Eusebius on the Trinity Part 2

I continue from where I previously left off: Eusebius on the Trinity Part 1.

NOW THAT THE testimonies from the divine Scriptures have been presented, in which it was shown that the Son of God was called not only “Word” before his coming in the flesh (as Marcellus thought) but also many other things, come now, let us consider the remaining idol of Sabellius, which has, as it were, popped up out of the earth.¹ For he dared to say that the God who is over all,² the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has himself been born from the holy Virgin and has himself suffered, having written in this way:

Well then, what was this “which came down”³ before the Incarnation? Surely, I suppose, he [Asterius] says, “Spirit.”⁴ For if he would like to say something besides this, the angel will not agree with him, because he said to the Virgin, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.”⁵ But if he will say that he is Spirit, let him listen to the Savior, who says, “God is Spirit.”⁶

(2) Through these remarks, he said that the God of the universe (concerning whom our Savior and Lord taught, having said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth”),⁷ is the Spirit that came upon the Virgin, (3) in this way openly bringing Sabellius back to life. And proceeding on, he refers to the Father the statement of Jeremiah the prophet, who clearly said concerning the Incarnation of the Savior, “After these things he appeared on earth and lived among men,”⁸ claiming in these very words: But the Father must be in the Word, even if it does not seem so to Asterius and to those who think the same things as he does.⁹

(4) But he also does the same thing with regard to the Passion of the Savior. For having brought forth from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the passage that says,

“The Spirit before us, Christ the Lord, was taken in their destructive snares,”¹⁰

he adds:

And here likewise, the prophet speaks of the Word who has assumed our flesh.¹¹

And he continues, saying:

A spirit could never become the maker of a shadow.¹² But that God himself is [Spirit], the Savior said, “God is Spirit.”¹³ And that God is light, he himself teaches us, saying, “I am the light.”¹⁴

You see how he transfers that which has been said about the Savior to the divinity (5) of the Father. And again, he shamelessly eliminates the hypostasis of the Son, alleging that before the fashioning of the creatures there was nothing other than God alone. Therefore, he writes as follows in this literal statement.

Asterius calls the authority¹⁵ given to him “glory,” and not only glory but also “pre-cosmic glory,”¹⁶ not understanding that when the cosmos did not yet exist, there was nothing other than God alone.¹⁷

And again, he confirms the same point, saying: ... The sky and earth and everything in the sky and upon the earth came to be from God. Well now, if he were to believe this,¹⁸ it would be necessary for him also to confess that there was nothing other than God.¹⁹

Chapter 2

(1) You see, a Jew openly denies the only-begotten Son of God, “through whom all things” came to be.²⁰ For if there was nothing other than God before the generation of the world, the Son would not have then existed. And how could [it be that] “all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be”?²¹ Therefore, on the one hand, the Jew, denying the Christ of God, before the generation of the world knows nothing except God alone, with Marcellus giving witness in support of him, while on the other hand, the Church of Christ is proud to say with all candor, “We have one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and (2) one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.”²² But when she says “through whom are all things,” she acknowledges that he is BEFORE ALL THINGS. And therefore the man who says that before the generation of the world there was nothing other than God alone falsifies the truth. For the Son, his only-begotten, was also with the only God before the establishment of the world and coexisted with the Father. For he also taught her [the Church] this, who said, “In these last days, he spoke to us in a Son, whom he appointed as heir of all, through whom he also (3) made the ages.”²³ And in Proverbs, the Son himself teaches about himself through Solomon, saying, “When he established the heavens, I was present with him.”²⁴ But he himself also “was the light that enlightens every man coming into the world,”²⁵ because “he was in the world, and the world was made through him.”²⁶ But if “the world was made through him,” (4) it is clear that he pre-existed the world. Thus God was not alone before the establishment of the world, but his only-begotten Son was present with him, and looking upon him the Father rejoiced, as he himself [the Son] as Wisdom teaches, saying in Proverbs, “I was daily his delight.”²⁷ And the Son himself, contemplating the Father’s thoughts, was filled with joy, for which reason he says, “I rejoiced before him always.”²⁸ The Church of Christ, having received these pious and divine mysteries, preserves [them]. But the man who says,

When the cosmos did not yet exist, there was nothing other than God alone,²⁹

(5) shows himself to be wrapped in the mantle of either a Jew or a Sabellius.³⁰ For if right from the start he denies the Son and introduces God alone, he will be a Jew who rejects Christ; on the other hand, if he accepts the title of the Son insofar as he is Word, but claims that the one God is he, Son together with Father, he will bring Sabellius back to life. For if before the world there was nothing other than God, either he [God] will himself be Father and Son, or he will not have a Son.

1. The remaining idol’s “popping out of the earth” recalls the figure from Greek mythology, Cadmos, who, at Athena’s request, sowed dragon’s teeth in the ground, from which popped up the so-called Spartoí (the “sown”). They subsequently fell upon one another, and only a few survived, who then were used by Cadmos to build the new town of Thebes.

2. Rom 9.5; Eph 4.6.

3. Asterius, fr. 58 (120 V.).

4. Ibid.

5. Lk 1.35.

6. Jn 4.24; Marcellus, fr. 61 (54 K./H.) (54,1–5 V.).

7. Jn 4.24

8. Bar 3.38; Klostermann did not recognize that this was a quotation of Marcellus, fr. 93 (79 K./H.) (82,17–18 V.).

9. Marcellus, fr. 95 (55 K./H.) (84,3–4 V.).

10. Lam 4.20. The LXX has “the Lord’s anointed,” not “Christ the Lord.” For the first time recognized as a fragment of Marcellus by K. Seibt, Die Theologie des Markell, 353; Marcellus, fr. 62 (55 K./H.) (54,6–8 V.).

11. Marcellus, fr. 63 (56 K./H.) (54,8–9 V.).

12. See Lam 4.20.

13. Jn 4.24.

14. Jn 8.12; Marcellus, fr. 64 (57 K./H.) (54,10–12 V.).

15. See Mt 28.18; Jn 17.2; 5.21–22.

16. Asterius, fr. 36 (100 V.).

17. Marcellus, fr. 77 (104 K./H.) (68,11–12 V.).

18. See Asterius, fr. 21; 27; 29 (92; 96 V.).

19. Marcellus, fr. 76 (103 K./H.) (68,7–10 V.).

20. 1 Cor 8.6; Jn 1.3.

21. Jn 1.3.

22. 1 Cor 8.6.

23. Heb 1.2.

24. Prv 8.27.

25. Jn 1.9.

26. Jn 1.10. The whole chain of scriptural quotations forms one argument in Eusebius.

27. Prv 8.30.

28. Ibid.

29. Marcellus, fr. 77 (104 K./H.) (68,11–12 V.).

30. The conjecture by Klostermann goes against the sense—Eusebius does not want to portray Marcellus slipping into the mantle of himself, a Sabellian, but into that of his models, either Jew or Sabellius, which is also confirmed by the argument that directly follows. (Pp. 219-223)

Therefore, then, if God and the Word within him were one and the same thing, as it seems to Marcellus, the one who came to be within the holy Virgin and was made flesh and became man and suffered what has been recorded and who died for our sins was himself the God who is over all⁴⁶—indeed, a view for which the Church of God reckoned Sabellius among atheists and blasphemers when he dared to say this.

Chapter 5

So, if Marcellus were to say that the Word of God was the one who was incarnated, but determined that he was inseparable from God, having asserted that the monad is indivisible, and that there is one hypostasis of God and of the Word within him, according to him one would have to think that the one who was incarnated was none other than the God who is over all.⁴⁷ But if the monad is indivisible, God and the Word within him are one and the same thing, and who, then, would someone say is the Father and who is the Son, since the underlying reality⁴⁸ is one? And so in this way, Marcellus, introducing him who is one and the same, a Son-Father, renewed [the error of] Sabellius.

Chapter 6

(1) But the Church of God also acknowledges that the monad is indivisible, confessing one source, the one God who is unbegotten and without source, but also deems the only-begotten Son who is born from him, truly existing and living and subsisting, as Savior, although he is neither without source nor unbegotten (so as not to posit two sources and two gods), but begotten from the Father himself and having the one who has begotten him as source. (2) For this reason, it has received the belief in one God the Father, who rules over all, and in Jesus Christ our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, this holy and mystical faith providing regeneration in Christ to those who are enlightened through it. But Marcellus says that the monad extends itself in activity, which takes place in bodies, but not at all in the incorporeal, ineffable, and indescribable being.⁴⁹ (3) For it is neither extended in activity, nor contracted in inactivity, nor does it act in any way as human beings do, nor does it move in any way as human beings do. But God, being an indivisible monad, begot his only-begotten Son FROM HIMSELF, neither being divided nor undergoing alteration, (4) change, flux, or any suffering. For neither by commanding nor by being commanded nor by laying down the law does he do these things, speaking as human beings do by the tongue and lips. Nor, when looking to the ordering of the universe, did he contemplate [it] by making use of eyes as we do, but having anticipated things that do not exist⁵⁰ beforehand by means of his ineffable and divine power, he sees even those as if they already existed (5) and subsisted. But neither does he construct [the universe] by making and fashioning as craftsmen among us do, having taken pre-existing material in his hands and fingers, but again, by means of his ineffable and incomprehensible power he brought into existence FROM NOTHING the being⁵¹ of all creatures. Therefore, then, if he made all things by means that are ineffable and unfathomable to us, why, then, should it be controversial if we say that no passion has occurred within him in the begetting of the Son, as there is in the generation of mortal animals, because [the begetting of the Son] took place BEYONG ALL THINGS AND BEFORE ALL THINGS, in a way completely unlike things commonly acknowledged to be mortal by nature, but rather in the manner that is known to him alone?

Chapter 7

(1) But are you afraid, man, lest, having confessed that there are two hypostases, you introduce two sources and cast aside the monarchical divinity? Well then, learn that because there is one God who is without source and unbegotten, but the Son has been begotten from him, there will be one source and a single monarchy and kingship, since even the Son himself acknowledges his Father as source. (2) “The head of Christ is God,”⁵² according to the Apostle. But are you anxious that one might have to accept that there are two gods if you confess that there are two hypostases of Father and Son?⁵³ But know this too: that the man who grants that there are two hypostases of Father and Son is not compelled to say there are two Fathers, nor that there are two Sons, but will grant that one is the Father and the other is the Son. Thus, in the same way, it is not necessary for the man who posits two hypostases to grant that there are two gods. (3) For we neither deem them equally worthy of honor, nor both without source and unbegotten, but deem the one [hypostasis] as unbegotten and without source, while [we deem] the other as begotten and having the Father as his source. For this reason, even the Son himself teaches that his Father is also his God, when he says, “I go to my Father and to your Father (4) and to my God and to your God.”⁵⁴ Thus God is shown to be both Father and (5) God of the Son himself. For this reason, then, the God of the Son is proclaimed by the Church to be one. And the Son, when he is compared to the Father, will not also be God of the Father himself, but only-begotten Son, his “beloved,”⁵⁵ “image of the invisible God,”⁵⁶ and “radiance”⁵⁷ of the paternal glory; and he reveres, worships, and glorifies his own Father, acknowledging him as God even of himself, to whom he has been reported also to pray, to whom he also gives thanks, and to whom he also became “obedient unto death.”⁵⁸ (6) And he confesses that he lives “because of the Father”⁵⁹ and is able to do nothing without the Father and that he does not do his own will but the will of the Father. Indeed, he says explicitly, “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me,”⁶⁰ and again, “I am able to do nothing of myself. But as I hear, so I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”⁶¹ And yet that the one who sent him was another besides himself he shows right afterward, when he says, “If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true; (7) there is another who bears witness to me.”⁶² Then, having called to mind the Baptist, he teaches that the Father is his witness, saying, “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me.”⁶³ And he adds, “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for (8) the Father is greater than I.”⁶⁴ Through all of these statements he shows that he himself is other than the Father. And he shows the superiority of the Father’s glory when he speaks of the one who has sent and of himself as having been sent and having come down from heaven “not to do my own will but the will of him who sent”⁶⁵ him.

And what would Marcellus say to these things, listening to the one who has come down from heaven teaching these things? For he will not even now, I think, say that the flesh of the Savior says these things; (9) for the flesh has not come down from heaven. Well then, who will he say is the one who has come down from heaven and teaches these things? Will it be God himself or the Word who has been united to him? But if he should say the Father, having exposed his naked Sabellianism, the Savior himself will denounce him as a liar, saying, “I have come down from heaven not (10) to do my own will but the will of him who sent me,”⁶⁶ and, “I am able to do nothing of myself, but as I hear, so I judge,”⁶⁷ and, “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me,”⁶⁸ and, “the Father is greater than I.”⁶⁹ For to think that the (11) Father says these things would be the height of madness. But if he says that the foregoing statements apply to the Word that is connatural⁷⁰ with God and to his reasoning by which he reasons and reflects within himself, how, then, could the thought of God and the reasoning within him also have come down from heaven? And how, having come to be in the flesh that it assumed, did it recount these things? How will the Word, who is in God, say that he has come down “not to do [his] own will, (12) but the will of him who sent”⁷¹ him? Through these statements the Son of God shows his own reverence for the Father. And since he [the Son] leads all creatures that have come to be through him, as he is Savior and Lord and Fashioner of all (for “all things came to be through him and without him not one thing came to be”),⁷² then he can also be addressed as God, (13) Master, Savior, and King. For this reason his Church has been taught to revere and worship and honor him as God, (14) having learned to do this from him. Thus the Savior himself says, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father,”⁷³ clearly commanding [the Church] to honor him not like the prophets nor like the angels or the powers that are distinct from these, but very nearly like⁷⁴ the Father himself. For the Father himself, having wished this, “has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor (15) him, just as they honor the Father.”⁷⁵

Indeed, Thomas the Twin also, knowing these things correctly, seeing as he was one of the band of the twelve disciples, acknowledged him as both God and Lord with crystal-clear words, saying, “My Lord and my God!”⁷⁶ For this reason, then, it is also fitting for us to revere the Son alone and no other with divine honor, just as we honor the Father, (16) and in this way the Father is honored through the Son. And indeed, [the Son] teaches this very thing too, when he says, “He who honors the Son honors the Father who sent him.”⁷⁷ 

For just as in honoring an image of an emperor that had been sent [to us], we would honor the emperor himself who is the archetype of the image, in the same way the Father would be honored through the Son, just as (17) he is also seen through him. For “he who has seen” the Son “has seen the Father,”⁷⁸ seeing the unbegotten divinity impressed in the Son as in an image and mirror. “For he is [the] radiance of eternal light, [the] spotless mirror of the activity of God, and [the] image of his goodness.”⁷⁹ And having received all these things from the Father, he has received the glory from him [the Father] and from the divinity, as a genuine and only-begotten Son would receive it. But the Father has not also received [it] from anyone, and since he himself is source, fountain, and root of all good things, he would rightly be addressed as [the] one and only God.

45. Marcellus, fr. 74 (73 K./H.) (62,11–14 V.).

46. Rom 9.5; Eph 4.6.

47. Ibid.

48. τοῦ ὑποκειμένου.

49. οὐσίας.

50. Rom 4.17.

51. οὐσίαν.

52. 1 Cor 11.3.

53. Klostermann’s addition of εἴη is unnecessary.

54. Jn 20.17.

55. Mt 3.17.

56. Col 1.15.

57. Heb 1.3.

58. Phil 2.8.

59. Jn 6.57.

60. Jn 6.38.

61. Jn 5.30.

62. Jn 5.31–32.

63. Jn 5.37.

64. Jn 14.28.

65. Jn 6.38.

66. Ibid.

67. Jn 5.30.

68. Ibid.

69. Jn 14.28.

70. συμφυᾶ.

71. Jn 6.38.

72. Jn 1.3.

73. Jn 5.22–23.

74. τῷ πατρὶ παραπλησίως.

75. Jn 5.22–23.

76. Jn 20.28.

77. Jn 5.23.

78. Jn 14.9.

79. Wis 7.26. (Pp. 225-230)

Chapter 9

(1) Well then, it is now time for him to answer our questions. Therefore, what should we think of that intermediate period when the Word was outside of God? And how did he come forth? And in what sort of state, then, was God when he did not have his own Word within himself? For if the Word will be in God at the consummation of the universe, just as he also was prior to the time of consummation, how will he be the Word who came forth from God? For if, on the one hand, subsisting in himself, he became other than God, the effort of Marcellus will be in vain; but if, on the other hand, having also come forth from God, like the spoken word in our own experience, he remained inseparable from the Father, he was therefore always and through everything (2) in God, even when he was active. How, then, at the time of the judgment does he [Marcellus] send him back, saying that at that time he will be united to God and will be just as he also was before? For if at that time he will be just as he also was before, the Word who came forth from God will not be such as he was before, but even God himself will be unlike himself, formerly having the Word within himself and receiving him back at the consummation of the universe and [only] then becoming as he also was before, but in the meantime being dissimilar. And the Word, having become, so to speak, outside of God, will not before the consummation of the universe be such (3) as he was previously. And which of these would be the more impious statement?

For altogether, [the expressions] “was” and “be” and “has once come to be” and again “about to be,” which are indicative of a change in time, would be foreign to the being⁹⁴ that is timeless, without source, ingenerate, and immutable, concerning which it is fitting to think that it alone exists and always exists unchangeably and in exactly the same way, being neither diminished, nor contracted, nor extended, nor expanded, nor having anything outside or inside itself, nor becoming one thing at one time and another thing at another, nor being one thing before and becoming something else afterward and then again (4) being restored to its former state.

Indeed, Marcellus dared to propose these ideas, saying that long ago there was God and a certain quiet together with God, sketching out for himself the views of that very founder of the godless heretics who made a spectacle of himself promulgating atheism, saying, “There was God and silence,”⁹⁵ and that after the silence and quiet, the Word of God came forth in the beginning of the making of the universe in active energy, so that he is no longer such as he was when he was previously resting in the silent God, but, (5) upon coming forth from God, becomes active. And how, then, did he come forth? Altogether, I suppose, like the expression of the articulate voice, that is, God speaking and talking just as human beings [do]...

(7) Therefore, then, if the Word came forth in this way from the Father, [that is,] in active energy, for what reason did it occur to Marcellus to set a limit to the activity of the Word, [namely,] the time of the consummation, during which he says that the Word will be in God, just as he also was before (he granted that beforehand he was resting in God’s silence)? Therefore, after the consummation, too, there will be a certain quiet, since the Word will intend no activity. But before the establishment of the creatures there was nothing, he says, except God, and since there was nothing, (8) it is fair enough [to say] that he [God] was silent. But Daniel the prophet prophesies that at the time of the consummation, there will be tens of thousands before the throne of God, saying, “a thousand thousands served him; and (9) ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him,”⁹⁸ and all in some degree will be sons of the age that is to come then, namely, the blessed souls of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and all holy spirits of the martyrs, and sheep of our Savior, who will stand at his right hand and will hear: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation (10) of the world.”⁹⁹

Well now, given that all these will exist and live an immortal life after the time of the judgment, why won’t the Word of God be active even then? For what reason did it occur to Marcellus to declare that God will then no longer speak to the saints nor use his active Word, but will be, as he also was before, that is, silent and at rest?¹⁰⁰ For he makes this point, having said several times that he will then be as he also was before—and he was before, as [Marcellus] himself said, at rest. (11) Thus at that time God will cease to speak, though before this time [he was] speaking and using his active Word, but afterward [will] deprive his saints of [his] own Word and the Wisdom in him in the promised kingdom of heaven itself.

You see over what sort of cliff he [Marcellus] has gone, having employed no guide—surely not the divine Scriptures. At any rate, he contrived for himself all these ideas (12) on the basis of one statement, which he nevertheless has not understood.

Chapter 10

(1) And yet the great and divine evangelist himself has called [him] not only “Word,” as has been said many times by us,¹⁰⁴ but also “God”¹⁰⁵ and “Light”¹⁰⁶ and “Son”¹⁰⁷ and “Only-begotten.”¹⁰⁸ And he recounts that the Savior himself nowhere in the Scripture calls himself “Word,” but throughout the gospel “Life”¹⁰⁹ and “Light”¹¹⁰ and “Only-begotten”¹¹¹ and “Son of God”¹¹² and “Truth”¹¹³ and “Resurrection”¹¹⁴ and “Bread of life”¹¹⁵ and “Vine”¹¹⁶ and “Shepherd”¹¹⁷ and countless other things, as (2) has already been shown. Why on earth, then, given that these titles are so numerous, does he [Marcellus] not stop [when he encounters] all the remaining titles in the text, and inquire carefully into the sense of those things that are said, but instead says that he is chiefly designated by the [title of] “Word” alone,¹¹⁸ as if he were nothing other than Word?

94. οὐσίας.

95. On Simon Magus, see Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1873), 390...

98. Dn 7.10.

99. Mt 25.34.

100. Eusebius is not very accurate here, as he blends the Word and God and speaks as if Marcellus talked of both the Word’s and God’s (the Father’s) changing between silence and speaking, inactivity and activity

101. Klostermann’s “but” is unnecessary.

102. Eusebius here ridicules how Marcellus turns a “New” Testament into a “Young” Testament with his claim that only the New Testament can give witness to the “active Word” that became incarnate in the relatively recent past (“not four hundred years ago”), as he says in his fr.

103 (105 K./H.). 103. Jn 1.1.

104. The phrase “as has been said many times by us” might refer to the tortuous survey of ET 1.20.

105. Jn 1.1.

106. Jn 1.4; 1.5; 3.19; 8.12; 11.9; 12.35–36.

107. Jn 1.34; 1.49; 3.18; 5.25; 10.36; 11.4, 27; 17.1; 19.7.

108. Jn 1.14, 18; 3.16, 18.

109. Jn 11.25; 14.6.

110. Jn 8.12; 12.46.

111. Jn 1.18; 3.16.

112. Jn 10.36.

113. Jn 14.6.

114. Jn 11.25.

115. Jn 6.35.

116. Jn 15.1, 5.

117. Jn 10.11. It is surprising that Eusebius leaves out three more self-descriptions of Jesus according to John: Christ (Jn 4.26), the one who is from above (Jn 8.23), the door (Jn 10.7), and the way (see Jn 14.6). He obviously reacts against Marcellus, fr. 3 (43 K./H.) (4,18–6,11 V.), where this list of titles in John has been taken to refer to the Word incarnate.

118. See Marcellus, fr. 3 (43 K./H.) (4,18–6,11 V.). (Pp. 233-237)

It would be right to bring this sort of inquiry before Marcellus when he says these things: (4) for what reason, my good man, do you add for us [the words] “nothing other” and “only”? For we correctly know that statement, “In the beginning was the Word,”¹²⁷ without the qualification “only,” but also the statement that “the Word was God”¹²⁸ and that “he was the light that enlightens every man”¹²⁹ and “only-begotten Son”¹³⁰ and all the other statements that have been proposed. But no one would be able to show that it has been said that he was “only” Word and “nothing other” than Word. (5) From where, then, comes the audacity of this addition [“only”]? For why shouldn’t one rather say that he was only Son and nothing other than Son? Why shouldn’t one say that he was God and nothing other than God? Why not “Light of the world”¹³¹ and nothing other than this? Why not “Life”¹³² and nothing other [than this]? And one could in all justice extend the same line of reasoning to similar [statements]. (6) But just as anyone, if he were to say this, would be accused of making a mistake (for he is all these things together, being one Son of God, and even if one rates one of these as more important than others,¹³³ according to each conception of the different divine powers in him and titles), (7) so also the man who said of the Word that he is only Word and nothing else would rightly be said to be in error. For since only the evangelist John called him “Word” and not only this, but also other things, while the Savior addressed himself as “Light” and “Truth” and “Life” and “Only-begotten Son” and the rest, but nowhere as “Word,”¹³⁴ how could it not be absurd to say with regard to those things he called himself that he is one of these and no other, and with regard to the evangelist’s title for him, which addressed him as Word, to confirm that he is nothing other (8) than Word? But “chiefly and truly” he [the evangelist] also says “he is” “God.”¹³⁵ For there was not one man who addressed him as Word and another man who called him God, but one and the same evangelist taught at the same time that he was God and Word, having said, “and the Word was God,”¹³⁶ and the same evangelist also called him “Light.” Therefore, has not the Master and Savior himself¹³⁷ the evangelist given witness concerning himself that he is chiefly and truly the only-begotten Son and all the other things? But the one who disregarded all [these] things says that he is chiefly and truly only Word, and he adds that he would consequently be only Word, and from that point he stumbles upon the analogy of the human word.

127. Jn 1.1.

128. Ibid.

129. Jn 1.9.

130. Jn 1.18.

131. Jn 8.12.

132. Jn 14.6.

133. Marcellus, fr. 3 (43 K./H.) (4,18–6,11 V.), claims that “Word” would be the proper, not the improper or metaphorical, title of (the incarnate) Christ.

134. This is an accurate remark, as the self-descriptions of the Lord in the New Testament do not include the title “Word.”

135. Second part of Marcellus, fr. 94 (46 K./H.) (84,2 V.). Here is one of Klostermann’s most extensive corrections of the manuscript text, deriving from a misunderstanding of the argument. He has overlooked that Eusebius combines (deliberately or not?) a quotation from Marcellus (to which the first part is referring) with John—as the following argument highlights—from whom “God” is taken (John 1.1) to contradict Marcellus. See Marcellus, fr. 94 (46 K./H.), where this fragment ends not in the Johannine predication of “God,” but “Logos/Word.” Klostermann’s entire addition has to be deleted.

136. Jn 1.1.

137. These brackets indicate a manuscript emendation. (Pp. 238-239)

We now arrive at the final part: Eusebius on the Trinity Part 3.