Marcellus of Ancyra and Asterius the Sophist

The bishops gathered at Constantinople also deposed Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, a city of Lesser Galatia, for the following reason. A rhetorician of Cappadocia named Asterius had given up his profession and declared himself a convert to Christianity. He set about writing some treatises, which still survive, in which he praised the teachings of Arius. He asserted that Christ is the power of God in the same sense that Moses says the locust and the caterpillar are the power of God, along with other sayings of the same kind. Asterius was constantly in the company of the bishops, especially those among them who did not disapprove of the Arian doctrine. He also attended their synods, hoping to work his way into the bishopric of some city. But he failed to be ordained, because he had sacrificed during the persecution. So he went through the cities of Syria, reading in public the books he had written. [a]

When Marcellus heard of this, he wanted to counter Asterius’s influence. But in his over-eagerness to refute him, he fell into the exact opposite error; for he dared to say, as the man from Samosata had done, that Christ was a mere man. When the bishops then gathered at Jerusalem learned of these things, they took no notice of Asterius, since he was not even on the list of ordained priests. But they insisted that Marcellus, as a priest, give an account of the book he had written. Finding that he held the views of Paul of Samosata, they required him to retract his opinion; and he, thoroughly ashamed of himself, promised to burn his book. But the gathering of bishops was hastily broken up when the emperor summoned them to Constantinople. When the Eusebians arrived in that city, they took up the case of Marcellus again. Since Marcellus refused to keep his promise to burn his ill-timed book, those present deposed him and sent Basil to Ancyra in his place. Eusebius also wrote a refutation of this work in three books, in which he exposed its false teaching. Marcellus, however, was later restored to his bishopric by the synod at Sardica, on his assurance that his book had been misunderstood, and that this was why he was thought to favor the views of the man from Samosata. But of this we will speak more fully in its proper place.