Against Marcellus 3 part 4/4

But just as the apostle did not mean union when he said that all things will be subjected to the Son, but rather the obedience arising from free choice, and the glory and honor which all things will render to him as Savior and King of all — in the same way, that the Son himself will be subjected to the Father would signify nothing else than the glory and honor and reverence and majesty and free obedience which he himself too will render to God and Father, when he shall have prepared all to be worthy of the paternal deity.

For meanwhile, since as yet they are not worthy of this, he himself, taking the lead as a certain common Savior of all, reigns with a kingdom that is corrective of the imperfect and healing of those who need healing, putting the enemies of his kingdom under his feet — which the Psalm affirms, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."

But when he shall have put his enemies under his feet, and shall have established those worthy of his kingdom in unending life, then indeed the last enemy of all, death, will be abolished; for no one will still be dying, but those worthy of the kingdom will then be living in eternal life. It is likely that death will become idle, no longer having anyone to put to death.

When these things have been thus made ready, all the holy ones will be subjected to the Son of God with a saving subjection: being made to live eternally in him who is life, becoming wise in him who is wisdom, and being made rational in him who is Word. Thus too they will become anointed ones, anointed with the spirit of his fragrance, and they will be revealed as luminaries of the new age, supplied with light from him, and they will become sons of God, adorned with the spirit of adoption, and those who are to be subjected to him will partake also of his other powers, so as to become righteous from his righteousness and holy from his holiness. And since the Word was also God, he will not begrudge them deity either.

So that the apostle's word be proved true, who foretold that the holy ones would become heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. Indeed, they will also make use of heavenly bodies resembling the sun and moon and stars, and in this too will partake of his glory.

This is what the same man showed when he said: "from whence also we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby he is able even to subject all things to himself." You see how, by the power whereby he is able to subject all things to himself, he will also effect the transformation of our body into conformity with the body of his glory, and will render our body as his own.

But if our body is to be conformed to the body of his glory, how much more, and much earlier, will the body of his own glory be a partaker of his kingdom? And if our body will be swallowed up by life, as the apostle testified when he said, "in respect of which we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life" — how much more, and much earlier, will his own body, as having served his deity, be swallowed up — not by life alone, as with ours, but also by his own deity? Let no one, then, inquire or be perplexed within himself as to what one ought to think concerning the saving body, hearing Paul clearly say that what is mortal must be swallowed up by life, and that our body will be conformed to the body of Christ's glory, according to the operation whereby he is able also to subject all things to himself.

So then, he will subject all things to himself; and one must understand the saving subjection in such a manner that by it the Son himself will also be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, rendering an ineffable and unspeakable subjection fitting to himself alone, at the time when, surrounding all who are his own like a chorus, he will offer up to God and Father the glory and the honor and the reverence and the majesty, since he is offering these to the one who is the cause of all good things.

At which time also the conclusion of the apostolic teaching will attain its end, which said, "that God may be all in all." And this too we shall understand from another promise, by which it was said by God himself: "I will dwell in them, and I will walk among them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people." But now, in the present age, the promise proceeds only to a few worthy ones, and in part, according to the saying, "for we know in part, and we prophesy in part"; but after the consummation of all things, when the new age has arrived, he will no longer dwell in a mere few, but in all who are then worthy of the kingdom of the heavens.

Thus, then, he will be all in all, plainly dwelling in them and walking among them and being their God, not disdaining to be, and making them all his own people. Thus, then, he will be in them just as he is also said to be in the Son, as he teaches, saying, "the Father himself is in me, and I in the Father." And he will be all things in them, giving himself to all, in accordance with the capacity of each to partake of his deity — the thrice-blessed hope and the unending and incorruptible life being established in this very end, in which God will be all in all, filling all with the flashes of his deity, unspeakable light, while the Son, rejoicing and exulting in the success, placing about himself, as it were, those who have been deemed worthy of blessedness through him, like a crown, will continue, under the supervision of the Father, his unaging and unending kingdom, when the oracles concerning him shall then be fulfilled — the others as well, but especially those spoken by the angel Gabriel to the all-holy Virgin concerning the one to be born of her, that he will reign forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Reigning, then, at that time, the Son of God will deliver up to his own Father all who are ruled under him, not ceasing from his kingdom nor withdrawing from it. For the divine apostle did not say that he will cease from his kingdom (for he would then have written contrary to what Gabriel prophesied to the Virgin, that he would reign forever and that of his kingdom there would be no end), but rather that he will deliver up the kingdom — namely, those who are ruled under him — to God and Father.

For when he has perfected all people under him, as it were rejoicing in the achievement, he will deliver them up to the Father as a kind of deposit he has faithfully kept — which he teaches when he says, "all things have been delivered to me by my Father." Wherefore, accordingly, as a good guardian, bringing the deposit safe and entirely sound, he will deliver it to God, presenting to him, in the manner of a high priest, all those made priests under him, arrayed in white and flashing, as it were, in the most radiant robes, with the incorruptible bodies of the resurrection — so that they may enjoy not only his kingdom, but also be filled with the unspeakable goods of the Father.

For thus, according to the apostle, God will be all in all, the Son bringing to him those he has ruled, so that this may become complete in its entirety — I mean, that the Father may be all in all. For as he was formerly in the Son, according to "the Father is in me and I in the Father," so too he will then be in all who have been perfected under the Son.

For the apostle did not say that the Son will cease from his kingdom while God begins to reign, but rather that the Son will deliver the kingdom to God and Father, thereby showing that the deposit is safe and sufficient for the Father's service and priesthood; while God will be all in all, as a God dwelling and walking among them and becoming all things to them. For of some he will be Master, of others King, of others something else — but of all together, God, becoming all things to them by his divine excellences and powers within him.

This is the end of the thrice-blessed hope which the great apostle sketched out, saying, "that God may be all in all." But while in all things he will be all, in proportion to each one's capacity, supplying to all the various conceptions of his deity, to his only-begotten Son alone he will preserve the special and paternal glory and honor and kingdom, uncommunicated to all the rest.

But if it is necessary to seal these matters with a prophetic seal, I shall use as a firm confirmation of what has been said the prophetic spirit through Ezekiel the prophet, proclaiming these very things in such words: "Thus says the Lord, the Lord: Behold, I myself will seek my sheep and will visit them. As a shepherd seeks his flock in a day when there is cloud and darkness, in the midst of sheep that have been scattered, so I will seek out my sheep."

And after other matters: "And I will save my sheep, and they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between ram and ram. And I will raise up over them one shepherd, and he shall feed them — my servant David — and he shall be their shepherd; and I the Lord will be their God, and David a prince in the midst of them; I the Lord have spoken, and I will make a covenant with David." And after other matters he repeats the same prophecy, saying: "And I will deliver them from all their iniquities in which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they shall be to me a people, and I will be to them a God; and my servant David shall be prince in the midst of them, and he shall be shepherd of them all."

And again he adds: "And David my servant shall be their prince forever." Observe in all these that God is not said to be a shepherd or a prince, but rather God, to those who shall be deemed worthy of the blessed end; whereas it is precisely of these same ones that David is prophesied to become prince and shepherd — the prophet here obliquely alluding through David to Christ, because he was to be born of David's seed.

And this is clear from the fact that David had already died before the time when these things were spoken. Daniel the prophet declares these things even more clearly, calling the Christ of God "Son of Man" quite plainly, just as the sacred writing of the Gospels also customarily calls him. He speaks in this manner: "I was watching in a vision of the night, and behold, one like a son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before him. And to him was given the dominion and the honor and the kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed."

You perceive how, in these words too, the prophet indicates that it is not the incorruptible, unaging, and unending kingdom of the Word who is in God, but that of the Son of Man; and he clearly teaches that the Son of Man is other than the Ancient of Days, having received the incorruptible kingdom from the Ancient of Days — that is, plainly, from his own Father.

But Marcellus defines them as one and the same, a single hypostasis underlying two names; moreover, he even dares to circumscribe his kingdom, and shamelessly declares that there will be an end to the kingdom of Christ after the time of judgment, writing in this manner: "Here the apostle reveals to us a very great mystery, asserting that there will be an end of the kingdom of Christ."

"And it will end when all things are subjected under his feet." And he elaborates this argument somewhat as follows, saying: "We have said in our preceding statements that our Master Christ had a beginning of his kingdom, employing proofs from the divine Scriptures." And he adds: "And it is possible to show, having a wealth of countless texts as testimony altogether, that the man received the beginning of the kingdom through the Word."

If then he received the beginning of [his] kingdom not more than four hundred years ago in total, it is nothing strange if the apostle says that he who obtained this kingdom after so short a time will hand over the kingdom to God.

And he adds, after other matters, saying: 'What then do we learn concerning the human flesh, which the Word assumed for our sake not quite four hundred years ago? Will the Word possess this flesh also in the ages to come, or only until the very time of judgment?' Marcellus, then, dared to say such things; but the prophets of God, defining the kingdom of Christ as without end, say that after the time of judgment he will take the beginning of the new age. For observe how the prophet Ezekiel, having set forth a tribunal for God's sheep, after their judgment sets David over them as shepherd, and declares that this same one will be their ruler.

And Daniel, foretelling, said: 'I beheld until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat, and his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire, his wheels burning fire. A river of fire flowed forth before him; a thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat, and books were opened.' Having beheld these things beforehand, he next sees the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days and receiving the incorruptible kingdom. Therefore even then—distinctly and more excellently than now—will he take the beginning of reigning over those worthy of blessedness.

To these things the Gospel bears witness, in which the Savior himself sets his seal upon the prophetic words, delivering to his own disciples the discourses concerning the consummation, through which he taught these things, saying: 'But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon the throne of his glory; and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand: Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' Observe how these things accord with what is said in the prophecy concerning the sheep and concerning the judgment of the rams, and how the Son of Man is introduced as King after the judgment of the sheep, while his Father is God.

For this he himself also taught when he said, 'Then the King will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father'—corresponding to David, who is named in the prophecy, whom the word [of Scripture] teaches will be shepherd and ruler of the sheep, being about to shepherd and rule God's flocks under God as overseer.

And it is also necessary to fix the mind on this point: that what was said by the apostle in the phrase 'when he shall abolish all rule and all authority and power' was hinted at by the prophecy which says, 'and I will remove evil beasts from the land.'

For what could the beasts be that in former times troubled the sheep, other than the opposing powers? When these have been removed out of the way, the new and fresh age, having been cleansed of all evil, will have as king the Son of Man (or, according to the prophecy's covert allusion, David as shepherd and ruler, because he came to be of David's seed); but as for God, it is said that this age will possess him not as shepherd nor as ruler, but as very God himself—by a conception higher than that of shepherd, ruler, and king—who, by the majesty of his divine power, is to be leader not only of the sheep but of the shepherd himself. For, it says, 'My servant David shall be shepherd to them, and I the Lord will be to them for God.' And it calls David 'servant' because our Savior and Lord, from David's seed, assumed the form of a servant.

And this was the thrice-blessed end: according to which, our Savior having secured for those worthy of it the promised kingdom of the heavens, the God over all and his Father, the highest good of all, will himself bestow himself upon those who are ruled as king under the Son, becoming all in all. This again our Savior and Lord himself set forth, when he sent up the great prayer on behalf of his disciples to God and the Father, through which he makes his request, saying: 'that they all may be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.'

'And I have given them the glory which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me.'

'Father, those whom you have given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may behold the glory which you have given me.' This is the great intercession of our Savior on our behalf: that we may be with him wherever he is, and that we may behold his glory, and that he may love us as his Father loved him, and that what he bestowed on him he may give to us also, and the glory which he gave him, this he may give to us also—making us all one, that we may no longer be many but all one, united to his divinity and to the glory of the kingdom, not according to a fusion of one essence, but according to the perfecting of virtue carried to its height.

For this too he taught, when he said, 'that they may be perfected.' For thus, having been made perfect by him in wisdom and prudence and righteousness and piety and every virtue, we shall be joined to the ineffable light of the paternal divinity, ourselves also becoming lights through our joining to him; and, being made sons of God by participation in the fellowship of his Only-begotten, [we shall become such] through partaking of the radiant beams of his divinity.

And indeed, in this manner we shall all become one with the Father and the Son. For just as he himself said that he and the Father are one, declaring, 'I and the Father are one,' so also he prays that all of us, in imitation of him, may partake of that same unity—not, as Marcellus [holds], the Word being united with God and joined together with him in essence, but, as the truth has borne witness, as the Savior himself said: 'The glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one; I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one.' For thus, even then, will the apostolic saying also attain its fulfillment, which said: 'that God may be all in all.'

And since Marcellus, and those who Sabellianize in a manner similar to him, are accustomed to make use of three sayings in their attempt to show that the Father and the Son are one—sometimes endlessly repeating 'I and the Father are one,' sometimes 'the Father is in me and I in the Father,' and 'he who has seen me has seen the Father'—then against 'I and the Father are one,' the aforesaid texts must be brought forward, by which he prays on behalf of his disciples that they all also may attain the same union; for he says, 'that they may be one, even as we are one.'

'I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one.' And against 'the Father is in me and I in the Father,' we shall again set beside it his own utterance, by which, praying on their behalf, he said: 'as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us; and I have given them the glory which you have given me.' By these words he clearly shows that the Father is in him in just the way he wills the Father to be in us also—not because he himself and the Father happen to be one according to a single hypostasis, but because the Father has imparted to him his own glory, and he himself likewise, imitating the Father, imparts it to those who are his own.

Therefore he says, 'And I have given them the glory which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one. As you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.' Thus, then, the Father and the Son are one according to the fellowship of glory—which, imparting to his disciples, he deemed them worthy of that same union also.

And again, thus the Father was in him and he in the Father—just as the divine apostle also teaches concerning all who are worthy of the heavenly kingdom, saying: 'then God will be all in all,' just as it is also said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them.' Indeed, we too 'live and move and have our being' in him. And all these things are said concerning us, who subsist according to our own individual hypostasis, and live, and have nothing in common with the paternal divinity.

Why then should we be surprised if similar expressions are also applied in the case of the Son—not annulling his hypostasis, nor teaching that he himself is both Father and Son, but setting forth the Father's peculiar and special honor and glory toward him, [an honor belonging] to their only-begotten and divine communion?

Thus, then, also 'he who has seen him has seen the Father'—inasmuch as he alone, and no other, is the image of the invisible God, and the radiance of his glory, and the exact representation of his hypostasis, and subsists in the form of God, according to the apostolic teachings. For just as one who has beheld a royal image made in precise likeness to the king, and traces out the features of its form through the portrait, forms in his mind an impression of the king—in the same manner, or rather beyond all reckoning and beyond every example, the one who, with a mind made radiant, and with eyes purified in soul and illumined by the Holy Spirit, gazes intently upon the greatness of the power of the Only-begotten Son and Lord, and considers how in him dwells all the fullness of the paternal divinity, and how all things came to be through him, and in him were created all things that are in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, and reflects that the Father begot him alone as an only-begotten Son wholly conformed to himself in every respect—such a one will, in effect, see the Father himself through the Son, beheld by those whose understanding has been purified, concerning whom it was said: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'

Let these things, then, since our aim from the outset was brevity, be exercised as in a summary compendium. But since the matters on this topic require the very greatest elaboration, whoever cares for an exact grasp of them will, fixing his mind upon the evangelical and apostolic readings, gather out the whole sense from them at his leisure. As for the countless other things heaped together incoherently in Marcellus' treatise—very many of them stated contrary to the intention of Scripture, and others forced and preserving no coherence whatever—since I judge that the common refutation has been made manifest to those of sound mind through the matters we have examined, I shall be content with these.