Reference numbers Urk. 19
Doc. 21
Incipit [εἰ, ὥσπερ Εὐσέβιος]
Date c. 325
Ancient source Eusebius, Against Marcellus 1.4.39 (TLG)
Modern edition used G.C. Hansen and E. Klostermann, Eusebius Werke, Band 4: Gegen Marcell. Über die kirchliche Theologie. Die Fragmente Marcells GCS 14, 2nd edition (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1972)
Circumstance This is taken from Eusebius’ Against Marcellus. Eusebius is excerpting from a writing of Marcellus, where Marcellus is excerpting from a letter of Narcissus, where Narcissus relates an event from earlier in his life, quite possibly the Council of Antioch in early 325. This would explain why and how he was being questioned by Hosius.
Neronias was in Cilicia, which was in south-central Asia Minor. Marcellus was from Ancyra, in the neighboring province of Galatia. Eusebius wrote from Palestine.

(1.) He [Marcellus] came across a letter from Narcissus of Neronias, which he [Narcissus] had written to a certain Chrestus and Euphronius and Eusebius:He [Narcissus] relates how once Hosius the bishop had asked him [Narcissus] if he taught that there were two essences (ousiai) just as Eusebius of Palestine [the same who wrote Against Marcellus] claimed. Narcissus replied that he believed that there were three essences (ousiai), which Marcellus knew from reading the letter. (2.) [Marcellus] goes on against Narcissus and says, for even if someone should say this, maintaining that “there is a first God as well as a second,” as Narcissus has written in the same letter that “indeed he [the Son] and his Father are two.” Nevertheless, we listen to the testimony of the Lord himself and the holy scriptures. Now if Narcissus wanted for this reason to divide the Word from the Father with respect to his power, let him know that the prophet wrote as though God was speaking, “Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness,” and he [Moses] himself wrote, “And so God made man.”

Translation by AJW

Discussed in Hanson, p. 45

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