Wherefore it follows that we should understand that what is born of God would also be God. And to the degree that the God who is beyond all things is by nature estranged and separated from earthly flesh, to that same degree must we understand that the manner in which the Father begot the Son is estranged from the generation of fleshly bodies. For it was not by emitting anything, nor by being altered, nor by being moved passively, nor by undergoing at all any of the things we are familiar with, that he brought him into subsistence.
For he was not a body, such that one could reckon in his case an efflux, or diminution, or extension, or change, or alteration, or flux, or part, or passion. Apart from all these, he brought about the act of generation in a manner ineffable and inconceivable to us, indeed unsearchable and untraceable to every created nature. The sun, too, begets its ray, and the Son is also called the radiance of eternal light and the radiance of glory -- yet not according to the sensible image of light; for beyond every example, he brought him into subsistence by reasons ineffable and incomprehensible, and this one alone and only-begotten.
Let every mouth be stopped, then, of impious and godless men who have been infected with the disease of polytheistic error -- men who, having debased into a multitude the special and peculiar begetting of the only-begotten Son, have proclaimed a 'father of men and of gods,' mingling together men with gods, and at the same time introducing a father of the same nature as these, common to them all. But these men, by demonic energy, have put forth this impious and godless saying, positing gods of the same nature and the same passions as the mortal, passible, and sinful race of men, and a father common to them all, in every way made like to his children. But the preacher of the church proclaims to all one only-begotten Son of one God, whom he brought into subsistence for the salvation and providence of all created things.
For since the nature of created things, possessing its distinctions in bodies and incorporeal beings, in animate and inanimate, rational and irrational, mortal and immortal, was not able to draw near to the God who is over all and above all, nor to partake of the radiant splendors of his Godhead, on account of the excessive deficiency in relation to what is superior, but would have slipped away far and wide through the weakness of its nature, had it not obtained God the Savior as its helper -- fittingly the Father's love for mankind established his own only-begotten child over all things, passing through all and presiding over all and watering all with the supplies that flow from him.
For the Father who begot him proclaimed him alone, without qualification, shepherd and savior, guardian and keeper and physician and pilot of all things, both in heaven and on earth, entrusting to him alone the helm of the constitution and governance of the universe -- which he teaches, saying, 'All things have been delivered to me by my Father,' and again, 'For the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.'
And he, like a wise pilot, having received his commission from the Father, embarking upon the whole universe and looking upward to his own Father, guides and steers, piloting the whole, overlooking not even the least thing that needs supply from him, nor disdaining the smallest matters; wherefore he is present to all, apportioning to each what is fitting, and, in the manner of a physician, ministering to the whole with what is suited for salvation.
Wherefore, fittingly, he did not disdain even the life of man, but long ago already provided his assistance to the men who from of old were lovers of God -- here appearing in human form to the forefathers of the Hebrews, there prescribing fitting laws to their descendants; and afterward, through the prophets, he issued oracles to all men concerning his future divine manifestation, which was to shine forth upon them.
And as the time for these things drew on, he fulfilled in deed the accomplishment of the ancient oracles; and thereupon he was present at last, mingling in company with mortal life, and he himself, the only-begotten Son of God, as though within a divine image, through the instrument of the body, held converse with the human race by teachings, by healings, and by the ineffable instructions of divine wisdom.
And already, by the Father's nod, he pressed on, in surpassing love for mankind, even to the very gates of death, so that he might deem worthy of his own grace even those in this realm, having drawn them up to the life that is with him. Thus God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and he endured the incarnate economy, though he pre-existed it and existed before, honored with the Godhead of the Father's glory -- yet not counting it robbery to be equal with God, but emptying himself, and taking the form of a servant, humbled himself, becoming obedient to the Father unto death, so that, just as death, through one man who sinned, gained dominion over the whole race, so also eternal life, through his grace, might reign over those who believe in him and, through him, are made known to God his Father.
Fittingly, then, proclaiming these things, the church rejected Sabellius, as one who had counterfeited a base coin -- namely, the denial of the Son of God -- although he said, in the same manner as Marcellus, that he knew one God, and that there is none besides him. And the first preachers of our Savior himself named 'Ebionites' -- in the Hebrew tongue calling them 'poor in understanding' -- those who said they knew one God and did not deny the body of the Savior, but did not know the Godhead of the Son.
And the man of Samosata too, although he taught that Jesus Christ was of God, and confessed one God over all in the same manner as Marcellus, was declared by the fathers of the church to be alien to the church of God, because he did not confess that Christ was also Son of God and God before his fleshly generation. But this man, as one impious toward Christ, was driven far from his church.
Sabellius, on the other hand, since he sinned against the Father himself, whom he dared to call Son, suffered the same punishment as the godless heretics. But Marcellus, suspecting that he would suffer the same fate as he, devised a newer contrivance for his error: defining God and the Word within him to be one, yet granting to this one the two titles of Father and Son. He did not, however, escape notice, nor did he elude detection -- being at last found out, caught in his own nets.
But hear how he slandered the man, mentioning him by name, writing concerning him in these very words: 'For Sabellius too, having himself slipped from the right faith, knew accurately neither God nor his holy Word. For he who did not know the Word was also ignorant of the Father. For, he says, "No one knows the Father except the Son" -- that is, the Word; for the Word, through himself, provides the knowledge of the Father. For thus he also said, in reply to those Jews of that time who supposed they knew God while rejecting his Word, through whom alone God is known: "No one truly knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him." For since it was impossible to know God otherwise, he teaches that men know him through his own Word -- so that that man too erred, in that he did not accurately know the Father and his Word.'
This is what Marcellus wrote, clearing himself, in mere sound and word, of the suspicion of Sabellianizing. Yet in opinion, and in like-mindedness with the man, he is caught, being pierced by the very same darts as that man -- so that it would truly have been my prayer that he not fall into the same errors; but as it is, he appears to sin even worse than Sabellius. For the latter, perhaps, erred through ignorance; but this man, confessing that Sabellius erred, and then thrusting himself over the manifest precipice of the very same impiety, could deserve no pardon whatsoever. But let us examine what has been said.
Now first, as to his assertion that neither Sabellius nor the Jews knew God because they did not know the Word, we must consider what sort of 'Word' he supposes. For if he means the only-begotten Son of God, subsisting and living, then he himself did not know this one either. For while our Savior variously mentions the Son, and often calls himself only-begotten Son, and never once calls himself 'Word,' and throughout all the Gospels teaches that he is Son of God (on account of which he also pronounces Peter blessed for having said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and testifies that this knowledge came to him by revelation of the Father, saying, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven') -- this remarkable fellow, as though with ears stopped up, writes the following verbatim: 'And for this reason he does not call himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, so that, through such a confession, by adoption he might prepare man, through communion with him, to become Son of God.'
Do you see how he dares not confess him to be Son of God, lest he should fall away from the doctrine of Sabellius, but calls him Son of Man, on account of the flesh he assumed? And throughout his whole treatise he continually names him 'Word,' pointedly emphasizing that he was nothing else but Word.
And even in the very passage where he censures Sabellius, he cites the words of the Savior, in which he said, 'No one knew the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him.'
But as though correcting these very words, he again names 'Word' instead of 'Son,' saying thus: 'For, he says, no one knows the Father except the Son' -- that is, the Word; and he adds, 'For the Word, through himself, provides the knowledge of the Father'; and he further adds, 'It was impossible to know God otherwise than through his own Word'; and again he substitutes 'Word' for 'Son,' and calls him 'his own Word.' And in so brief a passage as this, he mentions 'Word' many times, but 'Son' not even once. Indeed, he even alters the Savior's very own saying.
adding 'that is, the Word' in place of 'the Son' -- as though the meaning of 'Son' were not more fitting to the appellation of 'Father.' Wherefore fittingly the Savior himself, appropriately, joined the pairing of Son with Father; but this man, having refused to say 'Son,' harps on 'Word' up and down, and while accusing Sabellius of denying the Son, he is found doing the very same thing himself, though he disguises it, thinking to deflect the suspicion of false doctrine by his slander of the other man. If, then, he blames Sabellius for denying the Son of God, he ought first to have blamed himself; but if he blames him because Sabellius did not know the 'Word' which he himself had defined, then this accusation, at any rate, was not rightly made.
For neither Sabellius nor the Jews themselves, who deny the Christ of God, could be said to have been ignorant of that which Marcellus calls the Word within God, by whom he communicated with Moses and the prophets; rather, everyone -- not only of the Jews but even of the Greeks -- would say that they knew this precisely well. For who would not confess God to be rational, as well as wise and good and powerful? Sabellius would not deny knowing this; but because he did not confess the Son of God to be living and subsisting, existing and pre-existing the flesh, for this reason -- on account of this agreement with Marcellus -- he was, just as Marcellus is, driven away from the church of God.
And how Marcellus held the very same views as Sabellius will be clear from the following, in which he set forth that God and his Word are one and the same -- saying at one point, in these very words:
'For if the inquiry concerned the spirit alone, the Word would fittingly appear to be one and the same as God.' At another point, comparing the Word of God to human word, he also says that the word within a man is one and the same as the man, separated by nothing else but the activity of action alone. For this reason, he asserted at one point that before the constitution of the world there was nothing else besides God, and again he said, in these very words: 'When the world had not yet come to be, there was nothing else besides God alone.'
At another point he compared the Word of God to our own significative speech, writing thus in these words: 'Just as all things that have come into being have come into being by the Father through the Word, so also the things spoken by the Father are signified through the Word.' Having in this passage called him a 'significative word,' he goes on, further along, to establish that he is inseparable in hypostasis, one and the same with the Father, saying somewhat as follows: 'And this, I think, is easy for those who think rightly to know, even from a small and humble example drawn from our own experience.'
For it is not possible for anyone to separate the word of man from him in power and in hypostasis; for the word is one and the same as the man, and is not distinguished from him by anything else than by the sheer activity of action alone. And again he uses the same image, where he says: For whatever things the Father says, he is everywhere seen to say all these through the Word. This is plain also from ourselves — comparing small things with great and divine ones — for we too do all that we wish, so far as we are able, both to say and to do, by our own word.
These things ought to be thought spoken by Marcellus no less than by Sabellius — unless indeed Marcellus is here mocking Sabellius, because Sabellius did not have the shamelessness to call the “signifying word” in God, as Marcellus himself supposes it, “Son.” For Sabellius was not, after all, possessed of so great a folly of reasoning as to attribute to God a word in the same manner as to men; nor was he so foolish as to call the non-subsistent word “Son of God.” Wherefore Sabellius, though he affirmed one God, denying the Son —
— consistently with the hypothesis granted to him, [Sabellius] asserted that the Father was the same as the Son; but Marcellus, likewise granting that God and the Word in him are one and the same, cannot confess that Sabellius erred in vain, without confessing the same concerning himself.
For either he ought to have accepted that man too, or, in blaming him, he himself ought also to be blamed and, in blaming him, should turn away from the like false opinion he shares with him — and not represent God, after the manner of a sculptor, as conversing with his own thought and his own reasoning, and exhorting himself, saying, “Come, let us make; come, let us fashion a statue” (for thus he said that God too spoke the words, “Let us make man”).
— nor should one suppose that in God there is at one time an “indwelling word,” as with man, and at another a “signifying” word, like the uttered word within us. For these things would be more tolerable to hear spoken by Sabellius, or by some Jew who openly denies the Son of God, than by a Christian.
But he, as though priding himself on Jewish teaching, introduces into the Church of Christ this impious and godless doctrine that the Son of God does not exist, laboring throughout the whole treatise he composed to establish that before the world came to be there was nothing else besides God alone, in order to shut off any way of entry for the Son. Yet he also exalts himself, boasting that he knows one God —
— as though we ourselves did not say this too, we who have accepted that the Son of God is truly Son, and who have learned from him himself to know one God — that he is at once God and Father of the only-begotten Son, [namely] of himself, who is truly his own Son begotten of him before all ages, and called not only “Word” before the assumption of the flesh — as this noble fellow determines — but also by countless other names. But he, in this too, falsifies the divine Scripture, insisting that before the incarnate presence he was called nothing other than “Word.”
Hear then how, as he insists, he writes in these very words, in this manner: “so that it is clear from every side that no other name befits the eternity of the Word than that which the most holy disciple of God and apostle John spoke at the beginning of his Gospel. For since after the assumption of the flesh he is proclaimed Christ and Jesus, life and way and day and resurrection and door and bread, and whatever else is named by the divine Scriptures, we ought not on this account to be ignorant of the first name, that he was Word. For this reason, then, the most holy evangelist and disciple of the Lord, being greatly awake in the spirit, remembering the beginning from above and nothing more recent, said, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ and ‘the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ in order to show that, if there is any new and more recent name, it arose for him from the new and recent economy according to the flesh.”
And next he adds: “Therefore, before he came down and was born through the virgin, he was only Word. For what else was that which came down in the last days — as he himself also wrote — and was born of the holy virgin, before it assumed human flesh? Nothing other than Word.” And again he continues: “For formerly, as I have often said, he was nothing other than Word.”
And he adds yet again, saying: “For the Word was in the beginning, being nothing other than Word; but the man united to the Word, not having existed before, came to be man — as John teaches us: ‘and the Word became flesh.’ For this reason, then, he appears to mention the Word alone.”
“For whether the divine Scripture mentions the name of Jesus or of Christ, it appears to be naming the Word of God as he exists after the human flesh. But if anyone should undertake to show that even before the New Testament the name of Christ or Jesus applies to the Word alone, he will find this spoken prophetically.” And after other matters he adds, saying: “Fittingly, then, before the descent this was — as we have often said — Word; but after the descent and the assumption of the flesh he obtained various further appellations.” These, then, are the things by which Marcellus is caught denying the Son of God who is and lives and is truly Son, and introducing instead a bare word.
It has also been shown, through his previously cited statements, what sort of “word” he supposed him to be — using as an example the human word/reason, saying that he is one and the same with God. And having thus laid down this as his starting-point, consistently, from the hypothesis granted to him, he went on to falsify the divinely inspired Scripture and to produce perverse interpretations of it.
It seemed good to me at present to examine briefly a few of these matters, and to show those who do not know that no Scripture agrees with him in his innovating and turning aside from the sound faith; on the contrary, all of them speak against and bear witness against the interpretations he has wrongly adopted — which it was especially necessary to demonstrate to those who honor the man, lest any of them, through unfamiliarity with the divine readings, should suppose that he had hit the mark of the truth.
And indeed this must first be examined, which he has also first dared to declare: that before he was born through the virgin, the Son of God was called by no other name than Word. For [Marcellus claims] he was nothing before the incarnate presence other than Word, nor was he named otherwise except prophetically — for he asserts that he both was and was named Word and nothing else — but after the incarnate presence he obtained various further appellations.
This, then, must first be shown — that he has declared this in ignorance and without understanding of the divine Scriptures. (1) For, first, the divine evangelist John himself, who indeed called him “Word,” (2) did not delay long but immediately and at once also called him “God,” saying, “and God was the Word.” For though he could have said, “and the Word belonged to God,” he did not say this, lest anyone should assert that he was similar to what is called god among men; rather he calls him “God,” thereby showing the surpassing nature of the God-befitting dignity that belongs to him.
(3) And passing on to another aspect of the doxology concerning him, he named him “Light,” thereby showing precisely by this that he pre-existed the assumption of the body.
— where, concerning the Baptist, he says: “He was not the Light, but came that he might bear witness concerning the Light, which enlightens every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him.”
You see how in these words he named him not merely “Word,” as Marcellus supposed, but also “God” and “Light,” and taught that he pre-existed and that the world came to be through him. For just as he had said beforehand that all things came to be through the Word of God and that without him nothing came to be, so also through the Light: for “the world,” he says, “came to be through him.”
— so that the Light and the Word/God are one and the same. And by saying that at one time the world, at another all things, came to be through him, he sets forth [his] ministering role toward God. For though the evangelist could have said, “all things were made by him,” and again, “the world was made by him,” he did not say “by him” but “through him,” in order to send us back to the creative sovereignty of the Father over all things.
“But the world,” he says, “did not know him.” Yet the God over all, all men confess by natural conceptions — and first of all the sons of the Jews, being led by the hand from the prophetic Scriptures, as Marcellus himself also shows further on.
Therefore this one, whom the world did not know, was other [than that natural knowledge] — God and Word, being and named Light: not a sensible light, nor one that illumines the eyes of flesh as the sun does — for in that case even the nature of irrational animals would partake of it. But now [John] teaches what sort of light it was, saying: “He was the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.” This rational light, then, belonged to men alone.
Wherefore, by an intellectual and rational power, he made the souls that had been created according to his image and likeness [to be] intellectual and rational. And just as he was not a sensible light, so neither was he that which is beyond all things, God himself. For “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” For indeed [the Father] is unapproachable light, as the divine apostle teaches, saying: “dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen nor can see.”
But he was in the world, enlightening every man coming into the world. “But the world too,” he says, “was made through this light” — that is, through the greater one, namely the Father, the whole [creation] being constituted through the Son. These three, then, in accordance with the same reality of the powers of the Son of God, were adopted by the theologian [John] at the very outset of his Gospel as auspicious and reverent titles: the Word, and God, and the Light.
(4) And now he also adds a fourth, calling him “only-begotten,” where he says: “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Therefore the only-begotten of God also bore this title even before he assumed flesh. “For even though,” he says, “it was above all for our sake that the Word became flesh, yet we, whom he counted worthy to show forth his own deity — not fixing our gaze upon the flesh (for this was the form of a servant), but upon his glory beyond the body, beheld with a pure mind — we beheld his glory,” a glory ineffable and surpassing every mortal reckoning, such glory as one might conceive belonging to the only-begotten Son of God.
And this was glory from the Father. You see how he did not say, “and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Word,” even though he had said before, “the Word became flesh” — but [he said “as of the only-begotten”] in order to teach what sort of Word he understood him to be (namely, not a merely “signifying” one — for how, indeed, could such a thing become flesh?). Of necessity, therefore, he called him “only-begotten.”
And he teaches that this is his glory, in accordance with which he is understood to be the only-begotten Son of God. And he says that his glory belongs to him from none other than the Father; for he did not possess the glory as unoriginate, nor without beginning, nor as his own by nature, but as having received it from the Father — which indeed he himself also declared, saying: “Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.”
And him the Father answers, saying, “I have both glorified [it] and will glorify it again.” And the same evangelist establishes his hypostasis even further, adding: “John bears witness of him and cries out, saying: This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me has come to be before me, for he was before me. For of his fullness we have all received.”
But though John cries out that he was before him, the new Sabellius does not hear it. And yet John the Baptist preceded, according to the flesh, the birth of the Savior. How then is it testified that he came to be before him? For according to the birth in the flesh, the Savior was not before him.
Therefore, insofar as he was the only-begotten of God, he was before John and came to be before him. Do these things, then, admit of being referred to the Father and God of all things, or to a wordless and non-subsistent word in God that is [supposedly] the same as God? And how could it possibly be said of a word that does not subsist, “He has come to be before me”? And who would be so mad as to suppose that John the Baptist spoke of the God of all things when he said, “He has come to be before me,” and “He was before me”?
It has therefore been shown by these things that he who is theologically spoken of pre-existed the birth of John and came to be before him, and it has been established that he was not only Word but also God and Light and only-begotten, existing and being so named before the incarnate presence. (5) But whence the evangelist had this knowledge, he himself will show, saying next: “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.” You see from whom he learned the theology of the Son.
For it was not Moses, he says, nor any of the prophets after Moses, nor indeed any angel or one of the higher powers, but the only-begotten Son himself who declared this. Therefore the invisible God did not himself make the declaration; rather, the only-begotten Son, having become visible, made the declaration concerning the Father to men — being evidently other than the invisible God. Moreover, he pre-existed, not in the mind of the Father, as Marcellus supposed, but in his bosom; just as the Savior has promised us to find rest in the bosoms of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so also the Son was in the bosom of the Father, not being one and the same as the Father, since neither shall we be identical with the holy fathers.
But observe carefully in this regard: after once naming him “Word,” and calling him “God,” and styling him “Light,” and saying “only-begotten,” and confessing “Son of God,” [John] no longer names him “Word”; rather, from this point on he narrates the Savior himself, who does not call himself “Word,” but “Son” and “only-begotten” and “Light” and “Life” and “Truth” and countless other names — just as one may hear him teaching, somewhat in this manner: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish”; and again: “For God did not send the Son into the world…”
“…not that he should condemn the world”; and again: “he who does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” And here again, God gave and sent the Son, Savior of the world, while the one sent was evidently other than the one sending. Wherefore it seems to me that, through what follows, our Savior himself is recorded as having spoken as if addressing Marcellus and those who begrudge the nature of the Son, saying: “Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods?”