Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/133

Rh Marcellus, therefore, the Sardicense teaches an economic-trinitarian monotheism, i.e. the Trinity does not appear here as eternal, but as produced in the course of the economy, i.e. of God's dispensation. God was according to Marcellus originally an absolute, then the Logos issued from him as his without being separated from him , and then from the incarnate Logos the Spirit proceeded, the Spirit of God, who was in him and went over to the Christian community. These views were without doubt shared by the Sardicense, although they are not all definitely expressed. It did not even blame another idea of Marcellus which is closely connected with these views, viz. that just as the divine has been extended, the Spirit and the Logos will finally be reabsorbed in God in order that God may be all in all; for this idea, in spite of all opposition to it on the part of Marcellus' enemies, is passed over in silence by the Sardicense, and, as I have shown elsewhere, this silence was not merely the result of church-policy, i.e. it cannot be explained by the fact, that Marcellus, in contradiction to the majority of the eastern bishops but in harmony with the western, held to the Nicene creed. The real reason was, that the idea of Marcellus here in question corresponded to a tradition found in Tertullian and Novatian