MARCELLA: Roman Christian of the fourth and fifth centuries. She came of a wealthy family and married early, but when her husband died seven months after the marriage, she made a vow of perpetual celibacy and gave all her goods to her relatives and the poor. When Jerome came to Rome in 382 she became his friend and studied the Scriptures with him. When Rufinus translated Origen's work "On First Principles" she herself went to Pope Anastasius and showing him the heretical passages induced him to condemn the doctrines of Origen. At the sack of Rome in 410, she was tortured by the Goths, who sought to make her reveal her supposed wealth, and died shortly afterward.

Bibliography: The chief source of information on her life and character is Jerome's letters, especially no. 127, Eng. transl. in ANF, vi. 253-258; cf. DCB, iii. 803.

MARCELLIANS: The followers of Marcellus of Ancyra (q.v.).

MARCELLINISTS: A heretical sect of the latter part of the second century, consisting of the adherents of Marcellina, a pupil of Carpocrates (q.v.), whose system of Gnosticism she taught with much success in Rome while Anicetus was bishop (cf. Irenaeus, Hær., I., xxv. 6, ANF, i. 351).

MARCELLINUS, mar"cel-li'nus: Pope June 30, 2'06, probably to Oct. 25, 304. He is mentioned by Jerome, Nicephorus, and the Chronographon Syn tomon; other early sources omit his name on account of the apostasy ascribed to him. Eusebius says that Marcellinus succeeded Caius in the twelfth year of Diocletian (a statement confirmed by the Catalogus Liberianus), and adds (Hist. eccl., VII., xxxii. 1) that "persecution overtook him." While this implies more than that the persecution merely occurred during his bishopric, it does not neces sarily denote that Marcellinus was a martyr, de spite the statement of Theodoret (Hist. eccl., i. 2) that he distinguished himself during the persecution. The Liber pontificalis, on the authority of a lost Passio Marcellini, probably dating from the fifth century, expressly states that Marcellinus, a Roman by birth and the son of Projectus, became a thur~ ficus in the persecution, but quickly repented of his apostasy and was beheaded. This is denied by Augustine, but the Donatists knew of the accu-

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sation and it is also mentioned in the acts of a Council of Sinuessa forged in 501. There seems to be no good reason to doubt that he actually lapsed for a time and later made atonement, but his martyr dom is improbable. The only detail known con cerning his administration is that he enlarged the Roman catacombs. The Pseudo-Isidore contains two spurious decretals of this pope.

(A. Harnack.)

Bibliography: The sources are indicated in the text. Con sult Liber pontificalis, ed. Mommsen in MGH, Gest. pont. Rom. i (1898), 41-42; and the critical sketch in DCD, U 804-806, where the sources are adequately discussed.