Marcellus of Ancyra: God isn't really in this for the long haul

“What then do we learn about the human flesh [(τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης σαρκός)] the Logos assumed”? Will “the Logos . . . possess this [flesh] also forever or only until the time of the Judgment [(καὶ ἐν τοῖς μέλλουσιν ἀιῶσιν . . . ἢ ἄχρι μόνον τοῦ τῆς κρίσεως καιροῦ)]?” (Vinzent 104=Klostermann 116=Rettberg 103)

“If [the Logos] confesses here [in Jn 6:61-63] that the flesh is of no avail, how can it be that th[is flesh] which is of earth and of no avail will be together with him also forever [(καὶ ἐν τοῖς μέλλουσιν ἀιῶσιν)] as if of some avail? . . . [Acts 3:20-21] speaks as if it fixed a certain limit and a pre-determined time [(ὅρον τινὰ καὶ προθεσμίαν)] within which it pertains to the human economy to be united with the Logos. . . . Paul [too] says clearly and obviously [in Rom 8:21, Phil 2:7, and 1 Cor 15:24] that the fleshly economy of the Logos must fall within a short span of both past and future eons [(ἐν Βραχεῖ τινι χρόνῳ τῶν τε παρεληλυθότων καὶ τῶν μελλόντων αἰώνων)], and that this [fleshly economy] will have, as a beginning, so also an end” (Vinzent 106=Klostermann 117=Rettberg 104).

“before coming down from heaven and being born of the virgin he was only Logos. Before the assumption of human flesh what else was [there]? . . . There was nothing other than Logos” (Vinzent 5=Klostermann 48=Rettberg 42).

And “therefore the Logos is in God just as he was also earlier, before there was a cosmos. For then there was nothing other than God alone” (Vinzent 109=Kostermann 121=Rettberg 108).

“But if someone is inclined to say, Human flesh is worthy [(ἀξίαν)] of the Logos because [the Logos] by the resurrection made it immortal, he should acknowledge that not all that is immortal is worthy [(ἄξιον)] of God. . . . [N]ot everything immortal is worthy [(ἄξιον)] of being united with God” (Vinzent 108=Klostermann 120=Rettberg 107).

     Marcellus of Ancyra. References are to fragments, not pages, and the translations (from Vincent's German, with an occasional glance at the Greek) are mine. Vinzent: Markell von Ankyra: Die Fragmente, Der Briefe an Julius von Rom, ed. Markus Vinzent, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 2-129; Klostermann: Eusebius Werke, Vierter Band: Gegen Marcell, Über die kirchliche Theologie, Die Fragmente Marcells, ed. Erich Klostermann, 2nd ed. ed. Günther Christian Hansen, Die Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1972), 183-215; Rettberg: Marcelliana, ed. Christian Heinrich Georg Rettberg (Göttingen, 1794). According to Christoph Markschies ("»Sessio ad dexteram«:  Bemerkungen zu einem altchristlichen Bekenntnismotiv in der christologischen Diskussion der altkirchlichen Theologen," in Le Trône de Dieu, ed. Marc Philonenko, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum neuen Testament 69 (Tübingen:  J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1993), 296 and 296n224), Marcellus lacks "a consistent doctrine of God, "as already Eusebius [of Caesarea] saw", and in support of this quotes Eusebius quoting Marcellus:

οὐκοῦν ὅρον τινὰ ἔκειν δοκεῖ ἡ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον αὐτοῦ οἰκονομία καὶ βασιλεία 

The economy and kingdom of [Christ] with respect to man seems therefore to have 'a certain limit'

(On ecclesiastical theology III.13.3 =Vinzent 106/Klostermann 117 =GCS Eusebius IV, 170, ll. 10 ff.; cf. the trans. Spoerl, FC 135 (2017), 322:  "Thus the human economy and kingdom seem to have a certain limit").  "heretics of the first centuries (Marcel of Ancyre [for example]) believed that once the redemption was accomplished and the history of salvation concluded, the Word would separate himself from his humanity just as one takes off one's coat when one enters one's home after having braved inclement weather outside" (Jean-Pierre Batut, "The Transfiguration: or, the outcome of history placed in the hands of freedom," Communio: international Catholic review 35, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 49n5). Cf. "But this union will be dissolved one day, . . . for flesh, even immortalized, doesn't suit God" (M. D. Chenu, "Marcel d'Ancyre," Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 9 (1926), 1998). Hence the words of the Niceno-Constantinoplitan Creed, which, contra some interpretations of 1 Cor 15:14, were directed against Marcellus in particular: "whose Kingdom shall have no end [(οὗ τῆς βασιλείας οὐκ ἔσται τέλος)]."  Cf. the ODCC:  "Marcellus taught that in the Unity of the Godhead the Son and the Spirit only emerged as independent entities for the purposes of Creation and Redemption. After the redemptive work is achieved they will be resumed again into the Divine Unity and ‘God will be all in all’. The clause in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, 'whose Kingdom shall have no end' [(the subject of that being, of course, the subject of its entire second article, namely the 'one Lord Jesus Christ')], was inserted to combat his teaching."
     Cf. Shades of Marcellus of Ancyra?