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

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• marcellus of ancyra
• sabellianism
• triadology
• logos
• modalism