Marcellus of Ancyra & his invention of Platonic origin of the "three hypostases and three persons" of the Divinity /Ο Μάρκελος Αγκύρας & η επινόηση των πλατωνικής προέλευσης "τριών υποστάσεων και τριών προσώπων" της Θεότητας

Περί της Αγίας Εκκλησίας / Marcellus of Ancyra, On the Holy Church

7. Now all these derived the starting points of their impiety from the philosophers Hermes, Plato and Aristotle.
8. Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God, it is necessary to clarify the matter in their case as well, that you may be able to know that by deceitful sophistry they have filched the dogmas of the ancients.
9. These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato.
10. That is also why they again devise a second god created by the Father before the ages, as their esteemed Asterius said, instructed by Hermes surnamed Trismegistus (for this is how he speaks to Asclepius the physician: 'Hear then, Asclepius. The lord and maker of everything, whom we are accustomed to name God, created the second god visible and perceptible as well'). This is also where he acquired his 'only begotten god' instead of from the divine John saying 'only begotten Son' (John 1:18; 3:16, 18).



* Alastair H. B. Logan,
Marcellus of Ancyra (pseudo-Anthimus),
‘On the Holy Church’: Text, Translation and Commentary,
The Journal of Theological Studies 51(1):81-112 (April 2000).