerning the Word? This mystery was formerly so hidden in God that no one of the earlier people clearly knew the things concerning the Word, but we now enjoy the riches of the glory and of the hidden mystery.” And again he adds (no. 46): “But the holy apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, teaching clearly and explicitly at the beginning of the Gospel, as of something formerly unknown among men, and naming him the Word of the Almighty, spoke in this way: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’” In these passages, then, he determines that the hidden mystery is that God has a Word. But in the prophetic sayings I just quoted, he maintains that all the divine Scriptures proclaim the things concerning him, and he collects a great many testimonies about the Word of God.

2 So the Word was not unknown to the earlier people, for they all knew such sayings, carrying the prophetic oracles on their lips and in their memory. Yet this “Christian” holds up to us the scribe of the Jews. He does not listen to the Savior saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” He admires the scribe for confirming with an oath that “God is one, and there is none besides him,” not realizing that “the demons also believe and shudder.” 3 Observe how he gathers from the prophetic Scriptures themselves the passages about the word that teaches what is to be done. The children of the Jews would admit that they know such a word, since they received it before us. Not even Sabellius himself was ignorant of such a word. 4 How then, in attacking the Jews and Sabellius, did he say that they did not know the Word, in the statements of his that I have quoted? And since he declared in the earlier passages that no one could know God or recognize his Word unless he had received the image of the invisible God, namely the flesh, as he himself said,

5 (For he insisted that God and his Word are known only through the image, and he said that the image is the flesh.) We must therefore remind him, from what has been set out above, that all the Jews, even without the coming in the flesh, knew exactly the word of God and the words in the prophetic writings that command holy works. They had studied these from their earliest years, and they confessed God as maker and creator of all things. The scribe is an example: he confirmed this with an oath. 6 So much, then, for the proof that the man is a Sabellian. Now it is time to turn to the twisted interpretations he has made of the divine Scriptures. Then everyone who honors the man may learn that he has strayed not only from the right faith but also from a sound reading and understanding of the God-inspired Scriptures.

Book 3

Table of contents

1a Chapters of Book 3. 1. How Marcellus dared to interpret the divine Scriptures in a twisted way. 2. How the words “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways,” and the verses joined to them, are to be understood, and how Marcellus transferred the same words to the Savior’s flesh. 3. A refutation of what he wrongly said on these passages, and a sound interpretation of them. 4. How Marcellus, not understanding the Scriptures, defined the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as one hypostasis. 5. How the Savior taught about the Holy Spirit. 6. How the church hands down what we are to believe about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 7. How Marcellus insisted that the flesh is the image of the invisible God. 8. How he declared that the flesh of the Savior is of no benefit. 9. How he dared to say that at the end of all things the flesh of the Savior will be left behind, abandoned by the Word. 10. What the divine Scriptures teach about the flesh of the Savior, and how Marcellus thought the opposite. 11. How, failing to understand the Gospel saying, he claimed that the Savior’s flesh causes offense and is of no benefit.

1b 12. An interpretation of the Gospel wording. 13. How he insisted that Christ’s kingdom received its beginning four hundred years ago and will have its end at the consummation, twisting 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 himself to the Father. 16. How the apostle’s words “Then God will be all in all” are to be taken. 17. How the divine Scriptures present the endless kingdom of our Savior, and how Marcellus bluntly declared that his kingdom will come to an end. 18. How in the Son’s kingdom all who are counted 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 too will all the saints be. 20. That as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so he will be in all the saints. 21. How the words “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” must be understood.

Chapter 1

1 The great evangelist John, then, proclaimed the theology of our Savior in the way I have described. How Marcellus rejected it and ran aground on Jewish unbelief has been shown by what has been said. But you may learn from many other passages of his accounts, and from this one in particular, how he twisted the agreed and clear teachings about our Savior. In Solomon’s Proverbs, Wisdom is brought in speaking in person about herself, and she says: “I, Wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling, 2 and I called on knowledge and understanding. The fear of the Lord hates evil, insolence and arrogance and the ways of the wicked; and I hated the twisted ways of evil men. Counsel and security are mine; I am understanding, and strength is mine. 3 Through me kings reign, and rulers write down justice. Through me the great are made great, and tyrants hold power over 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 righteousness.

4 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 righteousness, and I move about in the midst of the paths of justice, so that I may give a possession to those who love me and fill their treasuries with good things. If I report to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to number the things from eternity. 5 “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, for his works. Before the age he founded me, in the beginning, before he made the earth, before he made the depths, before the springs of water came forth, before the mountains were set in place, and before all the hills, he begets me. The Lord made lands, uninhabited regions, and the inhabited heights of the world under heaven. When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him. When he marked out his own throne upon the winds, when he made the clouds above strong, when he set the springs under heaven on a firm footing, and when he made the foundations of the earth strong, I was beside him, fitting things together. I was the one in whom he delighted daily, and I rejoiced in his presence at all times. He rejoiced when he had finished the inhabited world, and he rejoiced over the sons of men.”

Chapter 2

1 This is what Wisdom says about herself in Proverbs. I quoted the passage in full, on purpose and out of necessity, to show that there is one person [whom Marcellus transferred to the flesh of the Savior; the Greek here is corrupt] who says all this, and that there is no change of speaker anywhere in between. So Wisdom is shown teaching these things about herself. And here the first thing to notice is that she is named simply “Wisdom.” For she says, “I, Wisdom, made my dwelling in counsel.” It does not say “the wisdom of God.” It is the same as in the evangelist, where “In the beginning was the Word” is written without qualification, and again “the Word was with God.” It is not said “the Word of God,” so that no one would think he is spoken of as something relative to another, or as a mere attribute in God, but as one who truly exists and lives. That is why John adds, “and the Word was God,” and does not say, “and the Word was God’s.” It is the same with Wisdom.

2 For God the Word and Wisdom were one and the same. That is why in Proverbs he is named without qualification, both in the passages quoted above and in others that speak this way: “Blessed is the man who found wisdom”; “God founded the earth by wisdom”; “Say that wisdom is your sister”; “Proclaim wisdom, so that understanding may follow you”; and “For wisdom is better than costly stones.” 3 And also: “Wisdom built a house for herself and set up seven pillars,” and everything else of this kind in the same book. In none of these is she called “the wisdom of God.” She is called simply “Wisdom,” so that we would not think of her as some [attribute] belonging to God, as knowledge belongs to a knowledgeable man. She is Wisdom who truly exists and lives, the same as the Son of God. 4 Suppose someone takes the wisdom spoken of here to be a wise disposition in God, the way we think of God as wise. Let him listen to what the Scripture says: “Say that wisdom is your sister.” Who would be so mad as to suppose that the God over all, and the wise disposition within him, is called a sister of those among men who do what is right?

5 But if you take the saying to refer to the Christ of God, nothing stands in the way of the sense, since “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and since out of his surpassing love for humanity he does not refuse kinship with us. But suppose God and the Wisdom brought in by Proverbs were one and the same, so that she was a wise disposition thought of as in him, in the sense that God is wise. What would have prevented “God” from being written in place of “Wisdom”? Then “Wisdom built a house for herself and set up seven pillars,” and what goes with it, would have been said in the sense of “God built a house for himself,” and so on. And again, 6 “Say that wisdom is your sister” would have been said in the sense of “Say that God is your brother.” But you see how such a phrase strikes the ear, because it has no harmony.

7 But if you take the words to refer to the Son (for he himself was the [abundance; the Greek is uncertain]), everything will flow smoothly for you, and no impious thought stands in the way. The apostle Paul bears witness with this, for he plainly called our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ “Wisdom” when he said, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 8 GREEK: With all this established, it follows, along with everything set out above, that the words “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” were spoken in the person of the Son himself. If he says he was created, he does not mean that he came into being out of nothing, nor that he, like the other created things, came to be out of what did not exist, as some have wrongly supposed. He means that he already had real existence and life, and went before the whole world’s formation and existed before it. He was appointed by the Lord, his own Father, to rule over all things, and “created” is used here in place of “appointed” or “established.”

9 GREEK: Indeed, the apostle explicitly calls the rulers and governors among men a “creation” when he says, “Submit to every human creation for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme, or to governors as sent through him.” 10 GREEK: The prophet also says, “Prepare to call upon your God, Israel. For behold, he who strengthens the thunder and creates the spirit and announces his Christ to men,” and also, “Let this be written for another generation, and a people being created will praise the Lord.” In these, “creating” is not used of something brought into being out of non-existence. For God did not create the Spirit at the time when he proclaimed his Christ to all men through him, since there is nothing “new under the sun.” 11 GREEK: Rather, the Spirit already existed and was there beforehand, but was sent at the time when the apostles were gathered together. Then, like thunder, “there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent rushing wind,” and they were filled with “the Holy Spirit,” and so they proclaimed the Christ of God to all men, in agreement with the prophecy that says, “For behold, he who strengthens the thunder and creates the spirit and announces his Christ to men.” Here “creating” is said in place of “sending down” or “appointing,” while the thunder in another way points to the preaching of the Gospel. And the man who says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” did not say this as one who had no heart. He prayed that his mind might be made clean.

12 GREEK: In the same way it is said, “that he might create the two into one new man,” meaning “bring together.” Consider whether the same applies to “Put on the new man, created according to God,” and to “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” and to whatever else of this kind one may find by searching the God-inspired Scripture. So do not be surprised if, in a figurative sense, in “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways,” the word “created” is used in place of “established” or “appointed to rule.” In the Gospels too our Saviour says, “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants.” We do not say that the Saviour is speaking here of confessing sins (as it is said elsewhere, “Confess your sins to one another”), but of thanksgiving for the infants. “Confess” is used in place of “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”

13 GREEK: With leisure to search, one could find countless expressions used figuratively throughout the divine Scripture. Others carry several meanings, and others are applied by the same name to different things. To go through these would take long and does not suit the present occasion. 14 GREEK: So here too, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” is said in place of “appointed me to rule over his works.” This is why it is not simply said, “He created me,” but with the addition, “as the beginning of his ways for his works.” 15 GREEK: The Hebrew wording shows this especially. If anyone examines carefully the true sense of the God-inspired Scripture, he will find that the Hebrew reading does not contain “he created me.” For this reason none of the other translators has used this word either. Aquila, for example, says, “The Lord acquired me as the chief of his ways.” Symmachus says, “The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways,” and Theodotion, “The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his way.”

16 And the translation makes sense. For he himself was the “head” of the existence and the salvation of all created things, visible and invisible. The Father begot him as the only-begotten Son, and having begotten him, appointed him Savior of the whole. In him and through him the Father sums up the ordering of the universe. So the divine apostle taught when he said that all things are “summed up in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” The point is not only that all things came into being through him, passing from non-existence into existence. He also takes on the care of governing the whole, since he is Word and Wisdom and Life, and the fullness of everything fine and good. Through him, then, all things are steered and kept safe. 17 He himself shows this through the sayings set out above, where he said: “Through me kings reign, and rulers write righteousness; through me the great are made great, and tyrants hold power over the earth.”

18 So the whole universe is governed by the unspeakable reasonings of the universal wisdom and providence of the Son of God. He taught this through the passages quoted above. He urged people to hold fast to him, saying, “I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me.” He also turned them away from the opposite road by what he added: “But I hated the twisted ways of evil men.” 19 Having laid out these things and others like them, the Son of God (for he himself was the Wisdom) next hands over the hidden knowledge of himself to those who have already been helped by these words. He says: “If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to number the things from eternity.” 20 He means: if I were to teach what I do on each single day, I would have to recall my works from the beginning of the whole age. I would have to show that the Father who begot me set me over the universe for this purpose, to lead his ways and the works he made through me. So he rightly goes on to say, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” or “The Lord acquired me,” according to the rendering given above.

21 For the great possession of God was the only-begotten Son. In one respect, he was begotten from God, being his Son. In another respect, he has been established as a common benefit and savior for all. He both is and is named the greatest and most precious possession of the Father. For nothing else could be a more precious possession for a father than a son. So too the first-formed Adam, when he acquired the first son born among men, said of him, “I have acquired a man through God.” The Hebrew word has “kanithi” where the Greek has “I acquired.” 22 The word “acquired” is pronounced “kana” among the Hebrews. So it is said of Abraham, “the field which Abraham acquired,” where the Hebrew has “kana.” The same word stands in Hebrew in “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.” For here too the word “kana” stands, and all the translators agree in rendering it “acquired.”

23 But the word “created” is absent in the Hebrew; it does not stand in the passage before us. There is a very great difference between “created” and “acquired.” In the commoner sense, creation means passing from non-existence into existence. But acquisition means the special closeness of something already existing to the one who acquires it. 24 So when the Son of God says, “The Lord acquired me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” he shows at once his prior existence and his special closeness to the Father. He also shows the usefulness and necessity of his own providence and management over the Father’s works. 25 That is why he goes on: “Before the age he established me; in the beginning, before he made the earth, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills he begets me.” Through all of this he shows how useful and necessary he is for everyone. He teaches, as he had to, that he was and pre-existed, that he existed before the whole world and led the way. Consider Moses. In his account of the making of the world he made no mention of the powers above the world, which are invisible, because those he was training were still immature. He described only the construction of the visible world. At the start he named four elements: heaven, earth, abyss and water. Of two of these he said they were made by God (“In the beginning,” he says, “God made the heaven and the earth”). But he did not say the same of the water and the abyss, that these too were created. He said simply, “And darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water.” So the Son of God, in the passage before us, teaches about these as well, as he had to: that they were created, that he himself was before all things, and that through him all things were made.

26 That is why he says: “Before the age he established me; in the beginning, before he made the earth, and before he made the abysses, before the springs of the waters came forth.” He mentions three of these, earth, abyss and water. The fourth he brings in last, keeping the better one for the end, heaven. So he adds next: “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.” 27 The divine Scripture has made these things plain, and we have given a brief, summary account of them. Now let us hear how Marcellus, bringing his mind down to the ground, insists that all of this was said about the flesh which the Saviour took up. He writes, word for word, as follows: 28 “This being so, it follows that we should think carefully about this proverbial saying: ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways.’ For our Master and God truly created, having made what did not exist. The flesh which the Word took up was not in existence; it was not in existence when he created it.” And he adds: “So even if this new mystery appeared only in the last times, it was foreordained before this age. The prophet naturally said, ‘Before the age he established me,’ meaning, of course, the flesh.”

29 And again he goes on: “Then he says, ‘In the beginning, before he made the earth.’ What earth is this, if not our flesh, which became earth again after the disobedience? For it says, ‘You are earth, and to earth you will return.’” You see how far he has missed the mark. He has turned aside from the straight road and has imagined for himself a rough, hard path, one with no way out. 30 See how he was driven to say anything at all, however shameless and brazen, rather than admit that the Son of God is Wisdom. 31 He does refer the words “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” to the person of the Saviour, admitting that he is the one speaking these things in Proverbs. His own words are these: “So it is fitting, now that the old things have passed away and all things are about to become new through the newness of our Saviour, that our Master Christ cried out through the prophet, ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways.’”

32 But having said this, he turns his mind to the flesh of our Saviour, and goes on: “For our Master and God truly created, having made what did not exist. The flesh which the Word took up was not in existence; it was not in existence when he ‘created it as the beginning of his ways.’” The noble fellow does not see that it is one single utterance, from one single person, that says “I, Wisdom, dwelt in counsel” and “The Lord created me.” So if one of these is referred to the flesh, the other must be too. And then it will be Wisdom who says both. 33 But if, as Marcellus has it, the flesh is the one who says “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways,” then the flesh would be Wisdom. And the flesh would be the one saying “Through me kings reign” and “Through me the great are made great.” How could the flesh say “I will remember to count the things from eternity,” when the author adds to these words “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways”? And Marcellus himself shows what the ways are, when he goes on to say (Nr. 12): “For this one has become for us, who intend to live rightly, the way of godliness, the beginning of all the ways that come after.”

34 And he adds (Nr. 12): “He rightly called our Lord and Savior the ‘beginning of ways,’ because after the first way he also became the beginning of the other ways we have received.” By these he means the traditions handed down through the holy apostles, who, as the prophecy says, proclaimed to us this new mystery “with a lofty proclamation.” So says Marcellus.