THE PHOTINIANS.

(Bright. Ut supra. )

"The Photinians," or followers of Marcellus's disciple Photinus, bishop 

of Sirmium, the ready-witted and pertinacious disputant whom four 

successive synods condemned before he could be got rid of, by State 

power, in A.D. 351. (See St. Athanasius's Historical Writings, Introd. 

p. lxxxix.) In his representation of the "Marcellian" theology, he laid 

special stress on its Christological position--that Jesus, on whom the 

Logos rested with exceptional fulness, was a mere man. See Athanasius, 

De Synodis, 26, 27, for two creeds in which Photinianism is censured; 

also Soc. H. E. ii., 18, 29, 30; vii., 39. There is an obvious affinity 

between it and the "Samosatene" or Paulionist theory.