Against Marcellus 2 part 1/4

1. How Marcellus renewed the opinion of Sabellius. 2. How he is also convicted of Judaizing in his opinion. 3. How he defined the Word of God, existing in God, to be without beginning and unbegotten. 4. How he said that the Word and God are one and the same. 5. That in saying these things he denied the Son. 6. How the Church speaks theologically of the Son. 7. How the Church proclaims the monarchy of the Father. 8. With what words Marcellus denied the Son of God. 9. Refutation of the man's ill opinion. 10. That he did not rightly understand, "In the beginning was the Word." 11. That he asserted him to be at one time the uttered Word of God, at another the indwelling Word, in like manner as the word among men. 12. That the evangelist did not set forth his theology concerning the Word as Marcellus supposed. 13. In how many ways the meaning signified by the term "Word" is understood. 14. How one must interpret the evangelical teaching concerning the Word. 15. Citations of Marcellus's own words, by which he denied the Son of God, plainly asserting him to be the uttered Word and the indwelling Word. 16. Refutation of the man's ill opinion. 17. Explanation of the true meaning of the term. 18. Why the evangelist named the Son "Word" at the beginning of his own writing. 19. How Marcellus, citing the Scriptures of the Old Testament concerning the one God, denied the Son of God, just as the Jews do. 20. Why Moses and the prophets did not hand down to the Jews the theology concerning the Son in a bare manner. 21. That it was the Son of God who spoke to Moses and to Abraham. 22. That even among the prophets it was through the Son that the Father was spoken of theologically. 23. That the Church does not proclaim two gods. 24. How Marcellus made the only-begotten Word similar to the words of God that command what is to be done. 25. How he wrote things contrary to himself.

After the testimonies of the divine readings that have been set forth, by which it has been shown that the Son of God was named, before his enfleshed coming, not only "Word" (as indeed Marcellus supposed) but also countless other things — come then, let us henceforth observe the idol of Sabellius, as it were, rearing up from the earth. He dared, then, to say that the very God over all, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was born of the holy virgin and himself suffered, writing in this manner: "What, then, was it that descended before the incarnation? He no doubt says somewhere: Spirit. For if he should wish to say anything else, the angel who spoke to the virgin will not permit him: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you.' But if he says it was the Spirit, let him hear the Savior saying, 'God is Spirit.'"

By these words he asserted that the God of all, concerning whom our Savior and Lord taught, saying, "God is Spirit," and "those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth," was the very Spirit that came upon the virgin — thereby openly renewing Sabellius.

And proceeding further, whereas the prophet Jeremiah clearly spoke concerning the incarnation of the Savior, saying, "After this he was seen upon the earth and lived among men," he refers this saying to the Father, asserting in these very words: "But it seems that the Father is in the Word, even if this does not appear so to Asterius and to those who think the same as he does."

And concerning the passion of the Savior he does the same thing. For after citing from Jeremiah, "the breath of our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their destructions," he adds, likewise here: "The prophet is speaking concerning the Word who assumed our flesh," and he goes on, saying: "A spirit could never be productive of a shadow. And that God himself is Spirit, the Savior said: God is Spirit. And that God is light, he himself teaches us, saying, I am the light." You see how he transfers the things said concerning the Savior to the deity of the Father.

And again he does away with the hypostasis of the Son outright, declaring that before the creation of the things that came to be, there was nothing else besides God alone. He writes, then, verbatim as follows: "The authority given to him Asterius calls 'glory,' and not merely 'glory' but 'pre-cosmic glory,' not realizing that, the world not yet having come to be, there was nothing else besides God alone." And again he affirms the same thing, saying: "Heaven and earth and all things in heaven and on earth came to be by God. If, then, he should believe this, he must necessarily also confess that besides God there was nothing else."

You see one who plainly, like a Jew, denies the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all things came to be. For if there was nothing else besides God before the coming-to-be of the world, then the Son did not exist; and how then did all things come to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be? The Jew, then, who denies the Christ of God, knows nothing before the coming-to-be of the world besides God alone — with Marcellus bearing him witness. But the church of Christ, with all boldness, glories in saying: "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things."

And when it says "through whom are all things," it thereby knows him to be before all things; so that the one who says that before the coming-to-be of the world there was nothing else besides God alone speaks falsely against the truth. For together with the one God, his only-begotten Son also existed before the constitution of the world, and was together with the Father. For this too was taught to the church by the one who said: "In these last days he has spoken to us in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages."

And through Solomon too, the Son himself teaches concerning himself, saying: "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him." Moreover, he himself was the light, "that enlightens every man coming into the world," since "he was in the world, and the world came to be through him." But if the world came to be through him, it is clear that he pre-existed the world.

God, then, was not alone before the constitution of the world, but his only-begotten Son was with him. And looking upon him, the Father rejoiced, as he himself, being Wisdom, teaches, saying: "I was the one in whom he took delight daily." And the Son himself too, gazing upon the thoughts of the Father, was filled with gladness; wherefore he says: "And I rejoiced before him at all times." These, then, are the pious and divine mysteries that the church of Christ has received and guards. But the one who says that, the world not yet having come to be, there was nothing else besides God alone—

—shows himself to be one of two things: either a Jew or a Sabellian. For either, outright denying the Son and introducing God alone, he will be a Jew denying Christ; or, accepting the appellation "Son" only in word, while asserting that he himself is the one God — Son and Father at once — he will renew Sabellius. For if before the world there was nothing else besides God, then either he himself will be both Father and Son, or he will have no Son at all.

But it seems that Marcellus asserts that this same Word within God himself, in respect of which God is understood to be rational, is the Son — so that God is his own father, and again, is his own son. Hear, then, his own words, by which he writes in this manner: "For before all creation there was, as is likely, a certain quiet, the Word being within God."

"For if Asterius has believed God to be the maker of all things, it is clear that he too will agree with us that the one always exists, having at no time ever received a beginning of being, while the other things have come to be by him and have come to be out of things that did not exist." You see how, having posited God to be without beginning, he said that the Word, being within him, was in quietness before the creation; and proceeding further he adds: "If, then, he should believe this, he must necessarily also confess that besides God there was nothing else." The Word, then, had its own proper glory, while yet being within the Father.

Hence he fittingly says that the Word is also eternal — that is, unoriginate — writing thus: "Do you hear, then, the harmony of the Holy Spirit, testifying through many and various persons to the eternity of the Word?" And again: "And for this reason he begins from the eternity of the Word, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word,' and 'the Word was with God,' and 'the Word was God.'" By these three interlocking testimonies he wishes to demonstrate the eternity of the Word.

As for how he asserted that the Word was united to God and co-unbegotten with him, it is possible to hear him saying somewhat as follows: "We know that the economy according to the flesh differs with respect to man, but we have believed that the eternity according to the Spirit is united to the Father."

Having in this manner posited the Word as being within God, he next declares that he is one and the same with him, writing verbatim as follows: "For if the examination were made of the Spirit alone, the Word would fittingly appear to be one and the same as God; but if the fleshly addition in the case of the Savior were examined, the deity seems to be expanded by activity alone; so that fittingly he is truly an undivided monad."

And again, proceeding, he says: "It is not, then, on account of the precise harmony in all words and deeds, as Asterius said, that the Savior says, 'I and the Father are one'; but because it is impossible for either the word of God or God to be divided from his own word." If, then, God and the Word within him were one and the same, as Marcellus supposes, then it was he himself, the God over all, who came to be in the holy virgin, and was made flesh, and became man, and suffered the things that are recorded, and died for our sins. This very thing, which Sabellius dared to say, the church of God has numbered among the godless and blasphemous.

But if Marcellus should say that the Word of God is the one who was made flesh, yet he defined him to be inseparable from God, positing an undivided monad, and one hypostasis of God and of the Word within him, so that, according to him, one can conceive of no one else as having become man than the God over all. But if he is an undivided monad, God and the Word within him being one and the same, then whom would one call Father, and whom Son, there being but one underlying subject? In this way, then, Marcellus, introducing one and the same as both Son and Father, renewed Sabellius.

But the church of God also acknowledges the undivided monad, confessing one first principle, the one unbegotten and beginningless God; and it also inscribes as Savior the only-begotten Son, begotten of him, truly existing, living, and subsisting — not being without beginning nor unbegotten, lest it should posit two first principles and two gods — but begotten of the Father himself, and having as his beginning the one who begot him.

Wherefore it has received the tradition to believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God — this holy and mystical faith bestowing regeneration in Christ upon those who are illumined through it. But Marcellus says that the monad is expanded by activity — a thing which has place in the case of bodies, but no longer in the case of the incorporeal, unutterable, and inexpressible essence.

For neither is it expanded in acting, nor contracted in not acting, nor does it act at all in the manner of men, nor is it moved in the manner of men. But God, being an undivided monad, begot his only-begotten Son from himself, without being divided, and without undergoing alteration or change or flux or any passion whatsoever.

For neither, in commanding, nor in ordering, nor in legislating, does he do these things by speaking with tongue and lips as men do; nor indeed, in looking upon the ordering of the universe, does he gaze intently by making use of eyes as we do — seeing that, by an ineffable and divine power, he beholds even the things that do not yet exist as though they already existed and subsisted, having anticipated them.

But neither, in making and fashioning, does he, like the craftsmen among us, take pre-existing matter and fashion it with hands and fingers; but again, by an ineffable and incomprehensible power, he brought the essence of all created things from non-being into being. If, then, he made all things by ways ineffable and beyond our reasoning, what need is there to be anxious lest we should say that some passion happened to him, like that of mortal creatures, in the begetting of the Son — a begetting which he brought about beyond all things and before all things, not according to any of the things acknowledged as belonging to mortal nature, but according to a manner known to himself alone?

But you are afraid, O man, lest, by confessing two hypostases, you should introduce two first principles and thereby fall away from the monarchic deity. Learn, then, that since there is one beginningless and unbegotten God, and the Son has been begotten from him, there will be one first principle, one monarchy, and one kingdom, since the Son himself too inscribes his own Father as his first principle. For "the head of Christ is God," according to the apostle.

But you are anxious, lest it should be necessary for the one who confesses two hypostases of Father and Son to admit two gods? But know this too: that the one who posits two hypostases of Father and Son is not thereby compelled to say two Fathers, nor two Sons, but will grant that the one is Father, and the other Son. In the same way, then, it is not necessary for the one who posits the two hypostases to grant two gods.

For we do not define them as equal in honor, nor both as beginningless and unbegotten; rather, the one is unbegotten and beginningless, while the other is begotten and has the Father as its beginning. Wherefore the Son himself also teaches that his own Father is his God, in the passage where he says: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God."

God, then, is shown to be, as Father, the God even of the Son himself.

Wherefore, then, one God is proclaimed to the church of the Son. But the Son, when he himself is set alongside the Father, will no longer be the God even of the Father himself, but is his only-begotten and beloved Son, and the image of the invisible God, and the brightness of the paternal glory; and he reveres and worships and glorifies his own Father, ascribing him to be his own God as well (to whom, indeed, he is recorded as praying, to whom he gives thanks, and to whom he becomes obedient even unto death).

He also confesses that he lives on account of the Father, and that he can do nothing without the Father, and that he does not do his own will, but that of the Father. He says, then, in these very words: "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me," and again: "I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me." And that the one who sent him was indeed other than himself, he shows further on, saying: "If I bear witness concerning myself, my witness is not true; there is another who bears witness concerning me."

Then, after mentioning the Baptist, he teaches that the Father is his witness, saying: "And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness concerning me," and he adds: "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I."

By all these things he shows himself to be other than the Father. And he sets forth the surpassing glory of the Father by saying that the one sent him, while he himself was sent and had come down from heaven, not to do his own will but that of him who sent him. And what would Marcellus say in response to this, hearing him who had come down from heaven teaching these things? For surely he will not say that here too it is the flesh of the Savior that speaks these things; for the flesh did not come down from heaven.

Whom, then, will he say to be the one who came down from heaven and teaches these things? Is it God himself, or the Word joined to him? But if he should say the Father, then openly unveiling Sabellius, the Savior himself will convict him as a liar, saying, 'I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.'

'And I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge, and I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me,' and 'my Father is greater than I.' For to suppose that the Father speaks these words would be the height of madness.

But if he says that it is the word connatural with God, and God's own thought, according to which he reasons and deliberates within himself, that utters the things set forth — then how could God's inward thought and the reasoning within him have come down from heaven? And how, having come to be in the flesh which it assumed, did it discourse these things? And how could the word that is in God say that it has come down not to do its own will but the will of him who sent it?

By these words the Son of God sets forth his own reverence toward the Father; but when he presides over all the begotten things that came to be through him, inasmuch as he is the Savior, Lord, and Creator of all (for 'all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be'), then he would rightly be proclaimed God, Master, Savior, and King.

Wherefore his Church has been taught to reverence, worship, and honor him as God, having learned to do this from him.

The Savior himself says: 'For neither does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father' — expressly commanding that he be honored not as the prophets are honored, nor as angels or their differing powers, but in like manner to the Father himself. For it was the Father's own will, in giving all judgment to the Son, that all should honor him even as they honor the Father.

These things Thomas the Twin, knowing them precisely, since he had been one of the company of the twelve disciples, inscribed to him in splendid words, calling him both God and Lord, saying, 'My Lord and my God.' Wherefore it is fitting for us also to reverence the Son alone, and no other, with divine honor, even as we honor the Father. And in this the Father is honored through the Son.

This very thing he himself teaches, saying, 'He who honors the Son honors the Father who sent him.' For just as, in honoring an image of the king that has been sent forth, we would be honoring the original of the image, the king himself, in the same way the Father would be honored through the Son, as he is also seen through him.

For 'he who has seen the Son has seen the Father,' beholding the unbegotten deity stamped, as it were in an image and a mirror, in the Son; for he is the radiance of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of God's activity, and the image of his goodness. All these things he has received from the Father, having taken his glory both from him and from the deity, inasmuch as he is a genuine and only-begotten Son. But the Father has received from no one; and being himself the source, fountain, and root of all good things, he alone would fittingly be proclaimed the one and only God.

But Marcellus, being ignorant of these things, does not wish the Son to have been truly begotten from the Father as a living and subsisting Son, but asserts that he proceeded from God as a kind of word signifying something, or a word of command. Hear him, then, saying this too quite openly, in these very words: 'Now, to say that he was begotten before the ages seems to have been stated consistently; for that which proceeds is the offspring of the father who put it forth. But the other point is no longer soundly or piously accepted by him. For to say that what proceeded from him is not word, and that this is the true manner of the generation, but that he is truly Son only — this tends to give hearers a certain impression drawn from human appearance.'

Then, to establish that the Word was not even begotten from the Father, he speaks verbatim as follows: 'The sacred apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, then, mentioning his eternity, became a true witness of the Word, saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," making no mention here of any generation of the Word.' Thus, denying the Son of God, he asserted that the Word in God is at one time within God, at another proceeds from God, and at yet another will run back again into God and be in him.

...as he was before also. But hear how he says these things, in these very words: 'Now I believe the divine Scriptures, that God is one. And his Word proceeded from the Father, that all things might come to be through him; but after the time of judgment and the correction of all things and the abolition of all opposing activity, then he himself will be subjected to God and Father, who subjected all things to him, so that thus the Word may be in God, just as he was before, before the world existed. For since nothing existed before but God alone, and since all things were to come to be through the Word, the Word proceeded in active operation, being the Word of the Father.'

And again he sets forth the same thought more clearly, writing thus: 'For before the world existed, the Word was in the Father. But when God the Almighty purposed to make all things both in heaven and on earth, the coming-to-be of the world required active operation; and for this reason, since nothing else existed except God (for it is confessed that all things came to be by him), then the Word, having proceeded, became the maker of the world — he who beforehand had also been preparing it inwardly, in thought.'

And again, after all this, he adds, saying: 'And for this reason he does not call himself the Son of God, but everywhere calls himself the Son of Man, so that through such a confession he may prepare man, by adoption, through fellowship with him, to become a son of God; and that, after the completion of his work, he himself, as Word, may again be united to God, fulfilling that which was spoken by the Apostle: "Then he himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things and in all." For at that time he will be that very thing which he was before.' Having said so much about the Word in God — by which we understand [God] to be rational — Marcellus has fallen into a fearful difficulty, having dared to say that the Word within him once came to be outside of God, and again within him after the time of judgment, so that thus he may be in God, united to him, just as he was before.

It is time, then, for us to ask him to answer. What, then, are we to understand about the intervening time, when the Word of God was outside [of God]? And how did he proceed? And in what condition, then, was God, not having in himself his own Word? For if at the consummation of all things the Word will be in God, just as he was before, before the time of the consummation, how will the Word who proceeded from God exist [then]? For if he came to subsist as another, distinct in himself, from God, then Marcellus's labor is in vain; but if, having proceeded from God, he remained inseparable from the Father — as is the case with the uttered word among us — then he was always and altogether in God, even when he was active.

How then does he refer [this] to the time of judgment, saying that then he will be united to God and will be just as he was before? For if he will then be as he was before, neither will the Word who proceeded from God exist as he was before, but God himself too will be unlike himself — having formerly had the Word in himself, and receiving him back at the consummation of all things, becoming then as he was before, yet in the intervening time lying in an unlike state. And the Word likewise, having come to be outside of God, will not, before the consummation of all things, be such as he was before.

And what teaching could be more impious than this? For altogether, 'was' and 'will be,' and having once come to be and again being about to be, are indicative of change in time, and would be foreign to the timeless, unoriginate, unbegotten, and unalterable essence, of which it is fitting to conceive only 'being,' existing invariably always the same and in like manner — not diminished, not contracted, not extended, not expanded, having nothing outside and inside itself, not becoming other at different times, not being one thing formerly and then becoming something else and again being restored to its original state.

These things Marcellus dared to posit, saying that formerly God existed, and positing for himself a certain 'quiet' together with God (after the manner of that leader of the godless heretics, who, propounding godless doctrines, declared, saying, 'There was God, and Silence'), and that after the silence and the quiet, the Word of God proceeded at the beginning of the making of the world, in active operation — so that he was no longer as he had been, quietly at rest formerly in the silent God, but became active as he proceeded from God. And how, then, did he proceed?

Presumably, altogether, by way of an articulate utterance of voice, God plainly speaking and talking in the manner of men. This, at any rate, seemed to him [to be the case], writing in this manner: 'For just as all things that have come to be were made by the Father through the Word, so also the things spoken by the Father are signified through the Word.'

And again: 'For whatever things the Father says, he appears everywhere to say them through the Word. And this is clear also from our own case, comparing small things with great and divine ones; for we too, whatever we wish, as far as possible, to say and to do, we do by our own word.'

If, then, the Word proceeded from the Father in this manner, by active operation, whence did it occur to Marcellus to limit the operation of the Word to the time of the consummation, at which he says the Word will be in God just as he was before (though he represented him as formerly resting quietly in the silent God)? Must there not then also be, after the consummation, a certain quiet, since the Word will no longer be about to operate? 'But before the constitution of created things,' he says, 'there was nothing except God, and since there was nothing, he fittingly fashioned for himself the quiet.'

But concerning the time of the consummation, the prophet Daniel prophesies that there will be myriads before the throne of God, saying, 'A thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.'

And there, too, will all the sons of the age to come be present — the blessed souls of patriarchs and prophets and apostles, the holy spirits of martyrs, and all the sheep of our Savior on his right hand — who will stand there and hear, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'

Since, then, there will be so many, living an immortal life after the time of judgment, why will the Word of God not be active then too? And whence did it occur to Marcellus to declare that God will then no longer speak to the saints, nor make use of his active Word, but will be — just as he was before — plainly silent and at rest within himself? For this is what he asserted, having said many times that he will then be as he was before; and he was, before, as he himself said, 'in quiet.'

Therefore God will then fall silent — speaking before this and using his active Word, but then, in that very promised kingdom of heaven, depriving his saints of his own Word and of the wisdom in him. Do you see into what a precipice he has been carried, employing no guide, not even the divine Scriptures? For all these things, from a single expression which he has not understood, he has put together for himself.