12–72(73). […] Those familiar with natural history say that a mole lives in a burrow and gives birth to many children at once: up to five or more, and echidnas catch them. If an echidna finds a whole hole, then, not being able to devour them all, it eats one or two of them for its own nourishment, and for the rest, putting out the eyes, it brings food and fattens the blind, until it takes and eats each of them whenever it wants. But if it happens that someone who does not know them finds them and takes them for food, he takes poison from them into himself, like vipers saturated with poison. In the same way, Origen, having blinded your mind with the above-mentioned Hellenic teaching, you have spewed poison also on those who trusted you, and have become poisonous food for them, harming many with the same things from which you yourself have suffered. Of Origen himself we have spoken in the preceding discourses how he blasphemed the Son of God, calling Him created God, and saying that He could not see the Father, and that the Holy Spirit could not see the Son, and how he falsely taught that the soul had pre-existed, and having sinned in heaven, was brought down into the body, and that the devil would be restored to his rule. John the Baptist and the other saints are happy that they will be partners of the devil in the Kingdom of Heaven! And that paradise and the waters are higher than the heavens, and the waters under the earth are allegory, and not reality.

On Paul of Samosata, the forty-fifth, and according to the general order, the sixty-fifth heresy

1. Paul, called of Samosata, appeared and follows Novatus and Origen, later numbered among the heretics because he dreamed highly of himself, rebelled against the truth with his vain idle talk and thought, shaken by the devil. He should be mourned, as in truth by the envy of the devil who has fallen away and fallen from on high, for in him is fulfilled what is said: "The care of malice darkens the good, and the soaring of lust changes the mind that is not malicious" (Wis. 4:12). And so, this Paul of Samosata, whose name we first mentioned, and whose heresy we are writing about, was from Samosata, a city situated within Mesopotamia and the Euphrates. At this time, in the days of the emperors Aurelian and Probus, he was made bishop of the holy Catholic Church of Antioch. But, having exalted his mind, he fell away from the truth and renewed the heresy of Artemon, who had lived many years before and bent.

Paul says that God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, and that which is always in God is His Word and His Spirit, as in the heart of man is his own word. The Son of God does not have a hypostatic existence, but in God Himself, just as Savely, Novatus, Noetus and others taught. However, this one did not teach in the same way as them, but differently from them. The Word seemed to have come and dwelt in Jesus, the true man. And thus, he says, God is one, and the Father is not the Father, and the Son is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit, but one God the Father, and His Son is in Him, as the word is in man. In defense of his heresy, he exposes the testimonies of the Scriptures, namely the words of Moses: "The Lord thy God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). He does not say in agreement with Noetus that the Father suffered, but says that the Word, when He came, acted alone and ascended to the Father; And he has a lot of ridiculous things.

2. Let us see if the words of this deceived man prove to be valid. He says that Christ said: "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (John 14:10). And we ourselves say that God the Word is from the Father and with Him always exists, being begotten of Him, but we do not say that the Father exists without the hypostatic Word. But the Word of the Father, the Only-begotten Son, is God the Word, as Christ says: "Whosoever shall make known Me, let us also praise him before My Father" (Matt. 10:32). The expression: "Me before My Father" indicates the Father, who is hypostatic by nature. But the followers of Samosata, distorting Judaism and having nothing more in comparison with the Jews, should be called second Jews and Samosatians; they are nothing but the Jews, and have only precedence over them in name. For denying God the only begotten Son and the Word, they are the same as those who rejected Him at His coming, became murderers of God and the Lord, and denied God. It is true, however, that they have neither circumcision, nor do they keep the Sabbath, nor anything else, like the Jews.

3. Indeed, we ourselves do not say that there are two Gods or Godheads, but one Godhead, since we do not say that there are two Fathers, or two Sons, or two Holy Spirits, but that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one Godhead, one glorifiable. And he says that God is one, not because the Father is the source, but that God in general is one, thereby destroying, as far as he can, the divinity and hypostasis of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and acknowledging the Father himself as one God, who never begat the Son, so that the Father and the Son are both imperfect: the Father does not beget the Son, and the Word of the living God and true wisdom is barren. They think that the Word is the same as it is in the heart, and that wisdom is the same as in the soul of man, which everyone who has acquired understanding from God has. Therefore they say that God together with the Word is one Person, as one man and his word, nothing, as I have said, thinking no more than the Jews, blind to the truth and deaf to the word of God and to the preaching of eternal life. They are not ashamed of the true word of the Gospel, which says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word. All things were without Him, and without Him there was nothing (1 John 1:1,3). For if in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, then it means that it exists not only in pronunciation, but in hypostasis. And if the Word is with God, then it is no longer the Word that had it, because He who had it is not the Word. If He has God the Word in His heart, and an unborn one at that, then what does it mean to say, "Be," and that God is the Word?! For the word of man is not man to man; it does not live, does not exist personally, but is only the movement of the heart of the living and independently existing, not a personal being. For at the same time as it is pronounced, immediately it is no more, but he who speaks remains: But the Word of God, as the Holy Spirit says through the mouth of the prophet, Thy Word endureth forever (Psalm 118:89). The Evangelist also speaks in accord with this, confessing God Who appeared and came, but did not add the Father to the incarnation of the Word, for he says: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt in us" (John 1:14), and did not say, "The Word and the Father were made flesh." And again he says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word, and did not say: "In God was the Word."

4. And lest some should think maliciously, turning clear and lively expressions to their own evil and to harm (for in various forms it is revealed that the heart of man is diligently attached to evil from youth (Gen. 8:21)), and do not begin to say: "The Evangelist did not say: 'In God is the Word,' as you also say, 'But the Word is with God,' that is, The Word is not from the hypostasis of the Father, but the Word is outside of God" — for this reason the truth turns them back, leading them to the right path of its sons and exposing thoughts that err from its path, and the Only-begotten Himself says: "I came forth from the Father, and I come to come" (John 16:28), "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (14:10). He who spoke in the prophets about the Son, having nothing bodily in himself, but having spiritual words, condescending to the weakness of mankind for the tangibility of the conception of the Son, turns to what happens to us, in order to depict that from Him truly God was born of God, the true God of the true God, not existing outside, but of His essence, and says in David the following words: From the womb of the first Lucifer thou didst beget thee (Psalm 109:3), as the seventy were translated. And other translators, for example, Aquila: "From the womb of the morning dew of your youth." Symmachus: "As in the morning of dew thy youth." Theodotion: "From the womb of thy early youth." The fifth edition is: "From the womb of the morning dew to thee in thy youth." Sixth edition: "From the womb shall the dew of thy youth seek thee." And in the Hebrew: Them messaar lactal ieledeceu, which clearly and unquestionably means: From the womb before the dawn will give birth to you. For the word mhrem means from the womb; and messaar, that which is before all things, that is before Lucifer; lactal — and before the dew, child; ieledeceu means to give birth to thee. This is so that you may know from this word that the hypostatic God the Word was begotten of the Father by nature, without beginning and before anything was. For it was not the morning star that He understood here exclusively under the name of the star, although many stars occurred on the fourth day, as well as the sun and the moon, but even before that the trees and the fruits, the firmament, the earth and the heavens, were made, and with them came the angels. For if the angels had not been created together with heaven and earth, God would not have said to Job: "When the stars were created, all my angels praised me with a voice" (Job 38:7). Thus, the words before Lucifer are placed in order to express them: before the existence of anything and creation. For the Word was always with the Father, for all things were by him, and without him there was nothing (John 1:3).

5. And perhaps someone will say: You have proved that angels exist before the stars, yet you say that they came into being at the same time as heaven and earth. Tell us why you made such a testimony. In general, did they not occur before heaven and earth? For nowhere does Scripture clearly indicate the time of the creation of the angels. You have proved well that they exist before the stars. For if they had not existed, how would they have praised God in the creation of the stars? And we can express any solution to the problem not from our own considerations, but on the basis of the Scriptures. For the Word of God makes it clear that the angels did not come after the stars, nor before heaven and earth, since it is evident that it is indisputably said that before heaven and earth there was nothing created, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), when there was the beginning of creation, and before that there was nothing created.

Therefore the word which is in man cannot be called man, as I said before, but the word of man. But if the Word of God is God, then He is not a non-hypostatic word, but the hypostatic God the Word, begotten of God without beginning and before time, for the word was flesh, and dwelt in us, and we saw His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies about Him, and cried out, saying: "This is his own rekh, who is coming after me, was before me, as before me" (John 1:14-15). He came into the world, that the world may be saved by them (3:17). In the world there was also peace, and his world was not known (1:10). Do you see the Only-begotten Word? Do you see that it is full of [the grace of truth] in the world among men, and has the full glory of the Only-begotten of the Father? Not as if the Father were the Word; not as if the Father appeared united to the Word, as man appears with his word, and his word cannot appear unless it is in the speaker of the word. So, what will I believe? What do I agree with? From whom shall I receive life in teaching? Is it from the saints and spirit-bearing evangelists, who spoke of the Word sent from the Father, or from these followers of Paul of Samosata, who say that God is with the Word, and the Word with God, who assert that the Father has one person with the Word, and the Word with the Father? If there is only one person, then then one sends, and the other is sent? For thou shalt send, saith the prophet, a word, and I shall fade: his spirit shall breathe, and the waters shall flow (Psalm 147:7). And again: "I came forth from the Father, and I come" (John 16:28); and: "I live, and the Father who sent me lives in me" (6:5,7). In what way is he sent and appears in the flesh? For no one has seen God anywhere, but the Only-begotten God is in the bosom of the Father, that confession (John 1:18). He says: The Only-begotten God, for the Word is begotten of the Father, and the Father is not begotten, therefore the Only-begotten is the Son.

6. Divine knowledge willed to preach its truth according to its foreknowledge for the protection of our souls; since it knew the madness of Samosata, and the wickedness of the Arians, and the wickedness of the Anomoeans, and the fall of the Manichaeans, and the wickedness of the other heresies, therefore the divine word protects us in regard to every utterance, and does not call the Father only-begotten. For how is the unborn only-begotten? And He calls the Son the only-begotten, so that the Son would not be counted as the Father, and so that God the Word would not be likened to the word in the heart of man. For if it is called by a word, it is called so that no one should think that He is alien to the essence of God the Father; and the Word is not impersonal, but hypostatic, because it is the only-begotten fullness of grace and truth. Do you see how much serves to strengthen our life? Therefore the words, "God is seen nowhere to be seen," are intended to signify the invisibility of the Father and His divinity, and to affirm the Son's own divinity appearing in the flesh.

How much more, and besides this, can we gather and represent against the madness of Samosata? If the Son was in the Father as the word is in the heart of man, how did He appear to speak in His own person? During a conversation with His disciples, He says: "He who has seen Me, in the form of the Father" (John 14:9). He did not say, "I am the Father," but the word mene means, in the Father. And he did not say, "I am he," but, "I have come in the name of my Father" (5:43). And: He is the testimony of Me (5:32–37). And again he says of the Holy Spirit: "I will send you another comforter" (14:16-15, 26). See how he uses the words: after, another, az, in order to show that the Father has a personal being and the Holy Spirit has a personal being. He will glorify Me, He speaks of the Holy Spirit, for He will receive from Me (16:14). And what Spirit is he talking about? Who proceedeth from the Father, and from Mine shall receive. Moreover, He says: "Two men shall bear witness, and I bear witness of Me, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me" (8:14, 17, 18). And how many other testimonies besides these? Here He says: Confess, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast concealed this from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed it as a child. O Father, for such was thy good pleasure. All things are delivered to me by My Father, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father; nor the Father, who knows only the Son, and to him the Son will reveal (Matt. 11:25-27) the Words: "Thou hast revealed Thou as a child, and all things have been delivered to me by My Father," He said in order to put an end to their fictitious, alien speech.

7. But see what the devil, who is always the adversary of the human race, has begotten in them, so that they speak according to the devil's suggestion. Against this these ministers of the Jewish heresy defend themselves, ashamed by the clear guiding teaching of the Divine Gospels, so as not to appear to them to be completely contrary to the true understanding of the Gospel. They say that Jesus was a man and was inspired by the Word from above. And what He says about Himself, He says as a man. For the Father, together with the Son, is One God, and man reveals his own face in that He is from below (John 8:23). And, thus, quite two faces are formed. But how can a man be God, O foolish of all men, and alienated by his mind from the heavenly understanding?! How can he be a mere man, in your opinion, who says: He who has seen Me in the form of the Father?! (John 14:9) For if man is like the Father, then the Father is no different from man. But if God the Word, perfect as man, is at the same time the perfect God from above, begotten of the Father, then He justly and clearly speaks of Himself, saying: "He who saw Me in the form of the Father, as the Jews also speak of Him." For he says: "Iskahu shall kill Him, not only because he did this, but also because he called himself the Son of God, saying that He is equal to God" (John 5:18). And again, saying, "He who has seen Me in the form of the Father," He calls the Father God, equal to Himself. And man is not equal to God and not like God, but truly begotten of God the Father, God the Only-begotten Son, for Paul says of him: "Who in the image of God was not equal to God by the rapture, but made himself small, and took the form of a servant" (Philem. 2:6). He was in the image, it is said of Him as of God, but the image of the servant calls it received from without, and did not say that it ever belonged to him. Often, however, our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word, converses in a human way, and often speaks in accordance with human sensations, but not when He says: "I came forth from My Father, and I come" (for this cannot be said from the point of view of human nature), but when He justly testifies, saying: "If I bear witness of Me, my testimony is not true" (John 5:31). in order to show his incarnation. On the contrary, from the side of the Godhead He says: "If I bear witness to myself, verily is my testimony" (8:14), in order to show the true Divinity and the true incarnation.

8. Therefore there are not two Gods, because there are no two Fathers, and the hypostasis of the Word is not annihilated, because there is no admixture of the divinity of the Son with the Father. The Son is not of any other being with the Father, but is of one essence with the Father. He cannot be another being with the one who gave birth, He is not identical, but of one essence. But again we do not say that He is not essentially the same as the Father. For in divinity and in essence the Son is the same with the Father, and not different from the Father, and not from another hypostasis, but as if the Son of the Father in essence, and in hypostasis, and in truth. But the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, but the Son, truly begotten of the Father. Therefore there are not two Gods, nor two Sons, nor two Holy Spirits, but one Godhead, the Trinity of one essence, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When you say: Consubstantial, it does not mean confusion. For consubstantiality does not signify one, nor does it divide the essence of the true Son in relation to the Father, nor does it alienate the hypostasis in order to preserve consubstantiality. For the Divine Word does not preach two principles, but one principle. The house of Judah and the house of Israel will be gathered, he says, and will establish for themselves one power (Hosea 1:11). Thus, he who preaches two principles preaches two gods, and he who denies the Word and His hypostasis reveals Judaism. For Marcion admits two principles, or rather three, which are contrary to one another. The new Jews, these Samosatians, destroy the hypostasis of the Word, which is why they also turn out to be murderers of the Lord and, with the denial of God, deny salvation from our Lord.

Thus, the beginning is one, and the Son is from him an exact image, reflecting his Father by nature and resembling Him in all respects, because He is God from God, and the Son from the Father, the true God from the true God, and the light from the light, one divinity and one dignity. Wherefore He says: Let us make man in our image and after our likeness (Gen. 1:26), and not in thy image, that there may be no division, and not in my image, lest unlikeness and inequality be discovered, but in our image; and it is said: Let us create, so that the Father may not be a stranger to that which came from Him, neither will the Only-begotten be a stranger to creation. But the Father creates together with the Son, and the Son, who was all things, is the Creator together with the Father, and because the Son is begotten of Him, He is one perfect God, of the perfect Father, and one perfect Father of the perfect Son, who has the image of the Father's perfection, the image of the invisible God, not the likeness of the image, not the image of the image, not dissimilar, but the image of the Father, in order to show truly the immutability of being born from the beginningless and eternal.