Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/136

124 the economy, i.e. his dispensation which was intended for the world's salvation; like Marcellus, he speaks about the, i.e. about the dispensation of God which gave in Christ a new beginning to the humanity ; like Marcellus, he probably identified the and the Spirit of God as regards the time before the Spirit went over from the historical Christ to his disciples. For him as for Marcellus the historical Christ is at once God revealed in flesh and the new and perfect man. Finally, it is not improbable that Ignatius, too, supposed that the Logos and the Spirit would at last be reabsorbed in God.

Hence dependence of Marcellus on the western tradition is excluded from possibility. There is also another argument against it, viz. that even in Tertullian the western tradition shows itself influenced by the