1. Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, (and) lived not very lo

 2. Now they seek to exhibit the foundation for their dogma by citing the word in the law, “I am the God of your fathers: ye shall have no other gods b

 3. In this way, then, they choose to set forth these things, and they make use only of one class of passages just in the same one-sided manner that T

 4. Let us, as I said, see how he is confuted, and then let us set forth the truth. Now he quotes the words, “Egypt has laboured, and the merchandise o

 5. But what is meant, says he, in the other passage: “This is God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him?” That said he righ

 6. Let us look next at the apostle’s word: “Whose are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.

 7. If, again, he allege His own word when He said, “I and the Father are one,” let him attend to the fact, and understand that He did not say, “I and

 8. Many other passages, or rather all of them, attest the truth. A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Fat

 9. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to b

 10. God, subsisting alone, and having nothing contemporaneous with Himself, determined to create the world. And conceiving the world in mind, and will

 11. And thus there appeared another beside Himself. But when I say another ,

 12. Acting then in these (prophets), the Word spoke of Himself. For already He became His own herald, and showed that the Word would be manifested amo

 13. Now Jeremiah says, “Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived His Word?”

 14. These things then, brethren, are declared by the Scriptures. And the blessed John, in the testimony of his Gospel, gives us an account of this eco

 15. But some one will say to me, You adduce a thing strange to me, when you call the Son the Word. For John indeed speaks of the Word, but it is by a

 16. And these indeed are testimonies bearing on the incarnation of the Word and there are also very many others. But let us also look at the subject

 17.  These testimonies are sufficient for the believing who study truth, and the unbelieving credit no testimony. For the Holy Spirit, indeed, in the

 18. Thus then, too, though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man,

3. In this way, then, they choose to set forth these things, and they make use only of one class of passages;12    καὶ αὐτοις μονοκῶλα χρώμενοι, etc.  The word μονοκῶλα appears to be used adverbially, instead of μονοκώλως and μονοτύπως, which are the terms employed by Epiphanius (p. 481). The meaning is, that the Noetians, in explaining the words of Scripture concerning Christ, looked only to one side of the question—namely, to the divine nature; just as Theodotus, on his part going to the opposite extreme, kept by the human nature exclusively, and held that Christ was a mere man. Besides others, the presbyter Timotheus, in Cotelerii Monument., vol. iii. p. 389, mentions Theodotus in these terms: “They say that this Theodotus was the leader and father of the heresy of the Samosatan, having first alleged that Christ was a mere man.” [See vol. iii, p. 654, this series.] just in the same one-sided manner that Theodotus employed when he sought to prove that Christ was a mere man. But neither has the one party nor the other understood the matter rightly, as the Scriptures themselves confute their senselessness, and attest the truth. See, brethren, what a rash and audacious dogma they have introduced, when they say without shame, the Father is Himself Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born, Himself suffered, Himself raised Himself. But it is not so. The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them. Yet, though Noetus does not understand the truth, the Scriptures are not at once to be repudiated. For who will not say that there is one God? Yet he will not on that account deny the economy (i.e., the number and disposition of persons in the Trinity). The proper way, therefore, to deal with the question is first of all to refute the interpretation put upon these passages by these men, and then to explain their real meaning.  For it is right, in the first place, to expound the truth that the Father is one God, “of whom is every family,”13    Eph. iii. 15. “by whom are all things, of whom are all things, and we in Him.”14    1 Cor. viii. 6.

[3] καὶ ταῦτα βούλονται οὕτω διηγεῖσθαι καὶ αὐτοὶ μονόκωλα, χρώμενοι ὃν τρόπον εἶπεν Θεόδοτος ἄνθρωπον συνιστᾶν φιλὸν βουλόμενος. ἀλλ' οὔτε ἐκεῖνοί τι νενοήκασιν ἀληθὲς οὔθ' οὗτοι, καθὼς αὐταὶ αἱ γραφαὶ ἐλέγχουσιν αὐτῶν τὴν ἀμαθίαν μαρτυροῦσαι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. ὁρᾶτε, ἀδελφοί, πῶς προαλὲς καὶ τολμηρὸν δόγμα παρεισήνεγκαν ἀναισχύντως λέγοντες, Αὐτός ἐστι Χριστὸς ὁ Πατήρ, αὐτὸς Υἱός, αὐτὸς ἐγεννήθη, αὐτὸς ἔπαθεν, αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν ἤγειρεν. ἀλλ' οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει. αἱ μὲν γραφαὶ ὀρθῶς λέγουσιν, ἄλλα ἂν καὶ Νοητὸς νοῇ. οὐκ ἤδη δέ, εἰ Νοητὸς μὴ νοεῖ, παρὰ τοῦτο ἔκβλητοι αἱ γραφαί. τίς γὰρ οὐκ ἐρεῖ ἕνα Θεὸν εἶναι; ἀλλ' οὐ τὴν οἰκονομίαν ἀναιρήσει. ὄντως μὲν οὖν τὰ κεφάλαια διὰ ταῦτα πρότερον δεῖ ἀνατραπῆναι κατὰ τὸν ἐκείνων νοῦν: κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἀλήθειαν δειχθῆναι. πρότερον γὰρ ὄντως ἐστὶν διηγήσασθαι ὅτι εἷς Θεὸς ὁ Πατήρ, ἐξ οὗ πᾶσα πατριά, δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα ⌊καὶ ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα⌋, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐν αὐτῷ.