Marcellus of Ancyra

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Marcellus of Ancyra († 374 ) was Bishop of Ancyra in the 4th century AD.

Marcellus of Ancyra first appeared at the Council of Nicaea in 325, where he fought against the Arians together with the Orthodox Bishop Athanasius . Due to its seemingly somewhat 'modalist' theology of the so-called economic trinity , according to which God is indivisible, but 'Father' (Creator and Lawgiver), 'Son' (Redeemer) and 'Holy Spirit' (the divine presence among people) three in time consecutive graded salvation history manifestations or ' persona ' of divine Monas are, the (in itself) already differentiated in unit (a single hypostasis) in which the logos and the spirit and in God are , he was at a synod in Constantinople Opel ( probably 336) deposed and banished from his episcopate as a heretic . Probably also because in Marcellus' salvation history the logos will return to God after his incarnation and redemption of the world and the reign of the risen Christ, in whose 'flesh' the logos had incarnated, will come to an end and the logos will come to an end separate from Christ. His successor on the bishopric was in 336 Basil of Ancyra . After the death of Constantine the Great in 337, he returned to Ancyra.

With Marcellus, God himself did not die in Christ, as with the modalism of Noet or Sabellius , who asserted the full deity of the Son and in doing so, in order to preserve monotheism, came to positions that amounted to an identity of father and son, since they only ever Depending on the situation, they represented different modes of being of the one God, between which there was no real difference.

After Marcellus returned to his bishopric in Ancyra, riots broke out there and Emperor Constantius II , at that time an Eastern Roman emperor, banished him again in 337. So Marcellus first traveled into exile in Rome, which was under the rule of Emperor Constans , brother and rival of Constantius II. There Marcellus turned to Julius , the bishop of Rome, who recognized him as Orthodox after a written commitment from Marcellus to his theology and from then on supported. A meeting of bishops in Rome rehabilitated Marcellus at the end of 340. In 342/43 his recognition within the Western Church was confirmed at the Council of Serdica . In Sirmium 345, his pupil Photinus was accused, who represented similar theological positions as Marcellus. Marcellus supported him and thus also lost the trust of Athanasius, with whom he had once fought together against the Arians. He did not regain his diocese and died in 374. After his death, his teachings were finally condemned at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.

Works

  • Markell von Ankyra: The Fragments. The letter to Julius of Rome (= Vigiliae Christianae. Supplements 39). Edited, introduced and translated by Markus Vinzent. Brill, Leiden et al. 1997, ISBN 90-04-10907-2 .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Franz Dünzl : Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, pp. 77ff. ISBN 3-451-28946-6 ; Jan Rohls : God, Trinity and Spirit (History of Christianity, Volume III / 1). Mohr Siebeck , Tübingen 2014, pp. 130f.
  2. ↑ Franz Dünzl: Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, p. 36f.
  3. ^ Klaus Seibt:  Marcell von Ancyra (approx. 280–374) . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 22, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1992, ISBN 3-11-013463-2 , pp. 83-89., Pp. 84f.
  4. ↑ Franz Dünzl: Brief history of the Trinitarian dogma in the old church. Herder Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2006, p. 82f.
personal data
SURNAME Marcellus of Ancyra
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Ancyra
DATE OF BIRTH before 330
DATE OF DEATH 374