Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Pin.1| Book Two. 1. How Marcellus held that the Son of God neither exists nor existed before his birth from the virgin. 2. How Marcellus thought about the Word in God. 3. How Marcellus thought about the flesh that the Word took up. 4. What kind of end Marcellus assigns to the kingdom of Christ and to the flesh that he took up.
1.1| The faith of the Galatian, or rather his unbelief toward the Son of God, the time now calls us to bring into the light, after setting out what he slandered; and, going briefly around the facade of his letter, to strip bare the false belief that had for a long time lurked deep within the man, and to show everyone, by the testimony of his own words, what sort of man was leading a church of Christ: one who held that the Son of God neither exists nor had any prior subsistence, nor ever at all existed as a Son to God before he was born through the virgin, and who claimed that there is only a Word, connatural with God, eternally present with him and united to him, such as the word in a human being would be.
1.2| For he himself uses this example, saying that there is a word within God himself, at one time at rest, at another active in signifying, and going forth from the Father by activity alone, just as we too, when we give some order, become active in saying and uttering something. Yet that no one would call a word that signifies and acts a son in this sense is plain to anyone. But he, having granted this of God, says, I do not know how, that the Word, who has no subsistence, took up the flesh and was active in it,
1.3| and that he then became Christ and Jesus and king and image of God and beloved and glorified Son, and indeed firstborn of all creation; not being so before, he became so then, even though he has no subsistence. And the strangest part of his account is that all these things began not even four hundred whole years ago, and that they will again cease all at once after the time of the judgment, when the Word is united to God so as to be nothing other than God, and the flesh he took up is left deserted by the Word, so that then neither the Son of God will subsist nor the Son of Man whom he took up.
1.4| And indeed he ends at this conclusion as though struck deaf, not hearing the angel Gabriel, who brought the good news to the Mother of God clearly and expressly about the one who would be born of her and would come forth "from David's seed according to the flesh," saying: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end"; nor understanding the words of Daniel, the great prophet, who set his seal on these very things in what he foretold in the divine Spirit, saying: "And behold, with the clouds of heaven a son of man was coming, and he reached the Ancient of Days, and was brought before him.
1.5| "And the kingdom and the dominion and the honor were given to him, and all the peoples, tribes, tongues will serve him; his authority is an everlasting authority, which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed." Nor did Isaiah persuade him, who himself also prophesies thus about the unending kingdom of the Son of Man: "For a child was born to us, a son also was given to us,
1.6| "whose rule is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of great counsel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Potentate, Prince of peace and Father of the age to come. For I will bring peace and health to him.
1.7| "Great is his rule, and of his peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to set it right and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness, from now and forever."
1.8| With these, indeed, agreed what Gabriel announced to the virgin, saying that the one born of her would reign "forever" and that "of his kingdom" there would be no end. But how Marcellus dared to write the opposite of all these things you may learn from his own words, in which he denied the divinity and the humanity of the Son of God together, in a way more novel than any godless heresy.
1.9| For of those who hold other doctrines, some, saying that the Son of God did not exist beforehand nor pre-exist, supposing him to be a man like the rest, said that he was honored from being a man by adoption, and granting this, they have confessed for him an immortal and unending honor and glory and eternal kingdom; others, denying the man, posited a Son of God who was God existing beforehand. But those, being strangers to the church, went to this extent of error. This man, however, who led the church of God for so many years, does away with the existence of the Son of God, and having served at God's altar, perhaps believes that he himself will obtain eternal and immortal life, yet deprives the high priest of it.
1.10| But we have, according to the apostle, "a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God," of whom he dares to say neither that he existed beforehand nor that he pre-existed, but not even that he will be, or will be with the saints of God, according to that very promise of the kingdom of the heavens. For at that time, when all the saints will share in the kingdom of God in incorruptible and immortal bodies, he deprives Christ alone, and the flesh which he took on, of it.
1.11| And he does not shudder to declare that the author of the resurrection, the cause of eternal life for all, will fall away not only from the kingdom but from life itself; as if someone were to give eyes but take away the light that supplies their shining. And neither Gabriel, so great an angel of God, nor the great prophet Daniel, of whom it was said, "Are you wiser than Daniel?", nor the great Isaiah, nor the rest of the chorus of the prophets persuaded the man not to write and think such things,
1.12| nor did the Jews themselves, among whom the Christ, who is still awaited now and whom they are accustomed to call the Anointed, is hoped to have a kingdom that does not age and does not die. Yet he has become worse even than these, who dared to be impious both about the beginning and the end of the Son of God, whom not even the divine apostle himself shamed into not being impious in such ways, saying outright: "The saying is faithful: for if we died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him," and that we shall be heirs of God, but not apart from Christ, for "heirs," he says,
1.13| "of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." And again he says: "But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, raised from the dead, no longer dies; death no longer has lordship over him,"
1.14| and again: "But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eternal life, then, will not be provided to us in any other way than "in Christ Jesus our Lord"; and our hope is not simply to live, but to be glorified with him and to inherit with him and to reign with him; for all things will belong to us from fellowship with him.
1.15| This the same man teaches, who said: "God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." And what the fellowship is he sets out, saying: "And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
1.16| And the same man taught this also about the Savior, saying: "But he, because he remains forever, holds his priesthood permanently; hence he is able to save completely those who approach God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them."
1.17| Moreover he also said that Melchizedek remains a priest "continually," because he has been made like "the Son of God." But that Marcellus dared to write the opposite of all these things will be set out a little later; for now let us first look at how he thought about the Son of God neither being at the beginning nor subsisting.
2.1| Having fastened on those who said that the Son of God is truly a Son, living and subsisting, he makes his own opinion plain, writing thus in these very syllables (No. 42): "Before coming down and being born through the virgin, then, he was only Word. For what else was it, before taking on human flesh, that came down 'in the last days,' as he himself has written, and was born from the virgin? It was nothing other than Word.
2.2| Then, going on next, he calls him eternal, defining him in this way as without origin. He writes thus (No. 48): "Do you hear, then, the concord of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness through many and various persons to the eternity of the Word?
2.3| "And for this reason he begins from the eternity of the Word, saying, 'In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God.' By using three successive testimonies he wishes to show the eternity of the Word." And after other matters he adds (No. = 81): "For before, as I often said, he was nothing other than Word."
2.4| And he adds that he was not even "the image of the invisible God," saying (No. 82): "It is plain, then, that before the taking up of our body the Word by himself was not an image of the invisible God." And again after other matters he adds (No. 49): "What then was this that came down, before becoming man? Surely, he says, spirit. For if he wished to say anything other than this, the angel who spoke to the virgin will not allow him: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you.' And if he will say it is spirit, listen to the Savior saying, 'God is spirit.'"
2.5| Since the Savior has clearly said here of the Father that "God is spirit," Marcellus is convicted of saying that the Father himself became man. But he is still more ambitious, writing thus (No. 39): "And let him learn, then, that the Word of God has come, not one called 'Word' by a loose use of the term, as they themselves say, but one who is truly Word."
2.6| And again he adds these things to what was said (No. 62): "For if the examination were of the spirit alone, he would reasonably appear to be one and the same with God; but if the addition in the flesh is examined in the Savior, the divinity seems to be extended only in activity; so that reasonably it is truly an undivided monad."
2.7| And he establishes this still more in what he writes next (No. 31): "To say that he was begotten before the ages seems to have been said consistently; for an offspring comes from the Father who sent it forth. But the other statement has not been taken up by him soundly or piously.
2.8| "For to say that the one who came forth from him is not Word, and that this is the true manner of the begetting, but simply only a son, usually gives the hearers some impression of a human appearance." And in this, with head uncovered, he denied the Son, and bringing in a bare word as a sort of commander of what is to be done, he is plain from what he adds, saying (No. 41): "Whom all the divine Scriptures thus proclaim.
2.9| "For David says about him, 'By the Lord's word the heavens were made firm.' And again the same: 'He sent out his word and healed them.' And Solomon: 'The wicked will seek me and will not find me. For they hated wisdom, and did not choose the word of the Lord.' And Isaiah said: 'For out of Zion will go forth the law, and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord.'
2.10| "And again Jeremiah says, 'The wise were put to shame and were terrified and were taken, because they rejected the word of the Lord.' And the prophet Hosea said: 'They hated the one who reproved in the gates, and abominated a holy word.' And Micah, likewise mentioning the word himself, said: 'From Zion a law will go forth, and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord.'"
2.11| Gathering so many sayings about the commanding word, Marcellus says that the Word God, who was "in the beginning in God's presence," is of this same sort. So he adds, saying (No. 46): "And the sacred apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, teaching clearly and expressly at the beginning of the gospel, as of one previously unknown among men, naming him the Word of the Almighty, said thus: 'In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God.' By using not one testimony he signifies the eternity of the Word.
2.12| And he adds to these, saying next (No. 47): "so that in saying 'In the beginning was the Word' he might show that the Word is in the Father in power (for God is the beginning of all that has come to be, 'from whom are all things'), and in 'and the Word was with God' that the Word is with God in activity ('all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be'),
2.13| "and in saying that the Word was God, that he does not divide the divinity, since the Word is in him and he himself in the Word: 'The Father is in me,' he says, 'and I am in the Father.'" And he adds still more to these, stripping bare his own mind in what he brings on next, saying (No. 28): "The sacred apostle and disciple of the Lord, John, then, mentioning his eternity, was a true witness of the Word, saying, 'In the beginning the Word was; and the Word was in God's presence; and the Word was God.'
2.14| "Making no mention here of any coming into being of the Word, but using three successive testimonies, he confirmed that the Word was in the beginning." And he adds to these, saying (No. 61): "We know that the dispensation according to the flesh pertains to the man, but we have believed that the eternity according to the spirit is united with the Father."
2.15| Going on next, he adds to these (No. 64): "If, then, he himself says this, 'I came out from the Father and have come,' and again, 'And the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me,' and 'All that the Father has is mine,' it is plain that he reasonably also said that, 'The Father is in me and I in the Father,' so that the Word who says this is in God, and the Father in the Word, because the Word is the power of the Father.
2.16| "For a trustworthy witness has called him 'God's power and God's wisdom.' It is not, then, because of the exact agreement in all words and works, as Asterius said, that the Savior says 'I and the Father are one,' but because it is impossible either for the Word to be divided from God or for God to be divided from his own Word. For if Asterius supposes that the Savior said this because of the agreement in all things, and does not, attending to the second dispensation, wish to learn the truth, it is necessary to remind him how at times one can see, in what appears, a disagreement.
2.17| "For so the sayings teach us. What agreement is there at the time of the passion in the one who says, 'Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass,' and adds that, 'Nevertheless, not as I wish, but as you'? For to say 'Let this cup pass' was first of all the mark of one not in agreement; and what is added does not seem to belong to agreement either, for he says: 'Not my will, Father, but yours be done.'
2.18| "You hear how the writing shows disagreement in appearance, the one willing, the other not willing. For that the Father willed is plain from the fact that what he willed came to be; and that the Son did not will is plain from what he begs off. And again he says, 'I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.'
2.19| "How then does he say that the Savior said 'I and the Father are one' because of the agreement in all things?" And after a little he adds (No. 65): "How can the Son have agreement with the Father, or the Father with the Son, when the Son says, 'All that the Father has is mine'? For the saying 'All that the Father has is mine' was outright that of a Son getting the better of the Father.
2.20| "For on this account, leaving aside saying 'All that the Father has is common,' he said 'All that the Father has is mine.' Yet it was not the mark of one in agreement to speak so, but rather: 'All that the Father has is common.' For if the Acts of the Apostles, praising the agreement of those who then came to the faith, said 'they had all things in common,' and even among men who can agree one must hold that all things are common, how much more ought the Father and the Son to share in common, divided into two subsistences? But as it is, in saying 'All that the Father has is mine' the Son appears to get the better of the Father; and in saying that he is not lord even of his own word, but that the Father is of this too
2.21| (for 'the word which you hear,' he says, 'is not mine but the Father's who sent me'), he shows the Father taking away the son's own things. Each of these, in Asterius' opinion, appears to have been said inconsistently.
2.22| "For one in agreement ought not to snatch away the rights belonging to the other, since that is greedy, but should think that what belongs to each is common. So that when we look to the human flesh, we shall not find the Savior to have said 'I and the Father are one' as Asterius has written; for it was not because of the exact agreement in all words and works, as he has written, that the Savior said 'I and the Father are one.'
2.23| "For if it were this, he would surely have said: 'I and the Father agree with one another in all things.' But as it is, he said 'I and the Father are one.' If, then, there was some disagreement in those cases, and the Lord must needs speak truly, it is fitting to know exactly of the Savior that when he says 'I and the Father are one,' he does not say this looking to the man he has taken on, but to the Word who came forth from the Father.
2.24| "For if some disagreement seems to exist, it ought to be referred to the weakness of the flesh, which the Word took on, not having had it before. But if oneness is spoken of, this appears to belong to the Word.
2.25| "Hence he reasonably said not only 'I and the Father are one,' but also that, 'I am with you so long a time, Philip, and you say, Show me the Father,' evidently meaning not with these eyes but with those that can see intelligible things by the mind. For both the Father and his Word are invisible to the eyes of the flesh. It is not, then, because of agreement in all things that he said this to Philip."
2.26| Having said so much, taking up this account again from the beginning, he lays down his doctrine in this manner (No. 92): "For before all creation there was a kind of stillness, the Word being, as is likely, in God. For if Asterius has believed that God is maker of all things, it is plain that he too will agree with us that the one always exists, never having received a beginning of being, while the others have come to be by him and have come to be out of things that were not. For I do not think that he believes, with the one who says so, that some things are also without origin, but is exactly persuaded that heaven and earth and all that is in the heavens and on the earth have come to be by God.
2.27| "If, then, he believes this, he must also agree that, besides God, there was nothing else. The Word, then, being in the Father, had his own glory."
2.28| And having said this he adds after other matters (No. 93): "The authority given to him Asterius calls glory, and not glory only but glory before the world, not considering that when the world had not yet come to be there was nothing other than God alone.
2.29| Having said this, and through it openly denied the Son, Marcellus, in order to persuade us exactly what he thought the Word of God to be, shows his meaning more plainly by likening him to our own word, writing these things (No. 55): "For just as everything that has come to be has come to be from the Father through the Word, so also the things said by the Father are signified through the Word. For this reason the most holy Moses names the Word an angel here, because he appeared for no other reason than to announce to Moses those things which he knew would benefit the sons of Israel; and he knew that it would benefit them to believe there is one God.
2.30| "Therefore he also said to him, 'I am the one who is,' in order to teach that there is no other god besides himself. This, I think, is easy for those of sound mind to know even from a small and humble example among ourselves.
2.31| "For it is not possible for anyone to separate the word of a man from him in power and subsistence; for the word is one and the same with the man, and is separated from him by nothing else than the activity of the deed." And he lavishes still more the display of his meaning in what he says next (No. 53): "For God did not need some other preparation, such as matter or anything else human, for the making, but this preparation in his own mind.
2.32| "Since, then, it was impossible without the Word and the wisdom present with the Word for God to conceive the making of heaven, he reasonably said, 'When he was preparing heaven, I was present beside him.'" And he adds again, likening the Word of God to the human word, in order to show him to be without subsistence, and he writes thus (No. 56): "Here the Father says to Moses, 'I am the one who is,' and plainly says it through the Word.
2.33| "For everything the Father says, he is seen to say everywhere through the Word. And this is plain from ourselves too, so far as small things may be compared with great and divine ones; for we too do everything we wish, as far as possible, to say and to do by our word."
2.34| Then, having said some things in between, he adds (No. 68): "How then did Asterius, pretending to follow the holy Scriptures simply and in fear, not know this part which says, 'The Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath, and there is no other besides him,' and that 'he is one,' and besides him there is no other?"
2.35| And going on again he insists, saying (No. 40): "Not called 'Word' by a loose use of the term, even if those who teach otherwise burst with their lying, but being Word properly and truly." And he adds (No. 45): "For what else was the hidden mystery than that of the Word? This mystery was so hidden 'in God' before that no one of the former people clearly knew the things concerning the Word, but we now enjoy the riches of 'the glory' and of the hidden mystery."
2.36| And after this he again used a human image, writing in this manner (No. 52): "For who, either of the holy angels or of righteous men, was so trustworthy as to dissolve the punishment decreed to him from the person of God,
2.37| "if not the Word himself who was present and formed with him, to whom the Father said, 'Let us make a human being according to our image and likeness,' there being no other god able to join him in forming? For 'I am,' he says, 'God first and I after these things, and besides me there is no other god.' Neither, then, was there some younger god, nor was any other who is 'after these things' a god able to work together with God.
2.38| "But if someone, using a small human example from among ourselves, were to examine the divine action as in an image: a skilled sculptor, wishing to mold a statue, first considers its types and features within himself, then thinks out the breadth and length that are fitting, and examines the proportion of the whole in each part. Having prepared a suitable material of bronze and having sketched in his own mind the statue to be, and supposing he sees it with the mind, and conscious that the word works along with him, by which he reasons and by which he is accustomed to do everything (for nothing done without a word is fair), he begins this perceptible work and urges himself on as though another, saying: 'Come, let us make, come, let us mold a statue.' So God, the master of all things, making the living statue from earth, urges not some other but his own Word, saying, 'Let us make man,' not in the same manner as the rest; for by a word the whole creation came to be."
2.39| And to these he adds after other matters (No. 108): "But now I believe the divine Scriptures that God is one. And his Word came forth from the Father so that 'all things' might come to be 'through him'; and after the time of the judgment and the setting right of all things and the abolition of all opposing activity, 'then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him,' 'God and Father,' so that the Word may be in God just as he was before, before there was a world. For when nothing was there before but God alone, and all things were to come to be through the Word, the Word came forth in active operation, this being the Word of the Father.
2.40| And again he sets down the same thought more plainly, saying (No. 54): "For before the world was, the Word was in the Father. But when God the Almighty purposed to make everything in the heavens and on the earth, the coming-to-be of the world needed an active working; and for this reason, there being nothing else but God (for all things are confessed to have come to be by him), then the Word came forth and became the maker of the world, who before had prepared it within, in thought."
2.41| And again after all this he adds, saying (No. 34): "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 he may bring about that the man, by adoption, through fellowship with him, becomes a son of God, and that after the end of the work he may again, as Word, be united with God, fulfilling what was foretold by the apostle: 'Then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.' For at that time he will be what he was before." By so many words Marcellus with head uncovered renounced the Son of God.
2.42| For if God and the Word in him were one and the same, and no one could ever be father of himself, as he could not be his own son, being one and alone, and God was one and alone, the same as his own Word, it is plain that he was not a father when he had no son, nor a son when he had no father subsisting.
2.43| What things, then, the man went through concerning the Son of God neither being nor pre-existing, but a bare word existing inside God himself, and this at one time resting and at another working with active power, we have learned from the passages before us. These very things he set down often and in various ways in his writing, and heaped up a great pile of superfluous words in the treatise. But we, content with his refutations of himself drawn from the sayings he cited, shall not even deem the absurdity of this Jewish doctrine worthy of an answer.
2.44| From here, therefore, let us pass to what the same man said about the flesh, which he says the Word in God took on by activity alone, and let us see how he transfers to the flesh the theology which the divine Scriptures bring forward concerning the only-begotten Son of God, denying the Son of God who truly pre-existed, but giving divine honor to the flesh, which a little later the irreverent man defined as to be left deserted by the Word:
3.1| (No. 36) "For the Word 'was in the beginning,' being nothing other than Word. But the man united to the Word, not having existed before, became a man, as John teaches us, saying, 'And the Word became flesh.' For this reason, then, he appears to mention only the Word; for whether the divine Scripture mentions the name of Jesus or of Christ, it appears to name the Word of God who is with human flesh. And if anyone before the new covenant professes to be able to show the name of Christ or Jesus applied to the Word alone, he will find it said prophetically, as is plain also from this: 'The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered as one against the Lord and against his Christ.'"
3.2| And after other matters he adds (No. 44): "Reasonably, then, before the descent this was, as we often said, Word; but after the descent and the taking up of the flesh it received various designations, since 'the Word became flesh.'" Observe how through this Marcellus does not want the name of Jesus and Christ and the other titles to be applied to the Word, but to the flesh which he took on. This observation is necessary, so that when he in turn casts off the flesh, he may be convicted of impiety against the Christ of God himself. Going on, after what was said before, he writes such things about the body of the Savior:
3.3| (No. 8) "And let Asterius not think it implausible that his body, though younger than he, could attain such antiquity; but let him consider that even if the human flesh is, in the greatest degree, younger, nevertheless the Word, who deigned to take it through a pure virgin and united his own to it, not only made the man created in himself 'firstborn of all creation,' but wishes him to be the beginning of all things, not only of those on earth but also of those in the heavens."
3.4| Having said so much, after other matters he refers to the flesh the apostolic words in which he gives divine honor to the Son of God, saying: "who is the image of the unseen God, firstborn of all creation; for in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and unto him; and he himself is before all things, and all things hold together in him," not blushing to take such words of the apostle as referring to the flesh. Concerning which Marcellus himself, going on, writes (No. 104): "If, then, the Savior confesses that the flesh profits nothing, how is it possible for that which is of earth and profits nothing to be with the Word in the ages to come as being of benefit to him?"
3.5| And again he adds about the same flesh (No. 104): "How then could the form of the slave, which the Word took on, being a form of a slave, be with the Word?" Yet the one who said such things about the flesh now calls it "image of God" and "firstborn of all creation," and says that it exists before all, and that "all things in the heavens and on the earth, thrones, lordships, rulers, authorities, were created in it."
3.6| He writes thus (No. 4): "If, then, he himself is 'firstborn of all creation,' and 'in him' all things were created, we ought to know that the apostle is now speaking of his dispensation in the flesh." And he confirms the statement, adding next (No. 5): "He was called 'firstborn of all creation' because of his birth in the flesh, not because of the first creation, as they suppose."
3.7| And he adds (No. 6): "This most holy Word, then, was not called 'firstborn of all creation' before the taking on of manhood (for how can the one who always is be firstborn of anything?), but the first 'new man,' in whom God wished 'to sum up all things,' him the divine Scriptures call 'firstborn of all creation.'" And again he adds (No. 7): "You hear how it follows that not only these things but also what pre-existed, 'in the heavens and on the earth,' were created in him according to the new creation."
3.8| So much, then, for the passages in which he says that he was called "firstborn of all creation" on account of the flesh. But see how he again refers to the flesh the saying "The Lord created me as the start of his ways, for the sake of his works," paying no heed to the divine Scripture, which in the Proverbs speaks in the person of Wisdom in this way: "I, Wisdom, have pitched my tent in counsel, and I have called upon knowledge and understanding. Through me kings reign, and the rulers write righteousness."
3.9| After these words the same Wisdom adds: "I walk in the ways of righteousness, and I move about in the midst of the paths of justice, that I may distribute substance to those who love me, and fill their treasuries with good things. If I proclaim to you what happens day by day, I will remember to number the things from eternity.
3.10| The Lord created me as the start of his ways, for the sake of his works; before the age he founded me; in the beginning, before the making of the earth," and what follows these words. Marcellus did not wish to turn his mind to these words; he had only one aim, not to confess the Son of God, and so he refers the theology before us to the flesh, and having turned aside from the straight road he devised for himself a trackless wilderness, writing word for word as follows:
3.11| (No. 9) "Now this chapter of the Proverbs does not, as they themselves suppose, wish to show the beginning of our Saviour's divinity when it said 'The Lord created me,' but the second economy, that in the flesh; and for this reason it fittingly mentions the creation of human flesh."
3.12| And he adds next (No. 9): "The creation, then, belongs to the work he performed as a man. Hence it says, 'The Lord created me as the start of his ways, for the sake of his works'; that is, he created me through the virgin Mary, by whom God chose beforehand to unite human flesh with his own Word."
3.13| And after other matter he adds, saying (No. 10): "This being so, it follows that we should consider in our mind this chapter spoken in proverbs, 'The Lord created me as the start of his ways, for the sake of his works.' For our Master, God, truly created, making what did not exist; for the flesh which the Word took up was not in being, but he created it when it was not." And he brings in again (No. 113): "This, then, is the meaning of 'The Lord created me as the start of his ways, for the sake of his works.'"
3.14| He goes on (No. 14): "'Before the age he founded me,'" naming as the foundation his economy in the flesh, which was appointed beforehand; as the apostle also says, "For no one can lay another foundation than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Here he mentions a single age, from which, he said, the things concerning Christ were founded.
3.15| And again he confirms the same wording by saying (No. 17): "Fittingly the prophet said, 'Before the age he founded me,' meaning, of course, what is according to the flesh, on account of its fellowship with the Word, who is truly his Son." And he adds next (No. 18): "Then it says, 'In the beginning, before the making of the earth.' What earth is this, if not our flesh, which became earth again after the disobedience? For it says, 'You are earth, and to earth you shall return.' For this had to obtain healing, since it in some manner shared in the holy Word."
3.16| But see how in these passages Marcellus contradicts himself. For having said in another place that the flesh is the "beginning of the ways" of God, created, and again having said that the same flesh is the "foundation," he adds "before he made the earth." Then he interprets the earth again as the flesh, not seeing that there is no consistency in saying that the flesh was created before the flesh, and in naming the flesh again after the creation of the flesh.
3.17| And besides this he adds next, saying (No. 19): "Then it says, 'Before he made the depths.' Here the prophet says in a proverbial way that the depths are the hearts of the saints, who have in their own depth the gift of the Spirit."
3.18| Observe in these words as well how, having taken "The Lord created me" to be said of the flesh, and then being hard pressed by the Scripture which says "before he made the depths," he explains the depths as the hearts of the saints, but does not see that the hearts of the saints, namely of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, of Moses and Elijah and Melchizedek and the rest of the prophets, came into being before the Saviour's flesh.
3.19| How then is it possible to refer to the flesh the words "before he made the depths"? And after other matter he adds again, saying (No. 20): "What, then, is this chapter too: 'Before the springs of the waters came forth'? He says that these are the holy apostles. The Scripture of Exodus sets this mystery before us, announcing long ago the types of the apostles; for since the apostles are twelve in number, it mentions twelve springs."
3.20| And again he adds the same, writing as follows (No. 20): "Fittingly, then, the Master spoke about his generation in the flesh through the prophet Solomon, who says, 'Before the springs of the waters came forth.'"
3.21| Then, after going through some other matters, he continues (No. 22): "Since, then, we have spoken of the things that came first, it follows that we should complete what is left. What is left is the part about the mountains and hills. For it says, 'Before the mountains were set firm, and ahead of all the hills, he begets me.' By mountains and hills he means the apostles and the successors of the apostles, so as to signal in a proverbial way their righteous way of life as against other people."
3.22| Having set out some such interpretations, he then passes again to the words of the apostle, speaking the opposite of the apostle. For the apostle taught that the Son of God pre-existed and is "firstborn of all creation," and proclaimed with a great cry that "all things were created through him and in him," and that he is "before all things"; but Marcellus casts this theology, too, down onto the flesh, and a little later denies even this.
3.23| He speaks thus (No. 43): "For this reason he fittingly adds, 'who is the image of God the invisible.' When did he become an image, if not when he took up the creature made 'according to the image and likeness'? For before that, as I have often said, he was nothing other than Word." And he persists, making the same point more openly in the words (No. 82): "It is therefore plain that before the taking up of our body the Word by himself was not the image of the invisible God; for an image must be seen, so that through the image what was until then unseen may be able to be seen."
3.24| And again he adds, saying (No. 82): "How, then, has Asterius written that the Word of God is the image of the invisible God? For images are indicative of those whose images they are, even when they are absent, so that through them the absent person seems to appear. But if God is invisible, and it follows that the Word is invisible too, how can the Word by himself be an image of the invisible God, being himself invisible? For it is impossible for what is not visible ever to be made manifest through what is invisible."
3.25| Here too Marcellus fails to see that if we grant that the flesh is the image of God, it is time to say that the flesh of all human beings, and the faces of their bodies, are images of God, so that on his account the Saviour would have had nothing special. And he, as though forgetting what he wrote afterwards about the flesh (calling it, from the apostle's text, "the form of a servant," and saying that for this reason it cannot be united with the Word because it is "the form of a servant,"
3.26| but also saying outright (No. 104): "How can it be that what is of earth and profits nothing should be united with the Word in the ages to come?"), asserts that for the present the flesh is the image of the invisible God, affirming categorically (No. 82) that before the taking up of our body his Word was not the image of the invisible God.
3.27| And again after the passages set out he adds, saying (No. 83): "Hence it is plain from every side that the holy apostle called the flesh that was added to the Word the image of the invisible God, so that through the visible the invisible might also appear. 'He is,' says the apostle, 'the image of the invisible God.' That is, now, when he has taken up the flesh made according to the image of God, he has become the true image of the invisible God."
3.28| "For if through this image we have been counted worthy to know the Word of God, we ought to believe the Word himself when he says through the image, 'I and the Father are one.' For no one can know either the Word or the Word's Father apart from this image."
3.29| And again he adds (No. 84): "So too the apostle says, as we said a little earlier, 'he emptied himself, having taken the form of a servant,' signifying to us by the form of a servant human flesh, which our Master, God, shaping it by his own Wisdom, spoke of when he said, 'Let us create man in conformity with our image and likeness,' rightly calling human flesh an image. For he knew precisely that it would be an image a little later of his own Word."
3.30| After this he tries to establish that the words "from the womb before the morning star I begot you" were also said about the flesh, and he writes thus (No. 26): "For this reason, then, since the star that marks the day was fittingly called the morning star by the prophet David, there is no longer any need to ask who the morning star is; for it was the star that appeared at that time, bringing and announcing the day to the Magi."
3.31| "It is therefore plain that 'before the morning star I begot you' was said by the almighty Master about the Word born through the virgin together with human flesh, the gospel too making this clear, that our Master was born first through the virgin, and afterwards the star appeared that showed the day."
3.32| Proceeding after this he adds again (No. 94): "For the man received authority not only over affairs on earth but also over those in heaven, and with good reason. For if, when he became 'man' and 'mediator between God and men,' all things were then created for him, as the apostle said, 'both those in heaven and those on earth,' it follows that we should know precisely that authority was given him not only over things on earth but also over those in heaven." And again after other matter he adds (No. 95): "For if the holy gospel speaks of some glory given to him by the Father, the man evidently received it through the Word. For having become, as the holy apostle says, 'mediator of God and men,' he glorified God-fearing men by the glory given to him by the Father."
3.33| And again he adds this (No. 96): "And he deigned to join to his own Word, through the virgin, the man who had fallen through disobedience. For what other glory among men could be greater than this glory? And having said 'I have glorified you,' he adds, saying, 'and I will glorify you again,' so that in his surpassing love for humankind, in the second glory after the resurrection of the flesh, he might make the formerly mortal man immortal and glorify him with so great a glory that he would not only be freed from his former slavery but would also be counted worthy of a glory beyond man's."
3.34| And again he adds (No. = 97): "So that, as I said, he might bring it about that the man who had earlier been deceived by the devil should himself in turn defeat the devil. For this reason he took up the man, so that, in consequence, he might bring him to receive the firstfruits of authority." And he adds further, saying (No. 97): "For this is the beloved, the man united to the Word, of whom the evangelist said, 'This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I took delight.'"
3.35| And again he adds (No. 98): "Because the Word of the invisible God was to be born through a virgin and to take up human flesh, and that through it, having fought down the devil who had earlier prevailed over man, he might bring it about that the man would become not only incorruptible and immortal but also seated on a throne with God in heaven."
3.36| It is necessary to keep all this in memory because of what Marcellus himself is going to bring forward against the flesh which the Word of God took up. For as though he had forgotten all that he set out, he brings an unhappy and impious end upon the Saviour's body. Besides all this, as though his earlier points had been successfully made, he tries to show that "The Lord reigned; let the earth rejoice" is also to be referred to the flesh.
3.37| He speaks thus (No. 99): "He who came down and took the flesh through the virgin was established as king over the church, evidently so that through the Word the man who had earlier fallen from the kingdom of the heavens might be able to obtain a kingdom. God arranged this economy because he wished this man, who had earlier fallen from the kingdom through disobedience, to become Lord and God. So the most holy prophet David says prophetically, 'The Lord reigned; let the earth rejoice.'"
3.38| And after other matter he adds (No. 100): "For what reason does the prophecy say, as though our Master Christ had received the beginning of his kingdom from some point in time, 'But I have been established king by him'?" And again he adds (No. 100): "For this is why he will reign, having come to be in human flesh; and the man who was earlier deceived, established as king through the Word, 'will abolish every rule and every power and authority' of the devil."
3.39| After saying so much about the Saviour's flesh, and far more besides, and declaring it to be the image "of the invisible God" and the firstborn "of all creation" and the king and Jesus and Christ and the beloved and all else that he enumerated, and asserting that the Word was called all these things on its account, it is now time to see what kind of end he gives it.
4.1| (No. 100) "For this is why he will reign, having come to be in human flesh; and the man who was earlier deceived, established as king through the Word, 'will abolish every rule and every power and authority' of the devil. 'For he must reign,' it says, 'until he has put his enemies under his feet.' The holy apostle says that this is the end of the kingdom of our Master Christ, that all things be subjected under his feet." And a little later he adds (No. 101): "Here the apostle reveals to us a very great mystery, saying that there will be an end of Christ's kingdom; and the end is then, when all things have been subjected under his feet."
4.2| And working out the same argument still further he writes thus (No. 102): "We said in our preceding quotations, using proofs from the divine Scriptures, that our Master Christ received a beginning of kingship. There is one passage that says, 'But I have been established king by him upon Zion, his holy mountain,'
4.3| and another, 'The Lord reigned; let the peoples be angry,' and again, 'The Lord reigned; let the earth rejoice.' And in general, since there is an abundance of countless passages for witness, one can show that the man received a beginning of kingship through the Word. If, then, he received a beginning of kingship not more than four hundred years ago, it is no wonder that the apostle says that the one who obtained this kingship so short a time before will hand over the kingdom, evidently to God who established him, as the Scripture says, as king."
4.4| And after other matter he writes thus (No. 103): "It appears, then, that by activity alone, on account of the flesh, he has been separated from the Father only until the coming time of judgment appears, so that, when those who pierced him then see the one they pierced, according to the prophecy, what remains may follow accordingly."
4.5| "For when all are about to be subjected to Christ at the time of the end, as the apostle said, then 'he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him.' What, then, do we learn about the human flesh, which the Word took up for our sake not quite four hundred years ago? Will the Word have it also in the ages to come, or only until the time of judgment? For what the prophet said must be confirmed in fact. 'For they will look,' it says, 'on the one whom they pierced'; and what they pierced was, of course, the flesh."
4.6| And he adds after other matter, saying (No. 104): "That the Word did not take our flesh so that he himself might profit, but so that the flesh, through its fellowship with the Word, might obtain immortality, is plain from the Saviour's own declaration. For about the flesh that he had when he spoke with the disciples he says: 'Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man going away to where he was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing.' If, then, he confesses that the flesh does him no profit, how can it be that what is of earth and profits nothing should be united with the Word in the ages to come, as though it were of advantage to him?"
4.7| "For it seems to me that this is why the almighty Master says to him, 'Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet.' Since he seems to separate him by activity alone, on account of the human flesh, and as though fixing for him a definite time of sitting at the right hand, he speaks to him thus: 'until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet.'"
4.8| "The holy apostle, interpreting this prophetic saying of David more clearly for us, said something like this: 'For he must reign until he has put his enemies as a footstool for his feet.' It seems, then, that his economy and kingship as a man have a limit. For the saying means nothing other than what the apostle said: 'until he puts his enemies as a footstool for his feet.'"
4.9| "Therefore, when he has the enemies as a footstool for his feet, he no longer needs this partial kingship, being king of all things in general; for he reigns together 'with God and Father,' whose Word he was and is."
4.10| "For the Word himself, by himself, did not receive a beginning of kingship; rather, the man who was deceived by the devil became king through the power of the Word, so that, having become king, he might conquer the devil who had earlier deceived him. For this reason the Acts of the Apostles also, speaking of this man whom the Word of God took up and, having taken him up, sits at the right hand of the Father, teach thus: 'whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration.' These too, as though fixing a limit and a fixed term during which the economy as a man is bound to be united with the Word, speak in this way."
4.11| "For what else does 'until the times of restoration' mean than that it signifies to us the age to come, in which all things must obtain perfect restoration? If, then, Paul said that at the time of the restoration of all things creation itself will be changed from slavery to freedom (for he says, 'that creation itself will be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God'),
4.12| how could the form of a servant that the Word took up, being a form of a servant, still be united with the Word? It follows, then, plainly and expressly, that the economy of the Word in the flesh, for our sake, falls within a short time between the ages that have passed and those to come. And the inspired Paul said that it will have an end, just as it had a beginning, saying something like this: 'Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God and Father.'"
4.13| To this, after other matter, he adds (No. 106): "He took human flesh, therefore, not for his own sake but for ours. And if it is plain that he took it for us, and all that concerns us will obtain its end at the time of judgment through his providence and activity, there will no longer be any need even of this partial kingship." After saying this, Marcellus then perceived that he had fallen into absurdity, and adds to what he had said the following (No. 107): "And if someone should say that the human flesh is worthy of the Word because through the resurrection he made it immortal, let him know that not everything that is immortal is worthy of God."
4.14| "For God is greater than immortality itself, since by his own will he can make even things that do not exist immortal. That not everything immortal is worthy to be united with God is plain also from the fact that rulers and authorities and angels, being immortal, have no part in the oneness of God."
4.15| After saying this, and perceiving that he had fallen as into a pit of absurdity, he tries to take it back, in a way confessing that he knew nothing of what he was saying; so he adds, saying (No. 108): "But if someone should inquire about this flesh, which in the Word has become immortal, what do we say to him? That we do not think it safe to lay down doctrine about matters that we have not learned precisely from the divine Scriptures."
4.16| For how could those who overturn the doctrines of others do this?
4.17| "But we will tell those who wish to learn from us the precise account of this matter that, obeying the holy apostle, we know that we ought to see the hidden mysteries as he himself said: 'For now we see,' he says, 'through a mirror, in an enigma, but then face to face; now we know in part, but then we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known.' So do not ask me about things I have not clearly learned from the divine Scripture."
4.18| "For this reason I shall not be able to speak clearly even about that divine flesh which shared in the divine Word. But as it is, I believe the divine Scriptures that there is one God, and that his Word came forth from the Father so that 'all things' might come to be 'through him'; and after the time of judgment, the setting right of all things and the abolition of every opposing activity, 'then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him,' 'God and Father,' so that the Word may thus be in God, just as he was before."
4.19| Such is the end this marvellous author brought upon the flesh of our Saviour, forgetting what he had said about it earlier.
4.20| Then the man who has so plainly declared that the saving body will be left bereft of the Word after the time of judgment feigns scruple, and says that he does not know how to answer if someone asks him about the flesh, and that he would say to the questioner: "Do not ask me about things I have not learned."
4.21| But any passer-by would say to him: Why do you mock yourself, man? Why do you push yourself over cliffs, defining in writing things you have not learned? Why do you not guard what you received from the fathers and teachers of the church, but openly innovate, introducing into life a new and strange perversion, giving Christ's kingdom a temporary and recent beginning and assigning it an end, and denying the truly only-begotten Son of God while positing a bare Word without essence and without subsistence, which you say is nothing other than one and the same as God? Anyone who denied the Son of God would say just that, and naturally so.
4.22| For a Word that has no subsistence is not a Son, just as the word in a man could never be called the son of the man, since it exists only as an activity in the speaker. Yet you say again and again that this Word came to be the Son of God from the Father not quite four hundred years ago, through the taking up of the flesh; that he was named Jesus and Christ; that he was styled "image of the invisible God" and "firstborn of all creation"; and indeed that he became king then, having begun all these things from the time indicated, and that at the time of the consummation all these will cease together.
4.23| Where, then, did you learn this? Who became your teacher in it, which of the bishops, what synods, what writing of churchmen? And where, on your account, would the Saviour's immortal body go? For if you confess it immortal and call it divine, you will surely suppose it also incorruptible and indissoluble. Being of such a nature, it remains, of course, held together and indissoluble. Yet you took the Word away from it and joined him to God.
4.24| Will the body, then, without the Word, stand alone in immortal and incorruptible speechlessness and motionlessness? And how will the Word himself go to God and be joined to him again after the separation from the flesh? Was he not in God when he was with the flesh? But he is in him always, being coeternal and one and the same with God. How, then, was he in the body? If he dwelt in it as a soul does, he will be in subsistence, separate from the Father, living and subsisting in the flesh he took up.
4.25| What, then, prevented him from confessing that he was a living Son of God even before the constitution of the world? But perhaps he would say that he was in the body by activity alone and not by a subsistence of essence; for he says that, being with the flesh by effective activity alone (by moving it and doing all that is recorded in the Gospels), he was joined to God in essence, as being his Word, inseparable and undivided from him.
4.26| If he says this, let him answer our question: Did the Word's activity reach only this flesh, and not other holy men of God as well? And does not the same Word work in all the rest of the Word's creations? Indeed we have learned that "by the Lord's word the heavens were established" and that "all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be." So he works in all things also.
4.27| We have learned from the divine Scriptures also that "the word of the Lord came to Hosea son of Beeri," and "the word of the Lord came to Isaiah son of Amos," and "which came as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah." And in each of the prophets it was the same Word of God that was at work. Did all of them, then, share a dignity equal to that of the only-begotten Son of God, and did the Saviour have nothing more than they, if indeed he was moved by activity alone, by the Word that is joined to God?
4.28| But Marcellus does not even allow the Christ of God to have as much as the prophets. For they will attain eternal life, immortal and without end, living through all the ages in the kingdom of the heavens that has been proclaimed and enjoying good things "which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man"; but the Christ of God himself, the common Saviour of all, "the firstborn of the dead," the hope of the resurrection of the saints, will then, it seems, be the only one left behind, his kingdom coming to an end and his life-giving flesh being left deserted and without the Word, so that, on Marcellus' teaching, he neither existed beforehand as Son of God nor endures without end.
4.29| With good reason, then, these things roused the emperor, truly dear to God and thrice blessed, against the man, even though he had flattered him endlessly and gone through many praises of the emperor in his treatise. These things also forced the holy synod, which had gathered in the imperial city from various provinces, Pontus and Cappadocia, Asia and Phrygia and Bithynia, Thrace and the regions beyond, to brand the man publicly by its document against him, even against its will. And these things compelled us too to undertake the present examination, both as upholding what the holy synod decided and as satisfying our fellow ministers who instructed us to do this.
4.30| Most of all, I consider that this writing has become necessary because of those who have supposed that the man was wronged. For we must cure the suspicion of our brothers by bringing into the open the unbelief toward the Son of God that had long lain hidden in him as in a den, but has now been exposed through his own writing. This writing he came bringing of his own accord, though no one had summoned him, and he put it into the emperor's hands and asked him to examine what was written in it; hoping, perhaps, that for the sake of his praises of the emperor he himself would win preferment with the emperor, and that the bishops he had slandered would be subjected to punishment.
4.31| The outcome, however, did not go as he had hoped. For the judge of these matters was God, and Christ Jesus himself, whom the writer sets at nought; and he, seeing into the man's secrets, brought it about that the man, with no one pressing him, became at once his own accuser and his own refutation. So the one, preening himself on his treatise, came before the emperor; the emperor handed over to the synod the judging of what was written in it; and the holy synod of God rejected the writing, with good reason, because it confesses neither a pious beginning nor a pious end of the Son of God.
Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/122-against-marcellus-book-ii#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.
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