On Ecclesiastical Theology (Book 3, chapters 3–20)

On Ecclesiastical Theology

continued

Chapter 3

1 If Marcellus did not accept the writings of Moses and the prophets after Moses, his interpretation might have some plausible ground. But since he is not one of those who reject the Old Testament, why in the world did he name the apostles and their teachings as “ways,” and pay no attention to the prophets of God, who wrote countless things about the ways of God? First, Moses wrote and said: “You shall walk by the king’s road,” and “Behold, I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death.” 2 David likewise says: “The Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly will perish.” Jeremiah says: “Stand in the ways and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and see what the good way is, and walk in it.” And you will find that each of the prophets mentions the ways of God in one manner or another.

3 Now, if our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ [of God] teaches that he himself is the beginning of the ways of God, saying “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (and so he is surely older than Moses, the prophets, and those still earlier who lived according to the ways of God), then the flesh which he took up was not earlier than all of those. So the saying has been wrongly understood as referring to the flesh. 4 So the Savior did not say this on account of the flesh. He said it because he pre-exists and leads the way for all the ways of God, in which all the God-loving men of old have walked. 5 The divine apostle says: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how untraceable his ways!” By this he points to certain other ways: the ways of God’s providence over all things, by which, through an inexpressible judgment and reasons beyond grasp, he steers the whole universe by divine power. It follows that the one who said “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” is also the beginning of these ways. But Marcellus, who did not understand the ways of God, declared the flesh of our Savior to be their beginning.

6 He also explains the words “for his works,” saying (Nr. 13): “‘He created me,’ it says, ‘as the beginning of his ways for his works.’ And what works does it mean? Those about which the Savior says, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working,’ and again, ‘I have finished the work which you gave me.’” 7 Then, as though making clear the sense of what was said, he adds (Nr. 13): “Before the facts were shown, who would have believed that the Word of God, born of a virgin, would take up our flesh and display in it the whole Godhead bodily?” And as though he had given the full sense, he concludes (Nr. 13): “So this is what is meant by ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.’” 8 He wrote these things because he could not lift the eyes of his mind “on high” and say, like the prophet, “For I will look at the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you established.” Nor did he remember the prophetic saying: “They do not look at the works of the Lord, and they do not consider the works of his hands.”

9 If he had paid attention to these things, he would have known that the one who says these words existed, and pre-existed, before heaven and earth and before the whole world. He existed before not only the visible works of God but also the intelligible ones, those that subsist in the bodiless powers above the world. But he moves on to the words “before the age he founded me,” and again he brings the flesh into the middle, saying (Nr. 14) that he names this a “foundation,” meaning the economy in the flesh, which was foreordained. 10 So also the apostle says, “For no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” And Marcellus adds (Nr. 14): “Here he mentions one age, from which he said the things concerning Christ were founded, although many ages had passed, as David said, ‘the one who exists before the ages.’”

11 Next he moves on to the words “in the beginning, before he made the earth,” and again says that the earth is the flesh. He writes as follows (Nr. 18): “What earth is this, if not clearly our flesh, which became earth again after the disobedience? For it says, ‘You are earth, and to earth you will return.’ For this needed to receive healing.” He says this, this wisest of men, without remembering that a little earlier he had said that the flesh was created as “the beginning of his ways” before the earth was made. 12 But if he really meant the flesh by “earth,” how is he not forced to admit that the one who says he existed before the earth was made existed before the flesh? For he says, “Before the age he founded me, in the beginning, before he made the earth.” Therefore the one who says this existed before the flesh was made.

13 And even if the text did not mention many ages but only one, the one the Savior also mentioned when he said, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,” even so it is not the flesh our Savior took on that existed before the present age. It is the one himself, who teaches these things through Solomon. You see what a rough place he has fallen into, having turned aside from the straight and royal road. 14 Besides what has been said, he adds this as well (Nr. 19): “‘Before he made the depths,’ it says. Here the prophet says, in a figurative way, that the depths are the hearts of the saints, which have in their own deep places the gift of the Spirit.” And he does not understand that before our Savior’s coming in the flesh, God’s holy prophets shared in the same Spirit, Moses and those older than Moses. So if these were the depths, that is, the hearts of the saints, then the one who says “before he made the depths” must necessarily be older than all of them.

15 How then could these words be referred to the Savior’s flesh? Indeed, if he had had any knowledge of the divine Scriptures, he would not so easily have declared that the depths are the hearts of the saints. He would have noticed that “darkness was over the deep,” according to Moses’ testimony, and that much has been said about the depths in the divine Scripture, and it is hard to interpret. For the apostle says, “Do not say, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’ 16 that is, to bring Christ down; or ‘Who will go down into the deep?’ that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.” In these words he seems to have called the regions of Hades “the deep.” The Lord himself made this clearer still in his answer to Job, saying, “Have you come to the spring of the sea, and walked in the tracks of the deep? Are the gates of death opened to you in fear, and did the gatekeepers of Hades cower when they saw you?”

17 There are also the evil powers in the deep, about whom it is said, “Praise him from the earth, you dragons and all the depths.” And there is the darkness over the deep, about which Moses said, “and darkness was over the deep.” If Marcellus had learned all this, had he read the divine Scriptures with real effort and not carelessly, he would not have dared to call the hearts of the saints “the depths.” 18 He would also have understood how it is said, “Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls,” and again, “The depths were troubled, a multitude of the sound of water,” and again, “The deep is like a garment, his covering.” 19 He would have worked out these passages and others like them carefully, if he had cared at all about understanding them. As it is, he casually and carelessly declares that the abysses are the hearts of the saints. Even so, he did not see that the one who said “before he made the abysses” was teaching that he existed before the saints and God-loving men who have lived since the beginning of the age. So on every count these words cannot be fitted to the flesh of the Savior.

20 Then he moves on to another saying from the same Scripture, and he explains this one in the same way. He says: (No. 20) “What, then, is this next point: ‘before the springs of the waters came forth’? He says that it means the holy apostles. The Scripture of Exodus sets this mystery before us, announcing the types of the apostles long ago, 21 for since the apostles were twelve in number, it mentions twelve springs.” In saying this he does not realize that Israel also had twelve tribes and twelve patriarchs of those tribes, and that there is one book of the twelve prophets. There are also twelve hours of the day and twelve months in the whole year. 22 Why then should the number twelve belong to the apostles more than to all those, if it was the number itself that gave him the reason for this interpretation of the saying? He ought to have seen that the prophets of God also, in that they shared the same Holy Spirit, were not strangers to the springs. That is why it is said of them in the Psalms: “In the congregations bless God the Lord, from the springs of Israel.”

23 So it is necessary to confess that the Son of God, who says “before the springs of the waters came forth,” existed even before those springs. But listen to how Marcellus explains it. He says (No. 20): “It was fitting, then, that the Master, speaking of his birth according to the flesh through the prophet Solomon, said, ‘before the springs of the waters came forth.’” 24 And he adds (No. 20): “For so the Savior said to the holy springs, ‘Go and make disciples of all the nations.’” Then, as though gathering up his argument, he attaches the conclusion to his own account, saying (No. 21): “It is clear from every side that the holy apostles were named springs by the prophet in a figurative sense.” So he wants the apostles to be the springs, but the prophets do not please him. 25 Why? Is it not because he could not place the Savior’s flesh before them? Yet the Son of God, who teaches these things about himself in Proverbs, existed even before the natural springs that can be perceived by the senses, which Moses also mentioned in his account of the making of the world when he said, “A spring went up out of the earth and watered the whole face of the earth,” and again, “A river goes out of Eden to water the garden.” And the one who speaks to Job also mentions springs of the sea when he says, “Have you come to the spring of the sea, and walked in the tracks of the abyss?”

26 Scripture also teaches that there are some waters above the heavens, when it says, “Praise him, you heavens of the heavens, and you waters above the heavens.” So it follows that we should understand there are springs of those waters too, whatever their nature may be, so that the one who says he existed “before the springs of the waters came forth” may be shown to be older than those as well. 27 But Marcellus gives none of this any thought and is unwilling to take any trouble. He stays with the same interpretations, since even when he quotes the words (No. 22), “Before the mountains were settled,” and “before all the hills he begets me,” he says that the mountains and hills are the apostles and the successors of the apostles. By this, in the manner of a proverb, he means to show how righteous their way of life was compared with other people.

28 By his account, then, the same people were the springs, the same were the mountains, and the same were the hills. But just as it is not natural to say that springs and mountains are the same thing when we look at them as they are (for springs of water have nothing in common in quality with the height of mountains), so too in things understood allegorically in the mind, one must show a difference between the springs, the mountains and the hills as they are understood in the interpretation. But he knows nothing that has been properly tested. He confuses everything through carelessness, and declares that springs of waters, mountains and hills are the same people. He says that all these are the apostles, and he does not explain how they differ. 29 Then why did he not likewise call the people who were made perfect in righteousness and godliness before the Savior’s flesh “mountains and hills”? The only reason would be that he could not have the Savior’s flesh come into being before them. So applying these words to the Savior’s flesh is forced and strained. And how could “he begets me” fit the flesh? For he said that he was begotten before the springs, before the mountains and before the hills, when he said: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he established me.”

30 If, then, the flesh were saying these things, as Marcellus thinks, how could the flesh say, “Before all the hills he begets me”? Suppose the flesh did exist before the apostles. But how does the flesh claim to have been begotten by God? Marcellus evidently thought that the flesh was created, having not existed before. 31 For he said (Nr. 10): “Our Master, God, truly created, making what did not exist. For the flesh which the Word took up was not already existing; he created it when it did not exist.” So we understand that it was created. But how could it be said that it was also begotten by God? Our Savior says, “What is born of the flesh is flesh,” and the apostle says, “born of a woman, born under the law.” 32 How, then, could the flesh say of the God of all, “Before all the hills he begets me”? I think it is plain to everyone that this interpretation is forced. But one could say without any strain, and without any allegorical method at all, that these words are true of the Son of God. He existed before the earth, and was there before the physical springs of water came forth, before the deeps, as they are literally called, and before the shape of the earth was set in the heights of the mountains and hills. For “all things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being.”

33 Suppose someone asks why he did not teach that he existed before the heavens, or before the divine powers and spirits above the world, in the heavens or beyond them. The answer is that the Word did not mention these for the time being, because through Proverbs he was giving a kind of elementary training to those who were still infants in their souls. 34 This is clear from the way it says at one time, “Listen, son, to your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s rules,” and at another, “Son, pay attention to my laws, and bend your ear to my words,” and again, “Son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when you are rebuked by him,” and, “Son, 35 if you are good to yourself, you will be good to your neighbors; but if you turn out bad, you alone will draw up the evils.” You could gather countless similar sayings of your own from the book of Proverbs. In them the Word clearly speaks to people who are infants in their souls.

36 In the same way Moses, as a teacher of those whose minds were immature, spoke of heaven and earth and the making of visible things. But he did not mention the creation of angels, or of divine powers, or of holy spirits, because his pupils could not yet take in teaching about them. 37 So it is reasonable that the Word in Proverbs also taught such people by starting from the mountains, hills and springs on the earth, as things better known to them. He began, as it were, from a lower step, so that he could lead his pupils by the hand to higher things, and prepare them to move on from the smaller things to the more divine. 38 That is so if one looks no further than the wording. But if someone wants to understand these things at a deeper level, he will not apply them to the apostles any more than to all the righteous and God-loving men who have ever lived. He will go on from there to the divine and angelic powers, saying that by “mountains” and “hills” the text hints at the different ranks of angels, archangels and divine spirits, thrones, lordships, rulers and authorities.

39 For the divine apostle taught that all these things too were created “through him and for him,” and that he is “before all” of them. He was probably starting from this passage, because in it the Son of God is the speaker of the words, “Before the mountains were settled, before all the hills he begets me.” The other things, then, he said were settled, but he said that he alone was begotten before the establishing of the things mentioned. 40 The same apostle also knows the heavenly Jerusalem, and the heavenly mountain on which he says it stands. He says: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.” The only-begotten Son of God existed before all these things. So in the Proverbs he was hinting, in a hidden way, at the account of his own ineffable begetting.

41 That he meant us to understand these things becomes clear from what he joins on next: “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.” Here the noble interpreter of the Scriptures was shut out and stopped. He went no further, because he could not make the sequence agree with the explanation he had given about the Savior’s flesh. 42 For he had spoken of the flesh again and again, and declared that everything was said about the flesh. He got as far as the mountains and hills, saying these were the apostles. But what follows these words he deliberately passed over in silence, no longer daring to go further in the text. 43 So here he halts his argument. But after saying a great deal in between, he abandons the interpretation about the flesh and acknowledges that it is the Word of God who speaks these words. He says in these very words (Nr. 54): “For before the world existed, the Word was in the Father. But when God the Almighty purposed to make everything in heaven and on earth, the coming-to-be of the world needed an active, working power. And so, since nothing else existed except God (for it is agreed that all things were made by him), then the Word came forth and became the maker of the world. Even before this he had been preparing it inwardly, in thought, as the prophet Solomon teaches us when he says, ‘When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,’ and ‘as he set the springs under heaven on a sure footing, when he made the foundations of the earth strong, I was beside him, fitting things together;

44 I was the one in whom he delighted.’” For the Father naturally delighted as he made all things with wisdom and power through the Word. That is Marcellus. If he has at last, and barely, admitted that these words are spoken in the person of the Word, he must accept that the whole connected sense of the passages before us refers to that same Word of God. 45 For the one who said, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,” is the very one who said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.” We were shown at the outset that it is one and the same person who runs through all the passages before us. So the very one who said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” went on to say, “Before the age he established me,” and “In the beginning, before he made the earth,” and “Before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills, he begets me.”

46 And the same speaker also joined on, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him,” and what follows it. Now if it was the Word who said these things, how could he be inside God, coeternal with God and one and the same with him, and yet say that he had been created and begotten? For, as I said, it was shown that the person who runs through all the passages before us is one and the same. 47 But if he did at last admit, though late, that these words were spoken in the person of the Word who is in God, then his explanation about the Savior’s flesh has been forced aside. All of that is shown to be stale, empty and pointless. But suppose it was the Savior’s flesh that said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” according to the interpretation he gave. Suppose the flesh “was established before the age and in the beginning, before he made the earth” (the earth meaning the flesh, as he thought, because it was said, “You are earth, and to earth you will return”). And suppose it was the flesh that said, “Before he made the depths, before the springs of water came forth, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills, he begets me” (because, as the wisest of men supposed, the flesh was begotten before the choosing of the apostles). Then it follows that “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him” is also spoken in the person of the flesh.

48 But no one in his right mind could ever agree with that interpretation. The word of truth will cry out loudly against him and show who it really was that spoke all this. 49 That the only-begotten Son, begotten from God, was a distinct one, living and subsisting, and existing even before the formation of all created things, the text itself shows by what it adds next: “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.” For he was with him and present with him before the heaven came into being, and before the things beyond heaven and everything in heaven. This is what the text hinted at when it said, “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.” 50 How did God “prepare” it, if not by laying down the law and the pattern, before it came into being, for how it must be formed? The Father laid out the pattern and made the preparation. He was considering how so great a heaven should be formed: how large it needed to be, what shape, and how many measures and parts. He was thinking of the things that were to be contained inside it, the things that would be outside it, and the things that would run their course within it. The Son, for his part, fixed his gaze on the Father’s thoughts and alone looked closely into the depths within him. He then went forward into the works, serving the Father’s wishes.

51 So it is said somewhere: “Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the highest places. 52 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his powers. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all the stars and the light. Praise him, heaven of heavens, and the waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created.” 53 But even before heaven came into being, and the things beyond heaven and all that is in heaven (for by naming one thing the text includes everything), the Son of God existed. He was present with the Father and with him while the Father was still planning the formation of all these things. That is why he says, “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.” Then, like a good painter, he took the original patterns from the Father’s thoughts and carried them over into the substance of the works. He shaped them and gave them being, just as he saw them already existing in the Father’s mind.

54 He himself would be a trustworthy witness of this, teaching in the Gospels as follows: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the Father doing it; for whatever that one does, the Son likewise does these things. 55 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does.” Here someone might reasonably ask how the Son does again what the Father has already done. But he himself resolved the question by saying, “For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.” 56 So the things done by the Son are likenesses of original works that existed beforehand in the Father’s hidden thoughts. The Son, looking intently at these in the Father’s mind, made copies of what he saw. That he looked into the Father’s depths was an act of the Father’s love, as he makes clear when he goes on to say, “For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does.” So the Father showed his own hidden things, and the Son, contemplating them, gave real existence through his works to the works of the Father’s will. In this way, being with the Father and present with him as he prepared the heaven and what is in it, he taught this when he said, “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.”

57 The Father rejoiced even before the world came into being, looking at his own only-begotten Son and seeing himself in him as in an image in a mirror. That is why Wisdom says, “I was the one in whom he rejoiced every day.” The Son too was filled with gladness, delighting in the sight of the Father. He teaches this himself when he says, “I was glad before him at every time, when he was glad, having completed the inhabited world,” 58 where “the inhabited world” is understood as the full completion of all created things. As they were brought from non-being into being through the Son, the God of all rejoiced. This, then, is the true account, set out briefly and in summary from the divine Scripture. But the one who drives the passage from above down to the flesh of our Savior has run his understanding aground, twisting and misinterpreting the true meaning of the God-inspired Scripture.

59 Moreover, when he turns to the Word, he says that it is the Word within the Father, as in his reasoning and thought, who prepared the heaven. 60 At any rate, he said in these very words: “Before the making of the world, the Word was in the Father. But when the almighty God set out to make everything in heaven and on earth, the creation of the world needed an active power at work. For this reason, since nothing else existed except God (for all things are agreed to have been made by him), the Word then came forth and became the maker of the world. Even before this he had been preparing it inwardly, in thought, as the prophet Solomon teaches us when he says, ‘When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.’” 61 In these words it is right to look at how he deliberately turns a deaf ear. He does not listen to “I was present with him,” which plainly means the presence of the Son together with the Father. Instead he declares, against the Scripture, that nothing else existed except God before created things came to be. He did not shudder to utter this saying, which denies the Son. Nor was he put to shame before the divine Scripture, which testifies that before the creation of heaven the Son alone was present together with the Father. For it says, “When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him.”

62 The word “with,” added to “be present,” shows presence in the same place along with another. So the Son teaches that he was not simply present, but was present together with the Father. And the Father did not simply rejoice; he rejoiced in addition at the presence of the Son. That is why the Son says, “I was the one in whom he rejoiced day by day.” 63 And how could it fit a Word with no real existence of his own, but who is only in God himself and active only by way of signifying, that this Word should also be “glad before the Father”? Being glad, and “before him,” plainly set forth his distinct existence. But Marcellus takes no account of any of this. He sets aside the Son, and says that the Word, being inside God, sometimes goes forth in active power and sometimes is inside him and not active. He does not see that to say something is inside and outside God supposes something composite and a bodily condition. It is not right to admit that of the unbegotten and bodiless nature.

64 And how, when the Word came forth, did he become the maker of the world? Was it by tongue and voice, with God surely using speech as well? And to whom would he have spoken, if no one else was with him? To whom would he have talked, if no one was present? Or did he talk to himself, using voice and speech, so that the Word came forth from him in that way? 65 And why could he not have established, by active power, what he wished while the Word was inside him? Among men, most craftsmen finish their works even in silence, and above all when no one is with them while they work. So what stopped God from establishing all things in some such way, having the Word in himself? But Marcellus even supposes the picture of a sculptor talking to himself and saying to himself: “Come, let us make, let us shape a statue.” In the same way, he says, the Master of all, God, said to himself, “Let us make man.” As has already been shown many times in the earlier sections, I think his denial of the Son of God has been laid bare by them.

66 For to say that God talks to himself, having his own Word inside him, would belong to some Jewish way of thinking. But to say that he is himself the Father of the Word within him, and that the Word within him is his Son, was the mark of Sabellius’s false teaching.

Chapter 4

1 So again, to say that the three are one, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is also Sabellius’s teaching. Marcellus himself declared this too, writing somewhere as follows: “For it is impossible for three hypostases to be united in a monad, unless the triad first has its beginning from a monad. For the holy Paul said that those things are summed up in a monad. They differ in nothing from God in unity, for the Word and the Spirit differ from God in unity alone.” 2 Next he tries to establish this point, going on to say (Nr. 60): “If then the Word is shown to have come out from the Father himself and to have come to us, and the Holy Spirit, as Asterius also admitted, proceeds from the Father, and again the Savior says about the Spirit, ‘He will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and announce it to you,’ is not the monad shown here, not plainly and openly but in an unspeakable way, expanding into a triad and yet in no way willing to be divided?”

3 “For if the Word proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit too is acknowledged to proceed from the Father, and again the Savior says of the Spirit, ‘He will take from what is mine and announce it to you,’ is it not perfectly clear that some hidden mystery is being uncovered? For how could he say about the Spirit at one time that he proceeds from the Father, and at another time, ‘He will take from what is mine and announce it to you,’ and again, after breathing on the disciples, say, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ unless the monad, being undivided, expands into a triad?” 4 “For how, if the Spirit proceeds from the Father, does he promise that the Spirit will receive this service from the Son? If they were two persons divided from each other, as Asterius said, then one of two things is necessary. Either the Spirit, proceeding from the Father, does not need service from the Son (for everything that proceeds from the Father must be perfect, in no way needing help from another), or, if he receives from the Son and administers grace out of the Son’s power, he no longer proceeds from the Father.”

5 And after other remarks he adds (Nr. 60): “But if the Gospel says that he breathed on the disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ it is clear that the Spirit came out from the Word. How then, if the Spirit came forth from the Word, does the same Spirit again proceed from the Father?” And after other remarks he adds (Nr. 60): “So he did not speak rightly or fittingly when he said there are three hypostases, and he said it not once but twice.” By these arguments and others like them, this very wise man tries to establish that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, with three names laid down for a single hypostasis. 6 For he did not grasp, in these passages, how the Son is said to proceed from the Father and the Holy Spirit likewise. Nor has he been able to understand how the Savior said of the Holy Spirit, “He will take from what is mine and announce it to you,” or how he breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This will be easy to resolve for those who look at it reverently, if one reasons as follows. The Son was always with the Father and present with him, somewhere within the inner sanctuary, so to speak, the untrodden places of the Father’s kingdom. Then, when he was sent out by the Father for the salvation of the human race, he said that he had come out from the Father. He made this clear elsewhere too, through a parable, speaking about himself: “The sower went out to sow.”

7 For where did he go out from, if not from the innermost palace of the Father’s divinity? By the same reasoning the Holy Spirit, who always stands beside the throne of God (for “ten thousand times ten thousand” stand beside him, according to Daniel), was also sent out. Sometimes he was sent in the form of a dove upon the Son of Man, and sometimes upon each of the prophets and apostles. 8 This is why it is said that he too proceeds from the Father. And why are you surprised? Even of the devil it is said, “And the devil went out from the Lord,” and a second time it is said, “But the devil went out from the Lord.” You could find the same in the case of Ahab, where Scripture goes on: “And an evil spirit came out and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will deceive him.’”

9 But those are opposing spirits, and this is not the time to inquire into how or in what sense that was said of them. The only-begotten Son of God teaches that he himself has come out from the Father because he is always with him. The same is true of the Holy Spirit, who likewise is other than the Son. The Savior himself shows this plainly when he says, “He will receive from what is mine and will announce it to you.” This is a direct proof that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one and the same. For what receives something from another is understood to be different from the one who gives.

Chapter 5

1 That the Holy Spirit is other than the Son, our Savior and Lord himself [taught] explicitly, in several ways, and in the plainest words. He said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.” You see how he says that the Paraclete Spirit is other, and different from himself. And if he breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” we must not overlook that the breathing was in some way a cleansing of the apostles’ souls, making them fit to receive the Holy Spirit. 2 For it does not say that he breathed into their face, nor that he breathed the breath of life, nor the Holy Spirit, as it is written of Adam that “God breathed into his face the breath of life.” Rather, it says first that he breathed, and then that he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And the fact that he gives the Spirit again shows that he is other than what is given.

3 For the giver and the gift would not be the same. The one who supplied it was the Savior, what was given was the Holy Spirit, and the recipients were the apostles. The breathing, as I said, was either a cleansing of the apostles or a means of bringing about the imparting of the Holy Spirit, since it can be understood either way. 4 In any case, these words show that the Holy Spirit is other than himself. The same is shown by what follows, where it is again recorded that he said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” 5 He goes on: “I have spoken these things to you while staying with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of everything I said to you.” You hear how he uses the plural in “we will come and make our dwelling with him,” speaking of himself and the Father. And when he speaks about the Holy Spirit, he speaks as of another: “he will teach you all things.”

6 The words “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth” are of the same kind. So the Paraclete, about whom he was teaching so much, was other than himself. It was fitting, then, that he added again: “I have spoken these things to you while staying with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of everything I said.” 7 For he says, in effect: “For the present I have spoken these things to you, but the Spirit of truth, whom my Father will also send, will teach you everything that you have not yet learned because you cannot yet bear it.” 8 “But when he comes” (I mean the Paraclete), he will complete the teaching, and also bring back to your memory what I am now saying. And again he adds: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” By all these words he clearly shows that the one sent by him, who is to bear witness about him, is other than himself.

9 He develops the point still further by adding: “But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” In speaking of his going away, he was indicating his passion and his ascent to the Father after it. 10 Who, then, is so foolish that after so many statements he would say that the one speaking these words and the one he was speaking about are one and the same? For he hears him clearly distinguishing, saying that he is telling them the truth, and showing what that truth is: that if he himself does not go away, the Holy Spirit will never come. 11 Sometimes he says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, and sometimes that he himself will. But he is not teaching contradictory things. For everything that the Son “sees the Father doing,” “the Son does likewise,” and “as he hears, he judges.” So by the Father’s judgment, when the Father also wishes it, then the Son, and [text uncertain: through him] the Savior, sends to his disciples the Spirit of truth, the Comforter. He sends him to encourage them and console them in what they suffered from those who drove them out as they preached the gospel.

12 He sends him not only to encourage them but also to teach them the whole truth of the new covenant. They could not bear to be taught it by the Savior when he spoke with them, because they were still held in bondage to the Jewish way of life. 13 He fulfilled these things in deeds after his resurrection from the dead. After it he said to Mary, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.” After this, having now gone up to the Father, he appeared to the disciples. The Holy Spirit had been sent, was with him, and stood ready for the service to which he was appointed. That is why he now allowed himself to be touched. 14 For then “he breathed on them,” and then he gave them a part of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the part that brings about the forgiveness of sins. For “there are distributions of gifts.” He gave them a portion of these at that time, while he was with them and present among them. Afterward he filled them with a greater and more perfect power. Concerning this he said to them in the Acts of the Apostles, “You will receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” At that time he also promised that they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit. This too was fulfilled after his ascension, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent to them in accordance with his words.

15 The matters at this passage need more thorough work and clarification, but now is not the time to go through them with exact examination, since that is not our present aim. What we had to show is that the Comforter Spirit is other than the Son. This has been demonstrated in various ways through what the Savior himself taught, and among other places in these words: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will tell you the whole truth. 16 For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears, and he will announce to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and announce it to you.” In these words he again promises that his disciples will learn from the Holy Spirit what he himself has not taught. He speaks as of another when he says “when he comes,” and “he will not speak from himself,” and “he will glorify me,” and “he will take from what is mine.” To suppose that the Savior is saying all this about himself is a terrible and hard-to-cure silliness.

17 No, through these words the Savior himself clearly taught that the Holy Spirit is other than himself. The Spirit surpasses all in honor, glory and precedence, and is greater and higher than every intellectual and rational being. This is why he is included with the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity. 18 Yet he is [text uncertain: subordinate] to the Son. The Savior shows this by saying, “For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak.” From whom he will hear, he makes plain by saying, “He will take from what is mine and announce it to you.” By “what is mine” he clearly means his treasury, for in him “are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, hidden.” 19 The Son, as the only-begotten Son, receives from the Father and hears from the Father. The Holy Spirit, however, is supplied through him. That is why he says, “He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” Now the God who is over all is also called Spirit, as the Savior himself taught when he said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” He will truly be holy of holies himself, and “resting among the holy ones.” But the Son of God is also Spirit, and he himself is likewise a Spirit, holy of holies, if indeed he is the image of the invisible God.

20 That is why it is said of him, “The Lord is the Spirit,” and “The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord.” 21 But the Holy Spirit is other than the Father and the Son. To show what is distinctive about him, the Savior called him the Paraclete. By the title “Paraclete” he marks off the Spirit from what is merely a shared name, since the angelic powers might also be called spirits: it is said of God, “who makes his angels spirits.” But none of these can be put on the same level as the Spirit the Paraclete. For this reason he alone is included with the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity. 22 The Savior commanded his apostles to hand on the mystery of his new birth to all who believe in him from the nations in no other way than by baptizing “them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Father is the one who has authority and bestows the grace. The Son serves in this grace, for “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, is himself the one who is supplied, according to the distributions of gifts in him: “To one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit,” and the other gifts listed alongside these in the same way.

Chapter 6

1 The Holy Spirit by nature dwells only among the holy. He is supplied through the Son to those whom the Father judges fit. It is his work to make holy all those to whom he gives a share of one or more of the gifts that are in him. So it is with the prophets, the apostles and every soul that loves God, and probably also the higher, divine powers, who share in the holiness that comes from him. But the Son alone is honored with the Father’s divinity. He is the maker and creator of all created things, visible and invisible, and indeed of the very existence of the Spirit the Paraclete. For all things “came into being through him, 2 and apart from him not one thing came into being,” and “in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.” But the God beyond all things, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is an unspeakable good, greater than every reckoning, thought, word and imagining. He is the leader and ruler together of all things, whatever they are and of whatever kind, and also of the Holy Spirit himself and of the only-begotten Son. It is fitting, then, that he alone is called by the apostle the God “over all and through all and in all,” where he says, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

3 He alone may be called “the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” while the Son is “the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father.” The Spirit the Paraclete is neither God nor Son, since he did not receive his origin from the Father in the same way as the Son. He is one of the things that came into being through the Son, because “all things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being.” 4 This, then, is roughly how the mysteries are handed down to the holy and catholic church through the divine words. But Marcellus confuses everything. At one time he plunges into the whole depth of Sabellius. At another he tries to revive the heresy of Paul of Samosata. At another he is plainly shown to be a Jew. For he introduces one hypostasis with three persons, just as it has three names, saying that God, the Word within him, and the Holy Spirit are the same.

5 Then Marcellus moves on from there to the apostolic teaching about Christ, and again he uses twisted interpretations. The divine apostle speaks plainly of the Son of God as God, and says: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Chapter 7

1 This remarkable man then throws himself down upon the flesh and declares that the flesh itself is the image of the invisible God. He does not hear that the words “who is the image” are expressed in a masculine form. For he somehow fits the word “who” to the flesh, and says that the flesh is what is meant, as though it were “the image of the invisible God.” And again he says that “he is before all things” was spoken about the flesh, and he is not ashamed to take the word “he” as referring to the flesh. 2 He also says that the one called “firstborn of all creation” is so called because of the flesh. He persists without hesitation in speaking of the flesh when he says that “the things in the heavens and on the earth” were created, “both the visible and the invisible.” He does not shrink from saying that thrones and lordships and rulers and authorities were counted worthy of the creation in Christ through the savior’s flesh. I have already set out Marcellus’s words on these matters in the preceding writing. To spare the proportions of my argument, I will be content with the testimony of those very words. I do not think I need a longer demonstration that this explanation of the apostle’s wording is twisted and forced, since the shamelessness of the interpretation is plain to everyone.

Chapter 8

Yet after saying so much about the savior’s flesh, he does not even keep it safe for us. I wish he had at least kept a godly way of thinking about it! As it is, after everything he has said about it, he declares that at the completion of the ages the flesh is left behind, abandoned by the Word. He writes this: “If, then, he confesses that the flesh is of no benefit to him, how is it possible that what is from the earth and is of no benefit should also be with the Word in the ages to come, as though it were useful to him?”

Chapter 9

And he says the same thing a second time in another place: “If, then, Paul said that at the time of the restoration of all things the creation itself will be changed from slavery into freedom (for he says, ‘that the creation itself will be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God’), how could it still be possible for the form of a slave, which the Word took up, being the form of a slave, to be with the Word [because of itself]?”

Chapter 10

1 You see what words he has dared to utter against the flesh of our savior. He has not considered that, even before the ascension into heaven, while the flesh was still on earth before the passion, it was glorified in this way on the mountain. He showed to only three of his chosen disciples an image of his kingdom, so that his face shone like lightning and flashes of light blazed out. 2 (For the divine Scripture says, “His face became like the sun, and his garments white as light.”) But Marcellus also did not understand what kind of body of glory the divine apostle was speaking of, or that he was teaching that our bodies too will be conformed to that body, when he said, “who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory.” Nor did he understand how the mortal is to be swallowed up by life, as the apostle wrote when he said, “in which we do not wish to be unclothed, [but to be clothed over], so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.” In his ignorance of these things, he insists that the Word will become one and the same with God as he was before, but what will ever become of the flesh left behind by the Word, I do not know.

3 Listen then to how he says this: “And if someone should ask about this flesh which has become immortal in the Word, what do we say to him? That we do not think it safe to lay down doctrine about matters we have not learned precisely from the divine Scriptures. For how is it possible to do this for those who also overturn the doctrines of others?” 4 But we will say to those who want to learn from us the exact account of this matter: we obey the holy apostle, and we know that we should look at hidden mysteries as he himself said. “For now we see,” he says, “through a mirror, [in] a riddle, but then face to face,” and so on. So do not ask me about things I have not clearly learned from the divine Scripture. For that reason I will not be able to speak clearly about that divine flesh which shared in the Word. Then he who confesses that he can say nothing admits also that he has learned nothing from Scripture.

5 Such are the statements he made about the flesh. He did not take them from Scripture, he did not receive them from others, and he did not learn them from the church. He fashioned them for himself and devised, out of his own reasoning, a strange offspring foreign to the truth. He did not even bear in mind the Scripture that says, “Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you and you be found a liar,” and “Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart.” 6 See, then, what great impiety he has fallen into. He threw the whole theology of the pre-existent only-begotten Son onto the flesh, and in so many words proclaimed it a crown of victory. For he said (no. 114) that the Word of God prepared human flesh to become immortal through the resurrection, and, as though he had put on a crown of victory, sits at the right hand of the Father. Yet this same man says that the flesh will be left desolate and orphaned at the end of all things. He unites the Word with God, but separates the flesh from the activity of the Word, and leaves it, I do not know how, immortal and incorruptible, yet lifeless and without any activity from the Word.

7 And again he tries to support this from the divine readings, which he has not understood. For our Savior spoke to those who did not understand his teachings about his flesh and blood: “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man going up where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no use at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Chapter 11

Without giving thought to the meaning of the saying, he supposed that the Savior was rejecting the flesh he had taken from the holy virgin. Then from this he tries to establish that after the consummation of all things the Word who is in God will leave the flesh desolate, without his own activity. At any rate he says in these very words (no. 104): “For concerning the flesh with which he lived among the disciples, he speaks like this: ‘Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man going away where he was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh is of no use at all.’” If, then, he admits that the flesh is of no use to him, how is it possible that flesh which is from the earth and of no use should also, in the ages to come, be with the Word as though it were profitable to him? You see how great a distortion of the gospel saying he has used, because he did not understand the saving word of the Word: how it was said, and for what reason.

Chapter 12

1 But you, take up the Gospel writing and see how the whole teaching of our Savior was not about the flesh he had taken, but about the mystical body and blood. For he had fed the crowds with the five loaves, and this gave those who saw it a great wonder. But most of the Jews made light of what had happened and said to him, “What sign then do you do, so that we may see and believe?” Then they brought up the manna in the wilderness, saying, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 2 To this the Savior answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” Then he adds, “I am the bread of life,” and again, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and once more, “The bread that I will give is my body.” And again he adds, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.”

3 “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 4 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” While he was going through these and similar things in a more mystical way, some of his disciples said, “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” The Savior answered them: “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man going up to where he was before? 5 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” By these words he was teaching them to hear in a spiritual way what had been said about his flesh and blood. “Do not suppose,” he says, “that I mean the flesh I wear, as though it had to be eaten. Do not imagine that I am commanding you to drink physical blood perceived by the senses. Know well that ‘the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’ So the words and sayings themselves are the flesh and the blood. Whoever shares in them continually, nourished as it were by heavenly bread, will share in heavenly life.”

6 “So do not let this offend you,” he says, “what I have said about eating my flesh and drinking my blood. Do not let the surface hearing of what I said about flesh and blood trouble you. For when these things are heard in a physical way, they ‘are of no help at all.’ But it is the Spirit who gives life to those who are able to hear spiritually.” 7 But the new interpreter of the Gospel teachings understood none of this. Listen to how he writes, in these very words (Fr. 105): “After he touched the human body and showed it to those who saw it, he said, ‘Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man going up to where he was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh is of no help at all.’” 8 One could say to him: “And where, my good man, did you get this addition, which is not found in the Gospel text? You invent on your own that the Savior touched the human body and showed it to those who saw it before saying, ‘Does this offend you?’ You make it up yourself and dare to add it from yourself.” Having taken this bold step on his own, he thinks he can establish from it that the Savior’s flesh will be left without any share in the Word’s activity. He says (Fr. 104): “If, then, he confesses that the flesh is of no help to him, how can it be that the flesh, which is from the earth and is of no help, should also in the ages to come be with the Word as though it were beneficial to him?” In this ignorant and unlearned way, then, he set out to misinterpret the Gospel’s statement. And he likewise gave twisted interpretations of the apostles’ words.

Chapter 13

1 For example, in the Acts of the Apostles Peter said of our Savior, “whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration.” Marcellus did not grasp the meaning of this saying. From it he tries to put a limit on the kingdom of Christ, claiming that a boundary and a fixed deadline for his kingdom is indicated by the words “until the times of restoration.” 2 He says the same thing is confirmed by the Psalm that says, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet,” and that Paul the apostle said this too: “For he must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet.” For he assumed that “until” and “up to” indicate a limited period of time. Listen, then, to how he writes, word for word (Fr. 104): “For this reason, it seems to me, God the Almighty, the Master, says to him, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’ Because of the human flesh, he seems to separate him only in activity, and as though setting a fixed time for his sitting at the right hand, he says to him, ‘until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’”

3 The sacred apostle explained this prophetic saying of David more plainly for us, saying something like this: “For he must reign until he puts his enemies as a footstool under his feet.” So, Marcellus thinks, his dispensation as man, and his kingdom, has some limit. And after other remarks he adds (no. 104): “And for this reason the Acts of the Apostles teach about this man, whom the Word of God took up and, having taken him up, sits at the right hand of the Father. They say: ‘whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration.’ These words too set a kind of limit and fixed term.” 4 After other remarks he adds to these words (no. 104): “How, then, could the form of a servant, which the Word took up, being the form of a servant, still be with the Word [through him]? Clearly and explicitly, the divine Paul has said that the dispensation of the Word in the flesh, which took place for our sake, happened within a short time between the ages past and the ages to come, and that it has an end just as it has a beginning. He said it in this way: ‘Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God, even the Father.’”

Chapter 14

1 Through all this Marcellus has failed to understand the “body of the glory” of the Son, and he denies that the Son’s kingdom has no end. He has not noticed that Scripture has a peculiar habit of its own in how it uses the word “until.” So, for example, the Savior said to his disciples, “Look, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.” He is not denying that he will be with them after the end as well. He is teaching that now, until the end, he will be with them, watching over and guarding all who are his disciples, and that after the end he will be with them in a better way, making them sharers in his kingdom. 2 So in the same way, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool under your feet,” and “whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration,” are not said as though he will no longer be there afterward. They are said because at the time of the end he is going to rise from the Father’s throne and make a second descent from heaven. The apostle teaches about this when he says: “The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.” The Savior, then, must remain in heaven and sit at the Father’s right hand “until the end.” But at the very end of the whole order of things he will make his glorious second appearing and take his holy ones to himself, to be with him always. This is not for a limited time but for endless ages, for Paul says, “so we will always be with the Lord.”

3 So the saints, who will be with him always, will enjoy his kingdom in the kingdom of the heavens that has been proclaimed. But our fine fellow does not understand this. The divine apostle said of our Savior, “For he must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” and again, “But when all things are subjected to him, 4 then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.” Marcellus follows his usual approach here and misinterprets these words as well. I do not know how he takes the Son’s being subjected to the Father to mean the Word’s being united with God. But when was the Word ever not united with him, if he was indeed the Word, existing eternally in God? How then can he say that “then” he will be subjected “to God and the Father”?

Chapter 15

1 We must also notice that the apostle said all things will be subjected to the Son himself, and he teaches that by the same subjection the Son will also be subjected to the Father. He says, “But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, 2 GREEK: He does not hear “so that God may be all in all” in this way. For the apostle does not say that God will be “all” in the Son, but “in all.” That phrase would more likely suggest a kind of joining and union of all things, if God is going to be all in all. Yet Marcellus explains the Son’s subjection as a union of the Word, who will become one and the same with the Father, as he was before, according to what he himself said.

3 If, then, he defines subjection to the Father as union, it would follow that the subjection of all things to the Son also means the same union with him. The Son would then no longer exist by himself, nor would the multitudes of the saved who are to be subjected to him live a life of their own. Instead there would be a kind of smearing together and confusion of the whole, with the Son and all the rest becoming one and the same, and not only that, but with God himself as well. 4 For if all things are united to the Son by being subjected, and the Son is united to the Father by being subjected, see what follows from his argument. 5 But just as the apostle did not mean union when he said that “all things” will be subjected to the Son, but rather obedience from freely chosen purpose, and the glory and honor that all things will give him as Savior and King of the universe, so also the Son’s being subjected to the Father would signify nothing other than glory, honor, reverence, majesty and freely given obedience. He too will render these to God and Father, once he has made all people worthy of the Father’s divinity.

6 For in the meantime, since they are not yet worthy of it, he has gone ahead as a common Savior of all. He reigns with a kingdom that corrects the imperfect and heals those who need healing, bringing the enemies of the kingdom under his feet. The Psalm declares this when it says, “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” 7 But when he puts his enemies under his feet, and establishes those worthy of his kingdom in unending life, then death, the enemy of all, will be destroyed last. For no one will be dying any longer, since those worthy of the kingdom will then be living in eternal life. It is reasonable that death will be idle, having no one left to put to death. 8 When these things have been so prepared, all the saints will be subjected to the Son of God in a subjection that brings salvation. They will live eternally, since he is life; they will become wise, since he is wisdom; and they will be made rational, since he is Word. In the same way they will also become anointed ones, anointed with the Spirit of his fragrance. They will be shown to be lights of the new age, supplied with their lights from him. They will be sons of God, adorned with the Spirit of adoption. Those who are subjected to him will share in his other powers too, so that they become righteous from his righteousness and holy from his holiness. And since “the Word was God,” he will not begrudge them even divinity.

9 So the apostle will be proved right, who foretold that the saints would be “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Indeed they will also have heavenly bodies, like the sun, the moon and the stars, and in this too they will share in his glory. 10 The same apostle showed this when he said, “from whom we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation to be like the body of his glory, according to the working of his power to subject all things to himself.” You see how by his power to subject all things to himself he will also transform our body to be like the body of his glory, and so bring our own to that state. 11 But if our body will be shaped like the body of his glory, how much more will the body of his glory share in his kingdom! And if our body will be swallowed up by life, as the apostle testified when he said, “in which we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed over, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life,” how much more will his own body, since it served his divinity, be swallowed up, not by life alone as ours is, but also by his divinity! So let no one ask, or be perplexed within himself, about what we ought to think concerning the Savior’s body. He hears Paul say plainly that “what is mortal” must be “swallowed up by life,” and that our body will be shaped like “the body of the glory of Christ, according to the working of his power to subject all things to himself.”

12 So then, he will subject all things to himself. And we must understand the subjection that brings salvation to be of this kind, in which “the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him.” He will make a subjection that cannot be spoken or described, one that suits him alone. At that time he will gather all who are under him around himself like a chorus, and “he will bring to God and Father the glory, the honor, the reverence and the majesty,” offering them to him as the cause of all good things.

Chapter 16

1 Then the apostolic teaching will also reach its conclusion, when it says, “so that God may be all in all.” We will understand this from another promise, in which God himself says, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” But now, in the present age, the promise goes forward only partially and only to a few who are worthy, as in “we know in part, and we prophesy in part.” After the consummation of all things, when the new age has come, he will no longer dwell in a few, but in all who are then worthy of the kingdom of the heavens. 2 So it will be “all in all” in this way: he will be “dwelling in them and walking among them,” and will be “their God.” He will not think it beneath him that they be his people, and he will make them all his own. He will be in them in the same way that he is said to be in the Son himself, as the Son teaches when he says, “The Father is in me and I in the Father.” And he will be “all” in them by giving himself to all, to the degree that each one’s capacity can share in his divinity. The thrice-blessed hope and the endless, imperishable life will be established in this end. In it God will be “all in all,” filling everyone with the radiance of his divinity, a light beyond words. The Son will rejoice and exult in his accomplishment. He will set around himself, like a crown, those whom he has made worthy of blessedness, and under the Father’s oversight he will carry out a kingdom that never grows old and never ends. Then the sayings about him will be fulfilled, among them what the angel Gabriel said to the all-holy virgin about the one who would be born of her: that “he will reign for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

3 So the Son of God, reigning then, will hand over to his Father all those who are ruled by him. He will not cease from his kingdom or withdraw from it. For the divine apostle did not say that he will cease from the kingdom. Otherwise he would have written the opposite of what Gabriel declared to the virgin, that he will reign for ever and that there will be “no end” of his kingdom. Rather, the apostle said that he will hand over “the kingdom,” that is, those who are ruled by him, “to God and Father.” 4 For when all have been brought to perfection under him, he will hand them over to the Father, glad, as it were, at his accomplishment, as one who has received a deposit entrusted to him. This is what he teaches when he says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” So, as a good guardian, he will bring the deposit safe and strong in every way and hand it over to God. Like a high priest, he will present to him all who are consecrated under him, clothed in white and shining like lightning, as it were in the most brilliant robes, with the imperishable bodies of the resurrection. In this way they will not only enjoy the kingdom under him, but will also be filled with the unspeakable good things of the Father.

5 For in this way, according to the apostle, “God will be all in all,” when the Son brings those he has ruled to him, so that this whole result comes about, I mean that the Father is “all in all.” As the Father was before in the Son, according to the words “the Father is in me and I am in the Father,” so then he will also be in all who have been brought to perfection under the Son. 6 For the apostle did not say that the Son would cease from his kingdom and God would reign instead. He said that the Son would hand over “the kingdom to God and the Father,” showing that the trust committed to him is kept safe and is sufficient for the worship and priestly service of the Father. And God will be “all in all,” dwelling and walking “in them” as God and becoming everything to them. To some he will be master, to others king, to others something else. But to all together he will be God, becoming everything to them by the divine excellences and powers that are in him.

7 This is the end of the thrice-blessed hope that the great apostle described when he said, “that God may be all in all.” He will be all things in all, in proportion to the capacity of each, supplying to all the different aspects of his Godhead. But for his only-begotten Son alone he will keep the choice and fatherly glory, honor and kingdom, which is shared with none of the rest.

Chapter 17

1 17. If these things need to be sealed with a prophetic seal, then to confirm what has been said I will use the prophetic Spirit as witness, speaking these very things through the prophet Ezekiel in words like these: “Thus says the Lord, the Lord: Behold, I will seek out my sheep and visit them. As a shepherd seeks his flock on a day when there is darkness and cloud among sheep that have been scattered, so I will seek out my sheep.” And after other things: “And I will save my sheep, and they shall no more be plunder. And I will judge between ram and ram. 2 And I will raise up over them a shepherd, and he will shepherd them: my servant David. And he will be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be God to them, and David will be a ruler in their midst. I the Lord have spoken, and I will make a covenant with David.” And after other things he repeats the same prophecy, saying: “And I will rescue them from all their lawless deeds in which they sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I will be God to them. And my servant David will be ruler in their midst, and he will be shepherd of them all.”

3 And again he adds: “And David my servant will be their ruler forever.” Notice in all this that God is said to be not shepherd or ruler but God to those who are counted worthy of the blessed end. But David is prophesied to become ruler and shepherd of these same people. Here “David” is a veiled way of speaking of Christ, because Christ came “from his seed.” 4 This is clear from the fact that David had died long before the time when these words were spoken. The prophet Daniel prophesies the same things more plainly, naming Christ the Son of God “son of man” in plain terms, just as the writing of the holy Gospels is accustomed to call him. He speaks in this way: “I was watching in a vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming, and he reached the Ancient of Days, and was brought before him. And to him were given rule and honor and kingdom, and all peoples, tribes and tongues will serve him.

5 His authority is an everlasting authority which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed.” You see that here too the prophet shows that the imperishable, ageless and endless kingdom belongs not to the Word who is in God but to the Son of man. And he teaches clearly that the one who receives the imperishable kingdom from the Ancient of Days, that is, from the Father himself, is someone other than the Ancient of Days, namely the Son of man. 6 But Marcellus lays it down that the Father and the Son are one and the same, a single hypostasis lying beneath two names. He even dares to put a limit on Christ’s kingdom. He shamelessly declares that Christ’s kingdom will come to an end after the time of judgment, and he writes as follows (no. 101): “Here the apostle uncovers a very great mystery for us, when he says that there will be an end of Christ’s kingdom;

7 and the end will be then, when everything has been put in subjection under his feet.” He then develops the argument somewhat like this (no. 102): “In the sayings we gave earlier we said that our Lord Christ had a beginning of his kingdom, using proofs from the divine Scriptures.” And he adds (no. 102): “In fact, anyone well supplied could show, from countless sayings as testimony, that the man received the beginning of a kingdom through the Word. 8 If, then, he received the beginning of a kingdom not more than four hundred years ago in all, it is nothing strange that the apostle says that the one who obtained this kingdom such a short time before will hand the kingdom over to God.” 9 And after other remarks he adds (no. 103): “What, then, are we to learn about the human flesh which the Word took up for our sake less than four hundred years ago? Will the Word have it in the ages to come as well, or only until the time of judgment?” Such were the things Marcellus dared to say. But the prophets of God, who define Christ’s kingdom as without end, say that after the time of judgment he will take hold of the beginning of the new age. Look how the prophet Ezekiel sets up a judgment of God’s sheep, and after their judgment places David over them as shepherd, and foretells that the same man will be their ruler.

10 And Daniel, having said beforehand, “I kept watching until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat down; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire, its wheels burning fire. A river of fire was flowing before him; thousands upon thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat, and books were opened” — after seeing these things first, he next sees the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven coming to the Ancient of Days and receiving the imperishable kingdom. So then, at that time too he will have a beginning of reigning over those worthy of blessedness, in a way surpassing and better than now. 11 The Gospel bears witness to this, where the Savior himself puts his seal on the prophetic words, handing on to his disciples the teaching about the end of the age, saying: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory; and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will set the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right: Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Observe how these words agree with what was said in the prophecy about the judgment of sheep and rams, and how the Son of Man is introduced as king after the judgment of the sheep, while his Father is God.

12 For he himself taught this when he said, “Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you blessed of my Father,” in keeping with the David named in the prophecy. The prophecy teaches that he will be shepherd and ruler of the sheep, intending to shepherd and rule God’s flock under God’s oversight. 13 We must also give attention to this: what the apostle said in the words “when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power” the prophecy hinted at when it said, “And I will destroy the evil beasts from the earth.” 14 For what could the beasts be, which in earlier times troubled the sheep, other than the opposing powers? When these have been removed and the new age, made fresh and cleansed of all evil, comes, it will have the Son of Man as king. Or, according to the prophecy, which speaks in a hidden way, it will have David as shepherd and ruler, because the Son of Man came “from the seed” of David. But God is not said to be acquired as its shepherd or ruler. It will have God himself as God, in a way higher than the thought of a shepherd, ruler and king. In the splendor of his divine power he will lead not only the sheep but the shepherd himself. For he says, “My servant David will be a shepherd to them, and I the Lord will be God to them.” He calls David a servant because of the fact that our Savior and Lord, “from the seed of David,” took “the form of a servant.”

Chapter 18

1 And this was the thrice-blessed end. Our Savior guarantees the promised kingdom of the heavens to those worthy of it. Then the God over all and his Father, the highest good of all, will give himself to those who are ruled by the Son, becoming “all in all.” Our Savior and Lord himself set this forth again when he sent up his great prayer on behalf of his disciples “to God and Father.” In it he asks, “That they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. 2 And I have given them the glory which you gave me, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect into one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them just as you loved me.

3 Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me.” This is the great intercession of our Savior for us: that we may be with him wherever he is, and see his glory, and that we may be loved as his Father loved him. Whatever the Father gave him, may he give the same to us, and the glory he gave him, may he give the same to us. So he makes us all one, so that we are no longer many but all of us one, united with his divinity and the glory of his kingdom. This is not by the blending together of one substance, but by the perfecting of virtue to its highest point. 4 For this is what he taught when he said, “that they may be made perfect.” In this way, made perfect by him in wisdom, understanding, righteousness, godliness and every virtue, we shall be joined to the unspeakable light of the Father’s divinity. We too shall become lights through our union with him. We shall be made sons of God by sharing in fellowship with his only-begotten, through participation in the radiant flashes of his divinity.

Chapter 19

1 And in this way indeed we shall all become one with the Father and the Son. For just as he said that he and the Father are one, saying, “I and the Father are one,” so he prays that all of us, by imitating him, may share in that same unity. It is not as Marcellus says, that the Word is united to God and joined to him in substance. It is as the truth itself testified, the Savior saying, “The glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect into one.” For in this way the apostolic saying will then reach its goal, which said, “that God may be all in all.” 2 Marcellus, and those who are Sabellians in the same way as he, are accustomed to use three sayings when they try to show that the Father and the Son are one. Sometimes they keep repeating “I and the Father are one,” sometimes “The Father is in me and I in the Father,” and “The one who has seen me has seen the Father.” In answer to “I and the Father are one,” we must bring in the passages set out above, in which he prays further for his disciples, that they too may all obtain the same union. For he says, “that they may be one just as we are one.”

3 “I in them and you in me, so that they may be made perfect into one.” As for the words “The Father is in me and I in the Father,” we will set beside them his own saying, where he prays on their behalf: “As you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they also may be in us, and I have given them the glory that you gave me.” By these words he plainly shows that the Father is in him in just the way he wants the Father to be in us. This does not mean that he and the Father are one in a single subsistence. It means that the Father shared his own glory with him, and that he in turn, imitating the Father, shares what is his with his own. 4 That is why he says, “And I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” “As you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they also may be in us.” So the Father and the Son are one in this way: they share a common glory. The Son shares that glory with his disciples, and he asked that they too be granted the same unity.

Chapter 20

1 And again, in the same way the Father was in him and he was in the Father. The divine apostle teaches the same about all who are worthy of the heavenly kingdom when he says, “Then God will be all in all.” So too it is said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them.” And we too “live and move and exist in him.” All of this is said about us, who each exist and live in our own subsistence and have nothing in common with the Father’s divinity. 2 Why, then, should anyone be surprised if similar words are used of the Son? They do not abolish his own subsistence, nor teach that he is himself both Father and Son. They show the special and distinguished honor the Father gives him, and the glory of the sharing that belongs to the only-begotten and divine Son.