RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Marcellus March
Christ will appear in the flesh, both the Logos and the Spirit will be wholly reunited with God, and the " monad " will again exist as it existed before the creation of the world. The kingdom of the man Christ will then have an end (cf. I Cor. xv. 28), but the Logos, whose power has neither beginning nor interruption, will then, again existing in the Father, retain the divine omnipotence which he had never lost.
Marcellus of Ancyra accordingly taught trinitarian monotheism, which in its development from a " monad " to a " triad " formed part of the plan of salvation, and in this teaching his theological interests were centered. He emphasized the thought that the " non-incarnate Word " is called merely Logos and not Son in the Scriptures, and he accordingly referred the terms " Son of God," " image of the invisible God," and " first-born of every creature " (Col. i. 15), as well as all Biblical designations of Christ except the Logos-concept, to the incarnate Logos. He thus escaped the Eusebian assumption of a " creation " of the Logos, which destroyed the doctrine of its eternity, and at the same time found a confirmation of his theory that the historic Christ was " God appearing in human form " and at the same time " the perfect man."
The Eusebian Synod of Constantinople in 336
condemned the work of Marcellus as heretical, since
it assumed that the Son began with his birth by
Mary and also postulated an end of his kingdom.
He was accordingly anathematized, the
Teachings destruction of his book was ordered, Condemned ; his followers, who seem to have been
Later Life, numerous in Galatia, were bidden to return to orthodoxy, and Basil was apparently appointed to succeed him as bishop of Ancyra. Where Marcellus went after his deposition is unknown, but the death of Constantine in 337 permitted him to return to his see. That he was formally reinstated seems scarcely probable, but at all events his reappearance in Ancyra resulted in tumultuous scenes. He was again condemned at a second synod in Constantinople in the latter part of 338 or the early part of 339, and in the summer of the latter year went to Rome, where he was declared to be innocent. He then left Rome, and is next found at the Synod of Sardica in 343, where he was condemned for the third time by the Eastern Church, but was again acquitted by the Western. Of his subsequent fortunes little is known. According to Sozomen, he returned to Ancyra as bishop, only to be again expelled in 350, but the assertion is supported by scant evidence. He was repeatedly condemned both by the Homoiousians and the younger Nicene school, while in the West, on the other hand, his doctrines were not discussed at any synod between 343 and c. 380, although Basil complained that the Occident had no words of blame for the teachings of Marcellus. Where he passed the last thirty years of his long life is unknown, nor are the place and exact date of his death determined. He is said by Jerome to have written many works against the Arians, although none are now extant. At the time of his death he had many followers in Galatia, though it is uncertain how far they actually understood and accepted
his teachings. A committee sent apparently in the early part of the eighth decade of the fourth century, from Ancyra to Athanasius, who was mistrustful of Marcellus, though he never polemized against him, presented a symbol which accepted the definition of the Son given in the Nicene Creed, but spoke of only one hypostasis of the Trinity, and also revealed other traces of the influence of Marcellus. He left no representative of his theology, however, and Marcellianism remained an impersonal heresy. It was condemned by Pope Damasus c. 380, and with the acceptance of the first canon of the synod held at Constantinople in 381, the name of Marcellus was placed on the list of heretics in the West after the middle of the fifth century.
While it is true that the Christology of Marcellus recalls the doctrine of Paul of Samosata (see Monarchianism), if the historic Christ be regarded as the " new man " and the Logos or Spirit in him be considered undivided from God, on the other hand, the historic Christ is, in his Position in teaching, also " God manifest in the the History flesh." Both these views appear side of Dogma, by side in the system of Marcellus, as they do in almost all the Christology of the early Church before Apollinaris and the Nestorian controversy. Any estimate of the position of Marcellus in the history of dogma must proceed, therefore, from the twofold assumption that his general conception of Christianity was closely akin to that of Irenaus and that the creed of Sardica represented his economic trinitarian "monotheism." A remarkable similarity with the latter document is shown by the views of Phcebadius of Aginnum and the older writings of Hilary, while both Tertullian and Novatian are in harmony with Marcellus in their development of the " monad " into a " triad " in the course of the plan of salvation. These points of resemblance, as well as the agreement of Marcellus with Irenaeus, find their explanation in the fact that he represents the tradition of the pre-apologetic age, as it is found in the " binitarianism " of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Second Epistle of Clement, as well as in many Gnostic systems; nor is it impossible that these traditions may have originated in Asia Minor, where both Marcellus and Irenseus lived, and where both modalistic Monarchianism and Montanism flourished. (F. Loofs.)
Bibliography: In Marcelliana (Gottingen, 1794) C. H. G. Rettberg carefully collected the fragments of Marcellus' writings, cf. MPO, xviii. ; they are also in Klostermann's ed. of Eusebius' "'Against Marcellus," Leipsic, 1906. Earlier discussions are antiquated by T. Zahn, Marcellus von Ancyra, Gotha, 1867. Consult further: Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. i.; Harnack, Dogma, passim, consult Index; R. Seeberg, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, i. 175-176, Leipsic, 1895; F. Loofs, in Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1902; idem, in Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1909, pp. 1 sqq.; DCB, iii. 808-813 (excellent).
MARCH, DANIEL: Congregationalist ; b. at Millbury, Mass., July 21, 1816; d. at Woburn, Mass., Mar. 2, 1909. He was educated at Yale College (A.B., 1840) and Yale Divinity School, from which he was graduated in 1845, after having been principal of Chester Academy, Vt., and Fairfield Academy, Conn. He held successive pastorates at Cheshire, Conn.
Marcianltes Marcion, Marcionites