impossible; for it is admitted by all that the origin of the ideas of Marcellus can be sufficiently explained by an earlier eastern theological tradition. This latter is seen in Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor, about 185, although it is in him influenced by the quite different views of the apologists[1]. Before Irenaeus it is to be found in the utterances of the presbyters of Asia Minor which are quoted in several places by Irenaeus[2]. Even in the beginning of the second century, about 110, we meet ideas resembling the fundamental thoughts of Marcellus in Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who, as is shown in the course of his last journey through Asia Minor and by his relation to the Gospel of John, must have had intercourse with Asia Minor before becoming bishop. Like Marcellus, Ignatius assumes that the Logos of God is not begotten[3]; like Marcellus and differing from the apologists, he applies the term Son of God only to the historical and exalted Christ[4]; like Marcellus he nevertheless speaks about an issuing of the Logos from God[5]; like Marcellus, he says that God, when the Logos issued from him, broke his silence[6], i.e. opened
- ↑ Comp. my Dogmengeschichte, 4th edition, § 21, 2d, p. 143 f.
- ↑ l. c. § 15, 6, p. 103.
- ↑ ad Ephes. 7, 2: εἶς ἰατρός έστιν, σαρκικὸς τε καὶ πνευματικός, γεννητὸς (as σαρκικός) καὶ ἀγέννητος (as πνευματικός) κ.τ.λ.
- ↑ Comp. the preceding note and ad Smyrn. 1, 1: υἱὸν θεοῦ κατὰ θέλημα καὶ δύναμιν θεοῦ γεγενημένον … ἐκ παρθένου.
- ↑ ad Magn. 7, 2: Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν ἀφ' ἑνὸς πατρὸς προελθόντα.
- ↑ Marcellus, fragm. 103, Klostermann, p. 207, 25: πρὸ γὰρ τῆς δημιουργίας ἀπάσης ἡσυχία τις ἦν, ὡς εἰκός, ὄντος ἐν τῷ θεῷ τοῦ
