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 merely gave their collective voice for admitting them to communion, and declared their innocence. It was now that Marcellus testified to Julius and the assembled bishops that his attempt to return to Ancyra, A.D. 338–339, had only provoked such flagrant scenes as had happened more recently at Alexandria when St. Athanasius was expelled (Apol. c. Arian. § 33, cf. Hil. Frag. iii. 9).

"Marcellus," Athanasius says, in his history to the monks (§ 6), "went to Rome, made his apology, and then at their request gave them his faith in writing, of which also the Sardican council approved." The Sardicans grounded their verdict in his favour on the book which Eusebius had maligned, but which they pronounced consistent with orthodoxy. "For he had not, as they affirmed, attributed to the Word of God a beginning from Mary, nor any end to His kingdom; but had stated His kingdom to be without beginning or end" (Apol. c. Arian. § 47). Hence they declared him faultless and free from taint. St. Hilary, who also says nothing of his profession, bears them out in their decision on the book; adding that Marcellus was never again tried or condemned in any subsequent synod (Frag. ii. 21–23). Against such testimony—living, competent, and explicit—as this, it is plainly not for moderns to contend, the book being no longer extant to speak for itself; and therefore we must—in spite of all Cave may urge to the contrary (Hist. Lit. i. 202), and after him Cardinal Newman (Library of the Fathers, xix. 503) and the learned writer of art. E in this work—conclude with Montfaucon (Diatr. c. iii.), that, strongly as the extracts from it may read in Eusebius, whose party bias betrays itself in every line, yet "read by the light of what precedes and follows," as say the Sardican fathers, they may all be interpreted in a sense not conflicting with orthodoxy. St. Hilary, moreover, speaks with unwonted weight, as he proclaims the fact loudly that Marcellus subsequently by some rash utterances and his evident sympathy with his former disciple, Photinus, the ejected from Sirmium, came at last to be suspected of heretical leanings by all; and notably that he was, though privately, put out of communion by St. Athanasius, on which Marcellus abstained from church himself (Frag. ii. 23). Possibly such a rash utterance was in the mind of St. Hilary when he said to Constantius: "Hinc Marcellus Verbum Dei cum legit, nescit," and then adds: "Hinc Photinus hominem Jesum Christum cum loquitur, ignorat," classing them both in the same category. In the work of St. Epiphanius against heresies the Photinians rank first (71), and the Marcellians follow (72); yet even there the inference is, that the latter had been led astray by the former. St. Epiphanius does not mention the work of Eusebius against Marcellus, but gives extracts from one against him by Acacius, the successor of Eusebius at Caesarea, but not, as he says, because he thinks it any more conclusive than the Sardican fathers thought the work of Eusebius. But he criticizes the profession made by Marcellus in writing to pope Julius on the principle "Qui s’excuse s’accuse." This profession, what both Marcellus himself and St. Athanasius call his "ἔγγραφον πίστιν," which, he says expressly, he gave to pope Julius before leaving Rome, and which St. Epiphanius gives at full length. St. Athanasius says it was exhibited to the Roman and Sardican councils as well; but we have no other proof of this. It is but one of three different professions exhibited at different times on behalf of Marcellus—all characterized by the same suspicious surroundings, as will be shewn in due course. The two first are given by St. Epiphanius (Haer. lxxii.); the third was exhumed by Montfaucon. Dr. Heurtley (de Fide et Symbolo, p. 24) took this creed of Epiphanius as the earliest specimen of a Western creed. It was as certainly the baptismal creed of the West as it was not that of the local church of Rome (ib. pp. 89–133). For had it been the creed of the church of Rome, would not St. Athanasius have characterized it as such; would not Julius have recognized and applauded the adoption of his own formula? No doubt Marcellus picked it up in the Danubian provinces, or at Aquileia, in his way to Rome. It is identical with the creed commented upon by St. Augustine, which follows it in Heurtley (op. cit.), saving in the expression τὸν γεννηθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος ἁγίου, etc., which is suspiciously peculiar, and may well have excited the misgivings of St. Epiphanius. Now this creed Marcellus never ventures to call the creed of his own church, yet must have meant that Julius should think it so, as he designates it "what he had been taught by his spiritual fathers, had learnt from holy Scripture, and preached in church," and he begs Julius to enclose copies of it to those bishops with whom he was corresponding, that any to whom he was unknown might be disabused of wrong notions formed of him from hostile statements. By way of preface, he recites, to condemn them, the principal errors held by his enemies; and affirms several points on which his own faith had been questioned. Whether by his own contrivance or otherwise, this profession was never made public, nor appealed to by him again. It satisfied Julius, and Julius may have communicated it to his correspondents among the Western bishops and to St. Athanasius on his arrival in Rome: but it cannot be proved to have been formally brought before the 50 bishops afterwards assembled there, and there is no proof that it was so much as named at Sardica. In dealing with Easterns, anyhow, the creed in which he professes his faith was that of Nicaea. This profession is extant as well as the other, and was being employed by his disciples in their own justification when it was placed in the hands of St. Epiphanius. It is headed "Inscription of the faith of Marcellus." Yet it can hardly be thought accidental that his own assent is not explicitly given by subscription either to this or the third formula, produced on his behalf. Montfaucon, preoccupied with his own discovery, seeks to connect it with this second profession, with which it has nothing whatever to do. Evidently Marcellus aimed at being an Eastern to the Easterns, and a Western to the Westerns.

Finally, neither of these professions would seem to have sufficed for him in extreme old age, but he must construct a third, intended this time for St. Athanasius himself. The date fixed for it by Montfaucon is 372, not