By Water & Blood

Chapter 1: How Marcellus renewed Sabellius’s opinion

After the testimonies from the divine readings that have been set out—through which it was shown that the Son of God, before his presence in the flesh, was named not Word only (as Marcellus supposed) but also by a myriad of other titles—come now, let us next look upon the idol of Sabellius, which has sprung up, as it were, out of the earth. For he dared to say that the God over all himself, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was born of the holy Virgin and himself suffered, writing in this manner (Nr. 49):

“What, then, was it that came down before he became man? Surely, he will say, Spirit. For if he should wish to say anything besides this, the angel who said to the Virgin, ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,’ will not allow him. But if he will say that it is Spirit, let him hear the Saviour saying, ‘God is a Spirit.’”

Through these words he declared that the God of the universe—concerning whom our Saviour and Lord taught, saying, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”—is the Spirit that came upon the Virgin, plainly renewing Sabellius. And proceeding next, although the prophet Jeremiah had clearly spoken of the Saviour’s becoming man, “Afterward he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men,” he refers the oracle to the Father, saying in these very words (Nr. 50): “But it seems that the Father is in the Word, even if this does not seem so to Asterius and to those who think the same as he.”

And he does the same also with the Saviour’s passion. For having set out from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the words, “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in their corruptions,” he adds (Nr. 51): “Here too, likewise, the prophet discourses concerning the Word who assumed our flesh.” And he goes on, saying (Nr. 51):

“A spirit could never be productive of a shadow. But that God himself is Spirit, the Saviour said: ‘God is a Spirit.’ And that God is light, he himself teaches us, saying, ‘I am the light.’”

Do you see how he transfers the things spoken about the Saviour to the Godhead of the Father?

And again he does away with the hypostasis of the Son with bare head, declaring that before the fashioning of things begotten there was nothing else except God alone. He writes, at any rate, word for word as follows (Nr. 93): “Asterius names the authority given to him ‘glory,’ and not only glory but glory before the world, not considering that when the world had not yet come into being there was nothing else except God alone.” And again he confirms the same, saying (Nr. 92):

“Heaven and earth, and all things that are in the heavens and upon the earth, have come into being by God. If, then, he believes this, he must of necessity also agree to that other point, that apart from God there was nothing else.”