By Water & Blood

Chapter 20: Selections and partial interpretations of the proofs from divine Scripture, in thirty headings

This, then, must first be shown: that he made his declaration ignorantly and without understanding of the divine Scriptures. (1) For first, the divine evangelist John himself, the very one who called him Word, (2) not long after, but immediately and on the spot, named him God, saying, “and the Word was God.” He could have said, “and the Word was God’s,” but this he did not say, lest anyone should say that he was like the word among men; rather he calls him God, thus showing the supernatural excellence of the godlike dignity belonging to him.

(3) Then, passing to another conception (ἐπίνοια) in his praise of him, he named him Light, by this very thing making plain that he pre-existed the assumption of the body, where he says of the Baptist: “He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” You see how in these words he named him not Word only, as Marcellus thought, but both God and Light, and taught that he pre-existed and that the world came into being through him. For just as he had said before that all things came into being through the Word of God, and that “without him” nothing came into being, so also through the Light: for “the world,” he says, “was made by him.”

So the Light and God the Word are one and the same. And in saying that through him at one time the world, at another all things, came into being, he presents his ministerial role toward God. At any rate, the evangelist could have said, “All things were made by (ὑπό) him,” and again, “and the world was made by (ὑπό) him”; but he did not say “by him” but “through (διά) him,” so as to refer us back to the Father’s creative authority over the universe.

But also, he says, “the world knew him not.” Yet all men, by natural notions, confess the God who is over all; and first of all the children of the Jews, led by the hand by the prophetic writings, as Marcellus himself also sets forth as he proceeds in what follows.

So then this was another, whom “the world knew not”: God and Word, being and being named Light—not sensible light, nor light illuminating the eyes of the flesh like the sun; for in that case the nature of irrational animals also would have shared in it. But as it is, he teaches what sort of light it was, saying, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” This rational light, then, belonged to men alone.

Therefore by an intellectual and rational power he rendered intellectual and rational the souls made “after his image and likeness.” And just as he was not a sensible light, so neither was he that which is beyond the universe, God himself. For “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” And indeed the one was light unapproachable, as the divine Apostle teaches, saying, “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see”;

but the other “was in the world,” “lighting every man that cometh into the world.” And moreover, he says, the world came into being through this Light—the higher one, that is, the Father, constituting the universe through the Son. These three, then, at one and the same place, auspicious and pious titles of the powers of the Son of God, were adopted by the theologian at the beginning of his writing: the Word, and God, and the Light.

(4) And now the same writer adds a fourth also, calling the same one Only-begotten, where he says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” Therefore he was styled the Only-begotten of God also before he assumed the flesh. For even if, he says, “the Word was made flesh” for our sake, yet we to whom he deigned to display his own Godhead did not look to the flesh (for this was “the form of a servant”), but to his glory, contemplated with pure mind apart from the body: “we beheld his glory,” an ineffable glory surpassing all reasoning of mortals, such as one might conceive to be the “glory” of the “only-begotten” Son of God.

And this was glory “of (παρά) the Father.” You see how he did not say, “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Word,” although he had said just before, “the Word was made flesh”; but, in order to teach what sort of Word he understood him to subsist as (namely, not a significative word—for how would it even be possible for such a word to become flesh?), he of necessity called him Only-begotten.

And he teaches that his glory is this, according to which he is understood as the only-begotten Son of God; and he says that the glory belongs to him from nowhere else than from the Father. For he did not have his glory as unbegotten, nor without beginning, nor as his own possession, but received it from the Father. This he himself also set forth, saying, “O Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

And the Father answers him, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” And the same evangelist establishes his hypostasis still more, adding: “John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received.” But though John cries out that “he was before” him, the new Sabellius does not hear. And yet according to the flesh John the Baptist preceded the Saviour in birth. How, then, does he testify that he came before him? For in his birth according to the flesh the Saviour was not before him;

therefore it was as the Only-begotten of God that he was “before” John and “was preferred before” him (ἔμπροσθεν γέγονεν). Do these words, then, admit of being referred to the Father and God of the universe, or to a word in God without essence and without hypostasis, which is the same as God? And how would it be possible for “he was preferred before me” to be said of a word that does not subsist? And who would be so mad as to suppose that John the Baptist said of the God of the universe, “he came to be before me” and “for he was before me”?

It has therefore been shown through these words that the one of whom this theology is spoken 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, both being and being so named before the incarnate presence. (5) And whence the evangelist had the knowledge of these things he himself will make plain, saying next, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath 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 any of the angels or the higher powers, but “the only begotten Son” himself who “declared” this. Therefore the invisible God did not declare it, but the only-begotten Son, having become visible, gave men the declaration concerning the Father—being, plainly, another besides the invisible God. Moreover, he pre-existed, not in the mind of the Father, as Marcellus thought, but in his bosom; just as the Saviour has promised us that we shall rest in the bosoms of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, so also the Son was “in the bosom of the Father,” not being one and the same with the Father, since neither shall we be the same as the holy fathers.

But in addition to these things, observe how, after having once named him Word, and called him God, and named him Light, and said he was Only-begotten, and confessed him as Son of God, he no longer names him Word; rather, from then on he relates that the Saviour himself calls himself not Word but Son and Only-begotten and Light and Life and Truth and countless other things—as one may hear him teaching somewhat thus: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish”; and again, “For God sent not his Son into the world

to condemn the world”; and once more, “but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” And here again God gave and “sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world,” while the one sent was, plainly, another besides the one who sent. Therefore it seems to me that in what follows our Saviour himself is recorded as saying, as if to Marcellus himself and to those who begrudge the nature of the Son: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” You hear how often the Saviour himself named himself not Word but Son, and called himself Only-begotten;

and how he taught that he had been sent, and had been sanctified by the Father before being sent; and how he puts to shame those who hesitate to confess him Son of God, teaching from the divine Scripture that men mortal by nature were called not only sons of God but even gods. Therefore one ought not to think it blasphemous to confess as both Son of God and God “him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world.”

What, then, ought he to suffer who, after so many utterances, dared to say (Nr. 43 = 81) that he is Word and nothing else, and who said word for word (Nr. 34): “And for this reason he does not name himself Son of God, but everywhere calls himself Son of Man, in order that through such a confession he may prepare man to become Son of God by adoption, through fellowship with him”? For when Marcellus said these things, I do not know with what sort of eyes he was able to look these many testimonies in the face, or with what sort of lips to speak against them.

And the Saviour presented himself as Light also, in agreement with what was said before about the Light, saying, “I am the light of the world”; and again, “I am the light, and the truth, and the life”; and once more, “that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.”

And if anyone should ask whence he has come, the one will answer who said, “He that cometh from above is above all,” and “he that cometh from heaven … what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth.” But who was “he that cometh from heaven”? Was it the flesh which the Saviour assumed? By no means. Rather, plainly, it was he himself—the Light and the Word and God and the Only-begotten and the Son, he himself being all these things. “What he hath seen and heard,” then, he says, “that he testifieth.” Therefore he both saw and heard before he came upon earth.

And whom did he see, if not the Father? And whom did he hear, if not the Father? And so he taught that he was not a significative word but a Son truly living and subsisting, that he might say, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” Let us believe, then, that “the Father,” loving “the Son,” “hath given all things into his hand.”

And we must attend carefully to the word “all,” since it embraces the existence of all created things. Through it one may see the greatness of the power of the Son of God, if one considers how great and of what sort is the hand with which he has received from the Father the existence of all things that are.

For if the whole heaven and world is great, and if still far greater and more excellent than these are the things beyond what is seen, which subsist in bodiless and incorruptible, intellectual and divine powers, and all the things that escape our mind and lie hidden from our knowledge—then the one hand of the only-begotten Son of God, grasping all these, displays the excellence of his infinitely great power.

And this the Son himself sets forth again by another utterance, saying, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father.” Then, as though we were at a loss as to who it could be, and how great, that had received so great a deposit, “Do not seek,” he says, “nor ask.” For the exact comprehension of the Son of God is not by nature to be known to men, nor even to the higher and more divine powers.

Therefore, having first said, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father,” he added, “and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father.” Let every secret discourse about the Son of God, then, be silenced, and let the knowledge of his generation from the Father be left to the Father alone; and let no one go further, inquiring about an ineffable nature and essence. But let only his own teaching about himself be made firm for us by the grace of faith—the teaching which clearly instructs us that all things have been delivered to him by the Father.

So God gave and delivered, for betterment and benefit, making the delivery as to the Saviour, Physician, and Pilot of the universe; while the Son received, and as a faithful guardian of the deposit kept the gift—not as a word without essence and without hypostasis, but as being truly the only-begotten and beloved Son of the Father. (7) Besides these things, he also named himself Bread of Life, saying, “I am the bread of life,” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” And how he was living he made plain, articulating it most clearly where he says, “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father:

so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” And this he taught elsewhere also, saying, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” He was, then, the Bread of Life, and existed in heaven, watering and nourishing the angelic powers by the power of his Godhead; and he was all these things before he came upon earth; and he was Son, having life “in himself,” just as the Father has life “in himself.”

For the singular and peculiar quality of the unbegotten and divine life of the Father—through which he is said, according to the divine Apostle, “only to have immortality”—the Son alone would have, inasmuch as he is the image of the Father and is so in this respect too. But he has the said life not without beginning, nor unbegotten, nor as his own possession, as the Father does, but having received it from the Father.

For thus he says: “so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, as the Father hath life in himself.” Therefore the one gave, and the other has received. And he alone has received this privilege: that life is not supplied to him from somewhere outside, as to the rest of living things, but that he has it springing up within himself, after the pattern of that in the Father. Therefore all things that share in life live by the supply of the Son; but he alone has life springing up in himself, the Father having bestowed this on him for the enjoyment of those who were to be made alive through him.

This he himself also teaches, saying, “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven.” You see how, even while existing in heaven, he was the Bread of Life. Therefore it is said somewhere, “Man did eat angels’ bread.” And so, before he was sent by the Father, he was in heaven and lived by the Father,

not as a significative word, nor as being one and the same with God, but as subsisting and having a life of his own, which the Father has given him. And proceeding next, setting forth the pre-eminence of the Father’s glory, he said, “As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.” Observe exactly how “always” is said. For not now only, he says, when I converse with men upon earth through the flesh, do I perform what pleases the Father, but always. And he testifies that he speaks those things which he has learned from the Father as from a teacher. Therefore he inscribes the Father as his teacher, being, plainly, another besides him—if indeed everyone who is taught by someone is other than the one who teaches.

But if the Word was in God—that by which God might be called rational—being a kind of signifier of the Father’s thoughts, how could he become his own teacher? And how, being inseparable from God, did he say that he had been sent? And how, being one and the same with God, did he testify that he did what was pleasing to him? And if, in reply to this, Marcellus should say that it was the Word, being in the flesh, who spoke these words, what shall we say this has to do with his not confessing him to be Son, but Word only?

And how was he in the flesh when he said these things? Was he living and subsisting and existing outside the Father? And who then was the Father, if he did not possess his own Word within himself, but subsisted without a Word? And if the Word was dwelling in the flesh while he spent his time on earth—if, on the one hand, he was outside the Father, living and subsisting and moving the flesh after the manner of a soul, then, plainly, he was another besides the Father, and again he and the Father existed as two hypostases,

and the whole labour of Marcellus has been detected as vain, since he would be defining the Word who came to be in the flesh as an essential (οὐσιώδης) Word, living and subsisting. But if the Word dwelling in the body was not outside God, but was united and conjoined with God so as to be one and the same with him, he will of necessity grant either that it was the Father himself in the flesh; or the Son, subsisting by himself and acting in the body; or a human soul; or, if none of these, that the flesh moved of itself, being soulless and irrational.

If, then, he should say the Father, the Father will be for him the one who was born and suffered and underwent every work of human passion. When Sabellius uttered this, the Church of God indicted him on a charge of impiety. But if it is not lawful to say that the Father became man, it is necessary for those who are taught by him to confess the Son, as he teaches. And if Marcellus should deny that the Son subsists, it is time for him to suppose him a mere man composed of body and soul, so as to differ in nothing from the common nature of men. But this doctrine too has been driven out of the Church—the doctrine which the Ebionites of old, and recently the Samosatene and those named Paulianists after him, held, and so underwent the penalty of blasphemers.

What, then, remains after this, except to introduce the flesh alone, without any indweller, moving like the automata of the wonder-workers? And how would the flesh, the body by itself without an agent, have said, “As he hath taught me, I speak these things”? How would the flesh have said, “for I do always those things that please him”? How would the flesh have said that it was sent from the Father? Is it holy to call God the Father of the flesh, or rather of the one who dwells and acts in it? Who, then, was this? Was it the Word in God, being God himself, according to Sabellius? Or—as it is holy and true to say—the living and subsisting only-begotten Son of God?

But if he should say neither of these, he will of necessity posit a human soul, and Christ will be for him a mere man; and our new writer will no longer be a Sabellian but a Paulianist. And if he should say that the Word in God, being nothing else than a word—a significative or active (ἐνεργητικός) word—dwelt in the flesh,

then how would this word have said that it lived a life of its own besides the Father? And how was it sent, being always conjoined and united with God? And how does it say that the Father is its teacher? And how did it say that it did “always those things that please” the Father? For these would expressly be the utterances of a Son who subsists and lives. And throughout the whole Gospel, the one who prays to the Father, who glorifies the Father, who asks to be glorified by the Father—what else does he show but that he himself subsists? And especially when he says, “The testimony of two men is true.

I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.” Having by so many words presented himself as living, the Saviour himself nowhere named himself Word, but Son and Light and Only-begotten and Bread of Life, and anything rather than Word.

And he teaches that he has a word, saying, “If a man love me, he will keep my word (λόγος)”; but he does not say that he himself is the Word. How then, after all these things, does he not blush, who declared him to be Word only and nothing else? Hear, at any rate, how he wrote, saying (Nr. 37): “So that it is plain from every side that no other name befits the eternity of the Word than this which the most holy disciple and apostle of God, John, spoke at the beginning of the Gospel.”

And again (Nr. 37): “in order to show that, if there is any new and more recent name, this belonged to him from his new and recent economy according to the flesh.” And once more (Nr. 42): “Therefore, before he came down and was born through the Virgin, he was Word only. For what else was that which came down ‘in these last days,’ as he himself also has written, and was born of the Virgin, before it assumed human flesh? It was nothing else than Word.” So much Marcellus is free to say and declare, because he does not confess the Son of God. To him the evangelist might have said, crying out loudly: “What do you say, man? I did not call him Word only, but also God, and ‘the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,’ and the only-begotten Son who is ‘in the bosom of the Father.’” Let no one, then, slander the theologian, but let him listen carefully to what sort of Word he supposed, when he joined on at once, “and the Word was God,” and added, “All things were made by him.” And according to the Saviour of the universe himself, he was not once named Word, but Son of God and Only-begotten and Light and Life and Truth, and anything rather than Word. (8) And if he should say that these things are spoken from the New Covenant, it will be said to him that “In the beginning was the Word” also came from nowhere else than from it. For one and the same Gospel, and the same evangelist who called him Word, also recorded all the other things concerning him.

(9) And Paul, the divine Apostle, saying, “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,” is plainly naming the Son of God before the incarnate presence, “by whom” all things came into being, not Word but Lord Jesus and Christ. But if, according to Marcellus, God and the Word in him were one and the same, it would have sufficed the Apostle to say, “To us there is but one God, the Father,

of whom are all things.” For the thought would have been full and the statement complete in itself, introducing God as Maker of the universe. But even a Jew would say this. The herald of the Church, however, teaches us not to be ignorant of the second as well as the first.

And what was this? “And one Lord Jesus Christ.” Therefore he adds the second next, saying, “to us” (for, he says, even if not to all, yet to us) “one Lord Jesus Christ.” And why, after the one God, this one also is “to us one Lord,” he sets forth by adding, “by whom are all things.” For since “all things were made by him,” fittingly, for us who understand this, he is believed to be Lord of the universe after the God who is over all.

And that he did not say these things about the flesh, but about God the Word, is plain from his adding, “by whom are all things.” For “to us,” he says, “there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things”—which is just what was said both of the Light and of the pre-existent Word. Jesus Christ himself, then, was the Light and the Word “by whom all things” came into being, and not the flesh. For he would not have said, so incoherently, of the flesh, “by whom are all things.”

(10) And the same Paul knows how to name the Son of God who pre-existed the flesh “Christ,” calling him at the same time “Rock,” in what he writes about those who spent time with Moses in the wilderness, saying, “For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” And he seals the same thing after other words, saying, “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.”

And he confirms this very thing still more, saying, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, … esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” And he establishes this still more clearly where he says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, … and being found in fashion as a man.”

You perceive that before he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, he was, and pre-existed, and existed “in the form of God.” And who was this? None other than Jesus Christ. He himself, then, was God the Word, Jesus Christ, even before taking the flesh. For we must listen carefully to the divine Apostle saying, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” and making clear next who this Jesus Christ was, in the words he joins on: “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.”

Is it possible, then, here too to take the oracle as referring to the flesh? Is it fitting to say of the flesh “who” and “being”? Or did the flesh “empty itself, taking the form of a servant”? That is laughable. Come, then, let us examine how it is said: “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself.” If he were a word without real existence (ἀνύπαρκτος), in no way subsisting outside God, but being within him, at one time in stillness and silence, at another in activity,

how was this one “in the form of God,” being in power God himself? And how “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” being himself God? And how “humbled himself, becoming obedient” to the Father? For that this one obeys that one would be indicative of two persons (πρόσωπα).

And since Marcellus uses as an image the word among men, we must ask whether it can fittingly be said of a human word: “who, being in the form of man, thought it not robbery to be equal with man, but emptied himself, becoming obedient to the man.” And how would the word that is natural to a man do these things, being one and the same with the man? So then he will not be a bare and non-subsistent word, but truly the only-begotten Son of God who was “in the form of God,” who “thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”; whom also the divine Apostle named Jesus Christ, knowing exactly that he pre-existed the flesh.

(11) In addition to these things, the same Apostle named him the Mediator of God, saying that the legislation of Moses was given in his hand, in the words, “It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.” You hear how, calling God by his proper name and naming angels, he introduces the Mediator between them, saying, “Now a mediator is not of one.” He was, then, even before the incarnation, in the times of Moses, acting as mediator in the giving of the Law.

(12) And the same Apostle calls him High Priest also, saying, “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.”

(13) Moreover, he knows the same one as the brightness of the glory, and the express image (χαρακτήρ) of God, and Son and Heir, saying, “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (αἰῶνες); who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person (ὑπόστασις).” And here (just as it was said above about the Word, “All things were made by him,” and about the Light, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him,” and about Jesus Christ, “To us … one Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom are all things”), see how “by whom also he made the worlds” is likewise said about the same one. (14) And it is worth fixing our attention in these words on how he is named “brightness” (ἀπαύγασμα); for I think the expression is indicative of the generation of the Son from the Father. For since he has often been named Son, and God has been styled Father, the Apostle, lest we fall down to the generation of animals and suppose some such manner, uses in the case of God an image more befitting God:

saying of the Father, “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto,” and defining the Son as the brightness of the Father’s light, so that the brightness is an offspring of the first Light, subsisting not according to the generation of mortal animals but according to the example given. Fittingly, then, he also calls him the image “of the invisible God,” because he exists “in the form of God,” and because he is the “brightness” “and express image of his person.”

For these reasons, writing about him he said, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

For these things were said concerning the Godhead of the Son of God, even if Marcellus does not think so. For the divine Apostle would not have said so much about the flesh. That would be foolish and senseless, besides making the interpretation of the phrase incoherent. For how would it be fitting to say of the flesh “who (ὅς) is the image,” when one ought (if at all) to say “which (ἥ) is the image”? (15) And again, elsewhere, the same Apostle named him the image of God, saying, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Here too it is fitting to fix our attention on how the divine Apostle put forth a defining statement concerning Christ, calling him the image of God, so that no one might suppose that there are two Gods, but one, who is over all. For if “there is one God, and there is none other but he,” it would be he himself who is also made known through the Son as through an image.

Therefore the Son too is God, because of the forming of the Father in him as in an image. This the divine Apostle sets forth, at one time saying, “who, being in the form of God,” and at another defining him as “the image of God.” Therefore, along with the other titles, the Son both was and has been named “the image of God” before the incarnate presence. But these things from the New Covenant—a few out of countless—have been gathered by us for the sake of due proportion in the discourse.

(16) And the prophets of God who lived of old honored the same one with various theologies. For one called him the Spirit of God, saying, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall grow up out of the root: and the spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,” and what follows. For by these words he clearly made plain the one who was “of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and God the Word who dwelt in him. Hence the divine Apostle said at one time, “Now the Lord is that Spirit,” and at another, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” And another likewise calls him Spirit, saying, “The breath (πνεῦμα) of our face, Christ the Lord.” And in the Gospel too it is clearly said concerning him: “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.”

(17) Another of the prophets named him Life and Light, when he addressed God and said, “For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.” For what was the fountain of life with God, and the light, if not he who said in the Gospels, “I am the light of the world,” and “I am the way, the truth, and the life”? Therefore again the prophet, supplicating God in prayer, says, “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me.” (18) And Zerubbabel, having called him Truth, was counted worthy of the prize of victory, when he is recorded to have said before the king of the Persians: “As for the truth, it endureth, and is strong for ever;

it liveth and conquereth for evermore. With her there is no accepting of persons; but she doeth the things that are just, and refraineth from all unjust and wicked things.” To which he adds: “And she is the strength, and the kingdom, and the power, and the majesty, of all ages.” For in saying that the Truth lives and conquers and prevails, he most expressly set forth her hypostasis. And in agreement with these words the Saviour himself, naming himself Truth, set his seal upon the testimony of Zerubbabel.

(19) And he who said, “The streams of the river shall make glad the city of God,” named him River. (20) And again, he who said, “The mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell,” called him Mountain. Therefore also in Daniel a stone was seen “cut out of the mountain without hands,” and again the same stone was seen being restored into a great mountain—the mountain signifying the pre-existence of his Godhead, and the stone his humanity.

(21) And they called him Righteousness, as the one who says, “Who raised up righteousness from the east?” (22) And Sun of Righteousness, as the one who said, “But unto you that fear me shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” And another says, “The sun shall go down over the prophets that make my people err.” For these words would not fit the sensible sun, nor indeed the incarnate Word.

(23) And Solomon names him Wisdom in the Proverbs, saying, “Wisdom hath builded her house, and hath set up seven pillars,” and what follows. And that Wisdom was before the world, living and subsisting, he himself taught, putting forth these words in her person (ἐκ προσώπου): “I wisdom have dwelt with counsel, and have called upon knowledge and understanding”; and then adding next, “By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me great men are magnified, and by me sovereigns rule.”

(24) And Solomon also called him Tree of Life and Lord, saying, “She is a tree of life to all them that lay hold upon her; and to them that lean upon her, as upon the Lord, she is sure.” (25) And Solomon’s father David in the Psalms named him at once Lord and Priest: at one time saying, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand,” and at another declaring, “The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”

(26) And the same one knows how to confess him as God, saying, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” For who else would the God anointed by God in these words be, if not the one who, because of the Father’s anointing (χρῖσμα), has been proclaimed Christ?

(27) And this same one was also the Beloved of God, as the superscription of the psalm sets forth, containing, “A song for the Beloved.” (28) And Isaiah called him the Arm, saying, “The LORD shall make bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations.” (29) And David knew him as at once Righteousness and Salvation; therefore he said, “The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen,”

and again, “Shew forth his salvation from day to day,” and once more, “Who shall give the salvation of Israel out of Zion?” and, “Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.” (30) And why need I gather them one by one, when the lover of learning may collect such things from the whole God-inspired Scripture? Through it the men of God, illuminated by the divine Spirit, are seen to have had the knowledge of the only-begotten Son of God, which was then secret and hidden from the multitudes of the Jewish people. Therefore they also spoke of him in various ways, with veiled titles. For the grace of proclaiming the theology concerning him was being kept for his own presence—that theology in which his Church throughout the whole inhabited world glories, having received it as a mystery long hidden and kept in silence.

This, at any rate, the divine Apostle also teaches, saying, “According to the dispensation (οἰκονομία) of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see how the mystery was formerly hidden, but now has been made manifest—the Son of God.

Therefore the prophets of God, by the prophetic Spirit, spoke mystically of him as God, while the multitude of the Jewish nation remained in ignorance of the hidden mystery. Hence it was taught to know one God, because it was continually being drawn away into the error of many gods; but it did not know that God is Father of an only-begotten Son. For this mystery was being kept for the Church from the Gentiles,

bestowed upon her by a singular grace; for in him, according to the Apostle, “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Thus by so many testimonies the Word of God, who was “in the beginning with God,” has been shown to be called not only Word, as Marcellus supposes, but also Son, and Only-begotten, and Light, and Bread, and Jesus, and Christ, and Lord, and High Priest, and Brightness, and Express Image, and Image, and Firstborn of every creature, and Fountain of Life, and Truth, and River, and Righteousness, and Sun of Righteousness, and Wisdom, and Tree of Life, and Lord, and God, and Beloved, and Priest, and Arm, and Righteousness, and Salvation. And being all these things, and pre-existing the flesh, he was so named, as the Scriptures cited have made plain.

For what reason, then, does Marcellus pass over all these and stand upon the Word alone, not going on to the remaining names, but saying that he is only the Word of God, and a significative word—at one time at rest in God, at another, by activity alone, speaking or acting? Is it not because he plainly Sabellianizes, and does not believe in the Son of God, nor recognize the mystery which pre-existed of old, but was made manifest by his grace to the Church of Christ alone?

But if he should say that the unknown mystery was that God has a Word in himself and makes use of a Word (for this is what Marcellus himself thinks, writing in this manner (Nr. 45): “For what else was the hidden mystery but that which concerns the Word? And this mystery was formerly so hidden in God that no one of the former people clearly knew the things concerning the Word”)—if, then, he should say this, let him learn that every one of the Jews who have not recognized the Christ of God would also confess that God has a Word and is not without reason (ἄλογος).

And this Sabellius himself also, and every Greek and barbarian who holds that God exists, would say without dispute. For at the same moment as one says “God,” one conceives of him as wise and rational and powerful and just and good. What sort of hidden mystery, then, was this which is confessed by all? For who would not say that in God there are wisdom and power and life and light and truth and righteousness and word and everything noble and good—or rather, that he himself is all these things, and whatever is higher and better than these and unknown to us? For self-taught nature compels every man to confess these things concerning God. Hence we are taught that the Son also is all these things,

inasmuch as he is the only-begotten Son and heir of the Father and has all things whatsoever the Father has. Therefore he is said to be in the form of God and the image of God, according to the divine Apostle, who said, “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” and again, “who is the image of God.”

So then the fact that God is rational was not “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations,” nor was that which is known to all men by natural notions what “now is made manifest.” But if anyone should ask what sort of mystery it was, the Apostle answers, saying, “but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you.”

Christ, then, was the mystery—plainly, the Son of God. Therefore the prophets of God formerly glorified him mystically with various titles, hiding what was secret and reserving his revelation to all for his own grace. When, therefore, after so many testimonies of the Scriptures, Marcellus insists that the Word who was in the beginning, before he assumed the flesh, was nothing else than Word and was styled by no other name, but obtained various titles only when “the Word was made flesh,” being before this nothing other than Word—how should he not be convicted of being ignorant and without understanding of the divine readings? But now that this has been established, come, let us next look upon the new Sabellius as though come back to life.