By Water & Blood

Book 2, Chapter 12: That the evangelist did not set out the theology of the Word as Marcellus supposed

And yet the great evangelist, who was at the same time a theologian, though he mentioned the Word three times in the same passage, did not once call 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.” Moreover he said, “and the Word was God,” not “and the Word was God’s,” in order that we might not suppose him to be some activity of God, significative of something or productive.

Marcellus, however, supposing him to be the eternal Word of God—that is, unbegotten—defined him so many times, not perceiving that if he should say that the Word is other than God, there will be two eternals (the Word and God), and there will no longer be one first principle. But if he should say that the eternal is one, defining God to be the same as the Word, he will confess naked Sabellius, bringing in, just as Sabellius did, the one Son-Father.

For him, then, the Father will be the one who was born and suffered; and he himself will be the one who prays to himself, and who says that he has been sent by himself, and that he is his own Son and Only-begotten—not speaking truly, but lying in pretense. And what other doctrine could be more impious than this? But come, let us see for ourselves what sort of Word the evangelist proclaims to us when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”