Antioch deposes Paul of Samosata, AD 268

**The clearest surviving example of the third-century church disciplining its own, and the document is the council’s own letter.**

Paul, bishop of Antioch and a man of standing in the administration of Zenobia’s Palmyra, was accused of teaching that Christ was **a man in whom the Word dwelt** rather than the Word made flesh. Successive synods failed to convict him; a final one, about 268, deposed him and elected **Domnus** in his place.

## What the letter contains

Eusebius preserves the synodical letter, and its interest is that **most of it is not about doctrine.** The bishops complain that Paul had taken the title *ducenarius* — a salaried imperial procuratorship — and preferred it to bishop; that he had a raised platform and throne built for himself; that he had the congregation applaud him and wave handkerchiefs in church; that he suppressed the psalms addressed to Christ as modern novelties and had women sing hymns to himself; and that he kept subintroductae, women living in the clergy household.

**That is an unusually concrete portrait**, and the archive values it for that: it is a description of how a wealthy third-century bishop actually behaved, written by men trying to destroy him. **Hostile, detailed, and therefore useful** — with the hostility stated.

## And it required the emperor to enforce

**Paul refused to leave the church building.** The council could depose him; it could not evict him. In 272 the matter went to **Aurelian**, who ruled that the building belonged to whichever claimant was in communion with the bishops of Italy and Rome — which the archive holds as its own event four years later. **A doctrinal deposition was executed by a pagan emperor applying a test of communion.**