Paul of Samosata

• Paul, was a native of Samosata, the capital of the Syrian province of Commagene.
• He was governor and secretary of the treasury to Queen Zenobia of Palmyra and,from the year 260, bishop of Antioch.

• Soon after his consecration, he taught views which were contrary to the Church’s teaching.
• He did not recognize three hypostases in God, but according to Leontius (De Sectis 3,3) he merely “gave the name Father to God who created all things, that of Son, to him who was purely man, and that of the Spirit, to the grace which resided in the apostles.” 14 Jesus was greater than Moses and the prophets, but He was not the Word. Thus the Trinity which Paul recognized was only a Trinity of names.
• Three synods were held at Antioch between the years 264 and 268 to deal with his heresy, the first two with no results. The third in 268 declared him as a heretic and deposed him.
• His condemnation was by the priest Malchion.

• Paul shared the views of Monarchianism and his Christological ideas remind one of the modalist forms of Adoptianism.
• Fragments of the debate between Paul and

Malchion, taken from the stenographic records, are extant in Leontius of Byzantium, the Emperor Justinian, and Peter the deacon.

• According to St. Jerome (De vir. ill. 71) Malchion was also the author of the encyclical sent out by the bishops after the synod.
• Of this, Eusebius quotes several passages, which, however, deal more with Paul’s morals and character, copies the minutes of the meeting having been attached to the letters.