The 1980s saw an explosion of scholarly work 011 the 'Arian controversy', which
sought to rethink the categories of the controversy ab initio. Building on this, a
number of figures connected with the controversy came in for individual study in the
1990s, including the bishop Marcellus of Ancyra, who was the subject of a number of
books and articles in that decade, nearly all of which concentrated on his theology and
touched his place in the historical events of the wider controversy only tangentially.
This thesis attempts to situate Marcellus in relation to the major ecclesiastical events
of the controversy between 314 and 345, arguing that attention to his role gives a
better picture of how the 'anti-Arian' party in particular understood itself during these
years. Marcellus' skills as administrator and canonist, displayed in the 314 Synod of
Ancyra, over which he presided, form the background to the portrait of him that
emerges. His roles before and during the synod of Nicaea, before, during and after the
synods of Tyre and Jerusalem, in Rome for fifteen months during the years 339-341,
and at the synod of Sardica are examined, and furnish a number of new suggestions for
ways to understand these events. The synod of Ancyra which was moved by
Constantine to Nicaea, it is suggested, was not originally called by the emperor, but by
Alexander and his allies, with the express purpose of condemning Eusebius of
Nicomedia and his allies, with Marcellus as the intended president. Gerhard Feige's
view that Marcellus was doubtless, like Eustathius of Antioch, unhappy with the actual
synod of Nicaea, and contrary to popular assumption had little to do with the writing
of the creed (which he did not even personally sign), is endorsed, although Marcellus'
greater involvement in the writing of the canons is suggested. The synod of Tyre is
shown by careful examination of the various accounts of it, particularly that of
Eusebius of Caesarea, to have been a travesty, a view which builds on Girardet's
analysis of its views of its own authority in relation to the canonical traditions of the
time. Marcellus' role in the creation of the myth of 'Arianism' is examined, a myth
which is shown to have taken its characteristic form in Rome during the period he and
Athanasius spent there together. Marcellus is argued to be the author of the 'Western
Creed of Sardica', as Klaus Seibt suggested, which was provisionally accepted by
Ossius and Protogenes and the groups they headed as the faith of the synod, but
referred in the face of Athanasius' opposition to Julius of Rome, who vetoed it in
favour of privileging the 'ecumenical' creed of Nicaea. Marcellus' silence after
Sardica is ascribed to his refusal to desert his former pupil Photinus, while recognising
that he was generally considered theologically intolerable even by Marcellus' own
allies. Works after that synod which are sometimes ascribed to Marcellus are therefore
to be ascribed either to his school, to the continuing Eustathians at Antioch, or to some
other group. The Canons of Ancyra 314, the Contra Asterinm (not appropriately
named Opus ad Constantinum Imperatorem, since it was not originally written for the
emperor), the Letter to Julius and De Sancta Ecclesia, as well as the Western Creed of
Sardica, are argued on the other hand to be either wholly or mainly by Marcellus.
Following the line taken by Martin Tetz and Joseph Lienhard, Marcellus is argued
never to have been dropped by his former allies as such, merely himself to have
withdrawn from communion with them on account of his loyalty to Photinus; the creed
of Eugenius the Deacon was a formula which allowed those in communion with
Marcellus to repudiate Photinus without Marcellus himself having to do so
