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  "description": "In this post I will be quoting from Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series), translated by Kelley McCarthy Spoerl & Markus Vinzent, and published by The Catholic University of America Press in 2017.\n\nEusebius is refuting a heretic named Marcellus who denied that the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit have always been personally distinct from one another. According to Eusebius, Marcellus had to a similar view to the modalist heretic Sabellius wh",
  "path": "/eusebius-the-divine-holy-spirit-filioque/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-26T09:15:46.000Z",
  "site": "https://answeringislam.blog",
  "tags": [
    "Eusebius on the Trinity Part 1",
    "Eusebius on the Trinity Pt. 4: Proverbs 8:22-36",
    "Eusebius’ Trinitarian Baptismal Formula",
    "Eusebius: Jesus as Eternal Wisdom & Angel",
    "Eusebius of Emesa on the Trinity"
  ],
  "textContent": "In this post I will be quoting from _Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series)_ , translated by Kelley McCarthy Spoerl & Markus Vinzent, and published by The Catholic University of America Press in 2017.\n\nEusebius is refuting a heretic named Marcellus who denied that the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit have always been personally distinct from one another. According to Eusebius, Marcellus had to a similar view to the modalist heretic Sabellius who taught that there is a single Hypostasis/Person who manifests as all three.\n\nEusebius’ response shows that he affirmed that the Holy Spirit is a distinct Person who is included within the holy and blessed trinity. Eusebius clearly states that the Holy Spirit has always been together with the Father and the Son. In stating this, he clearly views the Spirit is like the Son in that he has always existed.\n\nHowever, the confusion comes from Eusebius’ statement that the Spirit is among those things that have come into being through the Son which seems to imply that he is a creature. Yet this cannot be his meaning since he clearly affirms that the Spirit is one of the divine members of the glorious Trinity and has always been. It seems more reasonable to take such statements to mean that Eusebius that the Son is the cause or agent of the Spirit’s divine procession, which would imply that he actually held to the Filioque.\n\nWith this in mind, I now present the words of Eusebius himself. All emphasis will be mine.\n\nBut what in the world was this gospel instead of which there was no other one,11 if not, I suppose, that very gospel that indeed it is recorded that the Savior publicly proclaimed when he was handing it over to his disciples, **saying, “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and (10) of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”? 12 For he alone through the mystical regeneration has given to us this grace __of the knowledge of the holy Trinity__** , since neither Moses nor any prophet provided this to the people of old. For it was fitting for the Son of God alone to proclaim to all human beings the paternal grace, since while on the other, announcing the knowledge of one God. But the saving grace, which provides to us a certain transcendent and angelic knowledge, unveiled for all to see the ancient mystery that had been hidden in silence from the people of old, announcing that the very God who is beyond the universe15 [and] who was known to the men of old is at the same time God and Father of the only-begotten Son, supplying as well the power of the Holy Spirit through the Son to those (12) deemed worthy. **_Thus the Church of God received and preserves _the holy, blessed, and mystical Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit_ as its saving hope through the regeneration in Christ_**. And this was the gospel that the great Apostle testifies it is not lawful to change “for another gospel [though] there is no other”16 still up to the present through the letter to them, crying out to [the] Galatians, “Even if we or an angel from heaven proclaims to you a gospel other than you received, let him be anathema,”17 commanding [them] long ago, as is right, not to heed either bishops or rulers or teachers if one of them should distort the true statement of the faith. (13) But who was this [man]18 who teaches [us] to know God as Father and hands over [to us] the knowledge of a Son of God and the zeal to participate in a Holy Spirit? **Indeed, these things would be the distinguishing features of Christians alone** , this being the way in which, I think, the (14) holy Church of God distinguishes itself from the Jewish way [of life]. For as that way [of life] rejected the polytheistic and Greek error by [the] confession of one God, so also the exceptional knowledge concerning the Son that belongs to the Church introduced something greater and more complete, teaching [human beings] to know the same God as Father of an only-begotten Son, a Son who is truly existing and living and subsisting. In saying, “For as the Father has life in himself, so also he has given to the Son to have life in himself,”19 the only-begotten of God himself taught [this], (15) so that the Father is truly Father (not being called so only in name, nor having acquired the title falsely, but [being] in truth and deed Father of an only-begotten Son) and also the Son is truly Son. But he who supposes that the Son is a mere word and testifies that he is only Word and many times says this very thing, that he is nothing other than Word, remaining within the Father while he is resting but being active in the crafting of the creation, just like our word that rests when we are silent but is active when we are speaking, would clearly agree with a certain Jewish and human conception [of the Word], but deny the true Son of God.\n\n11. The correction of Klostermann is unnecessary.\n\n12. Mt 28.19.\n\n13. Jn 1.17–18.\n\n14. Heb 5.12.\n\n15. Rom 9.5.\n\n16. Gal 1.6–7.\n\n17. Gal 1.8.\n\n18. Klostermann’s emendation <ἢ>is unnecessary.\n\n19. Jn 5.26. (Pp. 77-79)\n\n(4) Well now, let Marcellus learn, if, having grown old in the episcopate of the Church of Christ, he even now has not yet learned that the knowledge of the hidden mystery regarding the Son of God was in no way granted to the people of old, who had slipped into idolatry, and that the “mystery hidden for ages and generations”292 was dispensed to his Church alone through his grace, **__in which mystery the teaching of the holy Trinity of Father and Son and Holy (5) Spirit was included__**. But the fellow [Marcellus] who has gathered together all these statements, as many as even a teacher of Jews could utter concerning circumcision while conversing in a synagogue of the Jews, thinks himself so high and mighty because he casts these things before the disciples of Christ, not knowing that one who is a Jew in his flesh could say more than he. And so he boasts of these things, making a spectacle of himself while he distorts the true divine teaching regarding our Savior.\n\n292. Col 1.26. (P. 269)\n\n... But [Marcellus] also proposed the simile of a sculptor discussing with himself and saying to himself,\n\nCome now, let us make, let us form a statue.188\n\nFor he says in this way that even “God, the Lord of the universe, said to himself, ‘Let us make man,’”189 as he showed already many times before through previous remarks, through which, I think, his denial of the Son of God (66) has been made plain. For to allege that God himself, having his own Word within himself, conversed with himself, would be characteristic of a certain Jewish way of thinking. And [to allege] that the Father of the Word within him and the Word within him, his Son, are the same was a feature of Sabellius’s evil belief,\n\n_Chapter 4_\n\n(1) and again, to say that the three, Father, Son, and Spirit, are [the same] **_is 190 also characteristic of Sabellius’s point of view_**. And Marcellus endorses this same claim when he writes somewhere:\n\nFor it is impossible that the three, being hypostases, could be united in a monad, unless the Trinity were previously to take its beginning from the monad. For the holy Paul said that those things are gathered up191 in [the] monad, which in no way belong to the oneness of God; for only the Word and the Spirit belong to the oneness of God.192...\n\nSo through these statements and [others] like these, **_this most wise fellow tries to argue that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, the three names being laid upon a single hypostasis_**. (6) **For in these matters neither has he understood how the Son is said to proceed from the Father _and likewise the Holy Spirit_** , nor has he been able to grasp in what sense the Savior said concerning the Holy Spirit, “He will take what is mine and declare it to you,”208 nor in what sense, having breathed upon his disciples, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”209 Those who reflect piously will easily find the solution to [these questions], if one were to consider how the Son, **_always coexisting and being present with the Father_** , deep within as if in the most profound and inaccessible recesses of the paternal kingdom, but then being sent forth from the Father for the salvation of the human race, said that he himself came forth from the Father.\n\nAnd at another time he revealed this about himself through a parable, (7) saying, “A sower went out to sow.”210 For from what place did he go forth, if not from the inmost realms of the paternal divinity? **_According to the same line of reasoning, the Holy Spirit, too, having ALWAYS stood (or, having stood ETERNALLY [παρεστὸς ἀεὶ]) by the throne of God_** , since even “a thousand thousands”211 stood by it according to Daniel, was himself also sent out, at one time in the form of a dove upon the Son of Man,212 at another upon each of the prophets and apostles. (8) For this reason [the Spirit] was also said to proceed from the Father. And why do you wonder at this? [Since] it has been said even of the Devil, “So the Devil went forth from the Lord,”213 and again a second time it was said, “So the Devil went forth from the Lord.”214 You will also find Scripture saying about Ahab, “An evil spirit came forth and stood before the Lord and (9) said, ‘I will entice him.’”215 But now is not the time to trouble ourselves with how and in what ways [Scripture] has spoken about these opposing spirits. **_The only-begotten Son of God teaches that he himself has come forth from the Father _BECAUSE_  _HE IS ALWAYS TOGETHER WITH HIM, AND LIKEWISE ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT_ , who exists as another besides the Son_**. The Savior himself shows this clearly when he says, “He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”216 **For this would be unmistakable proof that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one and the same. For that which takes from another is thought to be other than the one who gives**.\n\n_Chapter 5_\n\n(1) **And that the Holy Spirit is other than the Son, our Savior and Lord himself taught clearly and distinctly in the plainest of words** , when he said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.”217 You see that he says that the Spirit is “another Counselor” and other than himself. And if, having breathed upon the disciples, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,”218 one must not be ignorant that the breath was in some way purifying of the soul of the apostles, rendering them fit for the (2) reception of the Holy Spirit. For he is not said to have breathed upon their faces either the breath of life or the Holy Spirit, as it is written of Adam, “God breathed into his face the breath of life,”219 but he was said to have breathed first and then said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”220\n\n**His giving the Spirit, again, shows that he is other than (3) the one who is given. For the one who gives and that which is given could not have been the same, but the one who provides [the Spirit] was the Savior, and that which is given was the Holy Spiri** t, and those who received the Spirit were the apostles, while the breath purified the apostles, as I said, or even effected the giving of their share of the Holy (4) Spirit, for it is possible to interpret this event in either of these ways. Thus from these passages it is shown that the Holy Spirit is another existing alongside [the Son], as is also shown through additional remarks, in which this is again recorded, when [the Son] said, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and (5) we will come to him and make our home with him.”221 To this he adds, “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”222 You hear that he has used a plural verb about himself and the Father,223 having said, “We will come to him and make our home with him,” and in speaking of the Holy Spirit as of another, he said, “He (6) will teach you all things.”224 Of this nature was also the statement, “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.”225 Therefore, the Counselor was another beside him [Christ], concerning whom he taught these sorts of things. Therefore, quite rightly again he added, saying, “These things I have spoken to you while I was still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that (7) I have said to you.”226 For I have up to this time said these things to you, he says, but the Spirit of truth, whom my Father will also send, he will teach you everything (8) that you have not learned now because you were not capable of it; but when he has come, I mean the Counselor, he will complete the teaching, along with calling to your remembrance even the things now said by me. And again, he adds, “But when the Counselor, whom I shall send to you from the Father, comes, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will give witness concerning me.”227 **Through all of these remarks, he clearly shows that the one who is sent by him and who is going to give witness concerning him (9) is another besides himself**. He confirms [this] fact still further by also saying in these words, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”228 In saying that he went away, he also revealed in these remarks his passion (10) and the ascension to the Father that occurred after this.\n\nTherefore, after so many statements, who would be so foolish as to say that the one who says these things and the one about whom he said them are one and the same, when he listens to him clearly making a distinction [in order] to declare the truth, and showing what that truth was: that (11) unless he went away, the Holy Spirit would not come. And if [the Son] declares differently at one time that the Father will send the Holy Spirit and at another time that he himself will send him, he does not, I assure you, teach contradictory things; for whatever “he sees the Father doing,” “that the Son does likewise,”229 and, “as he hears, so he judges.”230 For this reason, by the judgment of the Father, when the Father desires, then the Son and Savior through himself231 sends to his disciples the Spirit of truth, the Counselor, to counsel them and to comfort them in what they suffered at the hands (12) of those who were persecuting them while they were preaching the gospel. And [he sent the Holy Spirit] not only to counsel them, but also to teach them the entire truth of the new covenant, which they did not grasp from the Savior’s instruction when he conversed about these matters with them, because they were still enslaved by their Jewish (13) education. But he fulfilled [these predictions] with his actions after his resurrection from the dead. After having said to Mary, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father,”232 [and] after he was seen by the disciples having ascended to the Father, then the Holy Spirit was sent and was with him and willingly revealed the service for which he had been appointed. (14) [Only] then did he allow himself to be touched.233 For when “he breathed upon”234 [them], then he also gave to them a share in the grace of the Holy Spirit, such as could effect the forgiveness of sins. For “there are varieties of gifts,”235 of which a part was given to [the disciples] when [the Savior] was with and present to them, but afterwards he filled them with an [even] greater and more perfect power. He spoke to [the apostles] about this in the Acts of the Apostles: “but you shall receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”236 And when he promised that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit, he also then fulfilled that [promise] after his ascension, when the (15) Holy Spirit was sent to them on the day of Pentecost in accordance with his words.\n\nAlthough the passages on this topic stand in need of greater explanation and clarification, now is not the time to examine them in detail, since that is not the task set before us**; instead it was necessary to show that the Counseling Spirit was other than the Son**. This was also shown in a different way in those things that the Savior himself taught, in addition to the others and in which he said, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit (16) of truth comes, he237 will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”238 In these words he promises again that his disciples will learn from the Holy Spirit [these] things that he himself did not teach, saying, as if about another, “when he comes,” and, “he will not speak on his own authority,” and, “he will glorify me,” and, “he will take what is mine.”239 ** _For to suppose that the Savior himself said all these things about himself would be tremendous and (17) irremediable stupidity_**. For through these [statements] the Savior himself clearly taught that the Holy Spirit exists as another besides himself, **_outstanding in honor and glory and privileges, greater and higher than any [other] intellectual and rational being 240 (for which reason he has also been received _into the_ (18) _HOLY AND THRICE-BLESSED TRNITY_)_**. Yet he is surely subordinate to [the Son].241 Indeed, [the Son] showed this when he said, “For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.”242 He makes clear, however, from whom he will hear: “He will take what is mine and declare it to you,”243 that is, from my treasure. For in him [the Son] are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”244 (19) Therefore, he himself, seeing as he is the only-begotten Son, receives from the Father and listens to [the Father], **while the Holy Spirit supplies [what he receives] from him [the Son]**. Hence, [the Son] says, “He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”245\n\n**Yet the God who is over all is also said to be “spirit,” as the Savior himself taught, when he said, “God is spirit** , and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth,”246 and he will truly be the holy of holies and “dwelling among the holy.”247 **But the Son of God is also spirit, because he is both spirit and himself holy of holies, if indeed he is [the] image of the (20) invisible._For this reason it has also been said of him, “Now the Lord is the spirit,” 248 (21) and, “the spirit before us, Christ the Lord_**.”249 But given that the Holy Spirit is another alongside the Father and the Son, the Savior, showing his unique characteristic,250 has called him “Counselor,” **distinguishing him from the common run of similarly titled [spirits] through the title “Counselor**.” For the angelic powers also are “spirits.” For it has been said: “He who makes his angels spirits.”251 **__But none of these can be equal to the Counseling Spirit. For this reason, (22) only this [Spirit] has been received into the holy and thrice-blessed Trinity; in no other way did the Savior command his apostles to hand over the mystery of his regeneration to those Gentiles who believed in him than by “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spir it__**.”252 Thus the Father has the ultimate authority and bestows grace, while the Son assists in this [effort] (for “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”),253 and the Holy Spirit, to be sure, the Counselor, himself distributes according to the varieties of gifts within him, “for to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit,”254 and likewise what has been reckoned among these.\n\n_Chapter 6_\n\n(1) Therefore, the Holy Spirit by nature loves to dwell only in those holy ones, bestowed through the Son upon whomever the Father selected. And this would be his task, to sanctify all with whom he shares one or even many of the gifts within him, so that prophets and apostles and every God-loving soul, yes, and even the great and divine powers, have a share in his holiness. Since the Son has been honored with the paternal divinity, he would be the maker and fashioner of all created things, both visible and invisible, and surely also of the very existence255 of the Counseling Spirit. For “all things were made (2) through him, and without him not one thing was made,”256 and, “in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.”257 But the God who is beyond all things and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, being something ineffably good and greater than any calculation and conception, any speech and consideration, of all things, however many, of whatever type they may happen to be, **leading his Holy Spirit besides the only-begotten Son** , rightly has alone been declared the God “who is over all and through all and in all” by the Apostle when he says, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all and through all and (3) in all.”258 And he alone would be called “one God and Father” “of our Lord Jesus Christ,”259 while the Son would be “the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father.”260 **But the Counseling Spirit would be neither God nor Son, since he himself has not also received his generation from the Father as the Son has,_but is one of those things brought into existence through the Son_ , because “all things were made through him, and without him not one thing was made**.”261\n\n(4) Therefore, all these mysteries are handed over to the holy and Catholic Church in this way through the holy pronouncements. **But Marcellus, having mixed everything together, at one time descends into the very abyss of Sabellius, and at another attempts to renew the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and at another has been shown as a bare-faced Jew. For he introduces a single hypostasis with three faces, 262 as it were, and three names, saying that the same is God and the Word within (5) him and the Holy Spirit**. And when he has turned from these claims to the apostolic theology concerning Christ, again, he has made use of distorted interpretations. For while the divine Apostle unmistakably theologizes about the Son of God and says, “He is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together,”263\n\n _Chapter 7_ 264\n\n(1) this wondrous fellow, having stumbled again on the flesh,265 declares that it is the image of the invisible God, paying no attention [to the fact that the statement] “he who is the image” has been put forth in the masculine form. For having no idea how the “he who” could apply to the flesh, he [Marcellus] said that this was shown to be itself the image “of the invisible God.”266 And again he says that [the statement], “He is before all things,”267 was made about the flesh, not being ashamed to take (2) the “he” as referring to the flesh.268 And he says that [he] has been called “firstborn of all creation”269 because of the flesh, and he relentlessly persists in claiming that the things “in heaven and on earth,”270 “visible and invisible,”271 were created by means of the flesh, nor does he fail [to say the same about] thrones and principalities and dominions and authorities, saying that they were made worthy of the creation by Christ through the flesh of the Savior. Having already laid out in my previous book Marcellus’s remarks about these matters,272 not to let this [treatise] get too long, I will be satisfied with the testimony of those passages. **But that this sort of interpretation of the Apostle’s statement is distorted and forced, does not require, I think, further support, because the shamelessness of the interpretation is evident to all**.\n\n188. A small section of Marcellus, _fr_. 98 (58 K./H.) (90,4–5 V.).\n\n189. Gn 1.26; last part of Marcellus, fr. 98 (58 K./H.) (90,5–7 V.).\n\n190. If we take out the wrong paragraph break here, the construction does not need Klostermann’s addition of <ἓν><ἓν>.\n\n191. Eph 1.10.\n\n192. Marcellus, _fr_. 47 (66 K./H.) (42,1–4 V.)...\n\n208. Jn 16.14.\n\n209. Jn 20.22.\n\n210. Mk 4.3.\n\n211. Dn 7.10.\n\n212. See Lk 3.22. 213. Jb 1.12.\n\n214. Jb 2.7.\n\n215. 3 Kgs 22.21 (RSV 1 Kgs 22.21).\n\n216. Jn 16.14.\n\n217. Jn 14.15–17.\n\n218. Jn 20.22.\n\n219. Gn 2.7.\n\n220. Jn 20.22.\n\n221. Jn 14.23.\n\n222. Jn 14.25–26.\n\n223. Lit., “a multiple way.”\n\n224. Jn 14.26.\n\n225. Jn 14.16–17.\n\n226. Jn 14.25–26.\n\n227. Combining elements of Jn 14.16–17 and 15.26.\n\n228. Jn 16.7.\n\n229. Jn 5.19.\n\n230. Cf. Jn 5.30.\n\n231. One needs to read δι’ αὐτοῦ.\n\n232. Jn 20.17.\n\n233. See Lk 24.39; Jn 20.27.\n\n234. Jn 20.22.\n\n235. 1 Cor 12.4.\n\n236. Acts 1.8.\n\n237. Klostermann’s addition here of “that one” is unnecessary.\n\n238. Jn 16.12–14.\n\n239. Jn 16.13–14.\n\n240. οὐσίας.\n\n241. Klostermann’s erasure of “being” is not necessary.\n\n242. Jn 16.13.\n\n243. Jn 16.14.\n\n244. Col 2.3.\n\n245. Jn 16.14.\n\n246. Jn 4.24.\n\n247. See Is 57.15.\n\n248. 2 Cor 3.17.\n\n249. See Lam 4.20.\n\n250. τὸ ἰδίωμα.\n\n251. Heb 1.7.\n\n252. Mt 28.19.\n\n253. Jn 1.17.\n\n254. 1 Cor 12.8–9.\n\n255. ὑπάρξεως.\n\n256. Jn 1.3.\n\n257. Col 1.16.\n\n258. Eph 4.5–6.\n\n259. Eph 4.6; 2 Cor 1.3.\n\n260. Jn 1.18.\n\n261. Jn 1.3.\n\n262. τριπρόσωπον.\n\n263. Col 1.15–17.\n\n264. Another example of a wrong paragraph break.\n\n265. Klostermann’s addition of κατὰ is unnecessary.\n\n266. Col 1.15; see Marcellus, _fr_. 55 (94 K./H.) (48,11–19 V.).\n\n267. Col 1.17.\n\n268. Eusebius’s argument here rests on the fact that the Greek word for “flesh” is feminine.\n\n269. Col 1.15.\n\n270. Col 1.16.\n\n271. Ibid.\n\n272. See Eusebius of Caesarea, CM 2.3 (50 K./H.), pp. 134–47 in the present volume. (Pp. 304-315)\n\n**Further Reading**\n\nEusebius on the Trinity Part 1\n\nEusebius on the Trinity Pt. 4: Proverbs 8:22-36\n\nEusebius’ Trinitarian Baptismal Formula\n\nEusebius: Jesus as Eternal Wisdom & Angel\n\nEusebius of Emesa on the Trinity",
  "title": "Eusebius, The Divine Holy Spirit & Filioque",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-26T21:51:03.080Z"
}