For, at once, when he proceeded to the proofs of the recent, new covenant, he was driven from every side, hemmed in on all sides; and finding only a single expression that seemed to support his ill opinion, he clung to this alone, as though he had chanced upon some windfall — a text spoken, moreover, not from the person of our Savior, but from the person of the evangelist, by which he named him, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Setting out from this, then, he denied the Son, treating him as nothing other than a word like the one known to us.
And yet the great and divine evangelist himself has called him not 'Word' alone, as has often been said by us, but also 'God' and 'Light' and 'Son' and 'Only-begotten'; and he narrates that the Savior himself, calling himself, nowhere in Scripture calls himself 'Word,' but throughout the whole Gospel calls himself 'Life' and 'Light' and 'Only-begotten' and 'Son of God' and 'Truth' and 'Resurrection' and 'Bread of Life' and 'Vine' and 'Shepherd' and countless other things, as has already been shown.
Why then, seeing there are so many such names, does he not, in the case of all the rest, insist on the mere word, but rather busies himself with the meaning of what is said, while in the case of the Word alone he says that he is spoken of properly, as being nothing other than Word? He writes, then, in these very words, saying: 'Not called "Word" by way of misuse, even should those who teach otherwise falsely burst with rage, but truly and properly being Word.'
And again: 'Let him learn, then, that the Word of God has come, not a word named by misuse, as they say, but a true Word. And again, formerly, as I have often said, he was nothing other than Word. And again, before he came down and was born through the virgin, he was Word only. For what else was he, before assuming human flesh, who came down in the last days, as he himself also wrote, and was born of the virgin? He was nothing other than Word.' To Marcellus, saying these things, it would be just to bring forward such a question as this: 'And whence, my good fellow, do you get for us...'
...add the words 'nothing else' and 'only'? For that 'in the beginning was the Word' we know precisely; and not only that, but also that 'the Word was God,' and that he was 'the Light that lightens every man,' and that he was the 'only-begotten Son,' and all the other things that have been enumerated. But that he was Word only, and nothing other than Word, no one could show to have been said.
Whence, then, this daring addition? For why should one not rather say that he is Son only and nothing other than Son? Why not God and nothing other than God? Why not the Light of the world and nothing other than this? Why not Life and nothing other? And with respect to similar cases, one might most justly propose the same objection.
But just as anyone, if he should say this, would be convicted of erring (for all these things belong together, he being one Son of God — and whatever is loftier than these — deemed worthy of the various names according to each conception of the diverse divine powers within him)...
...so also, in the case of the Word, he who asserts that he is Word only and nothing else would fittingly be said to err; for since John the evangelist alone called him Word, and not this alone but other things too, while the Savior called himself Light, and Truth, and Life, and Only-begotten Son, and the rest, but Word never at all — how is it not absurd that, in the case of the names by which he named himself, one should not say that he is one of these and nothing else, while, in the case of the evangelist's expression concerning him, which calls him Word, one should insist that he was nothing other than Word?
'But,' he says, 'also properly and truly being Word.' But why not also 'properly and truly being God'? For it was not one person who called him Word and another who called him God; but one and the same evangelist taught that he is both God and Word together, saying, 'and the Word was God,' and the same evangelist also called him Light. Why then not properly and truly Only-begotten Son, and whatever else the Master and Savior himself testified concerning himself through the evangelist? But he, passing over all these, says that he alone properly and truly exists as Word; and he adds that he is Word only — and from there falls into the likeness of human word.
And while, hearing him called Light, he does not fall into [thinking of] bodily light, nor does he say that he is like the radiance of the sun, yet in the case of the Word he presents him as significative and like the human word — such that he speaks of him as at one time resting quietly in God, at another proceeding from God, and becoming both within and outside of him, after the likeness of the word that is with us, both that called 'internal' and that heard by way of utterance through the voice.
He writes, then, in these very words: '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.' And again he says this: 'For before the whole creation, there was, as is likely, a certain quiet, the Word being in God.' Then he adds: '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.'
Having said so much about the Word, hear how he attempts to interpret the evangelic utterance, writing as follows: 'The sacred apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, teaching clearly and explicitly at the beginning of the Gospel — since he had formerly been unknown among men — naming him the Word of the Almighty, thus said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Employing not a single testimony, he signifies the eternity of the Word.'
And again he says: 'By employing three successive testimonies, he wishes to show the eternity of the Word.' And again he adds: 'So that, in saying "in the beginning was the Word," he might show that the Word was potentially in the Father (for God, from whom are all things, is the beginning of all things that have come to be); and in [saying] "and the Word was with God"...'
...he showed that the Word was in actuality with God (for 'all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be'); and in saying that the Word was God, he meant to say this without dividing the deity, since the Word is in him and he himself is in the Word; 'for the Father,' he says, 'is in me, and I in the Father.' By all this, Marcellus, destroying the hypostasis of the only-begotten Son of God, calls the divine evangelist to witness for his own false doctrine, as though he understood him to be nothing other than a word, at one time active and at another resting quietly in God, and being nothing other than God himself.
And yet the great evangelist, who is also a theologian, though he mentions the Word three times in the same passage, has not once called him 'the Word of God.' For he did not say, 'In the beginning was the Word of God,' but indefinitely, 'In the beginning was the Word,' leaving it to us to inquire what sort of Word he was. And again he said, 'And the Word was with God,' though he could have said, 'And the Word of God was in God.' But also, [in the third clause] he said, 'and the Word was God' — not, 'and the Word was of God,' as he might have said — so that we should not suppose him to be some activity of God, signifying or productive of something.
This Marcellus, thinking him to be the eternal Word of God — that is, unbegotten — often defined; not perceiving that if he asserts the Word to be other than God, there will be two eternal beings (the Word and God), and there will no longer be one single first principle. But if he says the eternal is one, defining God to be the same as the Word, he will openly confess Sabellius, introducing, after that man's manner, the one being as a Father-Son.
Then, for him, the Father will be one who was begotten and who suffered, and he himself will be the one praying to himself and saying that he was sent by himself, and calling himself his own son and only-begotten — not speaking truly, but falsifying with irony. And what teaching could be more impious than this? But come, let us see what sort of Word the evangelist proclaims to us as good news, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'
Now the term signifying 'word,' as brought forth through the Greek tongue, suggests a multiple meaning arising from it. (a) For 'word' is used of that which is laid down in the rational soul, according to which the faculty of reasoning is present in us; (b) and besides this, another meaning: that which signifies something through the tongue and articulate voice; (c) and in a third way, that which is composed by the writer through writing.
(d) Moreover, we are accustomed to call 'word' also the seminal or generative [reason], according to which things not yet grown potentially lie in the seeds, being about, before long, to come forth into the light by actual operation. (e) And besides these, they are also accustomed to call 'word' otherwise the systematic [reason] of some art or science, and that which comprehends all theorems of such a kind — for instance, the medical, or the architectural, or the geometrical.
Since, then, various senses are set forth from the term 'word,' and the evangelist has said absolutely, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' it is fitting for us, applying our mind, to observe that the evangelist here transmits some strange sort of 'word,' beyond those known to us — having said 'word' absolutely, but adding the strange and paradoxical element of the distinctive power belonging to him in the clause, 'and the Word was God.'
'For do not suppose,' he says, 'that this too belongs among relatives — such as the word in the soul, or that heard through the voice, or that existing in bodily seeds, or that subsisting in mathematical theorems; for all these, being relatives, are conceived as existing in some other, pre-existing substance. But the divine Word has no need of any other pre-existing substance in which, coming to be, he might subsist; rather, he is, in himself, living and subsisting, inasmuch as he is God. For the Word was God.'
'But hearing him called God,' he says, 'do not suppose that he too is without beginning and unbegotten in the same way as his Father; rather, learn that this God-Word was "in the beginning." What beginning he possesses, [the evangelist] clarifies next, not saying "and the Word was the God" — with the addition of the article — lest he should be defined as him who is over all things; nor yet did he say "in God," lest he should reduce him to a human likeness; but he said, "and the Word was with God."'
'For if he had said, "and the Word was in God," as an accident in a subject, and as giving one thing to be in another, he would, as it were, have introduced God as composite — supposing him to be an essence apart from the Word, and the Word to be an accident of the essence.'
This very thing, thinking it to be so, Marcellus brings the Father and the Son together into the same subject, calling the Father the essence, and the Word within him the Son — not reckoning that he who grants this, by supposing God to be without the Word, would fall into a godless and impious doctrine, admitting a God without reason, having the Word merely as an accident within him, yet not himself being the Word.
Whereas it is necessary to confess that which is beyond all things to be one divine thing, ineffable, good, simple, uncompounded, of a single form — being himself very-God, very-Mind, very-Word, very-Wisdom, very-Light, very-Life, very-Beauty, very-Goodness, and whatever else surpassing these one might conceive — or rather, above all mind and beyond all thought and conception.
But his only-begotten Son — as being the image of the Father, having sprung forth from him, and being in every way and in all respects most like to him who begot him — is himself also God, and Mind, and Word, and Wisdom, and Life, and Light, and the image of his very Beauty and Goodness; not being himself the Father, but the Father's only-begotten Son; nor being himself the Unbegotten and Beginningless One, but the one who sprang forth from him and reckons him who begot him as his beginning.
But if, contradicting these things, Marcellus should say that God and the Word in him are the same, defining God as uncompounded and simple, then it is time for him to confess him neither as Father nor as Son, but rather openly to put forward the Jew, or to introduce Sabellius, asserting that Father and Son are the same — so that, according to him, 'In the beginning was the Word' would be equivalent to 'In the beginning was God,' and 'and the Word was with God' would be equivalent to 'and God was with God.'
And likewise the third clause would be the same as 'and God was God' — statements which would be, besides being incoherent, utterly irrational. And how would 'all things came to be through him' have any place, there being but one subject? For it does not say that all things came to be by him nor from him, but 'through him.' And the preposition 'through' signifies a subordinate role, as the same evangelist proceeds to show further on, saying, 'The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.' For just as the law, not being human nor Moses' own, but from God, inscribed Moses as minister and servant of its promulgation to men — and for this reason it is said, 'the law was given through Moses' — so also grace came through Jesus Christ, the Father having accomplished it through Christ.
In the same way, then, it is said also, 'all things came to be through him' — another having made them, while he ministered; so that one must seek another as the maker of all things, who established all things through him who is here spoken of theologically. And who could this be? But he would not be able to say.
Since these things are so, it is necessary to confess that the one spoken of theologically by the evangelist is not the God who is over all, nor the Father himself, but rather his only-begotten Son — not an accident of the Father, nor existing in him as in a subject, nor being one and the same with God, but truly being Son, living and subsisting, being in the beginning, and being with God, and being God, through whom he creates all things.
So that one might rightly say, translating the passage into clearer terms, instead of 'In the beginning was the Word,' 'In the beginning was the Son'; and instead of 'and the Word was with God,' 'and the Son was with the Father'; and instead of 'and the Word was God,' 'and the Son was God.' In this way, too, what follows next would fit: 'For all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be.'
It is fitting, then, that the divine evangelist said him to be 'in the beginning,' giving him a beginning — clearly meaning the generation, that from the Father; for everything begotten from something has as its beginning the one who begot it. He did not, however, likewise go on to say, 'and the Word was in God,' but 'the Word was with God' — teaching that the one begotten, though having acquired the Father as his beginning, is not somewhere far from the Father, nor separated by any distance, nor removed far off from him, but is present with him and is together with him.
This is what Scripture also taught before, saying, 'before all the hills he begets me,' and then adding, 'when he prepared the heaven, I was present with him.' Thus, then, the Word — clearly the only-begotten Son — was with his own Father, God, being together with him and present with him always and at all times.
This, then, he also established, saying, 'and the Word was with God.' But since it was necessary for us to know also of what dignity he possessed, he necessarily joined to this, 'and the Word was God.' For how could he fail to be God, he who was begotten from the one and only unbegotten God? For if that which is begotten of the flesh is flesh, and that which is begotten of the Spirit is spirit, according to the salvific teaching, it follows consistently that that which is begotten of God would also be God. Therefore the Word was God.
And God, productive and creative of all things. This too the evangelist established next, adding, 'all things came to be through him.' The pedagogical law through Moses, then, in its account of the making of the world, introducing God as maker of the universe, taught, delivering the elements and introductions to piety, saying, 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,' and what follows these things.
By these things, Moses, training the Jewish people as a pedagogue, exhorted them to consider the world as having come into being — with a view to not worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.
But how God, and through whom, fashioned all things, Moses no longer transmitted to those under him; whereas grace and truth, through Jesus Christ, proclaiming as good news the mystery that had been kept silent by Moses, inaugurated a newer and more mystical teaching for the Church of God, crying out plainly to all, so as to be heard clearly, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' and, 'all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be.'
And still further adding to these things, 'that which was made in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness,' and what follows these — through which it instructs concerning the Son of God, and the surpassing excellences of the divine light and the life within him, and how, through him, all the things spoken by Moses, and those things still beyond these, came to be established. But Marcellus, knowing none of these things, is caught being at one time Judaizing, at another Sabellianizing.
[Judaizing] in that, in the manner of the Jew, he asserts that before the constitution of the world nothing existed except God alone, whereas the Church confesses that before the constitution of the world both the Father and the Son existed; and [Sabellianizing] in that, in the manner of Sabellius, he declares Son and Father to be one and the same, at one time introducing him as the internal word, at another as the uttered word.
For even if he pretends not to accept these terms, still he is manifest from the fact that he sometimes speaks of him as being within God, at other times as proceeding from him by active operation — from which very things he likens him to the human word. The divine evangelist, however, established the Word spoken of theologically by him according to none of the modes previously delineated, but conceived of the only-begotten Son of God as it was fitting: being Word inasmuch as he established all things by Word, and without the Word nothing that exists came to be; and being God and Only-begotten inasmuch as he alone was truly Son of the God who is over all — a genuine and beloved Son indeed, made like to his own Father in all respects.
Wherefore he was also truly Light, inasmuch as he shines forth an intellectual and rational radiance upon the souls made according to his image. Wherefore he says he is light not of all things, but only of men; for he said, 'It was the light that lightens every man coming into the world.' In this way, too, he was truly Life, inasmuch as he furnishes to all living things the stream of supply proceeding from him. And with respect to each conception of the divine powers within him, you would find befitting and true titles for him. For the Son of God was, in every respect, truth — which he himself establishes, saying, 'I am the truth.'
But the recent writer neither understands these things nor knows them, nor does he know that he is ignorant, of the very things which he even boasts to know how they were established. Come then, let us take up again and hear how he likens him to the word among men — both according to thought and according to utterance — writing in this manner: 'This, I think, is easy for those who think rightly to know, even from some small and humble example drawn from ourselves. For it is not possible for anyone to separate the word of man, in power and in hypostasis, from the man; for the word is one and the same as the man, and is separated from nothing else except by the very activity of its exercise in speech.'
In these words, then, he has employed the image of the uttered word; and of the internal word in the following, where he says this: 'For God did not need any other preparation, such as matter or some other human means, for construction, but only this preparation which is in his own mind. Since, then, it was impossible for God to conceive concerning the construction of heaven without word and the wisdom present with the word, he fittingly said, "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him."'
Then, proceeding further, he establishes at once also the internal word of God, writing thus: 'For who, whether of the holy angels or of righteous men, was so trustworthy as to annul the punishment determined against him from the person of God, except the Word himself, who was present with him and fashioning together with him — to whom the Father said, "Let us make man"?'
Next in sequence he makes clear what sort of 'word' [Marcellus] introduces, when he says: 'But if one, using some slight and human illustration such as our own, should examine the divine action as through an image — just as if some sculptor, a skilled man wishing to fashion a statue, first considers within himself its forms and features, then conceives what breadth and length would be fitting, and examines the proportion of the whole in each several part, and having prepared the suitable material of bronze, and having pre-formed in his own mind the statue that is to be, and supposing that he sees it intellectually, and being conscious that reason cooperates with him — the reason by which he reasons and by which he is accustomed to do all things (for nothing comes to be good apart from reason) — when he begins this perceptible work he exhorts himself, as though addressing another, saying: "Come, let us make; come, let us fashion a statue" — so too God, the Master of all things, when making the ensouled statue out of earth, exhorts himself with none other than his own reason, saying, "Let us make man."' By these words he clearly attached to God both an indwelling reason, by which one reasons within, and an uttered word, by which one converses — supposing that the word which is in God is of the same kind as that which is in us.
All these things, then, being as it were denials of the Son of God, need no further elaboration. But this much, I think, is fitting to ask: if indeed God were one and nothing else — neither Father nor Son — why did Scripture falsely apply such names? And why does Marcellus himself pretend, calling not the Son but the Word 'Son'? And since he has used as an illustration the word that is in men, it must be said that not every man has a son, though he is rational and possesses the connatural word within himself.
A son, then, is something other than reason. So if he asserts that God has in himself reason and nothing else — by which he also thought, and by which he conversed with himself, saying 'Let us make man' — why does he needlessly call it Son? Why does he play the part of the Church? And why, not believing in the Son of God, does he pretend to believe, putting on an appearance by calling the word that is in God 'Son,' when the illustration itself clearly teaches that the reason innate in the soul is far removed from a son who has been begotten from someone, and who subsists in his own right, and lives, and acts?
'But it is not I,' he will say, as is likely, 'but the divine evangelist who called him Word; it would therefore be consistent for us too to agree with this.' Yes, I myself say so as well.
Yet I think it fitting to understand this expression in no other way than by again becoming disciples of the evangelist himself, who teaches what sort of word he was defining. He clearly showed what kind this was, by adding next and saying, 'and the Word was God.' For he could have said, 'and God was the Word,' with the addition of the article, if indeed he considered the Father and the Son to be one and the same, and that the Word himself was the God over all — but he did not render the text this way.
For he ought to have said either 'and the Word belonged to God' or 'God was the Word,' with the addition of the article, if he had made the Scripture agree with Marcellus's opinion. But as it is, he shows that the Word himself is God, in the same way as the God with whom he was; for having said beforehand, 'and the Word was with God,' he then adds, 'and the Word was God' — teaching us almost explicitly, first, to regard as God him who is beyond all things, the very Father of the Word, with whom the Word was; and then, after him, not to be ignorant that his Word also, his only-begotten Son, was not himself the God over all, but that he too was God.
For the conjunction 'and' joins the deity of the Son to the Father. Therefore he says, 'and the Word was God,' so that we may see God, the one over all, with whom the Word was — and hear that the Word himself is God as well, as the image of God; and an image not as in lifeless matter, but as in a living Son, most exactly conformed to the archetypal deity of the Father.
But since it seemed good to Marcellus to compare the Word of God to the human word, we shall say how much better it would be, using as an illustration the human word, to employ this example instead, and to say that the father of the word that is in us is the mind, which is other than the word. For as to the mind — whoever and of whatever sort it may be in its essence — no man has ever known it; but like a king established within his own inner chambers in secret, it deliberates what is to be done; whereas the word that comes from it, begotten as it were from the innermost recesses of a father, becomes known to all who are outside.
In the same way indeed — or rather, far beyond every image and example — the perfect Word of God the King over all, not composed, after the manner of the uttered word of men, of syllables and verbs and nouns, but as the living and subsisting only-begotten Son of God, proceeds forth from the paternal deity and kingship, and irrigates the whole universe with the supplies that come from him, pouring out upon all created things a participation in life and reason and wisdom and light and every good thing — while the Father and God of all remains beyond all, incomprehensible and uncontainable by all things, corresponding to the unseen and invisible mind, on account of which he is also said to dwell in unapproachable light.
But the Father would be unapproachable and uncontainable by all things, while the Son is nearer to all things, inasmuch as he governs all things by the Father's nod — wherefore it is said, not of the Father, but of the Son, 'he was in the world, and the world came to be through him.' And the Father was beyond all things and above all, dwelling in unapproachable light, while the Son extends through all things and in all things with a providential care — so that it is only in this respect that the image of human reason applies to him. Now that these matters have been demonstrated to us, it is likely that one of those eager to learn will ask...
'Why then, at the beginning of his own writing, did the evangelist proclaim the only-begotten Son of God as "Word"?' To this we shall answer: because of the prophecies formerly hidden concerning him. For since it is said of each prophet, 'the word of the Lord which came,' as for instance to Isaiah, and 'the beginning of the word of the Lord' in Hosea, and 'the word of the Lord which came' to Joel, and 'the word of the Lord came' to Jonah...
and likewise to Micah, and similarly to the rest of the prophets — in each case the phrase 'came to be' was added (Scripture precisely and necessarily indicating that it was not in any of the prophets permanently, but came to be with each one, approaching to the degree that each one's capacity was able to receive it, supplying to each soul the fitting spirit from itself); and since on the present occasion the evangelist was about to proclaim the intelligible dispensation of the Word, he teaches that he had not come to be, as with the men of old, in relation to some other, but that he himself had taken flesh and become man. Then, since he was about to proclaim his saving advent to all mankind, saying next, 'and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,' he necessarily goes back to the beginning, showing who and of what sort the Word who was made flesh but yesterday and lately once was.