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Anti-Marcion
They more readily supposed that the Father acted in the Son’s name, than that the Son acted in the Father’s; although the Lord says Himself, “I am come in my Father’s name;”[7979] and even to the Father He declares, “I have manifested Thy name unto thesemen;”[7980] whilst the Scripture likewise says, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,”[7981] that is to say, the Son in the Father’s name. And as for the Father’s names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the “One that is,” we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. “All things,” says He, “which the Father hath are mine.”[7982] Then why not His names also? When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel, the “One that is,” consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is “exalted at the right hand of God,” as Peter declares in the Acts;[7983] is the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the destiny of that nation; and is likewise “the One that is,” because there are many who are called Sons, but are not. As to the point maintained by them, that the name of Christ belongs also to the Father, they shall hear (what I have to say) in the proper place. Meanwhile, let this be my immediate answer to the argument which they adduce from the Revelation of John: “I am the Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;”[7984] and from all other passages which in their opinion make the designation of Almighty God unsuitable to the Son. As if, indeed, He which is to come were not almighty; whereas even the Son of the Almighty is as much almighty as the Son of God is God.
But what hinders them from readily perceiving this community of the Father’s titles in the Son, is the statement of Scripture, whenever it determines God to be but One; as if the selfsame Scripture had not also set forth Two both as God and Lord, as we have shown above.[7985] Their argument is: Since we find Two and One, therefore Both are One and the Same, both Father and Son. Now the Scripture is not in danger of requiring the aid of any one’s argument, lest it should seem to be self-contradictory. It has a method of its own, both when it sets forth one only God, and also when it shows that there are Two, Father and Son; and is consistent with itself. It is clear that the Son is mentioned by it. For, without any detriment to the Son, it is quite possible for it to have rightly determined that God is only One, to whom the Son belongs; since He who has a Son ceases not on that account to exist,—Himself being One only, that is, on His own account, whenever He is named without the Son. And He is named without the Son whensoever He is defined as the principle (of Deity) in the character of “its first Person,” which had to be mentioned before the name of the Son; because it is the Father who is acknowledged in the first place, and after the Father the Son is named. Therefore “there is one God,” the Father, “and without Him there is none else.”[7986] And when He Himself makes this declaration, He denies not the Son, but says that there is no other God; and the Son is not different from the Father. Indeed, if you only look carefully at the contexts which follow such statements as this, you will find that they nearly always have distinct reference to the makers of idols and the worshippers thereof, with a view to the multitude of false gods being expelled by the unity of the Godhead, which nevertheless has a Son; and inasmuch as this Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, so is He to be reckoned as being in the Father, even when He is not named. The fact is, if He had named Him expressly, He would have separated Him, saying in so many words: “Beside me there is none else, except my Son.” In short He would have made His Son actually another, after excepting Him from others. Suppose the sun to say, “I am the Sun, and there is none other besides me, except my ray,” would you not have remarked how useless was such a statement, as if the ray were not itself reckoned in the sun? He says, then, that there is no God besides Himself in respect of the idolatry both of the Gentiles as well as of Israel; nay, even on account of our heretics also, who fabricate idols with their words, just as the heathen do with their hands; that is to say, they make another God and another Christ. When, therefore, He attested His own unity, the Father took care of the Son’s interests, that Christ should not be supposed to have come from another God, but from Him who had already said, “I am God and there is none other beside me,”[7987] who shows us that He is the only God, but in company with His Son, with whom “He stretcheth out the heavens alone.”[7988]
But this very declaration of His they will hastily pervert into an argument of His singleness. “I have,” says He, “stretched out the heaven alone.” Undoubtedly alone as regards all other powers; and He thus gives a premonitory evidence against the conjectures of the heretics, who maintain that the world was constructed by various angels and powers, who also make the Creator Himself to have been either an angel or some subordinate agent sent to form external things, such as the constituent parts of the world, but who was at the same time ignorant of the divine purpose. If, now, it is in this sense that He stretches out the heavens alone, how is it that these heretics assume their position so perversely, as to render inadmissible the singleness of that Wisdom which says, “When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him?”[7989]—even though the apostle asks, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?”[7990] meaning, of course, to except that wisdom which was present with Him.[7991] In Him, at any rate, and with Him, did (Wisdom) construct the universe, He not being ignorant of what she was making. “Except Wisdom,” however, is a phrase of the same sense exactly as “except the Son,” who is Christ, “the Wisdom and Power of God,”[7992] according to the apostle, who only knows the mind of the Father. “For who knoweth the things that be in God, except the Spirit which is in Him?”[7993] Not, observe, without Him. There was therefore One who caused God to be not alone, except “alone” from all other gods. But (if we are to follow the heretics), the Gospel itself will have to be rejected, because it tells us that all things were made by God through the Word, without whom nothing was made.[7994] And if I am not mistaken, there is also another passage in which it is written: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by His Spirit.”[7995] Now this Word, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, must be the very Son of God. So that, if (He did) all things by the Son, He must have stretched out the heavens by the Son, and so not have stretched them out alone, except in the sense in which He is “alone” (and apart) from all other gods. Accordingly He says, concerning the Son, immediately afterwards: “Who else is it that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad, turning wise men backward, and making their knowledge foolish, and confirming the words[7996] of His Son?”[7997]—as, for instance, when He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.”[7998] By thus attaching the Son to Himself, He becomes His own interpreter in what sense He stretched out the heavens alone, meaning alone with His Son, even as He is one with His Son. The utterance, therefore, will be in like manner the Son’s, “I have stretched out the heavens alone,”[7999] because by the Word were the heavens established.[8000] Inasmuch, then, as the heaven was prepared when Wisdom was present in the Word, and since all things were made by the Word, it is quite correct to say that even the Son stretched out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the Father’s work. It must also be He who says, “I am the First, and to all futurity I AM.”[8001] The Word, no doubt, was before all things. “In the beginning was the Word;”[8002] and in that beginning He was sent forth[8003] by the Father. The Father, however, has no beginning, as proceeding from none; nor can He be seen, since He was not begotten. He who has always been alone could never have had order or rank. Therefore, if they have determined that the Father and the Son must be regarded as one and the same, for the express purpose of vindicating the unity of God, that unity of His is preserved intact; for He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally with Himself comprehended in the same Scriptures. Since they are unwilling to allow that the Son is a distinct Person, second from the Father, lest, being thus second, He should cause two Gods to be spoken of, we have shown above[8004] that Two are actually described in Scripture as God and Lord. And to prevent their being offended at this fact, we give a reason why they are not said to be two Gods and two Lords, but that they are two as Father and Son; and this not by severance of their substance, but from the dispensation wherein we declare the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father,—distinct in degree, not in state. And although, when named apart, He is called God, He does not thereby constitute two Gods, but one; and that from the very circumstance that He is entitled to be called God, from His union with the Father.
But I must take some further pains to rebut their arguments, when they make selections from the Scriptures in support of their opinion, and refuse to consider the other points, which obviously maintain the rule of faith without any infraction of the unity of the Godhead, and with the full admission[8005] of the Monarchy. For as in the Old Testament Scriptures they lay hold of nothing else than, “I am God, and beside me there is no God;”[8006] so in the Gospel they simply keep in view the Lord’s answer to Philip, “I and my Father are one;”[8007] and, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me.”[8008] They would have the entire revelation of both Testaments yield to these three passages, whereas the only proper course is to understand the few statements in the light of the many. But in their contention they only act on the principle of all heretics. For, inasmuch as only a few testimonies are to be found (making for them) in the general mass, they pertinaciously set off the few against the many, and assume the later against the earlier. The rule, however, which has been from the beginning established for every case, gives its prescription against the later assumptions, as indeed it also does against the fewer.
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