The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius

 The ‘Logos’ in the teaching

of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius1

Eirini A. Artemi

http://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2019-7-52

Marcellus of Ancyra tried with zeal to combat Arius, but he adopted the opposite extreme of modified Sabellianism. Marcellus taught that the Logos did not become a separate person until the incarnation, perhaps looking back to an earlier model of ‘two-stage’ Logos theology. This denial of a separate preexistent Son made Eusebius of Caesarea label his theology as ‘Sabellian’ throughout his text Against Marcellus. Marcellus’ dyo – prosopic christology is one in which the Logos, not as separate personal being, but as God himself in his activity, is joined to an man. On the other hand, Sabellius taught that the Logos or Word existed before the incarnation, but not as a distinct person, being immanent in the essence of the Deity as the divine reason. He was regarded as there in differing from St. John in the fourth gospel, denying that the Logos, the creating, revealing, and redeeming principle, is a person really and eternally distinct from the Father. In this paper we will try to compare the triadological teaching of Marcellus and of Sabellius in order to show Marcellus’ doctrine of the trinity isn’t a simple or successive modalism of Sabellius, although Eusebius of Caesarea may perhaps be excused for confusing it with Sabellianism. Unfortunately, the teaching of Sabellius is known to us only from a few fragments, and some of these not altogether consistent, in Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius of Cyprus and other fathers. To sum up if the God of Sabellianism was metamorphosed to meet the changing needs of the world, Marcellus’ God was expanded to meet the changing needs of the world.

Кey words: Marcellus of Ancyra, Sabellianism, triadology, Logos, modalism.

1. The use of ‘Λόγος’ from the Ancient Greek Philosophy

to Christian Theology

In the beginning, Logos is appeared as a term in written pre-Socratic philosophers, of which little extracts are saved in the form of expres1

This paper was presented in Seventh British Patristic Conference, Cardiff, Wales – 5-7 Sept 2018

Волинський Благовісник №7 (2019 )

100 Eirini A. Artemi

sions in works by subsequent writers. Most of them wrote in poetic

speech about cosmogony and divine revelations which have to do with

the origins of this world2.

Heraclitus the Ephesian is the first Greek philosopher, who placed

such attention on the idea of the Logos, or the rational underlying

structure of the universe. It is a concept which later underpinned the

practice of ancient Stoicism3. For Heraclitus, the term ‘logos’ is something

everlasting, timeless and truthful4. It is an invisible power, not

that different from the biblical ‘Word’. Besides Heraclitus, Plato,

Aristotle, Platonic and Stoic philosophers used ‘Logos’ not only of the

spoken word but also of the unspoken word, the word still in the mind,

the reason. When applied to the universe, Greeks were speaking to the

rational principle that governs all things.

Monotheistic Jews used Logos to refer to God, since He was the

rational mind, reason, behind the creation and coordination of the universe.

Philo of Alexandria supports: ‘…the most universal of all things is

God; and in the second place the Word of God’5. In another text he adds:

‘This same Word is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf

of the mortal race... neither being uncreated as God, nor yet created as you,

but being in the midst between these two extremities...’6. Philo had accepted

the influence and he adopted the wisdom of God as the Word of God,

as Logos7.

Thus, John, the author of the fourth gospel in the New Testament,

used a very special word ‘Logos’ that was meaningful to both the Jews

and the Greeks during the first century AD:

2 Franciscus B.J. Kuiper, ‘Cosmogony and Conception: A Query’, History of Religions 10, 2

(1970), 91-13.

3 Anthony Arthur Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, (Classical Life and

Letter, Los Angeles, 1986), 234-7.

4 Heraclitus the Ephesians, On Nature, in Hermann Diels, Walther Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente

der Vorsokratiker griechisch und deutsch, (Weidmannsche buchhandlung, 1903) fragments

DK, B1.

5 Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, 2.21, 86, http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/

text/philo/book3.html

6 Id., Who is the Heir of Divine Things, 42, 205-6. Leopoldus Cohn et Paulus Wendland (eds),

Opera quae supersunt, Vol. 3, (Berolini, 1898), 47.

7 David Winston, Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati, 1985), 15.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 101

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things

were made by him; and without him was not anything made that

was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full

of grace and truth’8.

The term ‘Logos’ became an important part in Christian writers and

doctrines. Ilaria Ramelli explains: ‘For Christians to claim that the Logos

was on their side, they had to develop a theology of the Logos which identified

Jesus Christ with God’s Logos’9. So it was used in order to define the

role of Jesus Christ as the principle of God active in the creation and the

continuous structuring of the cosmos and in revealing the divine plan

of salvation to man. It thus underlies the basic Christian doctrine of the

preexistence of Jesus, who became incarnate, total man and total God10.

Generally, for Christian theology, the acceptance of Jesus as logos,

which is suggested in many parts in the New Testament but underlined

specifically in the fourth Gospel, was further developed in the

early Christian Church writers but more on the basis of Greek philosophical

ideas than on Old Testament motives11. This development

was based on the attempts which were made by early Christian theologians

and apologists, who wanted to express the Christian faith in

terms that would be intelligible to the Hellenistic world and to impress

their hearers and to show to them that Christian ‘philosophy’ was superior

than gentiles’ philosophy. The Christian writers and mainly the

apologists use technical philosophic terms which were the current

stock-in-trade of educated pagans. Thus, in their apologies and polemical

works, the early Christian Fathers identified Jesus as the preexist-

8 Jn 1:1-3, 14.

9 Illaria Ramelli, ‘Ethos and Logos: A second century debate between Pagan and Christian

Philosophers’, Vigiliae Christianae, 69.2, (2015), 123. doi: 10.1163/15700720-12341205

10 Carim Selvin, A philosophical study of sabdabrahman and logos, (Savitribai Phule Pune

University, 2009), 145: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/150658.

11 ‘Logos theology was not an essential and aboriginal distinguishing mark of Christianity as opposed

to Judaism but rather a common theological inheritance that was construed and constructed as such

a distinguishing mark by a virtual conspiracy of orthodox theologians on both sides of the new border

line, Justin [Martyr] and followers on one side, the Rabbis on the other,’ Daniel Boyarin, Border

Lines, (Philadelphia, 2004), 28–9.

102 Eirini A. Artemi

ent logos. Justin Martyr summarized the names of Logos: the Glory

of Lord, the Son, Wisdom, Messenger, God, Lord, Word12. All these

names show according to Clement of Alexandria that Jesus as the preexistent

Logos reveals the God Father to Israel first and then to all people

and is the subject of the Old Testament manifestations of God; He

revealed Himself in the Greek philosophers and, ultimately, in the fullness

of time, through His incarnation13.

2. Sabelius’ Logos didn’t exist as a distinct person in Godhead

Sabellius (3rd century) was the founder of the heresy of Modalism,

three different modes of the same God, and Monarchianism, one rule

of God through different roles. He taught that God is only one person,

who acts now as Father in creating the universe, now as son in redeeming

sinners, now as the Holy Spirit in sanctifying believers. For him, the

Logos or Word has his existence before the incarnation. Before becoming

a man, he was not a distinct person, being immanent in the essence

of the Deity as the divine reason. He was not regarded as a person really

and eternally distinct from the Father.

Unfortunately, the teaching of Sabellius is known to us only from

a few fragments, and some of these not altogether consistent, in

Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius of Cyprus

and other fathers. Sabellius spoke about the relation between Gog and

Logos using the analogy of the connection of a sunbeam with the sun.

The sunbeam is of the same essence or being of the sun, yet can be distinguished

from the sun. Logos is like a sunbeam. He is an emanation

from the Father. He is a lower level than the Father, but He is of the

same essence as the Father. He participates in deity, but then so do the

rocks. So, Logos like a sunbeam operates on bodies and produces the

effects of the sun, without being itself a person14.

12 Justin Martyr and Philosopher, Dialogue with Jew Trypho, 61, PG 6, 613C, 616A.

13 Clemens Alexandrinus, Protreptikus – Exhortation to the Greeks, 6, 68.4–70.1, SC 2, 68.4-5,

7-8; 70.1 (=PG 8, 173A, 176B).

14 Robert Charles Sproul, Getting the Gospel Right: The Tie that Binds Evangelicals Together,

(Baker publishing books, ebook edition, 2017), 218.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 103

The same example with Sun and Sunbeam is used by Tertullian

many years before. Only in this case, when he compares the Father and

the Son to the sun and a sunbeam, Tertullian underlines:

‘For although I make not two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun

and its ray to be as much two things and two forms of one undivided

substance, as God and His Word, as the Father and the Son’15.

For him Logos is ‘really a substantive being, by having a substance

of his own; in such a way that he may be regarded as an objective

thing and a person, and ... make two, the Father and the Son, God

and the Word’16.

Other examples that Sabellius used for the Logos were the angels

and the Theophanies in the Old Testament. All these were indirect

and temporary ways of the Logos of God and of His power to present

Himself. Logos wasn’t another person of God. All these thoughts were

influenced by Jewish Theology17.

Sabellius argued that Jesus was of the ‘same essence’ (homoousios)

as God but was less than God. By Logos, Sabellius taught an energy,

which was used by Christ, the man, to present his own works, as long

as the latter was in earth. This Logos stopped to be with Christ after

Christ’s death. So it is obvious that the Redeemer for Sabellius wasn’t

an eternally – enduring personality and he didn’t have a clear idea that

Logos. The certain thing is that the teaching of John’s gospel: ‘The Word

became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the

glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and

truth’18 was analyzed by Sabellius that the Logos – Word was the sound

that God created, a power of Him and not that we had the incarnation

of the Word19. This Word was shot or darted forth like a divine ray, to

15 Quintus Septimus Tertullianus, Against Praxeas, 13, transl. by Al. Roberts, J. Donaldson, Ante-

Nicene Christian Library: The writings of Tertullian, v. 2, (Edinburgh, 1870), 361.

16 Quintus Septimus Tertullianus, Against Praxean, 7, transl. James Porter, Morreland, William Lane

Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, (Madison, 2017), 579.

17 Justin Martyr and Philosopher, Dialogue with Jew Trypho, 60, PG 6, 612Β. Ex. 3:2. Acts 7:30.

18 Jn 1:14.

19 Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion-Against Eight Heresies, 2, 62.1, transl. by Frank Williams, The

Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books 2 and 3. De Fide, (Leiden, 2013), 123.

104 Eirini A. Artemi

complete the redemption of human race; for this reason the Word as

divine ray returned to its source, when it reascended to the heaven:

‘The illuminating operation is the Son; and the Father is the actual

form of the whole entity. And the Son was once sent forth like a ray,

accomplished the entire dispensation of the Gospel and men’s salvation

in the world, and was taken up to heaven again, as thought a

ray had been sent by the sun and had returned to the sun’20.

For Sabellius, Logos’ Spiritual personality was a ‘certain hypostatized

out-beaming, a peculiar modification of the Divine Logos’21.

‘The Logos is «the monad in its transition to triad», the silent God,

θεός σιωπῶν, as distinct from the ‘speaking God’, θεός λαλῶν. Each

πρόσωπον is another διαλέγεσθαι and the three πρόσωπα are in

reality successive evolutions of the Logos as God in relationship

to the world. Just as the Logos comes forth from God, so also the

Logos will ultimately revert to God and the manifestation of the

Trinitarian modes will cease’22.

Logos designated the divine nature in Christ.

Sabellius argues about that there is a separation between the One

God and his Son. Sabellius distinguishes

«between the One God and his indwellings. The One God himself is

without distinction, incommunicable and hence unknowable. But

he allows himself to be known in history in the indwellings which

are known by the three names»23.

20 Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion-Against Eight Heresies, 2, 62.1, transl. by Frank Williams, The

Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books 2 and 3. De Fide, (Leiden, 2013), 123.

21 August Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and the Church during the three first

centuries, transl. from the German by Henry John Rose, Vol. 2, (London, 1841), 278.

22 George Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century, 1978, http://www.

holytrinitymission.org/books/english/fathers_florovsky_2.htm#_Toc16316400. Philip Schaff,

History of the Christian Church Vol. 2, (Revelation Insight Publishing Co.,USA, 2011), 462.

Edward L. Dalcour, A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology: Defending the Tri-unity of God,

(Maryland, 2005), 143.

23 Jürgen, Moltman, The Trinity and the Kingdom. The doctrine of God, transl. by Margaret Kohl

from the original German edition, (Fortress Press edition, USA, 1993), 136.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 105

One of the three names of the indwellings of God is Logos. Eusebius

accused Sabellius of holding God to be one person known by two

names, Father and Son.

The refutation of Sabellianism can be found in the gospel of John.

Dr Robertson explains:

‘And the Word was God (καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος). By exact and careful

language John denied Sabellianism by not saying καὶ ‘ὁ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ

Λόγος’. That would mean that all of God was expressed in ὁ λόγος

and the terms would be interchangeable, each having the article.

The subject is made plain by the article (ὁ λόγος) and the predicate

without it (theos) just as in John 4:24 πνεῦμα ὁ Θεὸς can only mean

‘God is spirit,’ not ‘spirit is God’24. So in 1 John 4:16 ‘ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη

ἐστίν’ can only mean «God is love,’ not ‘love is God’ as a so-called

Christian scientist would confusedly say. So in John 1:14 ‘ὁ λόγος

σάρξ ἐγένετο’, ‘the Word became flesh’, not ‘the flesh became Word’.

The Logos was eternally God, fellowship of the Father and Son,

what Origen called the Eternal Generation of the Son25 (each necessary

to the other). Thus in the Trinity we see personal fellowship

on an equality’26.

Moreover, the phrase of John’s gospel ‘and the Word was toward or

to or with God’ is the defense against Sabellius’s teaching. The prepositions

above intent, in which the Word is distinguished by God the

Father, is a strong argument against this teaching. This phrase means

that the Word was with God the Father. If the Word was a human being,

24 Archibald Thomas Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical

Research, (Nashville, 1934), 767-8.

25 The logic of Origen’s anti-Sabellian exegesis led to the insistence that the Logos was distinct

from the Father, but eternal, so that none could ‘dare to lay down a beginning for the Son,

before which He did not exist’ (Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles, 4.4.28 trans. By G.W.

Butterworth, Origen On first Principles, Wipf and Stock, (Eugene and Oregon, 2012), 315.

Since everything is eternal in God, this generating act is eternal also: aeterna ac sempiterna

generation; the Son has no beginning. Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles, 1.2.2. ‘This is

an eternal and everlasting begetting, as brightness is begotten from light; for he does not become Son

in an external manner, through the adoption of the Spirit, but is Son by nature’, Ibid, 1.2.4, 18; Ibid,

1.2.11, 26; Ibid, 1.2.6, 32.

26 Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, B and H Publishing Group,

Vol. 5 (1973), 4- 5.

106 Eirini A. Artemi

holy John, the evangelist would teach ‘and the Word was to men’, but he

does not say so, because the Word was not human in the beginning,

then He became man. John means by this phrase that the Logos was

with God the Father, explaining that the Logos is a person of the same

order with God the Father, of the same nature with Him.

Finally, it is important to be underlined the opinion of Moltmann

who argues that Sabellius thinks Logos as one of God’s indwelling.

According to Moltmann,

‘Sabellius thinks that God keeps his ‘monadic unity, not rigidly but

(with the help of Stoic terms) as containing movement. It can expand

itself and contract, develop and gather together. He (Sabellius) uses

for this the terms platysmos, diastole, ekstasis and systole’27.

A different opinion is expressed by Schleiermacher who refuses that

Sabellius used the previous terms for God.

3. Marcellus’ of Ancyra teaching about Logos as image of God

and his rejection of the existence of a pre-incarnate visible Logos

It is said above that until the 2nd the Apologists tried to explain that the

God was Trinity and they focused on Logos, the second person of the

Triune God. The two sources of the Logos doctrine of the Apologists

were Christian tradition: i) John's prologue in the fourth gospel, and

ii) Hellenistic philosophy, the Middle Platonism and Stoicism. For

them, Logos, the God's outspoken word, His created order, proceeds

from His eternal reasoning and is manifest in the world He created. The

Word’s purpose was to create the world. This made the following problem:

it was not clear whether the Word belonged to the Uncreated God

or the created world. This ambiguity was, because if it is said that God

acquires the Word in order to create the world, then the Word connects

its existence with the existence of the world. This was a problem and it

became clear through the theology of Arius. The latter pointed out that

the Logos existed in the created world and not in the Uncreated God.

27 J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom. (1993), 136, 173.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 107

The Logos or Son, Arius maintained, was a created being - formed out

of nothing by the Father before the universe was made. So, there was

a time when the Logos had not existed. This problem would be solved

during the Fourth Century28.

Marcellus of Ancyra (dying deprived of his see c. A.D. 374) and his

followers was called as new Sabellians. They were seen as reviving the

modalism of the third century heretic Sabellius. Marcellus was a strong

supporter of the Nicene homoousion and one of the central players

in the anti- Arian team. Eastern theologians interpreted him as denying

the triadic distinctions of the Godhead29. Ultimately the Deity is

an undifferentiated monad. The (new) Sabellians deny, Basil writes,

‘God from God and confess the Son in name, but in deed and truth eliminate

his existence’30. Hence when they speak of Christ as Word, they are

invoking an analogy to the ‘internal word that resides in the mind’; when

they speak of him as Wisdom, they are describing a state akin to ‘the

state that arises in the soul of the learned’. Just as the human being is not

divided but is one person, so God is one person. Sabellianism and the

teaching of Marcellus thus represent a return to the numerical monotheism

of Judaism31.

Marcellus of Ancyra has been memorably described as ‘a dark and

burned-out star, itself invisible but deflecting the orbit of anything that

comes near it’32. He tried to defend the theology of the First Ecumenical

Council of Nicaea in 325 against Asterius the Sophist. The latter had

composed a book, defending the beliefs of Eusebius of Nicomedia.

Marcellus’ writing against Asterius ‘Contra Asterium’ included some

28 John Zizioulas, About dogmatic theology and dogmata. Lectures in the university the academic

year 1984-1985, (Athens, 1986), 70-1.

29 Mark DelCogliano, On Christian Doctrine and Practice, Popular Patristics Series Vol. 47, St.

Vladimir's Seminary Press, (N.York, 2013), 277.

30 Basil of Caesarea, Homily Against the Sabellians, Anomoians, and Pneumatomachians, 1, transl

M. DelCogliano, On Christian Doctrine and Practice, (2013), 277.

31 Idid., 277.

32 Joseph Lienhard, ‘Did Athanasius Reject Marcellus?’, in Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams

(eds.), Arianism After Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian

Conflicts, (Edinburgh, 1993), 65–80. Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the

Arian Controversy 325-345, (Oxford Scholarship online www.oxfordscholarship.com, N.York,

2006), 1.

108 Eirini A. Artemi

heretic thoughts of his writings. Marcellus tried to object to Asterius’

use of the father-son analogy in order to clarify the hypostatic distinction

between God and his Logos. This reduction to the lower class

of the father-son analogy for the sake of the person – word analogy

becomes a susceptible part of Marcellus’ theology33.

These teachings became profane to the Eastern bishops and for this

reason Eusebius of Caesarea wrote two refutation for him in his treatise

‘Contra Marcellum’ and ‘De ecclesiastica theologia’34. Unfortunately,

Marcellus’ book is saved in fragments through these two refutations

of Eusebius. So mainly we have the opinion of Eusebius and how this

eclessiastic writer conceives the teaching of Marcellus. Specifically, in

these two treatises Marcellus is accused of denying the Son his own

hypostases. Moreover, Eusebius of Caesarea in the writing ‘against

Marcellus’ explains that ‘the underlying reason for his [Marcellus’s] writing

was hatred of his fellow men, but the root of this was jealousy and envy,

which indeed also cast countless others into the most extreme evil’35.

For Marcellus God was Monad. The Godhead temporarily expanded

into a Dyad and later in Triad. At the moment of creation the Monad

had the first expansion (πλατυσμός – platysmos) into Dyad. This

expansion had two stages, two economies. In the first which has to do

with the creation of the World. That time, Logos went out from the

Father and was God’s Activity in the world. Later in the second economy,

this Logos became incarnate in Christ and was thus constituted

Image of God36. Before the Incarnation the Word had only the name

Logos – Word. After the Incarnation, the Incarnate took the names

33 Hugh Nicholson, The Spirit of Contradiction in Christianity and Buddhism, (Oxford University

Press, N.York, 2016), 84.

34 Joseph Lienhard, ‘Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of

«One Hypostasis»’, in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, SJ, Gerald O’ Collins, SJ, (eds), The

Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, (Oxford University Press, N.York,

2004), 110.

35 Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus, 1.1.1. Erich Klostermann and Günther Christian

Hansen. Eusebius Werke, Band 4: Gegen Marcell Über die kirchliche Theologie. Die Fragmente

Marcells, ser. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 14, 3nd ed., pub. Akademie – Verlag,

(Berlin, 1989), 24. trans. by Kelley McCarthy Spoerl and Markus Vinzent, Eusebius of Caesarea

against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology, The Fathers of the Church, A new Translation,

vol. 135, (The Catholic University of America Press, Washington D.C., 2017), 75.

36 Eirini Artemi, ‘Emperor Constantine and the theology of Christianity from his autocracy to the

Second Ecumenical Council’, De Medio Aevo, vol 6.2 (2014), 146.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 109

Christ, Savior, Path of truth, Life, Bread, Door and many other names37.

According to Moltmann, Marcellus of Ancyra critically added, that

platysmos doesn’t mean expanding the divine being; it means expansion

of the divine will and activity38. This already indicates that the One

God is not merely to be thought of as monadic substance but at the

same time as identical subject as well39.

Marcellus supports that the Son and Logos were two different beings.

Logos was before the incarnation and there was not the Son of God.

This Logos was an impersonal power, inseparable from the Father, eternal

and unbegotten. This Logos didn’t have speech, was silent in God

before the creation of the universe. In the creation, the Logos became

out of the God Father as a creative power, ‘προῆλθεν ὁ λόγος δραστικῇ

ἐνεργείᾳ’,40 and this Logos was of the father,41 but this Logos didn’t exist

as a hypostasis. The Logos is the basic principle for the cosmogenesis

and ends up in the incarnation. With the fulfillment of the work of salvation

of man, Logos returns again into the repose of God.

‘The Son, after completing the work of redemption, resigns his kingdom

to the Father, and rests again in God as in the beginning. The

sonship, therefore, is only a temporary state, which begins with the

human advent of Christ, and is at last promoted or glorified into

Godhead’42.

37 Joseph Lienhard, «Marcellus of Ancyra in modern research», ThS 43 (1982), 489, in http://cdn.

theologicalstudies.net/43/43.3/43.3.6.pdf.

38 The word platysmos for the Triune God was used with orthodox way by many church fathers,

as Isidore, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa. Isidore of Pelusium speaks about the platysmos of

Godhead into hypostases (Epistl. 3, 149- To Eutonius Diaconus, PG 78, 841Β) without having

three Gods, because the hypostases are united in ousia and they have the same ‘value’, one

God with three homoousia and coeternal persons (Epistl. 2, 143 - To Paulus, PG 78, 589B).

Athanasius of Alexandria, About Dionysius of Alexandria 17, H.G. Opitz, De sententia 2,

Athanasius Werke vol. 2, 1, 23 (=PG 25, 505Α); About the Council in Nicaea, 26, H.G. Opitz,

De decretis Nicaenae Synodi, Athanasius Werke vol. 2, 1 (=PG 25, 461A-464D). Gregory of

Nyssa, To Ablabius, Mueller, vol. 2, 1, 425-9 (=PG 45, 120D).

39 J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom. (1993), 136.

40 Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus, 2.2.39. Marcellus, fr. 109. Klostermann-Hansen, 121.

Markus Vinzent, Markell von Ankyra: Die Fragmente und der Brief an Julius von Rom. VCSup

39. (Leiden, 1997), 102, 13–21. Transl. by Spoerl-Vinzent, 132.

41 Ibid.

42 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church from the 1st to the 19th Century, vol. 3, (Delmarva

publications, USA, 2013), ebook, chap. 9, §126.

110 Eirini A. Artemi

Marcellus’ teaching about the Son refers not to a real ‘θεάνθρωπος’ God-

Man43. Also, he taught that the partial kingdom of the man Jesus would

have an end, but that the Word would reign eternally.

Eusebius of Caesarea underlines that Marcellus of Ancyra cannot

explain and analyze the incarnation of Son of God because

Marcellus should accept that the Logos dwelt in the human flesh. But

for Marcellus, the Logos had one substance with the God Father, so

the Father Himself dwelt in the human flesh44. This view brings close

Marcellus’ teaching to Sabellius. Marcellus thought Christ was a mere

man ‘ψιλός ἄνθρωπος’45. This opinion came from Marcellus’ Sabellian

teaching that the Logos is a mere word46.

Hugh Nicholson supports that ‘Marcellus is pretty clear on denying a

hypostatic distinction between God and his Logos, he is far from conceding

the divinity of the incarnate Christ’47. For Nicholson, Eusebius exploits the

ambiguity in Marcellus’ theology about Logos, Son and Incarnation in

order to saddle Marcellus with denial of the Son’s Divinity48. Marcellus

was the ‘object’ of Eusebius polemical citation and as a result of this

polemical attitude of Eusebius we can nevertheless make a correct picture

of Marcellus’ theology49. We will agree with this Nicholson’s view

and we will accept that Marcellus failed to ‘preserve the crucial, identi-

43 ‘If therefore there was any disagreement between them [Father and Son], it is fitting, in order to know

the Saviour accurately, to ascertain the true master [of the saying]. For when he said, ‘I and the Father

are one’, he was at that moment not regarding the man whom he assumed, but rather the Word which

proceeded from the Father. For if there would seem to be any disagreement, this ought to be referred to

the weakness of the flesh, which the Word took on and did not previously possess. But if unity is spoken

of, this is obviously referring to the Word». Marcellus, fr. 75, Klostermann-Hansen, 74. Vinzent,

64.15–66.27. Jon M. Robertson, Christ as Mediator A Study of the Theologies of Eusebius of

Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and Athanasius of Alexandria, (Oxford University Press, N.York,

2007), 124.

44 Eusebius of Caesarea, On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20, Klostermann-Hansen, 87-8, transl. Spoerl-

Vinzen, 196-7.

45 Eusebius of Caesarea, On Ecclesiastical Theology I.20. Spoerl-Vinzent, 204, 205; Against

Marcellus, I.4.46, 64, Spoerl-Vinzent, 111, 115-6; Against Marcellus, I.4.59, Marcellus, fr. 126;

Klostermann-Hansen, 100; Vinzent, 116,14 – 118,10. Spoerl-Vinzent, 114, 115.

46 Hugh Nicholson, The Spirit of Contradiction in Christianity and Buddhism, (Oxford University

Press, N.York, 2016), 87.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid, 83.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 111

ty-sustaining distinction between Christianity and Judaism’,50 between

Greek polytheism and Jewish Unitarianism51. On the other hand if we

should accept that Eusebius had a polemical citation against Marcellus,

because the latter confronted the teaching of Arians in which Eusebius

was a fan of arianism, we cannot deny that Basil of Caesarea didn’t have

any profit to write against Marcellus’ teaching or did he have?

Lienhard believes that there was a political answer for Basil’s attitude

to Marcellus: ‘Basil saw Marcellus as blocking his plans for union. But the

political reason was tied to a theological reason’52. According to our opinion,

Lienhard’s view about Basil and Marcellus doesn’t suit to the character

of Basil who tried to struggle every heretic teaching preserving

without any mistakes the dogmatic teaching of the Christian Church.

Marcellus’ denial for Logos as distinct hypostases could be in doubt

to his letter to Pope Julius:

‘For if anyone separates the Son, i.e. the Word, from Almighty God,

he must either think that there are two Gods (and this has been

judged to be foreign to the divine teaching) or confess that the Word

is not God (and this also is manifestly alien to the correct faith, since

the evangelist says: And the Word was God’53.

But I have accurately learned that the Son, indivisible and inseparable from

the Father, is the Power’54. According to Kinzig and Vinzent,

‘if we isolate this part «from the rest of Marcellus’ text, could be

given a new 'neo-Nicene' meaning: it became an implicitly homoousian

creed’55.

50 Ibid, 88.

51 Ibid, 87.

52 Joseph Lienhard, ‘Basil of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and «Sabellius»’, Church History Vol.

58. 2 (1989), 166. Doi: 10.2307/3168721

53 Jn.1:1.

54 Transl. from J. Stevenson (ed.), Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating

the History of the Church AD 337-461. Revised with additional documents by W H.C. Frend

(London, 1989), 5(altered). Marcellus of Ancyra, Epistula ad Iulium de Rome, apud Epiphanius,

haeresis 72.2, 6-3, 4 (Holl/Dummer 257, 21—259, i=Vinzent 126, 8—128, 23), in Wolfan

Kinzig and Markus Vinzent, ‘Recent research on the origin of the creed’, Journal of Theological

Studies, NS, Vol. 50.2, (1999), 552, 554.

55 Ibid. 559.

112 Eirini A. Artemi

Especially, in Basil’s Epistles 69 and 125, the cappadocian father

argues that Marcellus had misunderstood and misinterpreted the name

Logos56 and conceived it with the meaning of ‘mere word’57. Also, Basil

supports that

‘He (Marcellus) grants indeed that the Only begotten was called

Word, on coming forth at need and in season, but states that He

returned again to Him whence He had come forth, and had no

existence before His coming forth, nor hypostasis after His return’58.

Generally, in Basil’s refutation of Marcellus’ teaching, the latter is

presented as Sabellianism59. The Sabellian conception of God and his

teaching for Logos which, at the time of St Basil was mainly represented

by Marcellus of Ancyra, St Basil clearly drew attention to his

rejection of the real existence and hypostasis of the Son of God and

Logos when he wrote:

‘He [Marcellus] grants indeed that the Only begotten was called

‘Word’, on coming forth at need and in season, but states that He

returned again to him from where He had come forth, and had no

existence before his coming forth, nor hypostasis after his return’60.

For Marcellus the Word has an eternal existence, as the dynamic element

in the Godhead, ‘but it is identical with the Monad; from all eternity

it reposed in God, and was not spoken until creation’61.

Marcellus tries to explain and analyze the relation between the God

Father and the Logos, and he uses the analogy of people and their

word. He distinguishes the Incarnate Son from the preexistent Logos.

56 Basil of Caesarea, Epistl. 69- To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, PG 32, 429-433.

57 Id, Epistl. 125 - A transcript of the faith as dictated by Saint Basil, and subscribed by Eustathius,

bishop of Sebasteia, PG3 2, 545-552.

58 Id, Epistl. 69 - To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, PG 32, 432B.

59 Joseph Lienhard, ‘Basil of Caesarea’, (1989), 166. doi: 10.2307/3168721. Also Joseph Lienhard,

Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth Century Theology, (Washington, 1999),

131-4.

60 Basil of Caesarea, epistl. 69 - To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, PG 32, 432B. Trans. by B.

Jackson. (Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo, N.York, 1895). K. Knight (ed.), New

Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202069.htm.

61 Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘Marcellus of Ancyra in modern research’, in http://cdn.theologicalstudies.

net/43/43.3/43.3.6.pdf, 488

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 113

The latter was named with other names after the Incarnation. So we can

underline that Marcellus’ teaching about the Son comes to an opposition

with his view about the preexistence of Logos.

Eusebius struggled against the anthropomorphism of Marcellus’

theology quite strongly. The bishop of Caesarea credits to Marcellus

the analogy of human thought and speech to the eternal and transcendent

God62:

‘The word in a man is one and the same with him, being separated

[from him] by nothing other than the activity alone of the deed’

and adds ‘And this is easy, I think, for those who reflect well upon a

small and humble example from our experience. For it is impossible

for anyone to separate the word of a man in power and hypostasis.

For the Word is one and the same with the man, and is separated

[from him] in no other way than by the activity alone of the deed’63.

An objection to Marcellus’ above analogy can be found in Meletius

of Antiochean testimony:

‘The Son is and is called Logos, but is not perceived as (mere) voice

or word of the Father. For he subsists by himself (ὑφέστηκε γὰρ καθ’

ἑαυτὸν) and acts, and everything is through and in him. Similarly,

he is wisdom and is perceived neither as (mere) thought of the

Father nor movement or activity of his intellect, but as offspring

of the father, equal to him and his accurate image. For he is the

one who was sealed by the Father, God himself, and he does not

inhere in something else, nor does he subsist by himself (οὐχ ἑτέρῳ

62 Eusebius of Caesarea, On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.17.1-3. Marcellus, fr. 87. Klostermann-Hansen,

61. Vinzent, 76.8-10. Spoerl-Vinzent, 187; On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.11. Marcellus, fr. 89.

Klostermann-Hansen. 62. Vinzent, 76,17–78,4. Spoerl-Vinzent, 240; Also, On Ecclesiastical

Theology 2.11.3. Marcellus, fr. 76; Klostermann-Hansen 103. Vinzent, 68, 1–2. Spoerl-Vinzent,

240; Finally, On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.11.1-2. Marcellus, fr. 109. Klostermann-Hansen 121.

Vinzent, 102, 19–20. Spoerl-Vinzent, 240; On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.14.20. Spoerl-Vinzent,

244; On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.15.2-4. Marcellus, fr. 98. Klostermann-Hansen. 58. Vinzent,

88,18–90,7.Spoerl-Vinzent, 249-250; J. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum. (1999), 131–4.

63 Eusebius of Caesarea, On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.17. Marcellus, fr. 87. Klostermann-Hansen,

61. Vinzent, 76.5-10. Spoerl-Vinzent, 188.

114 Eirini A. Artemi

μὲν ἐνυπάρχει, οὐχ ὑφέστηκε δὲ καθ’ ἑαυτόν), but is the active offspring

who has created all this and always conserves it’64.

The description of Logos as δύναμις and ἐνέργεια in Marcellus’ theology

according to Sara Parvis: ‘holds the same place in his thought as

the notion of the Word as the ‘hand of God’ (χείρ θεοῦ) does in Irenaeus’65.

So Parvis supports that Marcellus used for the Word the characteristic

name δύναμις in order to give the refutation to Asterius’ assertions

about the Son of God:

‘For the Father is one [of two contrasting subjects], who begot from

himself the only-begotten Word and First-born of all creation–

One begetting One, Perfect begetting Perfect, King begetting King,

Lord begetting Lord, God begetting one who is God, an unvarying

image of essence (ousia) and will and glory and power./ But

the one who was begotten by him, who is the image of the invisible

God, is [the] other’66.

So as refutation to Asterius, Marcellus underlines that

‘The only proper title for the pre-incarnate, Marcellus asserts, is

Word:67 every other title and every passage in Scripture from either

Testament which is traditionally thought to apply to Christ (with

the exception, it turns out, of Power (δύναμις), sometimes Wisdom,

and occasionally Son) applies in fact to the Incarnate Christ. So

the Only-begotten of the Father, for Marcellus, is not the Word qua

Word, but the Saviour begotten of Mary’68.

64 Epiphanius, Panarion-Against Eight Heresies, 12, 73, 30. transl. by Benjamin Gleede, The

Development of the Term ἐνυπόστατος from Origen to John of Damascus, (Supplements to

Vigiliae Christianae), J. den Boeft, B.D. Ehrman, J. van Oort D.T. Runia, C. Scholten, J.C.M. van

Winden (eds), Vol. 113, (Leiden – Boston, 2012), 31.

65 Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325-345, (Oxford

Scholarship online www.oxfordscholarship.com, N.York, 2006), 34.

66 Asterius, frs. 10, 11, in Markus Vinzent, Asterius von Kappadokien: Die Theologischen

Fragmente, Einleitung, Kritischer Text, άbersetzung und Kommentar, Supplements to Vigiliae

Christianae 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 86, 88.

67 Marcellus fr. 3. Klostermann-Hansen 43. Vinzent, 6,1–3. Spoerl-Vinzent, 91, 190, 205, 237, 238;

Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra (2006), 35.

68 Marcellus fr. 59. Klostermann-Hansen 93. Vinzent, 48,4–10. Spoerl-Vinzent, 144. S. Parvis,

Marcellus of Ancyra (2006), 35.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 115

For Marcellus the humanity and God are ontologically different

because God is ἀγένητος – ‘never having born’ whilst humanity, like

everything else, is γενητός – ‘having born’69. Sophia Cartwright agrees

with the above opinion of Parvis70. Also as Parvis underlines that

Marcellus agree with Asterius’ argument that an image is different

from the thing it images, but says that this does not imply a distinction

between God and his Word because the Incarnate Christ, and not

the eternal Word, is image. In Marcellian theology, referring to Christ

as ‘God’s image’ does not denote his divinity71. Marcellus taught that an

image is not itself what it is an image of, the image of God is not God,

then in Marcellus' eyes the scriptural ‘image of the invisible God’ must be

lifeless and without being neither Lord, God, essence, will, power, or

glory72. For him, the image of God was the flesh of the incarnate Christ,

making visible the invisible Godhead73: ‘For who would have believed

before the demonstration of the facts that the Word of God, having been

born through the Virgin, would assume our flesh and reveal bodily the entire

divinity in it (Godhead)?»74.

D. S. Wallace-Hadrill supports that Marcellus’ teaching about God

and Logos is closer to Paul of Samosateus than to Sabellius75. According

to our opinion this view is based to the name ‘dynamis’ for Logos. For

Marcellus the Word became Son after his birth from the holy Virgin

Mary, and therefore God could not be 'Father' until this moment. So

before his incarnation wasn’t Son .Eusebius makes much of this: if what

Marcellus says is true, that the Word is to be identified with the Father,

then the Father wasn’t Father at all, because he didn’t have a Son. The

latter couldn’t exist if there was no Father'76. The reign of the Son will

69 Richard Patrick Crosland Hanson, The Search for the Christian doctrine of God, T and T Clark,

(Edinburgh, 1988), 202-6.

70 Sophia Cartwright, The image of God in Irenaeus, Marcellus of Ancyra and Eustathius of

Antioch, in P. Foster – S. Parvis (eds), Irenaeus: life, scripture, legacy, Fortress Press, (Augsburg,

2012), 173.

71 Ibid., 176.

72 Ibid., 169.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid. Marcellus fr. 33. Klostermann-Hansen, 16. Vinzent, 32,14–34,2. Spoerl-Vinzent, 288. S.

Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra (2006), 36.

75 Ibid. 76.

76 Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus, 2.2. Marcellus, fr. 71. Klostermann-Hansen, 121.

116 Eirini A. Artemi

end when he delivers up the Kingdom to God the Father', and that then

the Son will return to the Father to be 'what he was before, that is the

impersonal Word.

4. Conclusions

To sum up the basic points of this paper we have to focus on the following

conclusions:

a) The Logos came from ancient greek philosophy to Christians

who used it for the second person of the Triune God.

b) Much attention should be paid in order to distinguish, to eliminate

what really belongs to Marcellus, Sabellius or others who were

taxed with Sabellianism, and combated as Sabellians. In this paper we

didn’t deal with the general teaching of Sabellius and Marcelllus about

the work of one God and his successive changes of manifestation, or

the realization of a process eternally latent in God, but only with their

teaching about Logos.

c) Marcellus and Sabellius wished to be considered as monotheists.

Marcellus was named as a new Sabellius and we will agree with

this point of view. Marcellus’ heresy was diametric opposite of Arius’

and interchangeable with Sabellius, according to Basil’s the Great

argument77.

c) Sabellius supported that the Son and the Father were the same,

and did away with either, the Father when there is a Son, and the Son

when there is a Father. On the other hand Marcellus taught that the

Word was, not indeed created, but issued to create us, as if the Divine

silence were a state of inaction, and when God spake by the Word. He

acted or that was a going forth and return of the Word; so Marcellus supported

that there was a change and an imperfection in Father and Son.

77 Basil of Caesarea, epistl. 207,§1- To the clergy of Neocæsarea, Y. Courtonne, Saint Basile Lettres,

vol. 2, (Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1961) (=PG 32, 760-765) B. Jackson. From Nicene and

Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8, P. Schaff and H. Wace (eds), (Christian Literature

Publishing Co., Buffalo, N.York, 1895). K. Knight (ed.), New Advent: http://www.newadvent.

org/fathers/3202207.htm

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 117

e) By the reference to Moltmann, we want to show that not only

some ancient Church writers and fathers as Eusebius of Caesarea

and Basil of Caesarea thought that Sabellius and Marcellus had many

points in common of their theology for Godhead and Logos but also

many modern theologians think so. Of course, the phrase of Moltmann

‘expansion of the divine will and activity’ is used in order to show that the

Father alone is the fount of the Godhead and at the same time to underline

the heresy of Marcellus explaining that the triune God of self-related

eternal, mutual love, i.e., the living God. Seizing on this notion of

God who lives, Moltmann revisits and recasts the traditional attributes

ascribed to God and opposites to Marcellus’ platysmos78.

f) For Marcellus, it was obviously blasphemous ditheism the opinion

that ‘the Word is divided from God’79 and necessarily ‘in the process

had to name the Word another God’80. For Marcellus,

‘God created the cosmos through his Word, that is to say, he created

it directly in the same way a sculptor forms a statue. There was no

room for any separate, intervening being between God and his creation

– a world-view that he shared with Athanasius of Alexandria’81.

g) The teaching of Sabellius was at any rate a potent idea which

seems to be revived in the thought of Marcellus of Ancyra. Eusebius

composed two texts in order to refute Marcellus’ teaching. He calls him

as Sabellian. If Marcellus sustained that Christ

‘he is only a word united to God and [that] this is eternal and unbegotten

and both one and the same with God, on the one hand being

called by different names of Father and Son, while on the other,

existing as one in being and hypostasis [with the Father], how could

it not be clear that he is clothing himself in the mantle of Sabellius’82.

78 James M. Brandt, ‘Jürgen Moltmann, The Living God and the Fullness of Life’, trans. Margaret

Kohl. (Louisville, 2015), Journal of Lutheran Ethics, Volume 16, (2016 Issue 2), http://elca.org/

jle/articles/1143.

79 Marcellus fr. 117. Klostermann-Hansen, 82. Vinzent, 110, 1–7. Spoerl-Vinzent, 35, 109, 115.

J.M. Robertson, Christ as Mediator (2007), 115.

80 Marcellus fr. 117. Klostermann-Hansen, 82. Vinzent, 110, 1–7. Spoerl-Vinzent, 35, 109, 115.

J.M. Robertson, Christ as Mediator (2007), 115.

81 Ibid., 133.

82 Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus, 1.1. Spoerl-Vinzent , 75.

118 Eirini A. Artemi

Although Marcellus seems to oppose Sabellius, he is presented ‘stupid’,

«because he did not refrain from speaking ill of one whom he ought to have

praised more than all because he held beliefs and ideas similar to his»83.

Eusebius parallels both of them «just like the faithless Jews» in their

attempt to know God84. Marcellus is one in faith with Sabellius, and

Sabellius was excommunicated85.

h) Wallace – Hadrill underlines ‘that the fact is that Marcellus' teaching

was by no means identical with what we know of Sabellian teaching,

and that «Sabellian» was a general label ready to hand in the fourth

century for Origenists to attach to any teaching that did not meet their

requirements in distinguishing between the persons of the Trinity: any

suspicion of merging the three persons was dubbed Sabellian’86.

i) ‘Marcellus dissociated himself from Sabellianism, Eusebius tells

us, and indeed what Marcellus has to say about the Trinity carries

the matter well beyond what Sabellius is reported to have said.

It is linked constantly though perhaps crudely to the fourth gospel,

but this did not save it from condemnation. The Word, as incarnate

Son, inhabited the body of Jesus in the manner of deity inhabiting

a shrine; the body was his «temple»', «house», «human instrument

», and the suffering experienced by the human body was independent

of the indwelling Son’87.

In the end, we will finish with the words of Eusebius in order to show

that although Sabellius’ teaching had many differences from Marcellus’

in that period of time Marcellus was a Sabellian, although Marcellus

was closer to Paul Samosata because both thought Logos as a power of

God. Eusebius says:

«See how he [Marcellus] does not dare to confess that he is «Son of

God,» lest he deviate from the teaching of Sabellius, but calls him

«Son of Man» on account of the flesh that he assumed. Indeed,

83 Eusebius of Caesarea, On Ecclesiastical Theology, 1.1. Spoerl-Vinzent, 161.

84 On Ecclesiastical Theology, 1.7. Spoerl-Vinzent, 167.

85 On Ecclesiastical Theology, 1. l6. Spoerl-Vinzent, 185-187.

86 D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A study of early Christian thought in the East,

Cambridge University Press, (Cambridge, 2008), 76.

87 Ibid.

The ‘Logos’ in the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra and Sabellius 119

throughout the whole of his own treatise, he calls him «Word,»

indicating repeatedly that ‘he was nothing other than Word’88. And,

again, in the remarks in which he disparages Sabellius, he refers to

the statement of the Savior, in which he said, ‘No one knows the

Father except the Son and him to whom the Son revealed him’89.

and as if he were correcting this statement, he again calls the Savior

‘Word’ instead of ‘Son’,... ‘It would be clear how Marcellus thought

the same things as Sabellius from those remarks in which he asserted

that «God and his Word are one and the same’90.

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