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Fragment number Vinzent 106
Klostermann 117
Retb. 104
Ancient source used Eusebius, Against Marcellus 2.3-4
Modern edition M. Vinzent, Markell von Ankyra: Die Fragmente (Leiden, 1997).

For the Logos did not take on our flesh to profit himself, but to grant our flesh immortality through fellowship with him.  This is clear from the assertion of the Savior himself.  For concerning the flesh, which he had at the time he was associating with the disciples, he says, “Does this offend you?  What if you see the Son of Man return to where he was before?  The Spirit makes alive; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6.61-63).  If he confesses the flesh to be no profit to him, how will that which is earthly and profits nothing also have a place with the him in the ages to come as though it is something beneficial?

For this reason it seems to me that the Almighty God, the Master, says to him, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet” (Ps. 110.1), seeming to set him apart only in power because of his human flesh, and appointing him to the throne at his right hand for a certain specified time, when he says to him, “until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”  But the holy apostle, interpreting this prophecy of David more clearly for us, says, “For it is necessary for him to reign until he has made his enemies a footstool for his feet” (1 Cor. 15.25).

Therefore, his human dispensation seems to have some limit, as does his kingdom.  He means nothing else than what the apostle said, that he should wait “until he has made his enemies a footstool for his feet.”  Then, when he possesses his enemies as a footstool for his feet, he will no longer need this partial kingdom; he will be a king ruling completely over all things.  For he reigns “with God and the Father” (1 Cor. 15.24), whose Logos he both was and is.  The Logos did not receive rule over the kingdom for himself, but the man who was deceived by the devil has become a king through the power of the Logos, so that being king, he might defeat the devil who once deceived him.

Because of this, concerning this humanity which the Logos of God assumed, and he being taken up now sits at the right hand of the Father, the Acts of the Apostles teaches us, saying, “it it necessary for heaven to receive him until the time of restoration” (3.21).  This passage, which reads as if setting a certain interval and time limit within which it was fitting for the human dispensation to be united to the Logos, speaks like this.  For what else does he mean by saying, “until the time of restoration,” except to indicate to us the time when all things must obtain complete restoration?

Therefore, if in the time of restoration of all things even the creation itself will be changed from bondage into freedom, for Paul says “even the creation itself will be set free from the bondage of decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8.21). How might it be possible for what is still the form of a servant, which the Logos took on, since it is the “form of a servant” (Phil. 2.7), to still be united with the Logos?  Clearly and explicitly then, the Logos’ human dispensation took place for our sake for a short space of time including both past and future ages, and just as it had a beginning, so it will have an end, as the oracle Paul uttered when he said, “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God and the Father” (1 Cor. 15.24).

Translated by Daniel Noonan under the supervision of Prof. Glen L. Thompson

Based on the text of M. Vinzent, Markell von Ankyra: Die Fragmente (Leiden, 1997).

Last updated: 12-6-2010

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