Kelley Spoerl: Apollinarius and the Ghost of Paul of Samosata

In dialogue with recent scholarship (DelCogliano 2008; Lang 2000; Giulea 2018), this presentation will explore the influence of the Antiochene Council of 268 that condemned bishop Paul of Samosata on the theology of Apollinarius of Laodicea. Two bishops from Laodicea attended session of the Council that condemned Paul of Samosata for trinitarian and Christological error.  I will trace how the council’s teachings influenced the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea, friend and colleague of a later bishop of Laodicea, Theodotus. I will focus especially in Eusebius’s final treatises directed against Marcellus of Ancyra – frequently addressed in the texts as “the Samosatene.” I will then review the influence of Eusebian theology on Apollinarius in both trinitarian and Christological spheres. This study aims to do three things: 1) provide more remote background for Apollinarius’s theology; 2) consider a new perspective on Apollinarius’s use of the terms ousia and hypostasis in his trinitarian treatise Kata Meros Pistis, and 3) raise further questions about how a theologian seemingly imbued with the traditional theology of Syro-Palestine in the first half of the fourth century came eventually to embrace the Nicene term outlawed by the Council of 268: homoousion.