CHAPTER I: THE DECISIVE SUCCESS OF THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION IN THE SPHERE OF THE RULE OF

THE DECISIVE SUCCESS OF THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION IN THE SPHERE OF THE RULE OF FAITH, OR, THE DEFINING OF THE NORM OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH DUE TO THE ADOPTION OF THE LOGOS CHRISTOLOGY. [3] __________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction.

FROM the great work of Irenæus and the anti-gnostic writings of Tertullian, it would seem as if the doctrine of the Logos, or, the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ as a distinct person, was at the end of the second century an undisputed tenet of Church orthodoxy, and formed a universally recognised portion of the baptismal confession interpreted anti-gnostically, i.e., of the rule of faith. [4] But certain as it is that the Logos Christology was in the second century not merely the property of a few Christian philosophers, [5] it is, on the other hand, as clear that it did not belong to the solid structure of the Catholic faith. It was not on the same footing as, e.g., the doctrines of God the Creator, the real body of Christ, the resurrection of the body, etc. The great conflicts which, after c. A.D. 170, were waged for more than a century within the Catholic Church rather show, that the doctrine only gradually found its way into the creed of the Church. [6] But a higher than merely Christological interest attaches to the gradual incorporation of the Logos doctrine in the rule of faith. The formula of the Logos, as it was almost universally understood, legitimised speculation, i.e., Neo-platonic philosophy, within the creed of the Church. [7] When Christ was designated the incarnate Logos of God, and when this was set up as His supreme characterisation, men were directed to think of the divine in Christ as the reason of God realised in the structure of the world and the history of mankind. This implied a definite philosophical view of God, of creation, and of the world, and the baptismal confession became a compendium of scientific dogmatics, i.e., of a system of doctrine entwined with the Metaphysics of Plato and the Stoics. But at the same time an urgent impulse necessarily made itself felt to define the contents and value of the Redeemer's life and work, not, primarily, from the point of view of the proclamation of the Gospel, and the hopes of a future state, but from that of the cosmic significance attaching to his divine nature concealed in the flesh. Insomuch, however, as such a view could only really reach and be intelligible to those who had been trained in philosophical speculations, the establishing of the Logos Christology within the rule of faith was equivalent for the great mass of Christians to the setting up of a mystery, which in the first place could only make an impression through its high-pitched formulas and the glamour of the incomprehensible. But as soon as a religion expresses the loftiest contents of its creed in formulas which must remain mysterious and unintelligible to the great mass of its adherents, those adherents come under guardians. In other words, the multitude must believe in the creed; at the same time they no longer derive from it directly the motives of their religious and moral life; and they are dependent on the theologians, who, as professors of the mysterious, alone understand and are capable of interpreting and practically applying the creed. The necessary consequence of this development was that the mysterious creed, being no longer in a position practically to control life, was superseded by the authority of the Church, the cultus, and prescribed duties, in determining the religious life of the laity; while the theologians, or the priests, appeared alone as the possessors of an independent faith and knowledge. But as soon as the laity were actuated by a desire for religious independence, which produced a reaction, and yet was not powerful enough to correct the conditions out of which this state of matters arose, there made its appearance only an expedient of a conservative sort, viz., the order of the monks. As this order did not tamper with the prevailing system of the Church, the Church could tolerate it, and could even use it as a valve, by which to provide an outlet for all religious subjectivity, and for the energies of a piety that renounced the world. The history of the Church shows us, or, at any rate, lets us divine, this situation at the transition from the 3rd to the 4th century. On the one hand, we see--at least in the East--that the Christian faith had become a theology, which was regarded, to all intents without question, as the revealed faith, and only capable of being represented and expounded by "teachers". On the other hand, we find a lay Christendom tied to the priest, the cultus, the sacraments, and a ceremonial penitence, and revering the creed as a mystery. Between these arose with elemental force the order of the monks, which--apart from a few phenomena--did not attack the ecclesiastical system, and which could not be suppressed by priests and theologians, because it strove to realise on earth the object to which they themselves had subordinated the whole of theology, because it, as it were, sought to soar on wings to the same height, to which the steps of the long ladders constructed by theology were meant to conduct. [8]

Now the incorporation in the creed of philosophic (Platonic) speculation, i.e., the Hellenising of the traditional doctrines, was not the only condition, but it was certainly one of the most important of the conditions, that led to the rise of this threefold Christendom of clergy, laity, and monks, in the Church. That the Catholic Church was capable of accommodating these three orders in its midst is a proof of its power. That the combination forms up to the present day the signature of Catholic Churches is evidence, moreover, of the practical value attached by the Church to this unified differentiation. It, in fact, could not but best correspond to the different wants of men united to form a universal Church. So far as it was a consequence of the general conditions under which the Church existed in the third century, we must here leave its origin untouched, [9] but so far as it was due to the reception of philosophical speculation into the Church, its prior history must be presented. Yet it may not be superfluous to begin by noticing expressly, that the confidence with which first the Apologists identified the Logos of the philosophers and the Christ of faith, and the zeal with which the anti-gnostic Fathers then incorporated the Logos-Christ in the creed of believers, are also to be explained from a Christian interest. In their scientific conception of the world the Logos had a fixed place, and was held to be the "alter ego" of God, though at the same time he was also regarded as the representative of the Reason that operated in the Cosmos. Their conception of Christ as the appearance of the Logos in a personal form only proves that they sought to make the highest possible assertion concerning him, to justify worship being rendered him, and to demonstrate the absolute and unique nature of the contents of the Christian religion. The Christian religion was only in a position to gain the cultured, to conquer Gnosticism, and to thrust aside Polytheism in the Roman empire, because it had concluded an alliance with that intellectual potentate which already swayed the minds and hearts of the best men, the philosophic-religious ethics of the age. This alliance found expression in the formula: Christ is word and law (Christo`s lo'gos kai` no'mos). The philosophic Christology arose, so to speak, at the circumference of the Church, and thence moved gradually to the centre of the Christian faith. The same is true of theology generally; its most concise description is philosophic Christology. A complete fusion of the old faith and theology, one that tranquillised the minds of the devout, was not consummated till the fourth, strictly speaking, indeed, till the fifth century (Cyril of Alexandria). Valentinus, Origen, the Cappadocians mark the stages of the process. Valentinus was very speedily ejected as a heretic. Origen, in spite of the immense influence which he exerted, was in the end unable to retain his footing in the Church. The Cappadocians almost perfected the complete fusion of the traditional faith of the Church conceived as mystery and philosophy, by removing Origen's distinction between those who knew and those who believed (Gnostics and Pistics); meanwhile they retained much that was comparatively free and looked on with suspicion by the traditionalists. Cyril's theology first marked the complete agreement between faith and philosophy, authority and speculation, an agreement which finally, in the sixth century, suppressed every independent theology. But from the end of the second century up to the closing years of the third, the fundamental principle of philosophic theology had naturalised itself, in the very faith of the Church. This process in which, on the one hand, certain results of speculative theology became legitimised within the Church as revelations and mysteries, and on the other--as a sort of antidote--the freedom of theology was limited, is to be described in what follows.

It has been shown above (Vol. I., p. 190 ff.) that about the middle of the second century there existed side by side in the Churches chiefly two conceptions of the person of Christ. In the Adoptian view Jesus was regarded as the man in whom divinity or the spirit of God dwelt, and who was finally exalted to godlike honour. In the Pneumatic conception, Jesus was looked upon as a heavenly spirit who assumed an earthly body. The latter was adopted in their speculations by the Apologists. The fixing of the apostolic tradition, which took place in opposition to the Gnostics, as also to the so-called Montanists, in the course of the second half of the second century, did not yet decide in favour of either view. [10] The Holy Scriptures could be appealed to in support of both. But those had decidedly the best of it, in the circumstances of the time, who recognised the incarnation of a special divine nature in Christ; and as certainly were the others in the right, in view of the Synoptic gospels, who saw in Jesus the man chosen to be his Son by God, and possessed of the Spirit. The former conception corresponded to the interpretation of the O. T. theophanies which had been accepted by the Alexandrians, and had proved so convincing in apologetic arguments;
[11] it could be supported by the testimony of a series of Apostolic writings, whose authority was absolute; [12] it protected the O. T. against Gnostic criticism. It, further, reduced the highest conception of the value of Christianity to a brief and convincing formula: "God became man in order that men might become gods;" and, finally,--which was not least--it could be brought, with little trouble, into line with the cosmological and theological tenets which had been borrowed from the religious philosophy of the age to serve as a foundation for a rational Christian theology. The adoption of the belief in the divine Logos to explain the genesis and history of the world at once decided the means by which also the divine dignity and sonship of the Redeemer were alone to be defined. [13] In this procedure the theologians themselves had no danger to fear to their monotheism, even if they made the Logos more than a product of the creative will of God. Neither Justin, Tatian, nor any of the Apologists or Fathers show the slightest anxiety on this point. For the infinite substance, resting behind the world,--and as such the deity was conceived--could display and unfold itself in different subjects. It could impart its own inexhaustible being to a variety of bearers, without thereby being emptied, or its unity being dissolved (monarchia kat' oikonomian, as the technical expression has it). [14] But, lastly, the theologians had no reason to fear for the "deity" of the Christ in whom the incarnation of that Logos was to be viewed. For the conception of the Logos was capable of the most manifold contents, and its dexterous treatment could be already supported by the most instructive precedents. This conception could be adapted to every change and accentuation of the religious interest, every deepening of speculation, as as to all the needs of the Cultus, nay, even to new results of Biblical exegesis. It revealed itself gradually to be a variable quantity of the most accommodating kind, capable of being at once determined by any new factor received into the theological ferment. It even admitted contents which stood in the most abrupt contradiction to the processes of thought out of which the conception itself had sprung, i.e., contents which almost completely concealed the cosmological genesis of the conception. But it was long before this point was reached. And as long as it was not, as long as the Logos was still employed as the formula under which was comprehended either the original idea of the world, or the rational law of the world, many did not entirely cease to mistrust the fitness of the conception to establish the divinity of Christ. For those, finally, could not but seek to perceive the full deity in the Redeemer, who reckoned on a deification of man. Athanasius first made this possible to them by his explanation of the Logos, but he at the same time began to empty the conception of its original cosmological contents. And the history of Christology from Athanasius to Augustine is the history of the displacing of the Logos conception by the other, destitute of all cosmical contents, of the Son,--the history of the substitution of the immanent and absolute trinity for the economic and relative. The complete divinity of the Son was thereby secured, but in the form of a complicated and artificial speculation, which neither could be maintained without reservation before the tribunal of the science of the day, nor could claim the support of an ancient tradition.

But the first formulated opposition to the Logos Christology did not spring from anxiety for the complete divinity of Christ, or even from solicitude for monotheism; it was rather called forth by interest in the evangelical, the Synoptic, idea of Christ. With this was combined the attack on the use of Platonic philosophy in Christian doctrine. The first public and literary opponents of the Christian Logos-speculations, therefore, did not escape the reproach of depreciating, if not of destroying, the dignity of the Redeemer. It was only in the subsequent period, in a second phase of the controversy, that these opponents of the Logos Christology were able to fling back the reproach at its defenders. With the Monarchians the first subject of interest was the man Jesus; then came monotheism and the divine dignity of Christ. From this point, however, the whole theological interpretation of the two first articles of the rule of faith, was again gradually involved in controversy. In so far as they were understood to refute a crude docetism and the severance of Jesus and Christ they were confirmed. But did not the doctrine of a heavenly æon, rendered incarnate in the Redeemer, contain another remnant of the old Gnostic leaven? Did not the sending forth of the Logos (probole tou logou) to create the world recall the emanation of the æons? Was not ditheism set up, if two divine beings were to be worshipped? Not only were the uncultured Christian laity driven to such criticisms, -- for what did they understand by the "economic mode of the existence of God"? -- but also all those theologians who refused to give any place to Platonic philosophy in Christian dogmatics. A conflict began which lasted for more than a century, in certain branches of it for almost two centuries. Who opened it, or first assumed the aggressive, we know not. The contest engages our deepest interest in different respects, and can be described from different points of view. We cannot regard it, indeed, directly as a fight waged by theology against a still enthusiastic conception of religion; for the literary opponents of the Logos Christology were no longer enthusiasts, but, rather, from the very beginning their declared enemies. Nor was it directly a war of the theologians against the laity, for it was not laymen, but only theologians who had adopted the creed of the laity, who opposed their brethren. [15] We must describe it as the strenuous effort of Stoic Platonism to obtain supremacy in the theology of the Church; the victory of Plato over Zeno and Aristotle in Christian science; the history of the displacement of the historical by the pre-existent Christ, of the Christ of reality by the Christ of thought, in dogmatics; finally, as the victorious attempt to substitute the mystery of the person of Christ for the person Himself, and, by means of a theological formula unintelligible to them, to put the laity with their Christian faith under guardians -- a state desired and indeed required by them to an increasing extent. When the Logos Christology obtained a complete victory, the traditional view of the Supreme deity as one person, and, along with this, every thought of the real and complete human personality of the Redeemer was in fact condemned as being intolerable in the Church. Its place was taken by "the nature" [of Christ], which without "the person" is simply a cipher. The defeated party had right on its side, but had not succeeded in making its Christology agree with its conception of the object and result of the Christian religion. This was the very reason of its defeat. A religion which promised its adherents that their nature would be rendered divine, could only be satisfied by a redeemer who in his own person had deified human nature. If, after the gradual fading away of eschatological hopes, the above prospect was held valid, then those were right who worked out this view of the Redeemer.

In accordance with an expression coined by Tertullian, we understand by Monarchians the representatives of strict, not economic, monotheism in the ancient Church. In other words, they were theologians who held firmly by the dignity of Jesus as Redeemer, but at the same time would not give up the personal, the numerical, unity of God; and who therefore opposed the speculations which had led to the adoption of the duality or trinity of the godhead. [16] In order rightly to understand their position in the history of the genesis of the dogmatics of the Church, it is decisive, as will have been already clear from the above, that they only came to the front, after the anti-gnostic understanding of the baptismal confession had been substantially assured in the Church. It results from this that they are, generally speaking, to be criticised as men who appeared on the soil of Catholicism, and that therefore, apart from the points clearly in dispute, we must suppose agreement between them and their opponents. It is not superfluous to recall this expressly. The confusion to which the failure to note this presupposition has led and still continually leads may be seen, e.g., in the relative section in Dorner's History of the development of the doctrine' of the Person of Christ, or in Krawutzcky's study on the origin of the Didache. [17] The so-called Dynamistic Monarchians have had especially to suffer from this criticism, their teaching being comfortably disposed of as "Ebionitic". However, imperative as it certainly is, in general, to describe the history of Monarchianism without reference to the ancient pre-Catholic controversies, and only to bring in the history of Montanism with great caution, still many facts observed in reference to the earliest bodies of Monarchians that come clearly before us, seem to prove that they bore features which must be characterised as pre-Catholic, but not un-Catholic. This is especially true of their attitude to certain books of the New Testament. Undoubtedly we have reason even here to complain of the scantiness and uncertainty of our historical material. The Church historians have attempted to bury or distort the true history of Monarchianism to as great an extent as they passed over and obscured that of the so-called Montanism. At a very early date, if not in the first stages of the controversy, they read Ebionitism and Gnosticism into the theses of their opponents; they attempted to discredit their theological works as products of a specific secularisation, or as travesties, of Christianity, and they sought to portray the Monarchians themselves as renegades who had abandoned the rule of faith and the Canon. By this kind of polemics they have made it difficult for after ages to decide, among other things, whether certain peculiarities of Monarchian bodies in dealing with the Canon of the N. T. writings spring from a period when there was as yet no N. T. Canon in the strict Catholic sense, or whether these characteristics are to be regarded as deviations from an already settled authority, and therefore innovations. Meanwhile, looking to the Catholicity of the whole character of Monarchian movements, and, further, to the fact that no opposition is recorded as having been made by them to the N. T. Canon after its essential contents and authority appear to have been established; considering, finally, that the Montanists, and even the Marcionites and Gnostics, were very early charged with attempts on the Catholic Canon, we need no longer doubt that the Monarchian deviations point exclusively to a time when no such Canon existed; and that other "heresies", to be met with in the older groups, are to be criticised on the understanding that the Church was becoming, but not yet become, Catholic. [18]

The history of Monarchianism is no clearer than its rise in the form of particular theological tendencies. Here also we have before us, at the present day, only scanty fragments. We cannot always trace completely even the settled distinction between Dynamistic -- better, Adoptian -- and Modalistic Monarchianism; [19] between the theory that made the power or Spirit of God dwell in the man Jesus, and the view that sees in Him the incarnation of the deity Himself. [20]

Certainly the common element, so far as there was one, of the Monarchian movements, lay in the form of the conception of God, the distinguishing feature, in the idea of revelation. But all the phenomena under this head cannot be classified with certainty, apart from the fact that the most numerous and important "systems" exist in a very shaky tradition. A really reliable division of the Monarchianism that in all its forms rejected the idea of a physical fatherhood of God, and only saw the Son of God in the historical Jesus, is impossible on the strength of the authorities up till now known to us. Apart from a fragment or two we only possess accounts by opponents. The chronology, again, causes a special difficulty. Much labour has been spent upon it since the discovery of the Philosophumena; but most of the details have remained very uncertain. The dates of the Alogi, Artemas, Praxeas, Sabellius, the Antiochian Synods against Paul of Samosata, etc., have not yet been firmly settled. The concise remarks on the subject in what follows rest on independent labours. Finally, we are badly informed even as to the geographical range of the controversies. We may, however, suppose, with great probability, that at one time or other a conflict took place in all centres of Christianity in the Empire. But a connected history cannot be given. __________________________________________________________________

[4] See Vol. II., pp. 20-38 and Iren. I. 10, 1; Tertull. De præscr. 13; Adv. Prax. 2. In the rule of faith, De virg., vel. I, there is no statement as to the pre-existence of the Son of God.

[5] See Vol. I., p. 192, Note (John's Gospel, Revelation, Ke'rugma Pe'trou, Ignatius, and esp. Celsus in Orig. II. 31, etc.).

[6] The observation that Irenæus and Tertullian treat it as a fixed portion of the rule of faith is very instructive; for it shows that these theologians were ahead of the Church of their time. Here we have a point given, at which we can estimate the relation of what Irenæus maintained to be the creed of the Church, to the doctrine which was, as a matter of fact, generally held at the time in the Church. We may turn this insight to account for the history of the Canon and the constitution, where, unfortunately, an estimate of the statements of Irenæus is rendered difficult.

[7] By Neo-platonic philosophy we, of course, do not here mean Neo-platonism, but the philosophy (in method and also in part, in results), developed before Neoplatonism by Philo, Valentinus, Numenius, and others.

[8] See my lecture on Monachism, 3rd ed. 1886.
[9] Yet see Vol. II., pp. 122-127.

[10] The points, which, as regards Christ, belonged in the second half of the second century to ecclesiastical orthodoxy, are given in the clauses of the Roman baptismal confession to which alethos is added, in the precise elaboration of the idea of creation, in the heis placed alongside Christo`s Iesous, and in the identification of the Catholic institution of the Church with the Holy Church.

[11] The Christian doctrine of the Son of God could be most easily rendered acceptable to cultured heathens by means of the Logos doctrine; see the memorable confession of Celsus placed by him in the lips of his "Jew" (II. 31); hos eige ho logos estin humin huios tou Theou, kai hemeis epainoumen; see also the preceeding: sophizontai hoi Christianoi en to legein ton huion tou Theou einai autologon.

[12] The conviction of the harmony of the Apostles, or, of all Apostolic writings, could not but result in the Christology of the Synoptics and the Acts being interpreted in the light of John and Paul, or more accurately, in that of the philosophic Christology held to be attested by John and Paul. It has been up to the present day the usual fate of the Synoptics, and with them of the sayings of Jesus, to be understood, on account of their place in the Canon, in accordance with the caprices of the dogmatics prevalent at the time, Pauline and Johannine theology having assigned to it the role of mediator. The "lower" had to be explained by the "higher" (see even Clemens Alex. with his criticism of the "pneumatic", the spiritual, Fourth Gospel, as compared with the first three). In older times men transformed the sense right off; nowadays they speak of steps which lead to the higher teaching, and the dress the old illusion with a new scientific mantle.

[13] But the substitution of the Logos for the, otherwise undefined, spiritual being (pneuma) in Christ presented another very great advantage. It brought to an end, though not at once (see Clemens Alex.), the speculations which reckoned the heavenly personality of Christ in some way or other in the number of the higher angels or conceived it as one Æon among many. Through the definition of this "Spiritual Being" as Logos his transcendent and unique dignity was firmly outlined and assured. For the Logos was universally accepted as the Prius logically and temporally, and the causa not only of the world, but also of all powers, ideas, æons, and angels. He, therefore, did not belong--at least in every respect--to their order.

[14] Augustine first wrought to end this questionable monotheism, and endeavoured to treat seriously the monotheism of the living God. But his efforts only produced an impression in the West, and even there the attempt was weakened from the start by a faulty respect for the prevalent Christology, and was forced to entangle itself in absurd formulas. In the East the accommodating Substance-Monotheism of philosophy remained with its permission of a plurality of divine persons; and this doctrine was taught with such naïvety and simplicity, that the Cappadocians, e.g., proclaimed the Christian conception of God to be the just mean between the polytheism of the heathens and the monotheism of the Jews.

[15] The Alogi opposed the Montanists and all prophecy; conversely the western representatives of the Logos Christology, Irenæus, Tertullian and Hippolytus were Chiliasts. But this feature makes no change in the fact that the incorporation of the Logos Christology and the fading away of eschatological apocalyptic hopes went hand in hand. Theologians were able to combine inconsistent beliefs for a time; but for the great mass of the laity in the East the mystery of the person of Christ took the place of the Christ who was to have set up his visible Kingdom of glory upon earth. See especially the refutation of the Chiliasts by Origen (peri arch. II. II) and Dionysius Alex. (Euseb. H. E. VII. 24, 25). The continued embodiment in new visions of those eschatological hopes and apocalyptic fancies by the monks and laymen of later times, proved that the latter could not make the received mystery of dogma fruitful for their practical religion.

[16] This definition is, in truth, too narrow; for at least a section, if not all, of the so-called Dynamistic Monarchians recognised, besides God, the Spirit as eternal Son of God, and accordingly assumed two Hypostases. But they did not see in Jesus an incarnation of this Holy Spirit, and they were therefore monarchian in their doctrine of Christ. Besides, so far as I know, the name of Monarchians was not applied in the ancient Church to these, but only to the theologians who taught that there was in Christ an incarnation of God the Father Himself. It was not extended to the earlier Dynamistic Monarchians, because, so far as we know, the question whether God consisted of one or more persons did not enter into the dispute with them. In a wider sense, the Monarchians could be taken also to include the Arians, and all those theologians, who, while they recognised the personal independence of a divine nature in Christ, yet held this nature to have been one created by God; in any case, the Arians were undoubtedly connected with Paul of Samosata through Lucian. However, it is not advisable to extend the conception so widely; for, firstly, we would thus get too far away from the old classification, and, secondly, it is not to be overlooked that, even in the case of the most thoroughgoing Arians, their Christology reacted on their doctrine of God, and their strict Monotheism was to some extent modified. Hence, both on historical and logical grounds, it is best for our purpose to understand by Monarchians those theologians exclusively who perceived in Jesus either a man filled, in a unique way, with the Spirit, or an incarnation of God the Father; with the reservation, that the former in certain of their groups regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine Hypostasis, and were accordingly no longer really Monarchians in the strict sense of the term. For the rest, the expression "Monarchians" is in so far inappropriate as their opponents would also have certainly maintained the "monarchia" of God. See Tertulli., Adv. Prax. 3 f.; Epiphan. H. 62. 3: ou polutheian eisegoumetha, alla monarchian keruttomen. They would even have cast back at the Monarchians the reproach that they were destroying the monarchy. "He monarchia tou Theou" was in the second century a standing title in the polemics of the theologians against polytheists and Gnostics -- see the passages collected from Justin, Tatian, Irenæus etc. by Coustant in his Ep. Dionysii adv. Sabell. (Routh, Reliq. Sacræ III., p. 385 f.). Tertullian has therefore by no means used the term "Monarchians" as if he were thus directly branding his opponents as heretical; he rather names them by their favourite catch-word in a spirit of irony (Adv. Prax. 10; "vanissimi Monarchiani"). The name was therefore not really synonymous with a form of heresy in the ancient Church, even if here and there it was applied to the opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity.

[17] See Theol. Quartalschr. 1884, p. 547 ff. Krawutzcky holds the Didache to be at once Ebionitic and Theodotian.

[18] It is very remarkable that Irenæus has given us no hint in his great work of a Monarchian controversy in the Church.

[19] It was pointed out above, (Vol. I., p. 193) and will be argued more fully later on, that the different Christologies could pass into one another.

[20] We have already noticed, Vol. I., p. 195, that we can only speak of a naïve Modalism in the earlier periods; Modalism first appeared as an exclusive doctrine at the close of the second century; see under. __________________________________________________________________

2. The Secession of Dynamistic Monarchianism or Adoptianism.

(a). The so-called Alogi in Asia Minor. [21]

Epiphanius [22] and Philastrius (H. 60) know, from the Syntagma of Hippolytus, of a party to which the latter had given the nickname of "Alogi". Hippolytus had recorded that its members rejected the Gospel and the Apocalypse of John, [23] attributing these books to Cerinthus, and had not recognised the Logos of God to whom the Holy Spirit had borne witness in the Gospel. Hippolytus, the most prolific of the opponents of the heretics, wrote, besides his Syntagma, a special work against these men in defence of the Johannine writings; [24] and he perhaps also attacked them in another work aimed at all Monarchians.
[25] The character of the party can still be defined, in its main features, from the passages taken by Epiphanius from these writings, due regard being given to Irenæus III. 11, 9. The Christological problem seems not to have occupied a foremost place in the discussion, but rather, the elimination of all docetic leaven, and the attitude to prophecy. The non-descript, the Alogi, were a party of the radical, anti-montanist, opposition in Asia Minor, existing within the Church -- so radical that they refused to recognise the Montanist communities as Christian. They wished to have all prophecy kept out of the Church; in this sense they were decided contemners of the Spirit (Iren. l.c.; Epiph. 51, ch. 35). This attitude led them to an historical criticism of the two Johannine books, the one of which contained Christ's announcement of the Paraclete, a passage which Montanus had made the most of for his own ends, while the other imparted prophetic revelations. They came to the conclusion, on internal grounds, that these books could not be genuine, that they were composed "in the name of John" (eis onoa Ioannou ch. 3, 18), and that by Cerinthus (ch. 3, 4,); the books ought not therefore to be received in the Church (ch. 3: ouk axia auta phasin einai en ekklesia). The Gospel was charged with containing what was untrue; it contradicted the other Gospels, [26] and gave a quite different and, indeed, a notoriously false order of events; it was devoid of any sort of arrangement; it omitted important facts and inserted new ones which were inconsistent with the Synoptic Gospels; and it was docetic. [27] Against the Apocalypse it was alleged, above all, that its contents were often unintelligible, nay, absurd and untrue (ch. 32-34). They ridiculed the seven angels and seven trumpets, and the four angels by the Euphrates; and on Rev. II. 18, they supposed that there was no Christian community in Thyatira at the time, and that accordingly the Epistle was fictitious. Moreover, the objections to the Gospel must also have included the charge (ch.
18) that it favoured Docetism, seeing that it passed at once from the incarnation of the Logos to the work of the ministry of Christ. In this connection they attacked the expression "Logos" for the Son of God;
[28] indeed, they scented Gnosticism in it, contrasted John I. with the beginning of Mark's Gospel, [29] and arrived at the result, that writings whose contents were partly docetic, partly sensuously Jewish and unworthy of God, must have been composed by Cerinthus, the gnosticising Judaist. In view of this fact it is extremely surprising to notice how mildly the party was criticised and treated by Irenæus as well as by Hippolytus. The former distinguishes them sharply from the declared heretics. He places them on a line with the Schismatics, who gave up communion with the Church on account of the hypocrites to be found in it. He approves of their decided opposition to all pseudo-prophetic nonsense, and he only complains that in their zeal against the bad they had also fought against the good, and had sought to eject all prophecy. In short, he feels that between them and the Montanists, whom likewise he did not look on as heretics, [30] he held the middle position maintained by the Church. And so with Hippolytus. The latter, apart from features which he could not but blame, confirms the conformity to the Church, claimed by the party itself (ch. 3), and conspicuous in their insistence on the harmony of the Scriptures (sumphoni'a ton biblon). [31] He nowhere sets them on a line with Cerinthus, Ebion, etc., and he has undoubtedly treated even their Christological views, on which Irenæus had communicated no information, more mildly, because he found so much in them of an anti-docetic, anti-montanistic nature, with which he could agree. But what was their teaching as to Christ? If Lipsius [32] were correct in his opinion that the Alogi only saw in Jesus a man naturally procreated, that they only pretended to hold by the current doctrine, then the attitude to them of Irenæus and Hippolytus would be incomprehensible. But our authority gives no support to such a view. It rather shows plainly that the Alogi recognised the first three Gospels, and consequently the miraculous birth from the Holy Ghost and the virgin. They placed, however, the chief emphasis on the human life of Jesus, on his birth, baptism, and temptation as told by the Synoptics, and for this very reason rejected the formula of the Logos, as well as the "birth from above", i.e., the eternal generation of Christ. The equipment of Christ at his baptism was to them, in view of Mark, ch. I., of crucial importance (see p. 16, Note 4) and thus they would assume, without themselves making use of the phrase "a mere man" "(psilo`s anthropos), an advancement (prokope) of the Christ, ordained at his baptism to be Son of God. [33]

The earliest opponents known to us of the Logos Christology were men whose adherence to the position of the Church in Asia Minor was strongly marked. This attitude of theirs was exhibited in a decided antagonism both to the Gnosticism, say, of Cerinthus, and to "Kataphrygian" prophecy. In their hostility to the latter they anticipated the development of the Church by about a generation; while rejecting all prophecy and "gifts of the Spirit" (ch.35), they, in doing so, gave the clearest revelation of their Catholic character. Since they did not believe in an age of the Paraclete, nor entertain materialistic hopes about the future state, they could not reconcile themselves to the Johannine writings; and their attachment to the conception of Christ in the Synoptics led them to reject the Gospel of the Logos. An explicitly Church party could not have ventured to promulgate such views, if they had been confronted by a Canon already closed, and giving a fixed place to these Johannine books. The uncompromising criticism, both internal and external -- as in the hypothesis of the Cerinthian authorship -- to which these were subjected, proves that, when the party arose, no Catholic Canon existed as yet in Asia Minor, and that, accordingly, the movement was almost as ancient that of the Montanists, which it followed very closely. [34] On this understanding, the party had a legitimate place within the developing Catholic Church, and only so can we explain the criticism which their writings encountered in the period immediately succeeding. Meanwhile, the first express opposition with which we are acquainted to the Logos Christology was raised within the Church, by a party which, yet, must be conceived by us to have been in many respects specifically secularised. For the radical opposition to Montanism, and the open, and at the same time jesting, criticism on the Apocalypse, [35] can only be so regarded. Yet the preference of the Logos Christology to others is itself indeed, as Celsus teaches, a symptom of secularisation and innovation in the creed. The Alogi attacked it on this ground when they took it as promoting Gnosticism (Docetism). But they also tried to refute the Logos Doctrine and the Logos Gospel on historical grounds, by a reference to the Synoptic Gospels. The representatives of this movement were, as far as we know, the first to undertake within the Church a historical criticism, worth of the name, of the Christian Scriptures and the Church tradition. They first confronted John's Gospel with the Synoptics, and found numerous contradictions; Epiphanius, -- and probably, before him, Hippolytus, -- called them, therefore, word-hunters (lexitherountes H. 51, ch. 34). They and their opponents could retort on each other the charge of introducing innovations; but we cannot mistake the fact that the larger proportion of innovations is to be looked for on the side of the Alogi. How long the latter held their ground; how, when, and by whom they were expelled from the Church in Asia Minor, we do not know.

(b). The Roman Adoptians. -- Theodotus the leather-worker and his party: Asclepiodotus, Hermophilus, Apollonides, Theodotus the money-changer, and also the Artemonites. [36]

Towards the end of the episcopate of Eleutherus, or at the beginning of that of Victor (± 190) there came from Byzantium to Rome the leather-worker Theodotus, who afterwards was characterised as the "founder, leader, and father of the God-denying revolt", i.e., of Adoptianism. Hippolytus calls him a "rag" (apospasma) of the Alogi, and it is in fact not improbable that he came from the circle of those theologians of Asia Minor. Stress is laid on his unusual culture; "he was supreme in Greek culture, very learned in science" (en paideia Hellenike akros, polumathes tou logou); and he was, therefore, highly respected in his native city. All we know for certain of his history is that he was excommunicated by the Roman Bishop, Victor, on account of the Christology which he taught in Rome (Euseb. V. 28. 6: apekeruxe tes koinonias); his is, therefore, the first case of which we are certain, where a Christian who took his stand on the rule of faith was yet treated as a heretic. [37] As regards his teaching, the Philosophumena expressly testify to the orthodoxy of Theodotus in his theology and cosmology. [38] In reference to the Person of Christ he taught: that Jesus was a man, who, by a special decree of God, was born of a virgin through the operation of the Holy Spirit; but that we were not to see in him a heavenly being, who had assumed flesh in the virgin. After the piety of his life had been thoroughly tested, the Holy Ghost descended upon him in baptism; by this means he became Christ and received his equipment (dunameis) for his special vocation; and he demonstrated the righteousness, in virtue of which he excelled all men, and was, of necessity, their authority. Yet the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus was not sufficient to justify the contention that he was now "God". Some of the followers of Theodotus represented Jesus as having become God through the resurrection; others disputed even this. [39] This Christology, Theodotus and his party sought to prove from Scripture. Philaster says in general terms: "they use the chapters of Scripture which tell of Christ as man, but they avoid those which speak of him as God, reading and by no means understanding" (Utuntur capitulis scripturarum quæ de Christo veluti de homine edocent, quæ autem ut deo dicunt ea vero non accipiunt, legentes et nullo modo intellegentes). Epiphanius has, fortunately, preserved for us fragments of the biblical theological investigations of Theodotus, by the help of the Syntagma. These show that there was no longer any dispute as to the extent of the
N. T. Canon; the Gospel of John is recognised, and in this respect also Theodotus is Catholic. The investigations are interesting, however, because they are worked out by the same prosaic methods of exegesis, adopted in the above discussed works of the Alogi. [40]

Theodotus' form of teaching was, even in the life-time of its author, held in Rome to be intolerable, and that by men disposed to Modalism -- e.g., the Bishop himself, see under -- as well as by the representatives of the Logos Christology. It is certain that he was excommunicated by Victor, accordingly before A.D. 199, on the charge of teaching that Christ was "mere man" (psilos anthropos). We do not know how large his following was in the city. We cannot put it at a high figure, since in that case the Bishop would not have ventured on excommunication. It must, however, have been large enough to allow of the experiment of forming an independent Church. This was attempted in the time of the Roman Bishop Zephyrine (199-218) by the most important of the disciples of Theodotus, viz., Theodotus the money changer, and a certain Asclepiodotus. It is extremely probable that both of these men were also Greeks. A native, Natalius the confessor, was induced, so we are told by the Little Labyrinth, to become Bishop of the party, at a salary of 150 denarii a month. The attempt failed. The oppressed Bishop soon deserted and returned into the bosom of the great Church. It was told that he had been persuaded by visions and finally by blows with which "holy angels" pursued him during the night. The above undertaking is interesting in itself, since it proves how great had already become the gulf between the Church and these Monarchians in Rome, about A.D. 210; but still more instructive is the sketch given of the leaders of the party by the Little Labyrinth, a sketch that agrees excellently with the accounts given of the lexitherountes' in Asia, and of the exegetic labours of the older Theodotus. [41] The offence charged against the Theodotians was threefold: the grammatical and formal exegesis of Holy Scripture, the trenchant textual criticism, and the thorough-going study of Logic, Mathematics, and the empirical sciences. It would seem at a first glance as if these men were no longer as a rule interested in theology. But the opposite was the case. Their opponent had himself to testify that they pursued grammatical exegesis "in order to prove their godless tenets," textual criticism in order to correct the manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, and philosophy "in order by the science of unbelievers to support their heretical conception." He had also to bear witness to the fact that these scholars had not tampered with the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, or the extent of the Canon (V. 28. 18). [42] Their whole work, therefore, was in the service of their theology. But the method of this work, -- and we can infer it to have been also that of the Alogi and the older Theodotus -- conflicted with the dominant theological method. Instead of Plato and Zeno, the Adoptians revered the Empiricists; instead of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, the grammatical was alone held to be valid; instead of simply accepting or capriciously trimming the traditional text, an attempt was made to discover the original. [43] How unique and valuable is this information! How instructive it is to observe that this method struck the disciple of the Apologists and Irenæus as strange, nay, even as heretical, that while he would have seen nothing to object to in the study of Plato, he was seized with horror at the idea of Aristotle, Euclid, and Galen, being put in the place of Plato! The difference was, indeed, not merely one of method. In the condition of the theology of the Church at that time, it could not be supposed that religious conviction was especially strong or ardent in men who depreciated the religious philosophy of the Greeks. For whence, if not from this source, or from Apocalyptics, did men then derive a distinctively pious enthusiasm? [44] It is also little to be wondered at that the attempt made by these scholars to found a Church in Rome, was so quickly wrecked. They were fated to remain officers without an army; for with grammar, textual criticism, and logic one could only throw discredit, in the communities, on the form of Christological doctrine which held the highest place and had been rendered venerable by long tradition. These scholars, therefore, although they regarded themselves as Catholic, stood outside the Church. [45] Of the works of these, the earliest exegetical scholars, nothing has come down to us. [46] They have gone without leaving any appreciable effect on the Church. Contrast the significance gained by the schools of Alexandria and Antioch! The latter, which rose about 60 years later, took up again the work of this Roman school. It, too, came to stand outside the great Church; but it brought about one of the most important crises in the dogmatics of the Church, because in its philosophico-theological starting-point it was at one with orthodoxy.

The methodical and exegetical examination of the Holy Scriptures confirmed the Theodotians in their conception of Christ as the man in whom in an especial manner the Spirit of God had operated, and had made them opponents of the Logos Christology. The author of the Little Labyrinth does not state wherein the doctrine of the younger Theodotus differed from that of the older. When he says that some of the Theodotians rejected the law and the prophets propha'sei cha'ritos, we may well suppose that they simply emphasised -- in a Pauline sense, or because of considerations drawn from a historical study of religion -- the relativity of the authority of the O. T.; [47] for there is as little known of any rejection of the Catholic Canon on the part of the Theodotians, as of a departure from the rule of faith. Now Hippolytus has extracted from the exegetical works of the younger Theodotus one passage, the discussion of Hebr. V. 6, 10; VI. 20 f.; VII. 3, 17; and out of this he has made an important heresy. Later historians eagerly seized on this; they ascribed to the younger Theodotus, as distinguished from the older, a cultus of Melchizedek and invented a sect of Melchizedekians (= Theodotians). The moneychanger taught, it was said (Epiph. H. 55), that Melchizedek was a very great power, and more exalted than Christ, the latter being merely related to the former as the copy to the original. Melchizedek was the advocate of the heavenly powers before God, and the High Priest among men, [48] while Jesus as priest stood a degree lower. The origin of the former was completely concealed, because it was heavenly, but Jesus was born of Mary. To this Epiphanius adds that the party presented its oblations in the name of M. (eis onoma tou Melchisede'k); for he was the guide to God, the prince of righteousness, the true Son of God. It is apparent that the Theodotians cannot have taught this simply as it stands. The explanation is not far to seek. There was a wide-spread opinion in the whole ancient Church, that Melchizedek was a manifestation of the true Son of God; and to this view many speculations attached themselves, here and there in connection with a subordinationist Christology. [49] The Theodotians shared this conception. Immediately after the sentence given above Epiphanius has (55, c. 8): And Christ, they say, was chosen that he might call us from many ways to this one knowledge, having been anointed by God, and chosen, when he turned us from idols and showed us the way. And the Apostle having been sent by him revealed to us that Melchizedek is great and remains a priest for ever, and behold how great he is; and because the less is blessed by the greater, therefore he says that he as being greater blessed Abraham the patriarch; of whom we are initiated that we may obtain from him the blessing. [50]

Now the Christological conception, formulated in the first half of this paragraph, was certainly not reported from an opponent. It is precisely that of the Shepherd, [51] and accordingly very ancient in the Roman Church. [52] From this, and by a reference to the controversial writing of Hippolytus (Epiph. l.c. ch. 9), the "heretical" cultus of Melchizedek is explained. These Theodotians maintained, as is also shown by their exegesis on 1 Cor. VIII. 6, [53] three points: First, that besides the Father the only divine being was the Holy Spirit, who was identical with the Son -- again simply the position of Hermas; secondly, that this Holy Spirit appeared to Abraham in the form of the King of Righteousness -- and this, as has been shown above, was no novel contention; thirdly, that Jesus was a man anointed with the power of the Holy Ghost. But, in that case, it was only logical, and in itself not uncatholic, to teach that offerings and worship were due, as to the true, eternal Son of God, to this King of Righteousness who had appeared to Abraham, and had blessed him and his real descendants, i.e., the Christians. And if, in comparison with this Son of God; the chosen and anointed servant of God, Jesus, appears inferior at first, precisely in so far as he is man, yet their position was no more unfavourable in this respect than that of Hermas. For Hermas also taught that Jesus, being only the adopted Son of God, was really not to be compared to the Holy Spirit, the Eternal Son; or, rather, he is related to the latter, to use a Theodotian expression, as the copy to the original. Yet there is undoubtedly a great distinction between the Theodotians and Hermas. They unmistakably used their speculations as to the eternal Son of God in order to rise to that Son from the man Jesus of history, and to transcend the historical in general as something subordinate. [54] There is not a word of this to be found in Hermas. Thus, the Theodotians sought, in a similar way to Origen, to rid themselves by speculation of what was merely historical, setting, like him, the eternal Son of God above the Crucified One. We have evidence of the correctness of this opinion in the observation that these speculations on Melchizedek were continued precisely in the school of Origen. We find them, and that with the same tendency to depreciate the historical Son of God, in Hieracas and the confederacy of Hieracite monks; [55] as also in the monks who held the views of Origen in Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries.

We have accordingly found that these theologians retained the ancient Roman Christology represented by Hermas; but that they edited it theologically and consequently changed its intention. If, at that time, the "Pastor" was still read in the Roman Church, while the Theodotian Christology was condemned, then its Christology must have been differently interpreted. In view of the peculiar character of the book, this would not be difficult. We may ask, however, whether the teaching of the Theodotians is really to be characterised as Monarchian, seeing that they assigned a special, and as it seems, an independent role to the Holy Spirit apart from God. Meanwhile, we can no longer determine how these theologians reconciled the separate substance (hypostasis) of the Holy Ghost, with the unity of the Person of God. But so much is certain, that in their Christology the Spirit was considered by them only as a power, and that, on the other hand, their rejection of the Logos Christology was not due to any repugnance to the idea of a second divine being. This is proved by their teaching as to the Holy Spirit and His appearance in the Old Testament. But then the difference between them and their opponents does not belong to the sphere of the doctrine of God; they are rather substantially at one on this subject with a theologian like Hippolytus. If that is so, however, their opponents were undoubtedly superior to them, while they themselves fell short of the traditional estimate of Christ. In other words, if there was an eternal Son of God, or any one of that nature, and if He appeared under the old covenant, then the traditional estimate of Jesus could not be maintained, once he was separated from that Son. [56] The formula of the man anointed with the Spirit was no longer sufficient to establish the transcendent greatness of the revelation of God in Christ, and it is only a natural consequence that the O. T. theophanies should appear in a brighter light. We see here why the old Christological conceptions passed away so quickly, comparatively speaking, and gave place so soon in the Churches to the complete and essential elevation of Jesus to the rank of deity, whenever theological reflection awoke to life. It was, above all, the distinctive method of viewing the Old Testament and its theophanies that led to this.

In certain respects the attempt of the Theodotians presents itself as an innovation. They sought to raise a once accepted, but, so to speak, enthusiastic form of faith to the stage of theology and to defend it as the only right one; they expressly refused, or, at least, declared to be matter of controversy, the use of the title "God" (Theos) as applied to Jesus; they advanced beyond Jesus to an eternal, unchangeable Being (beside God). In this sense, in consequence of the new interest which the representatives of the above doctrine took in the old formula, it is to be regarded as novel. For we can hardly attribute to pre-catholic Christians like Hermas, a special interest in the essential humanity of Jesus. They certainly believed that they gave full expression in their formulas to the highest possible estimate of the Redeemer; they had no other idea. These theologians, on the other hand, defended a lower conception of Christ against a higher. Thus we may judge them on their own ground; for they let the idea of a heavenly Son of God stand, and did not carry out the complete revision of the prevailing doctrine that would have justified them in proving their Christological conception to be the one really legitimate and satisfactory. They indeed supported it by Scriptural proof, and in this certainly surpassed their opponents, but the proof did not cover the gaps in their dogmatic procedure. Since they took their stand on the regula fidei, it is unjust and at the same time unhistorical to call their form of doctrine "Ebionitic", or to dispose of them with the phrase that Christ was to them exclusively a mere man (psilos anthrotos). But if we consider the circumstances in which they appeared, and the excessive expectations that were pretty generally attached to the possession of faith -- above all, the prospect of the future deification of every believer -- we cannot avoid the impression, that a doctrine could not but be held to be destructive, which did not even elevate Christ to divine honours, or, at most, assigned him an apotheosis, like that imagined by the heathens for their emperors or an Antinous. Apocalyptic enthusiasm passed gradually into Neo-platonic mysticism. In this transition these scholars took no share. They rather sought to separate a part of the old conceptions, and to defend that with the scientific means of their opponents.

Once more, 20 to 30 years later, the attempt was made in Rome by a certain Artemas to rejuvenate the old Christology. We are extremely ill informed as to this last phase of Roman Adoptianism; for the extracts taken by Eusebius from the Little Labyrinth, the work written against Artemas and his party, apply almost exclusively to the Theodotians. We learn, however, that the party appealed to the historical justification of their teaching in Rome, maintaining that Bishop Zephyrine had first falsified the true doctrine which they defended. [57] The relative correctness of this contention is indisputable, especially if we consider that Zephyrine had not disapproved of the formula, certainly novel, that "the Father had suffered". The author of the Little Labyrinth reminds them that Theodotus had been already excommunicated by Victor, and of this fact they themselves cannot have been ignorant. When, moreover, we observe the evident anxiety of the writer to impose Theodotus upon them as their spiritual father, we come to the conclusion that the party did not identify themselves with the Theodotians. What they regarded as the point of difference we do not know. It is alone certain that they also refused to call Christ "God"; for the writer feels it necessary to justify the use of the title from tradition. [58] Artemas was still alive in Rome at the close of the 7th decade of the 3rd century, but he was completely severed from the great Church, and without any real influence. No notice is taken of him even in the letters of Cyprian. [59] Since Artemas was characterised as the "father" of Paul in the controversy with that Bishop (Euseb. H. E. VII.
30. 16), he had afterwards attained a certain celebrity in the East, and had supplanted even Theodotus in the recollection of the Church. In the subsequent age, the phrase: "Ebion, Artemas, Paulus (or Photinus)" was stereotyped; this was afterwards supplemented with the name of Nestorius, and in that form the phrase became a constant feature in Byzantine dogmatics and polemics.

(c). Traces of Adoptian Christology in the West after Artemas.

Adoptian Christology -- Dynamistic Monarchianism -- apparently passed rapidly and almost entirely away in the West. The striking formula, settled by the Symbol, "Christus, homo et deus", and, above all, the conviction that Christ had appeared in the O. T., brought about the destruction of the party. Yet, here and there -- in connection, doubtless, with the reading of Hermas [60] -- the old faith, or the old formula, that the Holy Spirit is the eternal Son of God and at the same time the Christ-Spirit, held its ground, and, with it, conceptions which bordered on Adoptianism. Thus we read in the writing "De montibus Sina et Sion" [61] composed in vulgar Latin and attributed wrongly to Cyprian, ch. IV: "The body of the Lord was called Jesus by God the Father; the Holy Spirit that descended from heaven was called Christ by God the Father, i.e., anointed of the living God, the Spirit joined to the body Jesus Christ" (Caro dominica a deo patre Jesu vocita est; spiritus sanctus, qui de cælo descendit, Christus, id est unctus dei vivi, a deo vocitus est, spiritus carni mixtus Jesus Christus). Compare ch. XIII.: the H. S., Son of God, sees Himself double, the Father sees Himself in the Son, the Son in the Father, each in each (Sanctus spiritus, dei filius, geminatum se videt, pater in filio et filius in patre utrosque se in se vident). There were accordingly only two hypostases, and the Redeemer is the flesh (caro), to which the pre-existent Holy Spirit, the eternal Son of God, the Christ, descended. Whether the author understood Christ as "forming a person" or as a power cannot be decided; probably, being no theologian, the question did not occur to him. [62] We do not hear that the doctrine of Photinus, who was himself a Greek, gained any considerable approval in the West. But we learn casually that even in the beginning of the 5th century a certain Marcus was expelled from Rome for holding the heresy of Photinus, and that he obtained a following in Dalmatia. Incomparably more instructive, however, is the account given by Augustine (Confess. VII. 19. [25]) of his own and his friend Alypius' Christological belief, at a time when both stood quite near the Catholic Church, and had been preparing to enter it. At that time Augustine's view of Christ was practically that of Photinus; and Alypius denied that Christ had a human soul; yet both had held their Christology to be Catholic, and only afterwards learned better. [63] Now let us remember that Augustine had enjoyed a Catholic education, and had been in constant intercourse with Catholics, and we see clearly that among the laity of the West very little was known of the Christological formulas, and very different doctrines of Christ were in fact current even at the close of the 4th century. [64]

(d). The Ejection of the Adoptian Christology in the East, -- Beryll of Bostra, Paul of Samosata, etc.

We can see from the writings of Origen that there were also many in the East who rejected the Logos Christology. Those were undoubtedly most numerous who identified the Father and the Son; but there were not wanting such as, while they made a distinction, attributed to the Soh a human nature only, [65] and accordingly taught like the Theodotians. Origen by no means treated them, as a rule, as declared heretics, but as misled, or "simple", Christian brethren who required friendly teaching. He himself, besides, had also inserted the Adoptian Christology into his complicated doctrine of Christ; for he had attached the greatest value to the tenet that Jesus should be held a real man who had been chosen by God, who in virtue of his free will, had steadfastly attested his excellence, and who, at last, had become perfectly fused with the Logos in disposition, will, and finally also in nature (see Vol. II., p. 369 f.). Origen laid such decided emphasis on this that his opponents afterwards classed him with Paul of Samosata and Artemas, [66] and Pamphilus required to point out "that Origen said that the Son of God was born of the very substance of God, i.e., was homoousios, which means, of the same substance with the Father, but that he was not a creature who became a son by adoption, but a true son by nature, generated by the Father Himself" (quod Origines filium dei de ipsa dei substantia natum dixerit, id est, homoousion, quod est, eiusdem cum patre substantiæ, et non esse creaturam per adoptionem sed natura filium verum, ex ipso patre generatum). [67] >So Origen in fact taught, and he was very far from seeing more in the Adoptian doctrine than a fragment of the complete Christology. He attempted to convince the Adoptians of their error, more correctly, of their questionable one-sidedness, [68] but he had seldom any other occasion to contend with them.

Perhaps we should here include the action against Beryll of Bostra. This Arabian Bishop taught Monarchianism. His doctrine aroused a violent opposition. The Bishops of the province were deeply agitated and instituted many examinations and discussions. But they appear not to have come to any result. Origen was called in, and, as we are informed by Eusebius, who had himself examined the acts of the Synods, he succeeded in a disputation in amicably convincing the Bishop of his error. [69] This happened, according to the common view, in A.D. 244. We have to depend, for the teaching of Beryll, on one sentence in Eusebius, which has received very different interpretations. [70] Nitzsch says rightly, [71] that Eusebius missed in Beryll the recognition of the separate divine personality (hypostasis) in Christ and of his pre-existence, but not the recognition of his deity. However, this is not enough to class the Bishop with certainty among the Patripassians, since Eusebius' own Christological view, by which that of Beryll was here gauged, was very vague. Even the circumstance, that at the Synod of Bostra (according to Socrates) Christ was expressly decreed to have a human soul, is not decisive; for Origen might have carried the recognition of this dogma, which was of the highest importance to him, whatever the doctrine of Beryll had been. That the Bishop rather taught Dynamistic Monarchianism is supported, first, by the circumstance that this form of doctrine had, as we can prove, long persisted in Arabia and Syria; and, secondly, by the observation that Origen, in the fragment of his commentary on the Ep. of Titus (see above), has contrasted with the Patripassian belief [72] a kind of teaching which seems to coincide with that of Beryll. Primitive Dynamistic Monarchian conceptions must, however, be imputed also to those Egyptian Millenarians whom Dionysius of Alexandria opposed, and whom he considered it necessary to instruct "in the glorious and truly divine appearing of our Lord" (peri tes endoxou kai alethos entheou tou kuriou hemon epiphaneias [73]

These were all, indeed, isolated and relatively unimportant phenomena; but they prove that even about the middle of the 3rd century the Logos Christology was not universally recognised in the East, and that the Monarchians were still treated indulgently. [74] Decisive action was first taken and Adoptianism was ranked in the East with Ebionitism as a heresy, in the case of the incumbent of the most exalted Bishopric in the East, Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch from 260, but perhaps a little earlier. He opposed the already dominant doctrine of the essential natural deity of Christ, and set up once more the old view of the human Person of the Redeemer. [75] That happened at a time when, through Alexandrian theology, the use of the categories logos (word), ousia (being), hupostasis (substance), enupostatos (subsisting), prosopon (person), perigraphe ousias (configuration of essence), etc., had almost already become legitimised, and when in the widest circles the idea had taken root that the Person of Jesus Christ must be accorded a background peculiar to itself, and essentially divine.

We do not know the circumstances in which Paul felt himself impelled to attack the form of doctrine taught by Alexandrian philosophy. Yet it is noticeable that it was not a province of the Roman Empire, but Antioch, then belonging to Palmyra, which was the scene of this movement. When we observe that Paul held a high political office in the kingdom of Zenobia, that close relations are said to have existed between him and the Queen, and that his fall implied the triumph of the Roman party in Antioch, then we may assume that a political conflict lay behind the theological, and that Paul's opponents belonged to the Roman party in Syria. It was not easy to get at the distinguished Metropolitan and experienced theologian, who was indeed portrayed by his enemies as an unspiritual ecclesiastical prince, vain preacher, ambitious man of the world, and wily Sophist. The provincial Synod, over which he presided, did not serve the purpose. But already, in the affair of Novatian, which had threatened to split up the East, the experiment had been tried A.D. 252 (253) of holding an Oriental general-council, and that with success. It was repeated. A great Synod -- we do not know who called it -- met in Antioch A.D. 264; Bishops from various parts of the East attended it, and, especially, Firmilian of Caesarea. The aged Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, excused his absence in a letter in which he did not take Paul's side. The first Synod came to an end without result, because, it is alleged, the accused had cunningly concealed his false doctrines. [76] A second was also unsuccessful. Firmilian himself gave up the idea of a condemnation "because Paul promised to change his opinions." It was only at a third Synod, between 266 and 269, probably 268, at Antioch, Firmilian having died at Tarsus on his way thither, that excommunication was pronounced on the Bishop, and his successor Domnus was appointed. The number of the members of Synod is stated differently at 70, 80, and 180; and the argument against Paul was led by Malchion, a sophist of Antioch and head of a high school, as also a presbyter of the Church. He alone among them all was in a position to unmask that "wily and deceitful man." The Acts of the discussion together with a detailed epistle, were sent by the Synod to Rome, Alexandria, and all Catholic Churches. Paul, protected by Zenobia, remained four years longer in his office; the Church in Antioch split up: "there took place schisms among the people, revolts among the priests, confusion among the pastors" (egenonto schismata laon, akatastasiai hiereon, tarache poimenon). [77] In the year A.D. 272 Antioch was at last taken by Aurelian, and the Emperor, to whom an appeal was brought, pronounced on the spot the famous judgment, that the Church building was to be handed to him with whom the Christian Bishops of Italy and of Rome corresponded by letter. This decision was of course founded on political grounds. [78]

The teaching of Paul was characterised by the Fathers as a renewal of that of Artemas, but sometimes also as Neo-Jewish, Ebionitic, afterwards as Nestorian Monothelite, etc. It was follows. God was simply to be regarded as one person. Father, Son, and Spirit were the One God (hen pro'sopon). In God a Logos (Son) or a Sophia (Spirit) can be distinguished -- both can again according to Paul become identified -- but they are qualities. [79] God puts forth of Himself the Logos from Eternity, nay, He begets him, so that he can be called Son and can have being ascribed to him, but he remains an impersonal power. [80] Therefore it was absolutely impossible for him to assume a visible form. [81] This Logos operated in the prophets, to a still higher degree in Moses, then in many others, and most of all (mallon kai` diaphero'ntos) in the Son of David, born of the virgin by the Holy Ghost. The Redeemer was by the constitution of his nature a man, who arose in time by birth; he was accordingly "from beneath", but the Logos of God inspired him from above. [82] The union of the Logos with the man Jesus is to be represented as an indwelling [83] by means of an inspiration acting from without, [84] so that the Logos becomes that in Jesus which in the Christian is called by the Apostle "the inner man"; but the union which is thus originated is a contact in knowledge and communion (sunapheia kata mathesin kai metousian) a coming together (suneleusis); there does not arise a being existent in a body (ousia ousiomene en somati), i.e., the Logos dwelt in Jesus not "in substance but in quality" (ousiodos, alla kata poioteta). [85] Therefore the Logos is to be steadily distinguished from Jesus; [86] he is greater than the latter. [87] Mary did not bear the Logos, but a man like us in his nature, and in his baptism it was not the Logos, but the man, who was anointed with the Spirit. [88] However, Jesus was, on the other hand, vouchsafed the divine grace in a special degree, [89] and his position was unique. [90] Moreover, the proof he gave of his moral perfection corresponded to his peculiar equipment. [91] The only unity between two persons, accordingly between God and Jesus, is that of the disposition and the will. [92] Such unity springs from love alone; but love can certainly produce a complete unity, and only that which is due to love -- not that attained by "nature" -- is of worth. Jesus was like God in the unchangeableness of his love and his will, and became one with God, being not only without sin himself, but vanquishing, in conflict and labour, the sins of our ancestor. As he himself, however, advanced in the manifestation of goodness and continued in it, the Father furnished him with power and miracles, in which he made known his steadfast conformity to the will of God. So he became the Redeemer and Saviour of the human race, and at the same time entered into an eternally indissoluble union with God, because his love can never cease. Now he has obtained from God, as the reward of his love, the name which is above every name; God has committed to him the judgment,
[93] and invested him with divine dignity, so that now we can call him "God [born] of the virgin". [94] So also we are entitled to speak of a pre-existence of Christ in the prior decree [95] and prophecy [96] of God, and to say that he became God through divine grace and his constant manifestation of goodness. [97] Paul undoubtedly perceived in the imparting of the Spirit at the baptism a special stage of the indwelling of the Logos in the man Jesus; indeed Jesus seems only to have been Christ from his baptism: "having been anointed with the Holy Spirit he was named Christ -- the anointed son of David is not different from wisdom" (to hagio pneumati christheis prosegoreuthe Christos -- ho ek Dabid christheis ouk allotrios esti tes sophias) The Bishop supported his doctrine by copious proofs from Scripture, [98] and he also attacked the opposite views. He sought to prove that the assumption that Jesus was by nature (phu'sei) Son of God, led to having two gods, [99] to the destruction of Monotheism; [100] he fought openly, with great energy, against the old expositors, i.e., the Alexandrians, [101] and he banished from divine service all Church psalms in which the essential divinity of Christ was expressed. [102]

The teaching of Paul was certainly a development of the old doctrine of Hermas and Theodotus, and the Church Fathers had a right to judge it accordingly; but on the other hand we must not overlook the fact that Paul not only, as regards form, adapted himself more closely to the accepted terminology, but that he also gave to the ancient type of doctrine, already heterodox, a philosophical, an Aristotelian, basis, and treated it ethically and biblically. He undoubtedly learned much from Origen; but he recognised the worthlessness of the double personality construed by Origen, for he has deepened the exposition given by the latter of the personality of Christ, and seen that "what is attained by nature is void of merit" (ta kratoumena to logo tes phuseos ouk echei epainon). Paul's expositions of nature and will in the Persons, of the essence and power of love, of the divinity of Christ, only to be perceived in the work of His ministry, because exclusively contained in unity of will with God, are almost unparalleled in the whole dogmatic literature of the Oriental Churches in the first three centuries. For, when such passages do occur in Origen, they at once disappear again in metaphysics, and we do not know the arguments of the Alogi and the Theodotians. [103] It is, above all, the deliberate rejection of metaphysical speculation which distinguishes Paul; he substituted for it the study of history and the determination of worth on moral grounds alone, thus reversing Origen's maxim: ho soter ou kat' metousian, alla kat' ousian esti theos (the Saviour is God not by communion, but in essence). As he kept his dogmatic theology free from Platonism, his difference with his opponents began in his conception of God. The latter described the controversy very correctly, when they said that Paul "had betrayed the mystery of the Christian faith," [104] i.e., the mystic conception of God and Christ due to natural philosophy; or [105] when they complained of Paul's denial that the difficulty of maintaining the unity of deity, side by side with a plurality of persons, was got over simply by making the Father their source. What is that but to admit that Paul started in his idea of God, not from the substance, but from the person? He here represented the interests of theism as against the chaotic naturalism of Platonism And in appreciating the character of Jesus he refused to recognise its uniqueness and divinity in his "nature"; these he found only in his disposition and the direction of his will. Therefore while Christ as a person was never to him "mere man" (psilos anthropos), yet Christ's natural endowment he would not recognise as exceptional. But as Christ had been predestinated by God in a unique manner, so in conformity to the promises the Spirit and the grace of God rested on him exceptionally; and thus his work in his vocation and his life, with and in God, had been unique. This view left room for a human life, and if Paul has, ultimately, used the formula, that Christ had become God, his appeal to Philipp. II. 9 shows in what sense he understood the words.

His opponents, indeed, charged him with sophistically and deceitfully concealing his true opinion behind phrases with an orthodox sound. It is possible, in view of the fact, e.g., that he called the impersonal Logos "Son", that there is some truth in this; but it is not probable. He was not understood, or rather he was misunderstood. Many theologians at the present day regard the theology of Hermas as positively Nicene, although it is hardly a whit more orthodox than that of Paul. If such a misunderstanding is possible to the scholars of to-day -- and Hermas was certainly no dissembler, -- why can Firmilian not have looked on Paul as orthodox for a time? He taught that there was an eternal Son of God, and that he dwelt in Jesus; he proclaimed the divinity of Christ, held there were two persons (God and Jesus), and with the Alexandrians rejected Sabellianism. On this very point, indeed, a sort of concession seems to have been made to him at the Synod. We know that the Synod expressly censured the term "homoousios", [106] and this was done, Athanasius conjectures, to meet an objection of Paul. He is said to have argued as follows: -- If Christ is not, as he taught, essentially human, then he is homoousios; with the Father. But if that be true then the Father is not the ultimate source of the deity, but Being (the ousia), and thus we have three ousiai; [107] in other words the divinity of the Father is itself derivative, and the Father is of identical origin with the Son, -- "they become brothers". This can have been an objection made by Paul. The Aristotelian conception of the ousia would correspond to his turn of thought, and so would the circumstance, that the possibility of a subordinate, natural, divinity on the part of the Son is left out of the question. The Synod again can very well have rejected homoousios in the interests of anti-sabellianism. [108] Yet it is just as possible that, as Hilarius says, the Synod condemned the term because Paul himself had declared God and the impersonal Logos (the Son) to be homoousios, i.e., "of the same substance, of one substance." [109] However that may be, whenever Paul's view was seen through, it was at once felt by the majority to be in the highest degree heretical. No one was yet quite clear as to what sort of thing this "naturally -- divine" element in Christ was. Even Origen had taught that he possessed a divinity to which prayer might not be offered. [110] But to deny the divine nature (physis) to the Redeemer, was universally held to be an attack on the Rule of Faith.
[111] They correctly perceived the really weak point in Paul's Christology, his teaching, namely, that there were actually two Sons of God; [112] Hermas, however, had already preached this, and Paul was not in earnest about the "eternal Son". Yet this was only a secondary matter. The crucial difference had its root in the question as to the divine nature (physis) of the Redeemer.

Now here it is of the highest interest to notice how far, in the minds of many Bishops in Palestine and Syria, the speculative interpretation of the Rule of Faith had taken the place of that rule itself. If we compare the letter of Hymenæus of Jerusalem and his five colleagues to Paul with the regula fidei -- not, say, that of Tertullian and Irenæus -- but the Rule of Faith with which Origen has headed his great work: peri archon then we are astonished at the advance in the times. The Bishops explain at the opening of their letter, [113] that they desired to expound," in writing, the faith which we received from the beginning, and possess, having been transmitted and kept in the Catholic Church, proclaimed up to our day by the successors of the blessed Apostles, who were both eye-witnesses and assistants of the Logos, from the law and prophets and the New Testament." (engraphon ten pistin hen ex arches parelabomen kai echomen paradotheisan kai teroumenen en te katholike kai hagia ekklesia, mechri tes semeron hemeras ek diadoches apo ton makarion apostolon, ohi kai autoptai kai huperetai gegonasi tou logou, katangellomenen, ek nomou kai propheton kai tes kaines diathekes.) But what they presented as "the faith" and furnished with proofs from Scripture, was the speculative theology,
[114] In no other writing can we see the triumph in the sphere of religion of the theology of philosophy or of Origen, i.e., of Hellenism, so clearly, as in this letter, in which philosophical dogmatics are put forward as the faith itself. But further. At the end of the third century even the baptismal confessions were expanded in the East by the adoption of propositions borrowed from philosophical theology; [115] or, to put it in another way, -- baptismal confessions apparently now first formulated, were introduced in many Oriental communities, which also now contained the doctrine of the Logos. Since these statements were directed against Sabellianism as well as against "Ebionitism"; they will be discussed later on.

With the deposition and removal of Paul the historian's interest in his case is at an end. It was henceforth no longer possible to gain a hearing, in the great forum of Church life, for a Christology which did not include the personal pre-existence of the Redeemer: no one was permitted henceforth to content himself with the elucidation of the divinely-human life of Jesus in his work. It was necessary to believe in the divine nature (physis) of the Redeemer. [116] The smaller and remote communities were compelled to imitate the attitude of the larger. Yet we know from the circular letter of Alexander of Alexandria, A.D. 321, [117] that the doctrine of Paul did not by any means pass away without leaving a trace. Lucian and his famous academy, the alma mater of Arianism, were inspired by the genius of Paul. [118] Lucian -- himself perhaps, a native of Samosata -- had, during the incumbency of three Bishops of Antioch, remained, like Theodotus and his party in Rome, at the head of a school outside of the great Catholic Church. [119] In his teaching, and in that of Arius, the foundation laid by Paul is unmistakable. [120] But Lucian has falsified the fundamental thought of Paul in yielding to the assumption of a Logos, though a very subordinate and created Logos, and in putting this in the place of the man Jesus, while his disciples, the Arians, have, in the view sketched by them of the person of Christ, been unable to retain the features Paul ascribed to it; though they also have emphasised the importance of the will in Christ. We must conclude, however, that Arianism, as a whole, is nothing but a compromise between the Adoptian and the Logos Christology, which proves that after the close of the 3rd century, no Christology was possible in the Church which failed to recognise the personal pre-existence of Christ.

Photinus approximated to Paul of Samosata in the fourth century. Above all, however, the great theologians of Antioch occupied a position by no means remote from him; for the presupposition of the personal Logos Homousios in Christ, which they as Church theologians had to accept simply, could be combined much better with the thought of Paul, than the Arian assumption of a subordinate god, with attributes half-human, half-divine. So also the arguments of Theodore of Mopsuestia as to the relation of the Logos and the man Jesus, as to nature, will, disposition, etc., are here and there verbally identical with those of Paul; and his opponents, especially Leontius, [121] were not so far wrong in charging Theodore with teaching like Paul. [122] Paul was in fact condemned a second time in the great scholars of Antioch, and -- strangely -- his name was once more mentioned, and for the third time, in the Monothelite controversy. In this case his statements as to the one will (mia thelesis sc. of God and Jesus) were shamefully misused, in order to show to the opposition that their doctrine had been already condemned in the person of the arch-heretic.

We possess, however, another ancient source of information, of the beginning of the 4th century, the Acta Archelai. [123] This shows us that at the extreme eastern boundary of Christendom there persisted even among Catholic clerics, if we may use here the word Catholic, Christological conceptions which had remained unaffected by Alexandrian theology, and must be classed with Adoptianism. The author's exposition of Christ consists, so far as we can judge, in the doctrine of Paul of Samosata. [124] Here we are shown clearly that the Logos Christology had, at the beginning of the 4th century, not yet passed beyond the borders of the Christendom comprehended in the Roman Empire. __________________________________________________________________

[21] Merkel, Aufklärung der Streitigkaiten der Aloger, 1782. Heinichen, De Alogis, 1829; Olshausen, Echtheit der vier Kanonischen Evangelien, p. 241 f.; Schwegler, Montanismus, p. 265 ff. etc.; Volkmar, Hippolytus, p. 112 f.; Döllinger, Hippolytus u. Kallistus, p. 229 ff.; Lipsius, Quellenkritik des Epiphanius p. 23 f., 233 f.; Harnack in d. Ztschr. L. d. histor. Theol. 1874, p. 166 f.; Lipsius, Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte, p. 93 f., 214 f.; Zahn in d. Ztschr. für die histor. Theol., 1875, p. 72 f.; Caspari, Quellen III., p. 377 f., 398 f., Soyres, Montanism, p. 49 f.; Bonwetsch, Montanismus vv. ll.; Iwanzov-Platonov, Häresien und Schismen der drei ersten Jahr. I, p. 233 f.; Zahn, Gesch. d. N. T. Kanons I., p. 220 ff.; Harnack, das N. T. um d. J. 200, p. 38 ff.; Jülicher, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1889, No. 7; Salmon i. Hermathena, 1892, p. 161 ff.

[22] Hær.51; after him Augustine H.30, Prædest. H.30 etc. The statement of the Prædest. that a Bishop named Philo refuted the Alogi is worthless. Whether the choice of the name was due to the Alexandrian Jew is unknown.

[23] Nothing is reported as to the Letters. Epiphanius is perhaps right in representing that they were also rejected (1.c. ch. 34); but perhaps they were not involved in the discussion.

[24] See the list of writings on the statue of Hippolytus: uper tou kata ioan[n]en euangeliou kai apokalupseos; and Ebed Jesu, catal. 7 (Assemani, Bibl. Orient. III. 1, 15): "Apologia pro apocalypsi et evangelio Johannis apostoli et evangelistæ." Besides this Hippolytus wrote: "Capita adversus Caium," a Roman sympathiser with the Alogi. Of this writing a few fragments have been preserved (Gwynn, Hermathena VI., p. 397 f.; Harnack, Texte und Unters. VI. 3, p. 121 ff.; Zahn, Gesch. des N. T. Kanons, II., p. 973 ff.

[25] It is certain that Epiphanius, besides the relative section of the Syntagma, also copied at least a second writing against the "Alogi", and it is probable that this likewise came from Hippolytus. The date of its composition can still be pretty accurately determined from Epiphan. H.31, ch. 33. It was written about A.D. 234; for Epiphanius' authority closes the period of the Apostles 93 years after the Ascension, and remarks that since that date 112 years had elapsed. Lipsius has obtained another result, but only by an emendation of the text which is unnecessary (see Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte, p. 109 f.). Hippolytus treats his unnamed opponents as contemporaries; but a closer examination shows that he only knew them from their writings -- of which there were several (see ch. 33), and therefore knew nothing by personal observation of the conditions under which they appeared. A certain criterion of the age of these writings, and therefore of the party itself, is given by the fact that, at the time when the latter flourished, the only Church at Thyatira was, from their own testimony, Montanist, while the above-mentioned authority was already able to tell of a rising catholic Church, and of other Christian communities in that place. A Christian of Thyatira, by name Papylus, appears in the Martyrium Carpi et Papyli (see Harnack, Texte u. Unters. III. 3, 4). The date when this movement in Asia Minor flourished can be discovered more definitely, however, by a combination, proved by Zahn to be justified, of the statements of Hippolytus and Irenæus III. 11. 9. According to this, the party existed in Asia Minor, A.D. 170-180.

[26] Epiph. LI., ch 4: phaskousi hoti ou sumphonei ta biblia tou Ioannou tois loipois apostolois, ch. 18: to euangelion to eis honoma Ioannou pseudetai . . . legousi to kata Ioannen euangelion, epeide me ta auta tois apostolois ephe, adiatheton einai.

[27] Epiphanius has preserved for us in part the criticism of the Alogi on John I. II., and on the Johannine chronology (ch. 3, 4, 15, 18, 22, 26, 28, 29). In their conception the Gospel of John precluded the human birth and development of Jesus.

[28] Epiph. LI. 3, 28: ton logon tou Theou apoballontai ton dia Ioannen ketuchthenta.

[29] Epiph. LI., ch. 6: legousin; Idou deuteron euangelion peri Christou semainon kai oudamou anothen legon ten gennesin; alla, phesin, En to Iordane katelthe to tneuma 'ep' auton kai phone; Houtos estin ho huios ho agapetos, 'eph hon eudokesa.

[30] This milder criticism -- and neither Montanists nor Alogi stand in Irenæus' catalogue of heretics -- naturally did not prevent the view that those "unhappy people" had got into an extremely bad position by their opposition to the prophetic activity of the Spirit in the Church, and had fallen into the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost.

[31] In Epiph. LI., ch. 4: dokusi kai` autoi` ta isa hemin pisteu'ein.

[32] Quellen, p. 102 f., 112.

[33] It is not quite certain whether we may appeal to the words in Epiph. LI., ch. 18 (20): nomizontes apo Marias kai deuro Christon auton kaleisthai kai huion Theou, kai heinai men proteron psilon anthropon, kata prokopen de eilephenai ten tou Theou prosegorian.

[34] As regards the problem of the origin and gradual reception of the Johannine writings, and especially of the Gospel, their use by Montanus, and their abrupt rejection by the Alogi, are of the greatest significance, especially when we bear in mind the Churchly character of the latter. The rise of such an opposition in the very region in which the Gospel undoubtedly first came to light; the application to the fourth of a standard derived from the Synoptic Gospels; the denial without scruple, of its apostolic origin; are facts which it seems to me have, at the present day, not been duly appreciated. We must not weaken their force by an appeal to the dogmatic character of the criticism practised by the Alogi; the attestation of the Gospel cannot have been convincing, if such a criticism was ventured on in the Church. But the Alogi distinctly denied to John and ascribed to Cerinthus the Apocalypse as well as the Gospel. Of Cerinthus we know far too little to be justified in sharing in the holy horror of the Church Fathers. But even if the above hypothesis is false, and it is in fact very probable that it is, yet the very fact that it could be set up by Churchmen is instructive enough; for it shows us, what we do not know from any other source, that the Johannine writings met with, and had to overcome, opposition in their birth-place.

[35] The Roman Caius took over this criticism from them, as is shown by Hippolytus' Cap. adv. Caium. But, like Theodotus, to be mentioned presently, he rejected the view of the Alogi as regards John's Gospel.

[36] See Kapp, Hist. Artemonis, 1737; Hagemann, Die römische Kirche in den drei ersten Jahrh., 1864; Lipsius, Quellenkritik, p. 235 f.; Lipsius, Chronologie der römischen Bischöfe, p. 173 f.; Harnack, in the Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol., 1874, p. 200; Caspari, Quellen III., pp. 318-321, 404 f.; Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche I., p. 192 f.; Caspari, Om Melchizedekiternes eller Theodotianernes eller Athinganernes Laerdomme og om hvad de herve at sige, naar de skulle bline optagne i. den kristelige Kirke, in the Tidsskr f. d. evang. luth. Kirke. Ny Raekke, Bd. VIII., part 3, pp. 307-337. Authorities for the older Theodotus are; (1) the Syntagma of Hippolytus according to Epiph. H.54, Philaster H. 50. and Pseudo-Tertull. H. 28; (2) the Philosophumena VII. 35, X. 23, IX. 3, 12, X. 27; (3) the fragment of Hippolytus against Noëtus, ch. 3. 4) the fragments from the so-called Little Labyrinth (in Euseb. H. E. V. 28), which was perhaps by Hippolytus, and was written in the fourth decade of the third century, and after the Philosophumena. This work was directed against Roman Dynamistic Monarchians under the leadership of a certain Artemas, who are to be distinguished from the Theodotians. (For the age and author of the Little Labyrinth, and for its connection with the writings against the Alogi and against Noëtus; also for the appearance of Artemas, which is not to be dated before ± 235: see Caspari, Quellen l.c., and my art. "Monarchianismus", p. 186). Eusebius has confined his extracts from the Little Labyrinth to such as deal with the Theodotians. These extracts and Philos. Lib. X. are used by Theodoret (H. F. II. 4. 5); it is not probable that the latter had himself examined the Little Labyrinth. A writing of Theodotus seems to have been made use of in the Syntagma of Hippolytus. As regards the younger Theodotus, his name has been handed down by the Little Labyrinth, the Philosoph. (VII. 36) and Pseudo-Tertull. H. 29 (Theodoret H. F. II. 6). The Syntagma tells of a party of Melchizedekians, which is traced in the Philosoph. and by the Pseudo-Tertullian to the younger Theodotus, but neither the party nor its founder is named. Very mysterious in contents and origin is the piece, edited for the first time from Parisian MSS. by Caspari (see above): peri` Melchisedekianon kai` Theodotianon kai Athinganon. The only controversial writing known to us against Artemas (Artemon) is the Little Labyrinth. Unfortunately Eusebius has not excerpted the passages aimed at him. Artemas is, again, omitted in the Syntagma and in the Philosoph. For this reason Epiphanius, Pseudo-Tertull. and Philaster have no articles expressly dealing with him. He is, however, mentioned prominently in the edict of the last Synod of Antioch held to oppose Paul of Samosata (so also in the Ep. Alexandri in Theodoret H. E. I. 3 and in Pamphilus' Apology Pro Orig. in Routh, Reliq. S. IV. p. 367); therefore many later writers against the heretics have named him (Epiph. H. 65. 1, esp. Theodoret H.
F. II. 6. etc.). Finally, let it be noticed that the statements in the Synodicon Pappi, and in the Prædestinatus are worthless, and that the identification of the younger Theodotus with the Gnostic of the same name, extracts from whose works we possess, is inadmissable, not less so than the identification with Theodotus, the Montanist, of whom we are informed by Eusebius. In this we agree with Zahn (Forschungen III., p. 123) against Neander and Dorner. As an authority for the Roman Monarchians, Novatian, De Trinitate, also falls to be considered.

[37] It is significant that this took place in Rome. The Syntagma is further able to tell that Theodotus had denied Christ during the persecution in his native city before he came to Rome. See on this point my article on Monarchianism) p. 187.

[38] VII. 35: phaskon ta peri men tes tou pantos arches sumphona ek merous tois tes alethous ekklesias, hupo tou Theou panta homologon gegonenai.

[39] Philos. VII. 35: Theon de oudepote touton gegonenai thelousin epi te kathodo tou pneumatos, heteroi de meta ten ek nekron anastasin. The description in the text is substantially taken from the Philos., with whose account the contents of the Syntagma are not inconsistent. The statement that Theodotus denied the birth by the virgin is simply a calumny, first alleged by Epiphanius. The account of the Philos. seems unreliable, at most, on a single point, viz., where, interpreting Theodotus, it calls the Spirit which descended at the baptism "Christ" But possibly this too is correct, seeing that Hermas, and, later, the author of the Acta Archelai have also identified the Holy Spirit with the Son of God. (Compare also what Origen [peri` arch. pref.] has reported as Church tradition on the Holy Spirit.) In that case we would only have to substitute the "Son of God" for "Christ", and to suppose that Hippolytus chose the latter term in order to be able to characterise the teaching of Theodotus as Gnostic (Cerinthian). On the possibility that the Theodotians, however, really named the Holy Spirit "Christ", see later on.

[40] Epiphanius mentions the appeal of the Theodotians to Deut. XVIII. 15; Jer. XVII. 9; Isa. LIII. 2 f.; Mat. XII. 31; Luke I. 35; John VIII. 40; Acts II. 22; 1 Tim. II. 5. They deduced from Mat. XII. 31, that the Holy Spirit held a higher place than the Son of Man. The treatment of the verses in Deut. and Luke is especially instructive. In the former Theodotus emphasised, not only the "prophe'ten hos eme'", and the "ek ton adelphon", but also the "egerei", and concluded referring the passage to the Resurrection: ho ek Theou egeiromenos Christos houtos ouk en Theos alla anthropos, epeide ex auton en, hos kai Mouses anthropos en -- accordingly the resuscitated Christ was not God. On Luke I. 35 he argued thus: "The Gospel itself says in reference to Mary: the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee'; but it does not say: the Spirit of the Lord will be in thy body', or, will enter into thee.'" -- Further, if we may trust Epiphanius, Theodotus sought to divide the sentence -- dio` kai` to` genno'menon ek sou hagion klethe'setai huio`s Theou -- , from the first half of the verse, as if the words "dio kai" did not exist, so that he obtained the meaning that the Sonship of Christ would only begin later, -- subsequent to the test. Perhaps, however, Theodotus entirely deleted "dio kai", just as he also read "pneuma kuriou" for "pneuma hagion" in order to avoid all ambiguity. And since Hippolytus urges against him that John I. 14 did not contain "to pneuma sarx egeneto", Theodotus must at least have interpreted the word "logos" in the sense of "ponuma"; and an ancient formula really ran: "Christos on men to proton pneuma egeneto sarx" (2 Clem. IX. 5), where later "logos" was, indeed, inserted in place of "pneuma". See the Cod. Constantinop.

[41] Euseb. (H. E. V. 28): "They falsified the Holy Scriptures without scruple, rejected the standards of the ancient faith, and misunderstood Christ. For they did not examine what the Scriptures said, but carefully considered what logical figure they could obtain from it that would prove their godless teaching. And if any one brought before them a passage from Holy Scripture, they asked whether a conjunctive or disjunctive figure could be made of it. They set aside the Holy Scriptures of God, and employ themselves, instead, with geometry, being men who are earthly, and talk of what is earthly, and know not what comes from above. Some of them, therefore, study the geometry of Euclid with the greatest devotion; Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired; Galen is even worshipped by some. But what need is there of words to show that men who misuse the sciences of the unbelievers to prove their heretical views, and falsify with their own godless cunning the plain faith of Scripture, do not even stand on the borders of the faith? They have therefore laid their hands so unscrupulously on the Holy Scriptures under the pretext that they had only amended it critically (diorthokenai). He who will can convince himself that this is no calumny. For, if one should collect the manuscripts of any one of them and compare them, he would find them differ in many passages. At least, the manuscripts of Asclepiodotus do not agree with those of Theodotus. But we can have examples of this to excess; for their scholars have noted with ambitious zeal all that any one of them has, as they say, critically amended, i.e., distorted (effaced?). Again, with these the manuscripts of Hermophilus do not agree; and those of Apollonides even differ from each other. For if we compare the manuscripts first restored by them (him?) with the later re-corrected copies, variations are found in many places. But some of them have not even found it worth the trouble to falsify the Holy Scriptures, but have simply rejected the Law and the Prophets, and have by this lawless and godless doctrine hurled themselves, under the pretext of grace, into the deepest abyss of perdition.

[42] See under.
[43] See V. 28. 4, 5.

[44] The triumph of Neo-platonic philosophy and of the Logos Christology in Christian theology is, in this sense, to be considered an advance. That philosophy, indeed, in the third century, triumphed throughout the empire over its rivals, and therefore the exclusive alliance concluded with it by Christian tradition was one which, when it took place, could be said to have been inevitable. Suppose, however, that the theology of Sabellius or of Paul had established itself in the Church in the 3rd century, then a gulf would have been created between the Church and Hellenism that would have made it impossible for the religion of the Church to become that of the empire. Neo-platonic tradition was the final product of antiquity; it disposed, but as a living force, of the intellectual and moral capital of the past.

[45] As "genuine" scholars -- and this is a very characteristic feature -- they took very great care that each should have the credit of his own amendments on the text.

[46] The Syntagma knows of these; Epiph. H. 55. c. 1: pla'ttousin heautois kai` bi'blous epipla'stous,

[47] Even the great anti-gnostic teachers had come to this view (see Vol. II., p. 304) without indeed drawing the consequences which the Theodotians may have deduced more certainly.

[48] L.c. Dei hemas to Melchisedek prospherein, phasin, hina di' autou prosenechthe huper hemon, kai heuromen di' autou zoen.

[49] See Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. 25. 161; Hierakas in Epiph. H. 55, c. 5, H. 67, c. 3; Philast. H. 148. Epiph. has himself to confess (H. 55, c. 7), that even in his time the view to be taken of Melchizedek was still a subject of dispute among Catholic Christians: hoi men gar auton nomizousi phusei ton huion tou Theou en idea anthropou tote to Abraam pephenenai. Jerome Ep. 73 is important. The Egyptian hermit, Marcus, wrote, about A.D. 400, an independent work eis to`n Melchisede`k kata` Melchisedekeion, i.e., against those who saw in Melchizedek a manifestation of the true Son of God (see Photius, Biblioth. 200; Dict. of Christ. Biog. III. p. 827; Herzog's R. E., 2 Aufl. IX. p. 290); cf. the above described fragment, edited for the first time by Caspari; further Theodoret H. F. II. 6, Timotheus Presb. in Cotelier, Monum. Eccl. Græcæ III. p. 392 etc.

[50] Kai Christos men, phasin, exelege, hina hemas kalese ek pollon hodon eis mian tauten ten gnosin, hupo Theou kechrismenos kai eklektos genomenos, epeide apestrepsen hemas apo eidolon kai hupedeixen hemin ten hodon. Ex houper ho apostolos apostaleis apekalupsen hemin, hoti megas estin ho Melchisedek, kai hiereus menei eis ton aiona, kai, Theoreite pelikos houtos; kai hoti to elasson ek tou meizonos eulogeitai, dia touto, phesi, kai ton Habaam ton patriarchen eulogesen hos meizon on; hou hemeis esmen mustai, hopos tuchomen par' autou tes eulogias.

[51] Cf. the striking agreement with Sim. V., especially ch. VI. 3: autos katharisas tas hamartias tou laou edeixen autois tas tribous tes zoes.

[52] The theologico-philosophical impress which, as distinguished from Sim. V., marks the whole passage, is of course unmistakable. Notice what is said as to Paul, and the expression "mustai".

[53] The Theodotians seem to have taken Christ in this verse to mean not Jesus, but the Holy Spirit, the eternal. Son of God, deleting the name Jesus (Epiph. H. 55, ch. 9). If that is so then the Philosophumena is right when it relates that the Theodotians had also given the name of Christ to the pre-existent Son of God, the Holy Ghost. Yet it is not certain whether we should regard the above quoted chapter of Epiphanius at all as reporting the Theodotian interpretation of 1 Cor. VIII. 6.

[54] Epiph. H. 55, ch. 8: eis onoma de toutou tou Melchisedek he proeiremene hairesis kai tas prosphoras anapherei, kai auton einai eisagogea pros ton Theon kai di' autou, phesi, dei to Theo prospherein, hoti archon esti dikaiosunes, ep' auto touto katastatheis hupo tou Theou en ourano, pneumatikos tis on, kai huios Theou tetagmenos . . . . c. 1: Christos, phesin, estin eti hupodeesteros tou Melchisedek.

[55] See my art. in Herzog R. E., 2 Aufl. VI. p. 100 (Epiph. LV. 5; LXVII. 3).

[56] Hermas did not do this, in so far as in the language of religion he speaks only of a Son of God (Simil. IX.).

[57] Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 3: phasi gar tous men proterous hapantas kai autous tous apostolous, pareilephenai te kai dedidachenai tauta, ha nun houtoi legousi, kai teteresthai ten aletheian tou kerugmatos mechri ton chronon tou Biktoros . . . apo de tou diadochou autou Zephurinou parakecharachthai ten aletheian.

[58] Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 4, 5.

[59] We know that he still lived about 270 from tile document of the Synod of Antioch in the case of Paul of Samosata. We read there (Euseb.
H. E. VII. 30. 17): "Paul may write letters to Artemas and the followers of A. are said to hold communion with him." We have probably to regard as Artemonites those unnamed persons, mentioned in Novatian De Trinitate, who explained Jesus to be a mere man (homo nudus et solitarius). Artemas is also named in Methodius Conviv. VIII. 10, Ed. Jahn, p. 37.

[60] Even Tertullian used the Christological formula of Hermas when he was not engaged in Apologetics or in polemics against the Gnostics.

[61] Hartel, Opp. Cypr. III., p. 104 sq.

[62] Hilary's work "De trinitate" also shows (esp. X. 18 ff., 50 ff.) what different Christologies still existed in the West in the middle of the 4th century. There were some who maintained: "quod in eo ex virgine creando efficax dei sapientia et virtus exstiterit, et in nativitate eius divinæ prudentiæ et potestatis opus intellegatur, sitque in eo efficientia potius quam natura sapientiæ.

[63] Augustine, l.c. . . . Quia itaque vera scripta sunt (sc. the Holy Scriptures) totum hominem in Christo agnoscebam; non corpus tantum hominis, aut cum corpore sine mente animam, sed ipsum hominem, non persona veritatis, sed magna quadam natureæ humanæ excellentia et perfectiore participatione sapientiæ præferri cæteris arbitrabar. Alypius autem deum carne indutum ita putabat credi a Catholicis, ut præter deum et carnem non esset in Christo anima, mentemque hominis non existimabat in eo prædicari . . . Sed postea hæreticorum Apollinaristarum hunc errorem esse cognoscens, catholicæ fidei collætatus et contemperatus est. Ego autem aliquanto posterius didicisse me fateor, in eo quod "verbum caro factum est" quomodo catholica veritas a Photini falsitate dirimatur.

[64] In the Fragment, only preserved in Arabic, of a letter of Pope Innocent I. to Severianus, Bishop of Gabala (Mai, Spicile.g. Rom. III., p. 702) we still read the warning: "Let no one believe that it was only at the time when the divine Word on earth came to receive baptism from John that this divine nature originated, when, i.e., John heard the voice of the Father from heaven. It was certainly not so, etc."

[65] Orig. on John II. 2, Lomm. I., p. 92: Kai to pollous philotheous einai euchomenous tarasson, eulaboumenous duo anagoreusai theous, kai para touto peripiptontas pseudesi kai asebesi dogmasin, etoi arnoumenous idioteta huiou heteran para ten tou patros, homologountas Theon einai ton mechri onomatos par' autois huion prosagoreuomenon, e arnoumenous ten theoteta tou huiou, tithentas de autou ten idioteta kai ten ousian kata perigraphen tunchanousan heteran tou patros, enteuthen luesthai dunatai, see also what follows. Pseudo-Gregor. (Apollinaris) in Mai (Nov. Coll. VII. 1, p. 171) speaks of men who conceived Christ as being filled with divinity', but made no specific distinction between Him and the prophets, and worshipped a man with divine power after the manner of the heathens.

[66] Pamphili Apolog. in Routh, IV., p. 367; Schultz in the Jahrbb. f. protest. Theol. 1875, p. 193 f. On Origen and the Monarchians, see Hagemann, l.c., p. 300 f.

[67] See l.c., p, 368.

[68] Orig. in Ep. ad Titum, Lomm. V., p. 287 "Sed et eos, qui hominem dicunt dominum Iesum præcognitum et prædestinatum, qui ante adventum carnalem substantialiter et proprie non exstiterit, sed quod homo natus patris solam in se habuerit deitatem, ne illos quidem sine periculo est ecclesiæ numero sociari." This passage, undoubtedly, need not necessarily be applied to Dynamistic Monarchians, any more than the description about to be quoted of the doctrine of Beryll. There may have existed a middle type between Dynamistic and Modalistic Monarchianism, according to which the humanity as well as the deitas patris in Jesus Christ was held to be personal.

[69] Euseb. H. E. VI. 33. See also Socrates H. E. III. 7.

[70] L.c.: ton sotera kai kurion hemon me prouphestanai kat' idian ousias perigraphen pro tes eis anthropous epidemias, mede theoteta idian echein, all empoliteuomenen auto monen ten patriken. The word perigraphe is first found in the Excerpta Theodoti 19, where kata perigraphen is contrasted in the sense of personality with the kat' ousian (tou Theou)). The latter was accordingly felt to be Modalistic: kai ho logos sarx egeneto, ou kata ten parousian monon anthropos genomenos, alla kai en arche ho en tautoteti logos kata perigraphen kai ou kat' ousian genomenos, ho huios; cf., ch. 10, where perigraphesthai also expresses the personal existence, i.e., what was afterwards termed hupostasis. This word was not yet so used, so far as I know, in the 3rd century. In Origen perigraphe is likewise the expression for the strictly self-contained personality; see Comm. on John I. 42, Lomm. I. 88: hosper oun dunameis Theou pleiones eisin, hon hekaste kata perigraphen, hon diapherei ho soter, houtos ho logos -- ei kai par' hemin ouk esti kata perigraphen ektos hemon -- noethesetai ho Christos k.t.l. In our passage and Pseudo-Hippol. c. Beron. 1, 4, it means simply "configuration".

[71] Dogmengesch. I., p. 202. See on Beryll, who has become a favourite of the historians of dogma, apart from the extended historical works, Ullmann, de Beryllo, 1835; Theod. Stud. u. Krit., 1836; Fock Diss. de Christologia B. 1843; Rossel in the Berliner Jahrbb., 1844, No. 41 f.; Kober in the Theol. Quartalschr., 1848, I.

[72] It is contained in the words of Origen given above, p. 35, note 3.

[73] Euseb. H. E. VII. 24, 5. By the Epiphany we have to understand the future appearing; but thorough-going Millenarians in the East, in the country districts, hardly recognised the doctrine of the Logos.

[74] The uncertainty which still prevailed in the 3rd century in reference to Christology is seen whenever we take up works not written by learned theologians. Especially the circumstance that, according to the Creed and the Gospel, the Holy Ghost took part in the conception of Jesus, constantly prompted the most curious phrases regarding the personal divinity of Christ, and the assumptio carnis of the Logos, see, e.g., Orac. Sibyll. VI. V. 6, where Christ is called "Sweet God whom the Spirit, in the white plumage of the dove, begot."

[75] Feuerlein, De hæresi Pauli Samosat., 1741; Ehrlich, De erroribus P.S., 1745; Schwab, Diss. de P.S. vita atque doctrina, 1839; Hefele, Conciliengesch. 2 Aufl. I., p. 135; Routh, Reliq. S. III., pp. 286-367; Frohschammer, Ueber die Verwerfung des homoou'sios, in the Theol. Quartalschr. 1850, I.

[76] Eusebius speaks (H. E. VII. 28. 2) of a whole party (hoi amphi ton Samosatea) having been able to conceal their heterodoxy at the time.

[77] Basilius Diac., Acta Concilii Ephes., p. 427, Labb.

[78] The most important authorities for Paul's history and doctrine are the Acts of the Synod of Antioch held against him, i.e., the shorthand report of the discussion between Paul and Malchion, and the Synodal epistle. These still existed in the 6th century, but we now possess them only in a fragmentary form: in Euseb. H. E. VII. 27-30 (Jerome de vir. inl. 71); in Justinian's Tract. c. Monophys.; in the Contestatio ad Clerum C.P.; in the Acts of the Ephesian Council; in the writing against Nestor. and Eutych. by Leontius of Byzant.; and in the book of Petrus Diaconus, "De incarnat. ad Fulgentium": all in Routh l.c. where the places in which they are found are also stated. Not certainly genuine is the Synodal epistle of six Bishops to Paul, published by Turrianus (Routh, l.c., p. 289 sq.); yet its authenticity is supported by overwhelming reasons. Decidedly inauthentic is a letter of Dionysius of Alex. to Paul (Mansi, I., p. 1039 sq.), also a pretended Nicene Creed against him (Caspari, Quellen IV., p. 161 f.), and another found in the libel against Nestorius (Mansi, IV., p. 1010). Mai has published (Vet. Script. Nova Coll. VII., p. 68 sq.) five fragments of Paul's speeches: hoi pro's Sabinon lo'goi (not quite correctly printed in Routh, l.c., p. 328 sq.) which are of the highest value, and may be considered genuine, in spite of their standing in the very worst company, and of many doubts being roused by them which do not admit of being completely silenced. Vincentius mentions writings by Paul (Commonit. 35). In the second grade we have the testimony of the great Church Fathers of the 4th century, which rested partly on the Acts, partly on oral tradition: see, Athanas c. Apoll. II. 3, IX. 3; de Synod. Arim. et Seleuc. 26, 43-45, 51, 93; Orat. c. Arian. II., No. 43; Hilarius, De synod. §§ 81, 86, pp. 1196, 1200; Ephræm Junior in Photius, Cod. 229; Gregor Nyss, Antirrhet. adv. Apoll., § 9, p. 141; Basilius, ep. 52 (formerly 300); Epiphan. H. 65 and Anaceph.; cf. also the 3 Antiochian formulas and the Form. Macrostich. (Hahn Biblioth. der Symbole, 2 Aufl. §§ 85, 89), as also the 19 Canon of the Council of Nicæa, according to which Paul's followers were to be re-baptised before reception into the Catholic Church. One or two notes also in Cramer Catena on S. John. pp. 235, 259 sq. Useful details are given by Innocentius I., ep. 22; by Marius Mercator, in the Suppl. Imp. Theodos. et Valentinian adv. Nestor. of the Deacon Basilius; by Theodorus of Raithu (see Routh, l.c., pp. 327 sq. 357); Fulgentius, etc. In the later opponents of the heretics from Philaster, and in resolutions of Synods from the 5th century, we find nothing new. Sozom. H. E. IV. 15 and Theodoret H. F. II. 8 are still of importance. The Libellus Synodicus we must leave out of account.

[79] Me einai ton huion tou Theou enupostaton, alla en auto to Theo -- en Theo episteme enupostatos -- heis Theos ho pater kai ho huios autou en autou en auto hos logos en anthropo.

[80] Logos prophorikos -- ho pro aionon huios -- ton logon egennesen ho Theos aneu parthenou kai aneu tinos oudenos ontos plen tou Theou; kai houtos hupeste ho logos.

[81] Sophia ouk en dunatos en schemati heuriskesthai, oude en thea andros; meizon gar ton horomenon estin.

[82] Logos men anothen, Iesous de Christos anthropos enteuthen -- Christos apo Marias kai deuro estin -- anthropos en ho Iesous, kai en auto enepneusen anothen ho logos; ho pater gar hama to huio (scil. to logo) heis Theos, ho de anthropos katothen to idion prosopon hupophainei, kai houtos ta duo prosopa plerountai -- Christos enteuthen tes huparxeos ten archen eschekos -- legei Iesoun Christon katothen,

[83] Hos en nao -- elthonta ton logon kai enoikesanta en Iesou anthropo onti; in support of this Paul appealed to John XIV. 10: "sapientia habitavit in eo, sicut et habitamus et nos in domibus" --

[84] Logon energon ex ouranou en auto -- sophias empneouses exothen.

[85] Ou didos, says Malchion, ousiosthai en to holo soteri ton monogene.

[86] Allos gar estin Iesous Christos kai allos ho logos.

[87] Ho logos meizon en tou Christou; Christos gar dia sophias megas egeneto.

[88] Maria ton logon ouk eteken oude gar en pro aionon he Maria, alla anthropon hemin ison eteken -- anthropos chrietai, ho logos ou chrietai; ho Nazoraios chrietai, ho kurios hemon,

[89] Ouk estin ho ek Dabid christheis allotrios tes sophias.

[90] He sophia en allo ouch houtos oikei -- kreitton kata panta, epeide ek tneumatos hagiou kai ex epangelion kai ek ton gegrammenon he ep' auto charis.

[91] Paul has even spoken of a diaphora tes kataskeues (sustaseos) tou Christou.

[92] From this point we refer to the Logoi pros Sabinon of Paul. We give them here on account of their unique importance: (1) To hagio pneumati christheis prosegoreuthe Christos, paschon kata phusin, thaumatourgon kata charin; to gar atrepto tes gnomes homoiotheis to Theo, kai meinas katharos hamartias henothe auto, kai energethe pou helesthai ten ton thaumaton dunasteian, ex hon mian autos kai ten auten pros te thelesei energeian echein deichtheis, lutrotes tou genous kai soter echrematisen. -- (2) Hai diaphoroi phuseis kai ta diaphora prosopa hena kai monon henoseos echousi tropon ten kata thelesin sumbasin, ex hes he kata energeian epi ton houtos sumbibasthenton allelois anaphainetai monas. -- (3) Hagios kai dikaios gegenemenos ho soter, agoni kai pono tas tou propatoras hemon kratesas hamartias; hois katorthosas te arete sunephthe to Theo, mian kai ten auten pros auton boulesin kai energeian tais ton agathon prokopais eschekos; hen adiaireton phulaxas to onoma kleroutai to huper pan onoma, storges epathlon auto charisthen. -- (4) Ta krtoumena to logo tes phuseos ouk echei epainon; ta de schesei philias kratoumena huperaineitai, mia kai te aute gnome kratoumena, dia mias kai tes autes energeias bebaioumena, kai tes kat' epauxesin oudepote pauomenes kineseos; kath' hen to Theo sunaphtheis ho soter oudepote dechetai merismon eis tous aionas mian autos kai ten auten echon thelesin kai energeian, aei kinoumenen te phanerosei ton agathon. -- (5) Me thaumases hoti mian meta tou Theou ten thelesin heichen ho soter; hoster gar he phusis mian ton pollon kai ten auten uparchousan phaneroi ten ousian, houtos he schesis tes agapes mian; ton pollon kai ten auten ergazetai thelesin dia mias kai tes autes phaneroumenen euaresteseos. Similar details are to be found in Theodorus of Mops.; but the genuineness of what is given here seems to me to be guaranteed by the fact that there is absolutely not a word of an ethical unification of the eternal Son of God (the Logos) with Jesus. It is God Himself Himself who is thus united with the latter.

[93] Chre de gignoskein, we read in the Catena S. Joh., hoti ho men Paulos ho Sam. houto phesin; edoken auto krisin poiein, hoti huios anthropou estin.

[94] Athanas.: Paulos ho Sam. Theon ek tes parthenou homologei, Theon ek Nazaret ophthenta.

[95] Athanas.: Homologei Theon ek Nazaret ophthenta, kai enteuthen tes huparxeos ten archen eschekota, kai archen basileias pareilephota, Logon de energon ex ouranou, kai sophian en auto homologei, to men proorismo pro aionon onta, te de huparxei ek Nazaret anadeichthenta, hina heis eie, phesin, ho epi panta Theos ho pater. Therefore it is said in the letter of the six Bishops that Christ is God from eternity, ou prognosei, all' ousia kai hupostasei.

[96] Prokatangeltikos. See p.41, note 8.

[97] Katothen apotetheosthai ton kurion -- ex anthropou gegonenai ton Christon Theon -- husteron auton ek prokopes tetheopoiesthai.

[98] Vincentius, Commonit. 35 -- Athanasius (c. Ariam IV. 30) relates that the disciples of Paul appealed to Acts X. 36 in support of their distinction between the Logos and Jesus: to`n lo'gon ape'steilen tois huiois Israe`l euangelizo'menos eire'nen dia` Iesou Christou They said that there was a distinction here like that in the O. T. between the word of the Lord and of the prophets.

[99] Epiphan. l.c., c. 3; see also the letter of the six Bishops in Routh, l.c., p. 291.

[100] On the supreme interest taken by Paul in the unity of God see p. 42, note 3, Epiph. l.c., ch. I.

[101] Euseb. H. E. VII. 30. 9.
[102] Euseb. l.c.,§ 10.

[103] The three fragments of "Ebion" given by Mai, l.c., p. 68, and strangely held by Hilgenfeld to be genuine (Ketzergeschichte, p. 437 f.), seem to me likewise to belong to Paul: at any rate they correspond to his doctrine: Ek tes peri propheton exegeseos (1) Kat' epangeleian megas kai eklektos prophetes estin, isos mesites kai nomothetes tes kreittonos diathekes genomenos; hostis heauton hierourgesas huper panton mian ephane kai thelesin kai energeian echon pros ton Theon, thelon hosper Theos pantas anthropous sothenai kai eis epignosin aletheias elthein tes di' autou to kosmo di' hon eirgasato phanerotheises. -- (2) Schesei gar te kata dikaiosunen kai potho to kata philanthropian sunaphtheis to Theo, ouden eschen memerismenon pros ton Theon, dia to mian autou kai tou Theou genesthai ten thelesin kai ten energeian ton epi te soteria ton anthropon agathon. -- (3) Ei gar ethelesen auton Theos staurothenai, kai katedexato legon. Me to emon, alla to son genestho thelema, delon hoti mian eschen meta tou Theou ten thelesin kai ten praxin, ekeino thelesas kai praxas, hoper edoxe to Theo. The second and third fragments may be by Theodorus of Mops., but hardly the first.

[104] In Euseb. H. E. VII. 30. 10.

[105] Epiph. l. c., ch. III.: Paulos ou legei monon Theon dia to pegen einai ton patera.

[106] This was a well-known matter at the time of the Arian controversy, and the Semi-Arians, e.g., appealed expressly to the decision at Ancyra. See Sozomen H. E. IV. 15; Athanas., De Synod. 43 sq.; Basilius, Ep. 52; Hilarius de synodis 81, 86; Routh, 1.c., pp. 360-365. Hefele, Conciliengesch. I., 2, p. 140 f.: Caspari, Quellen IV., p. 170 f.

[107] Athanas. l.c.; ananke treis ousias einai, mian men proegoumenen, tas de duo ex ekaines.

[108] This is also the opinion of Basilius (l.c.): ephasan gar ekeinoi (the Bishops assembled against Paul) ten tou homoousiou phonen paristan ennoian ousias te kai ton ap' autes, hoste katameristheisan ten ousian parechein tou homoousiou ten prosegorian tois eis ha dierethe.

[109] Dorner's view (l.c. I. p.513) is impossible because resting on a false interpretation of the word homoousios; Paul held the Father and Jesus to be homoousioi in so far as they were persons, and therefore the Synod condemned the term.

[110] See De orat. 15, 16.
[111] Euseb. H. E. VII. 30. 6, 16.

[112] See Malchion in Leontius (Routh, l.c., p. 312): Paulos phesin, me duo epistasthai huious; ei de huios ho I. Chr. tou Theou, uios de kai he sophia, kai allo men he sophia, allo de I. Chr., duo huphistantai huioi. See also Ephraem in Photius, biblioth. cod. 229. Farther the Ep. II. Felicis II. papæ ad Petrum Fullonem.

[113] See Routh, l.c., p. 289 sq.

[114] The pistis ex arches paralephtheisa reads (l.c.): Hoti ho Theos agennetos, heis anarchos, aoratos, analloiotos, hon eiden oudeis anthropon, oude idein dunatai; hou ten doxan e to megethos noesai e exegesasthai kathos estin axios tes aletheias, anthropine phusei anephikton; ennoian de kai hoposoun metrian peri autou labein, agapeton, apokaluptontos tou huiou autou . . . touton de ton huion genneton, monogene huion, eikona tou aoratou Theou tunchanonta, prototokon pases ktiseos sophian kai logon kai dunamin Theou, pro aionon onta, ou prognosei, all' ousia kai hupostasei Theon Theou huion, en te palaia kai nea diatheke egnokotes homologoumen kai kerussomen. hos d' an antimachetai ton huion tou Theou Theon me einai pro kataboles kosmou (dein) pisteuein kai homologein, phaskon duo theous katangellesthai, ean ho huios tou Theou Theos kerussetai touton allotrion tou ekklesiastikou kanonos hegoumetha, kai pasai hai katholikai ekklesiai sumphonousin hemin. The prehistoric history of the Son is now expounded, and then it goes on: ton de huion para to patri onta Theon men kai kurion ton geneton hapanton, hupo de tou patros apostalenta ex ouranon kai sarkothenta enenthropekenai. dioper kai to ek tes parthenou soma choresan pan to pleroma tes theotetos somatikos, te theoteti atreptos henotai kai tetheopoietai and at the close: ei de Christos Theou dunamis kai Theou sophia pro aionon estin; houto kai katho Christos hen kai to auto on te ousia; ei kai ta malista pollais epinoiais epinoeitai. See also Hahn, Bibl. d. Symbol. 2 Aufl. § 82.

[115] The propositions are undoubtedly as a rule phrased biblically, and they are biblical; but they are propositions preferred and edited by the learned exegesis of the Alexandrian which certainly was extremely closely allied with philosophical speculation.

[116] The followers of Paul were no longer looked upon as Christians even at the beginning of the fourth century, and therefore they were re-baptised. See the 19 Canon of Nicæa: Peri ton Paulianisanton, eita prosphugonton te katholike ekklesia, horos ektetheitai anabaptizesthai autous exapantos.

[117] Theodoret H. E. I. 4.

[118] See my article "Lucian" in Herzog's R.E. 2 Aufl., Bd. VIII., p. 767 ff.

[119] See Theodoret 1.c.: autoi gar Theodidaktoi este, ouk agnoountes hoti he enanchos epanastasa te ekklesiastike eusebeia didaskalia Ebionos esti kai Artema, kai zelos tou kat' Antiocheian Paulou tou Samosateos, sunodo kai krisei ton hapantachou episkopon apokeruchthentos tes ekklesias -- hon diadexamenos Loukianos aposunagogos emeine trion episkopon polueteis chronous -- hon tes asebeias ten truga errophekotes (scil. Arian and his companions) nun hemin to Ex ouk onton epephuesan, ta ekeinon kekrummena moscheumata.

[120] See esp. Athanas. c. Arian I. 5. "Arius says that there are two wisdoms, one which is the true one and at the same time exists in God; through this the Son arose and by participation in it he was simply named Word and Wisdom; for wisdom, he says, originated through wisdom according to the will of the wise God. Then he also says that there is another Word apart from the Son in God, and through participation therein the Son himself has been again named graciously Word and Son." This is the doctrine of Paul of Samos., taken over by Arius from Lucian. On the distinction see above.

[121] See in Routh, l.c., p. 347 sq.

[122] See the careful and comprehensive collection of the arguments of Theodore in reference to christology, in Swete, Theodori Episcopi Mopsuesteni in epp. B. Pauli Commentarii, Vol. II. (1882), pp. 289-339.

[123] We have to compare also the treatises of Aphraates, written shortly before the middle of the 4th century. He adheres to the designation of Christ as Logos according to John I. 1; but it is very striking that in our Persian author there is not even the slightest allusion in which one could perceive an echo of the Arian controversies (Bickell, Ausgewählte Schriften der syr. Kirchenväter 1874, p. 15). See tract 1, "On faith", and 17, "Proof that Christ is the Son of God."

[124] On the origin of the Acta Archelai see my Texte und Unters. I. 3, 137 ff. The principal passages are to be found in ch. 49 and 50. In these the Churchman disputes the view of Mani, that Jesus was a spirit, the eternal Son of God, perfect by nature. "Dic mihi, super quem spiritus sanctus sicut columba descendit? Si perfectus erat, si filius erat, si virtus erat, non poterat spiritus ingredi, sicut nec regnum potest ingredi intra regnum. Cuius autem ei cælitus emissa vox testimonium detulit dicens: Hic est filius meus dilectus, in quo bene complacui? Dic age nihil remoreris, quis ille est, qui parat hæc omnia, qui agit universa? Responde itane blasphemiam pro ratione impudenter allegas, et inferre conaris?" The following Christology is put in the lips of Mani: "Mihi pium videtur dicere, quod nihil eguerit filius dei in eo quod adventus eius procuratur ad terras, neque opus habuerit columba, neque baptismate, neque matre, neque fratribus." On the other hand Mani says in reference to the Church views: "Si enim hominem eum tantummodo ex Maria esse dicis et in baptismate spiritum percepisse, ergo per profectum filius videbitur et non per naturam. Si tamen tibi concedam dicere, secundum profectum esse filium quasi hominem factum, hominem vere esse opinaris, id est, qui caro et sanguis sit?" In what follows Archelaus says: "Quomodo poterit vera columba verum hominem ingredi atque in eo permanere, caro enim carnem ingredi non potest? sed magis si Iesum hominem verum confiteamur, eum vero, qui dicitur, sicut columba, Spiritum Sanctum, salva est nobis ratio in utraque. Spiritus enim secundum rectam rationem habitat in homine, et descendit et permanet et competenter hoc et factum est et fit semper . . . Descendit spiritus super hominem dignum se . . . Poterat dominus in cælo positus facere quæ voluerat, si spiritum eum esse et non hominem dices. Sed non ita est, quoniam exinanivit semetipsum formam servi accipiens. Dico autem de eo, qui ex Maria factus est homo. Quid enim? non poteramus et nos multo facilius et lautius ista narrare? sed absit, ut a veritate declinemus iota unum aut unum apicem. Est enim qui de Maria natus est filius, qui totum hoc quod magnum est, voluit perferre certamen Iesus. Hic est Christus dei, qui descendit super eum, qui de Maria est . . . Statim (post baptismum) in desertum a Spiritu ductus est Iesus, quem cum diabolus ignoraret, dicebat ei: Si filius est dei. Ignorabat autem propter quid genuisset filium dei (scil. Spiritus), qui prædicabat regnum cælorum, quod erat habitaculum magnum, nec ab ullo alio parari potuisset; unde et affixus cruci cum resurrexisset ab inferis, assumptus est illuc, ubi Christus filius dei regnabat . . . Sicut enim Paracleti pondus nullus alius valuit sustinere nisi soli discipuli et Paulus beatus, ita etiam spiritum, qui de cælis descenderat, per quem vox paterna testatur dicens: Hic est filius meus dilectus, nullus alius portare prævaluit, nisi qui ex Maria natus est super omnes sanctos Iesus." It is noteworthy that the author (in ch. 37) ranks Sabellius as a heretic with Valentinus, Marcion, and Tatian. __________________________________________________________________

3. Expulsion of Modalistic Monarchianism.

(a). The Modalistic Monarchians in Asia Minor and in the West: Noëtus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, Aeschines, Praxeas, Victorinus (Victor), Zephyrinus, Sabellius, Callistus. [125]

The really dangerous opponent of the Logos Christology in the period between A.D. 180 and 300 was not Adoptianism, but the doctrine which saw the deity himself incarnate in Christ, and conceived Christ to be God in a human body, the Father become flesh. Against this view the great Doctors of the Church -- Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, but above all, Hippolytus -- had principally to fight. Its defenders were called by Tertullian "Monarchiani", and, not altogether correctly, "Patripassiani" which afterwards became the usual names in the West (see e.g., Cypr., Ep. 73. 4). In the East they were all designated, after the famous head of the school, "Sabelliani" from the second half of the third century; yet the name of "Patripassiani" was not quite unknown there also. [126] Hippolytus tells us in the Philosophumena, that at that time the Monarchian controversy agitated the whole Church,
[127] and Tertullian and Origen testified, that in their day the "economic" trinity, and the technical application of the conception of the Logos to Christ, were regarded by the mass of Christians with suspicion. [128] Modalism, as we now know from the Philosoph., was for almost a generation the official theory in Rome. That it was not an absolute novelty can be proved; [129] but it is very probable, on the other hand, that a Modalistic doctrine, which sought to exclude every other, only existed from the end of the second century. It was in opposition to Gnosticism that the first effort was made to fix theologically the formulas of a naïve Modalism, and that these were used to confront the Logos Christology in order (1) to avert Ditheism, (2) to maintain the complete divinity of Christ, and (3) to prevent the attacks of Gnosticism. An attempt was also made, however, to prove Modalism by exegesis. That is equivalent to saying that this form of doctrine, which was embraced by the great majority of Christians, [130] was supported by scientific authorities, from the end of the second century. But it can be shown without difficulty, how hurtful any contact with theology could not fail to be to the naïve conception of the incarnation of the deity in Christ, and we may say that it was all over with it -- though of course the death-struggle lasted long -- when it found itself compelled to attack others or to defend itself. When it required to clothe itself in a cloak manufactured by a scientific theology, and to reflect on the idea of God, it belied its own nature, and lost its raison d'être. What it still retained was completely distorted by its opponents. Hippolytus has in the Philosophumena represented the doctrine of Noëtus to have been borrowed from Heraclitus. That is, of course, an exaggeration. But once we grasp the whole problem "philosophically and scientifically" -- and it was so understood even by some scientific defenders of Monarchianism -- then it undoubtedly resembles strikingly the controversy regarding the idea of God between the genuine Stoics and the Platonists. As the latter set the transcendent, apathetic God of Plato above the logos-theos of Heraclitus and the Stoics, so Origen, e.g., has charged the Monarchians especially with stopping short at the God manifest, and at work, in the world, instead of advancing to the "ultimate" God, and thus apprehending the deity "economically". Nor can it surprise us that Modalistic Monarchianism, after some of its representatives had actually summoned science, i.e., the Stoa, to their assistance, moved in the direction of a pantheistic conception of God. But this does not seem to have happened at the outset, or to the extent assumed by the opponents of the school. Not to speak of its uncultured adherents, the earliest literary defenders of Modalism were markedly monotheistic, and had a real interest in Biblical Christianity. It marks the character of the opposition, however, that they at once scented the God of Heraclitus and Zeno -- a proof of how deeply they themselves were involved in Neo-platonic theology. [131] As it was in Asia Minor that Adoptianism first entered into conflict with the Logos Christology, so the Church of Asia Minor seems to have been the scene of the first Modalistic controversy, while in both cases natives of that country transferred the dispute to Rome.

It is possible that Noëtus was not excommunicated till about A.D. 230, and, even if we cannot now discover his date more accurately, it seems to be certain that he first excited attention as a Monarchian, and probably in the last twenty years of the second century. This was perhaps in Smyrna, [132] his native place, perhaps in Ephesus. [133] He was excommunicated in Asia Minor, only after the whole controversy had, comparatively speaking, come to a close in Rome. [134] This explains why Hippolytus has mentioned him last in his great work against the Monarchians, while in the Philosoph. he describes him as the originator (IX. 6: archegon) of the heresy. [135] A disciple of his, Epigonus, came to Rome in the time of Zephyrinus, or shortly before (+ 200), and is said to have there diffused the teaching of his master, and to have formed a separate party of Patripassians. At first Cleomenes, the disciple of Epigonus, was regarded as the head of the sect, and then, from c. A.D. 215, Sabellius. Against these there appeared, in the Roman Church, especially the presbyter Hippolytus, who sought to prove that the doctrine promulgated by them was a revolutionary error. But the sympathies of the vast majority of the Roman Christians, so far as they could take any part in the dispute, were on the side of the Monarchians, and even among the clergy only a minority supported Hippolytus. The "uneducated" Bishop Zephyrine, advised by the prudent Callistus, was himself disposed, like Victor, his predecessor (see under), to the Modalistic views; but his main effort seems to have been to calm the contending parties, and at any cost to avoid a new schism in the Roman Church, already sadly split up. After his death the same policy was continued by Callistus (217-222), now raised to the Bishopric. But as the schools now attacked each other more violently, and an agreement was past hoping for, the Bishop determined to excommunicate both Sabellius and Hippolytus, the two heads of the contending factions. [136] The Christological formula, which Callistus himself composed, was meant to satisfy the less passionate adherents of both parties, and this it did, so far as we may conjecture. The small party of Hippolytus "the true Catholic Church", held its ground in Rome for only about fifteen years, that of Sabellius probably longer. The formula of Callistus was the bridge, on which the Roman Christians, who were originally favourable to Monarchianism, passed over to the recognition of the Logos Christology, following the trend of the times, and the science of the Church. This doctrine must have already been the dominant theory in Rome when Novatian wrote his work De Trinitate, and from that date it was never ousted thence. It had been established in the Capital by a politician, who, for his own part, and so far as he took any interest at all in dogmatics, had been more inclined to the Modalistic theory. [137]

The scantiness of our sources for the history of Monarchianism in Rome, -- not to speak of other cities -- in spite of the discovery of the Philosophumena, is shown most clearly by the circumstance that Tertullian has not mentioned the names of Noëtus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, or Callistus; on the other hand, he has introduced a Roman Monarchian, Praxeas, whose name is not mentioned by Hippolytus in any of his numerous controversial writings. This fact has seemed so remarkable that very hazardous hypotheses have been set up to explain it. It has been thought that "Praxeas" is a nickname (= tradesman), and that by it we ought really to understand Noëtus, [138] Epigonus, [139] or Callistus. [140] The correct view is to be found in Döllinger [141] and Lipsius. [142] Praxeas [143] had come to Rome before Epigonus, at a date anterior to the earliest of Hippolytus' personal recollections, accordingly about contemporaneously with Theodotus, or a little earlier, while Victor was Bishop; according to Lipsius, and this is probable, even during the episcopate of Eleutherus. [144] He probably resided only a short time in Rome, where he met with no opposition; and he founded no school in the city. When, twenty years afterwards, the controversy was at its height in Rome and Carthage, and Tertullian found himself compelled to enter the lists against Patripassianism, the name of Praxeas was almost forgotten. Tertullian, however, laid hold of him because Praxeas had been the first to raise a discussion in Carthage also, and because he had an antipathy to Praxeas who was a decided anti-montanist. In his attack, Tertullian has, however, reviewed the historical circumstances of about the year A.D. 210, when his work Adv. Prax. was written; nay, he manifestly alludes to the Roman Monarchians, i.e., to Zephyrinus and those protected by him. This observation contains what truth there is in the hypothesis that Praxeas is only a name for another well-known Roman Monarchian.

Praxeas was a confessor of Asia Minor, and the first to bring the dispute as to the Logos Christology to Rome. [145] At the same time he brought from his birth-place a resolute zeal against the new prophecy. We are here, again, reminded of the faction of Alogi of Asia Minor who combined with the rejection of the Logos Christology an aversion from Montanism; cf. also the Roman presbyter Caius. Not only did his efforts meet with no opposition in Rome, but Praxeas induced the Bishop, by giving him information as to the new prophets and their communities in Asia, to recall the litteræ pacis, which he had already sent them, and to aid in expelling the Paraclete. [146] If this Bishop was Eleutherus, and that is probable from Euseb. H. E. V. 4, then we have four Roman Bishops in succession who declared themselves in favour of the Modalistic Christology, viz., Eleutherus, Victor, Zephyrine, and Callistus; for we learn from PseudoTertullian that Victor took the part of Praxeas. [147] But it is also possible that Victor was the Bishop whom Tertullian (Adv. Prax.) was thinking of, and in that case Eleutherus has no place here. It is at all events certain that when Dynamistic Monarchianism was proscribed by Victor, it was expelled not by a defender of the Logos Christology, but in the interests of a Modalistic Christology. The labours of Praxeas did not yet bring about a controversy in Rome with the Logos Doctrine; he was merely the forerunner of Epigonus and Cleomenes there. From Rome he betook himself to Carthage, [148] and strove against the assumption of any distinction between God and Christ. But he was resisted by Tertullian, who, at that time, still belonged to the Catholic Church, and he was silenced, and even compelled to make a written recantation. With this ended the first phase of the dispute. [149] The name of Praxeas does not again occur. But it was only several years afterwards that the controversy became really acute in Rome and Carthage, and caused Tertullian to write his polemical work. [150] Of the final stages of Monarchianism in Carthage and Africa we know nothing certain. Yet see under.

It is not possible, from the state of our sources, to give a complete and homogeneous description of the doctrine of the older Modalistic Monarchianism. But the sources are not alone to blame for this. As soon as the thought that God Himself was incarnate in Christ had to be construed theologically, very various attempts could not fail to result. These could lead, and so far did lead, on the one hand, to hazardous conceptions involving transformation, and, on the other, almost to the border of Adoptianism; for, as soon as the indwelling of the deity of the Father (deitas patris) in Jesus was not grasped in the strict sense as an incarnation, as soon as the element that in Jesus constituted his personality was not exclusively perceived in the deity of the Father, these Christians were treading the ground of the Artemonite heresy. Hippolytus also charged Callistus with wavering between Sabellius and Theodotus, [151] and in his work against Noëtus he alludes (ch. III.) to a certain affinity between the latter and the leather-worker. In the writings of Origen, moreover, several passages occur, regarding which it will always be uncertain whether they refer to Modalists or Adoptians. Nor can this astonish us, for Monarchians of all shades had a common interest in opposition to the Logos Christology: they represented the conception of the Person of Christ founded on the history of salvation, as against one based on the history of his nature.

Among the different expositions of the doctrine of the older Modalists that of Hippolytus in his work against Noëtus shows us it in its simplest form. The Monarchians there described are introduced to us as those who taught that Christ is the Father himself, and that the Father was born, suffered and died. [152] If Christ is God, then he is certainly the Father, or he would not be God. If Christ, accordingly, truly suffered, then the God, who is God alone, suffered. [153] But they were not only influenced by a decided interest in Monotheism,
[154] a cause which they held to have been injured by their opponents,
[155] whom they called ditheists (di'theoi), but they fought in behalf of the complete deity of Jesus, which, in their opinion, could only be upheld by their doctrine. [156] In support of the latter they appealed, like the Theodotians, chiefly to the Holy Scriptures, and, indeed, to the Catholic Canon; thus they quoted Exod. III. 6, XX. 2f.; Isa. XLIV. 6, XLV. 5, 14 f.; Baruch. III. 36; John. X. 30, XIV. 8f.; Rom. IX. 5. Even John's Gospel is recognised; but this is qualified by the most important piece of information which Hippolytus has given about their exposition of the Scriptures. They did not regard that book as justifying the introduction of a Logos, and the bestowal on him of the title Son of God. The prologue of the Gospel, as well as, in general, so many passages in the book, was to be understood allegorically. [157] The use of the category of the Logos was accordingly emphatically rejected in their theology. We do not learn any more about the Noëtians here. But in the Philosoph. Hippolytus has discussed their conception of God, and has presented it as follows: [158] They say that one and the same God was creator and Father of all things; that he in his goodness appeared to the righteous of olden times, although he is invisible; in other words, when he is not seen, he is invisible, but when he permits himself to be seen, he is visible; he is incomprehensible, when he wills not to be apprehended, comprehensible when he permits himself to be apprehended. So in the same way he is invincible and to be overcome, unbegotten and begotten, immortal and mortal." Hippolytus continues: "Noëtus says, So far, therefore, as the Father was not made, he is appropriately called Father; but in so far as he passively submitted to be born, he is by birth the Son, not of another, but of himself.'" In this way he meant to establish the Monarchia, and to say that he who was called Father and Son, was one and the same, not one proceeding from the other, but he himself from himself; he is distinguished in name as Father and Son, according to the change of dispensations; but it is one and the same who appeared in former times, and submitted to be born of the virgin, and walked as man among men. He confessed himself, on account of his birth, to be the Son to those who saw him, but he did not conceal the truth that he was the Father from those who were able to apprehend it. [159] Cleomenes and his party maintain that "he who was nailed to the cross, who committed his spirit to himself, who died and did not die, who raised himself on the third day and rested in the grave, who was pierced with the lance and fastened with nails, was the God and Father of all." The distinction between Father and Son was accordingly nominal; yet it was to this extent more than nominal, that the one God, in being born man, appeared as Son; it was real, so far, from the point of view of the history of salvation. In support of the identity of the "manifested" and the invisible, these Monarchians referred to the O. T. theophanies, with as good a right as, nay, with a better than, the defenders of the Logos Christology. Now as regards the idea of God, it has been said that "the element of finitude was here potentially placed in God himself," and that these Monarchians were influenced by Stoicism, etc. While the former statement is probably unwarranted, the Stoic influence, on the contrary, is not to be denied. [160] But the foundation to which we have to refer them consists of two ancient liturgical formulas, used by Ignatius, the author of the II. Ep. of Clement, and Melito, [161] whom we include, although he wrote a work "Concerning the creation and genesis of Christ" (peri ktiseos kai geneseos Christou). Further, even Ignatius, although he held Christ to have been pre-existent, knew only of one birth of the Son, namely, that of God from the virgin. [162] We have here to recognise the conception, according to which, God, in virtue of his own resolve to become finite, capable of suffering etc., can and did decide to be man, without giving up his divinity. It is the old, religious, and artless Modalism, which has here been raised, with means furnished by the Stoa, to a theological doctrine, and has become exclusive. But in the use of the formula "the Father has suffered," we have undoubtedly an element of novelty; for it cannot be indicated in the post-apostolic age. It is very questionable, however, whether it was ever roundly uttered by the theological defenders of Modalism. They probably merely said that "the Son, who suffered, is the same with the Father."

We do not learn what conception these Monarchians formed of the human sarx (flesh) of Jesus, or what significance they attached to it. Even the Monarchian formulas, opposed by Tertullian in "Adv. Prax", and attributed to Callistus by Hippolytus, are already more complicated. We easily perceive that they were coined in a controversy in which the theological difficulties inherent in the Modalistic doctrine had become notorious. Tertullian's Monarchians still cling strongly to the perfect identity of the Father and Son; [163] they refuse to admit the Logos into their Christology; for the "word" is no substance, but merely a "sound"; [164] they are equally interested with the Noëtians in monotheism, [165] though not so evidently in the full divinity of Christ; like them they dread the return of Gnosticism; [166] they hold the same view as to the invisibility and visibility of God; [167] they appeal to the Holy Scriptures, sometimes to the same passages as the opponents of Hippolytus; [168] but they find themselves compelled to adapt their teaching to those proof-texts in which the Son is contrasted, as a distinctive subject, with the Father. This they did, not only by saying that God made himself Son by assuming a body, [169] or that the Son proceeded from himself [170] -- for with God nothing is impossible: [171] but they distinctly declared that the flesh changed the Father into the Son; or even that in the person of the Redeemer the body (the man, Jesus) was the Son, but that the Spirit (God, Christ) was the Father. [172] For this they appealed to Luke I. 35. They conceived the Holy Spirit to be identical with the power of the Almighty, i.e., with the Father himself, and they emphasised the fact that that which was born, accordingly the flesh, not the Spirit, was to be called Son of God. [173] The Spirit (God) was not capable of suffering, but since he entered into the flesh, he sympathised in the suffering. The Son suffered, [174] but the Father "sympathised" [175] -- this being a Stoic expression. Therefore Tertullian says (ch. 23), "Granting that we would thus say, as you assert, that there were two separate (gods), it was more tolerable to affirm two separate (gods) than one dissembling (turn-coat) god" [Ut sic divisos diceremus, quomodo iactitatis, tolerabilius erat, duos divisos quam unum deum versipellem prædicare].

It is very evident that whenever the distinction between caro (filius) and spiritus (pater), between the flesh or Son and the Spirit or Father, is taken seriously, the doctrine approximates to the Artemonite idea. It is in fact changing its coat (versipellis). But it is obvious that even in this form it could not satisfy the defenders of the Logos Christology, for the personal identity between the Father and the Spirit or Christ is still retained. On the whole, every attempt made by Modalism to meet the demands of the Logos doctrine could not fail logically to lead to Dynamistic Monarchianism. We know definitely that the formulas of Zephyrine and Callistus arose out of attempts at a compromise, [176] though the charge of having two gods was raised against Hippolytus and his party. Zephyrine's thesis (IX. 11), "I know one God, Christ Jesus, and besides him no other born and suffering," which he announced with the limiting clause, "the Father did not die, but the Son," [177] agrees with the doctrines of "Praxeas", but, as is clear from the Philos., is also to be understood as a formula of compromise. Callistus went still further. He found it advisable after the excommunication of Sabellius and Hippolytus, to receive the category of the Logos into the Christological formula meant to harmonise all parties, an act for which he was especially abused by Hippolytus, while Sabellius also accused him of apostasy. [178] According to Zephyrine: God is in himself an indivisible Pneuma, which fills all things, or, in other words, the Logos; as Logos he is nominally two, Father and Son. The Pneuma, become flesh in the virgin, is thus in essence not different from, but identical with, the Father (John XIV. 11). He who became manifest, i.e., the man, is the Son, but the Spirit, which entered into the Son, is the Father. "For the Father, who is in the Son, deified the flesh, after he had assumed it, and united it with himself, and established a unity of such a nature that now Father and Son are called one God, and that henceforth it is impossible that this single person can be divided into two; rather the thesis holds true that the Father suffered in sympathy with the Son" -- not the Father suffered. [179]

Hippolytus discovered in this formula a mixture of Sabellian and Theodotian ideas, and he was right. [180] The approximation to the Christology founded on the doctrine of substances (hypostases), and the departure from the older Monarchianism, are, in fact, only brought about by Callistus having also made use of a Theodotian idea. [181] He still kept aloof from the Platonic conception of God; nay, it sounds like a reminiscence of Stoicism, when, in order to obtain a rational basis for the incarnation, he refers to the Pneuma (Spirit) which fills the universe, the upper and under world. But the fact that his formulas, in spite of this, could render valuable service in Rome in harmonising different views, was not only due to their admission of the Logos conception. It was rather a result of the thought expressed in them, that God in becoming incarnate had deified the flesh, and that the Son, in so far as he represented the essentially deified sarx, was to be conceived as a second person, and yet as one really united with God. [182] At this point the ultimate Catholic interest in the Christology comes correctly to light, and this is an interest not clearly perceptible elsewhere in Monarchian theories. It was thus that men were gradually tranquillised in Rome, and only the few extremists of the Left and Right parties offered any resistance. Moreover, the formula was extraordinarily adapted, by its very vagueness, to set up among the believing people the religious Mystery, under whose protection the Logos Christology gradually made good its entrance.

The latter was elaborated in opposition to Modalism by Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Novatian in the West. [183] While Adoptianism apparently played a very small part in the development of the Logos Christology in the Church, the Christological theses of Tertullian and the rest were completely dependent on the opposition to the Modalists.
[184] This reveals itself especially in the strict subordination of the Son to the Father. It was only by such a subordination that it was possible to repel the charge, made by opponents, of teaching that there were two Gods. The philosophical conception of God implied in the Logos theory was now set up definitely as the doctrine of the Church, and was construed to mean that the unity of God was simply to be understood as a "unicum imperium", which God could cause to be administered by his chosen officials. Further, the attempt was made to prove that Monotheism was satisfactorily guarded by the Father remaining the sole First Cause. [185] But while the reproach was thus repelled of making Father and Son "brothers", an approach was made to the Gnostic doctrine of Æons, and Tertullian himself felt, and was unable to avert, the danger of falling into the channel of the Gnostics. [186] His arguments in his writing Adv. Praxeas are not free from half concessions and uncertainties, while the whole tenor of the work contrasts strikingly with that of the anti-gnostic tractates. Tertullian finds himself time and again compelled in his work to pass from the offensive to the defensive, and the admissions that he makes show his uncertainty. Thus he concedes that we may not speak of two Lords or two Gods, that in certain circumstances the Son also can be called Almighty, or even Father, that the Son will in the end restore all things to the Father, and, as it would seem, will merge in the Father; finally, and especially, that the Son is not only not aliud a patre (different in substance from the Father), but even in some way not alius a patre
[187] (different in person etc). Yet Tertullian and his comrades were by no means at a disadvantage in comparison with the Monarchians. They could appeal (1) to the Rule of Faith in which the personal distinction between the Father and Son was recognised; [188] (2) to the Holy Scriptures from which it was, in fact, easy to reduce the arguments of the Monarchians ad absurdum; [189] (3) to the distinction between Christians and Jews which consisted, of course, in the belief of the former in the Son; [190] and lastly, and this was the most important point, they could cite the Johannine writings, especially in support of the doctrine of the Logos. It was of the highest importance in the controversy that Christ could be shown to have been called the Logos in John's Gospel and the Apocalypse. [191] In view of the way in which the Scriptures were then used in the Church, these passages were fatal to Monarchianism. The attempts to interpret them symbolically [192] could not but fail in the end, as completely as those, e.g., of Callistus and Paul of Samasota, to combine the use of the expression "Logos" with a rejection of the apologetic conception of it based on Philo. Meanwhile Tertullian and Hippolytus did not, to all appearance, yet succeed in getting their form of doctrine approved in the Churches. The God of mystery of whom they taught was viewed as an unknown God, and their Christology did not correspond to the wants of men. The Logos was, indeed, to be held one in essence with God; but yet he was, by his being made the organ of the creation of the world, an inferior divine being, or rather at once inferior and not inferior. This conception, however, conflicted with tradition as embodied in worship, which taught men to see God Himself in Christ, quite as much as the attempt was opposed by doctrinal tradition, to derive the use of the name "Son of God" for Christ, not from His miraculous birth, but from a decree dating before the world. [193] For the rest, the older enemies of Monarchianism still maintained common ground with their opponents, in so far as God's evolving of Himself in several substances (Hypostases) was throughout affected by the history of the world (cosmos), and in this sense by the history of revelation. The difference between them and at least the later Monarchians was here only one of degree. The latter began at the incarnation (or at the theophanies of the O. T.), and from it dated a nominal plurality, the former made the "economic" self-unfolding of God originate immediately before the creation of the world. Here we have the cosmological interest coming once more to the front in the Church Fathers and displacing the historical, while it ostensibly raised the latter to a higher plane.

Wherever the doctrine of the Logos planted itself in the third century the question, whether the divine being who appeared on earth was identical with the Deity, was answered in the negative. [194] In opposition to this Gnostic view, which was first to be corrected in the fourth century, the Monarchians maintained a very ancient and valuable position in clinging to the identity of the eternal Deity, with the Deity revealed on earth. But does not the dilemma that arises show that the speculation on both sides was as untenable as unevangelical? Either we preserve the identity, and in that case defend the thesis, at once absurd and inconsistent with the Gospel, that Christ was the Father himself; or with the Gospel we retain the distinction between Father and Son, but then announce a subordinate God after the fashion of a Gnostic polytheism. Certainly, as regards religion, a very great advance was arrived at, when Athanasius, by his exclusive formula of Logos homoousios (consubstantial Logos), negatived both Modalism and subordinationist Gnosticism, but the Hellenic foundation of the whole speculation was preserved, and for the rational observer a second rock of offence was merely piled upon a first. However, under the conditions of scientific speculation at the time, the formula was the saving clause by which men were once for all turned from Adoptianism, whose doctrine of a deification of Jesus could not fail, undoubtedly, to awaken the most questionable recollections.

(b) The last stages of Modalism in the West, and the State of Theology.

Our information is very defective concerning the destinies of Monarchianism in Rome and the West, after the close of the first thirty years of the third century; nor are we any better off in respect to the gradual acceptance of the Logos Christology. The excommunication of Sabellius by Callistus in Rome resulted at once in the Monarchians ceasing to find any followers in the West, and in the complete withdrawal soon afterwards of strict and aggressive Modalism. [195] Callistus himself has, besides, not left to posterity an altogether clean reputation as regards his Christology, although he had covered himself in the main point by his compromise formula. [196] Hippolytus' sect had ceased to exist about A.D. 250; nay, it is not altogether improbable that he himself made his peace with the great Church shortly before his death. [197] We can infer from Novatian's important work "De trinitate", that the following tenets were recognised in Rome about 250: [198] (1) Christ did not first become God. (2) The Father did not suffer. (3) Christ pre-existed and is true God and man. [199] But it was not only in Rome that these tenets were established, but also in many provinces. If the Roman Bishop Dionysius could write in a work of his own against the Sabellians, that "Sabellius blasphemed, saying that the Son was himself Father", [200] then we must conclude that this doctrine was then held inadmissible in the West. Cyprian again has expressed himself as follows (Ep. 73. 4): "Patripassiani, Valentiniani, Appelletiani, Ophitæ, Marcionitæ et cetere hæreticorum pestes" ( -- the other plagues of heretics), and we must decide that the strict Modalistic form of doctrine was then almost universally condemned in the West. Of the difficulties met with in the ejection of the heresy, or the means employed, we have no information. Nothing was changed in the traditional Creed -- a noteworthy and momentous difference from the oriental Churches! But we know of one case in which an important alteration was proposed. The Creed of the Church of Aquileia began, in the fourth century, with the words "I believe in God the Father omnipotent, invisible, and impassible" (Credo in deo patre omnipotente, invisibili et impassibili), and Rufinus, who has preserved it for us, tells [201] that the addition was made, at any rate as early as the third century, in order to exclude the Patripassians.

But the exclusion of the strict Modalists involved neither their immediate end, nor the wholesale adoption of the teaching of Tertullian and Hippolytus, of the philosophical doctrine of the Logos. As regards the latter, the recognition of the name of Logos for Christ, side by side with other titles, did not at once involve the reception of the Logos doctrine, and the very fact, that no change was made in the Creed, shows how reluctant men were to give more than a necessary minimum of space to philosophical speculations. They were content with the formula, extracted from the Creed, "Jesus Christus, deus et homo", and with the combination of the Biblical predicates applied to Christ, predicates which also governed their conception of the Logos. In this respect the second Book of the Testimonies of Cyprian is of great importance. In the first six chapters the divinity of Christ is discussed, in terms of Holy Scripture, under the following headings. (1) Christum primogenitum esse et ipsum esse sapientiam dei, per quem omnia facta sunt; (2) quod sapientia dei Christus; (3) quod Christus idem sit et sermo dei; (4) quod Christus idem manus et brachium dei; (5) quod idem angelus et deus; (6) quod deus Christus. Then follows, after some sections on the appearing of Christ: (10) quod et homo et deus Christus. The later Nicene and Chalcedonian doctrine was the property of the Western Church from the third century, not in the form of a philosophically technical speculation, but in that of a categorical Creed-like expression of faith -- see Novatian's "De trinitate", in which the doctrine of the Logos falls into the background. Accordingly the statement of Socrates (H. E. III. 7) is not incredible, that the Western Churchman Hosius had already declared the distinction between ousi'a and hupo'stasis (substantia and persona) before the Council of Nicæa. [202] The West welcomed in the fourth century all statements which contained the complete divinity of Christ, without troubling itself much about arguments and proofs, and the controversy between the two Dionysii in the middle of the third century (see under), proves that a declared interest was kept up in the complete divinity of Christ, as an inheritance from the Monarchian period in Rome. [203] Nay, a latent Monarchian element really continued to exist in the Western Church; this we can still study in the poems of Commodian. [204] Commodian, again, was not yet acquainted with speculations regarding the "complete" humanity of Jesus; he is satisfied with the flesh of Christ being represented as a sheath, (V. 224, "And suffers, as he willed, in our likeness"; [205] on the other hand, V. 280, "now the flesh was God, in which the virtue of God acted.") [206] But these are only symptoms of a Christian standpoint which was fundamentally different from that of oriental theologians, and which Commodian was by no means the only one to occupy. He, Lactantius, and Arnobius [207] are very different from each other. Commodian was a practical Churchman; Arnobius was an empiricist and in some form also a sceptic and decided opponent of Platonism; [208] while Lactantius was a disciple of Cicero and well acquainted besides with the speculations of Greek Christian theology. But they are all three closely connected in the contrast they present to the Greek theologians of the school of Origen; there is nothing mystical about them, they are not Neoplatonists. Lactantius has, indeed, expounded the doctrine of Christ, the incarnate Logos, as well as any Greek; as a professional teacher it was all known and familiar to him; [209] but as he nowhere encounters any problems in his Christology, as he discusses doctrines with very few theological or philosophical formulas, almost in a light tone, as if they were mere matters of course, we see that he had no interest of his own in them. He was rather interested in exactly the same questions as Arnobius and Commodian, who again showed no anxiety to go beyond the simplest Christological formulas -- that Christ was God, that he had, however, also assumed flesh, or united himself with a man, since otherwise we could not have borne the deity: "And God was man, that he might possess us in the future" (Et fuit homo deus, ut nos in futuro haberet). [210] [211] The Christianity and theology which these Latins energetically supported against polytheism, were summed up in Monotheism, a powerfully elaborated morality, the hope of the Resurrection which was secured by the work of the God Christ who had crushed the demons, and in unadulterated Chiliasm. [212] Monotheism -- in the sense of Cicero "De natura deorum" -- Moralism, and Chiliasm: these are the clearly perceived and firmly held points, and not only for Apologetic purposes, but also, as is proved especially by the second book of Commodian's "Instructiones", in independent and positive expositions. These Instructions are, along with the Carmen Apolog., of the highest importance for our estimate of Western Christianity in the period A.D. 250-315. We discover here, 100 years after the Gnostic fight, a Christianity that was affected, neither by the theology of the anti-gnostic Church Fathers, nor specially by that of the Alexandrians, one which the dogmatic contentions and conquests of the years 150-250 have passed over, hardly leaving a trace. Almost all that is required to explain it by the historian who starts with the period of Justin is to be found in the slightly altered conditions of the Roman world of culture, and in the development of the Church system as a practical power, a political and social quantity. [213] Even in the use of Scripture this Christianity of the West reveals its conservatism. The Books of the O. T. and the Apocalypse are those still most in vogue.
[214] Commodian does not stand alone, nor are the features to be observed in his "Instructiones" accidental. And we are not limited to the Apologists Arnobius and Lactantius for purposes of comparison. We learn much the same thing as to African Christianity from the works of Cyprian, or, even from the theological attitude of the Bishop himself, as we infer from Commodian's poems. And, on the other hand, Latin Church Fathers of the fourth century, e.g., Zeno and Hilary, show in their writings that we must not look for the theological interests of the West in the same quarter as those of the East. In fact the West did not, strictly speaking, possess a specifically Church "theology" at all. [215] It was only from the second half of the fourth century that the West was invaded by the Platonic theology which Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Novatian had cultivated, to all appearance without any thorough success. Some of its results were accepted, but the theology itself was not. Nor, in some ways, was it later on, when the Western structure of Monotheism, energetic practical morality, and conservative Chiliasm fell a prey to destruction. The mystical tendencies, or the perceptions that led to them, were themselves awanting. Yet there is no mistake, on the other hand, as we are taught by the Institutiones of Lactantius as well as the Tractates of Cyprian, that the rejection of Modalism and the recognition of Christ as the Logos forced upon the West the necessity of rising from faith to a philosophical and, in fact, a distinctively Neoplatonic dogmatic. It was simply a question of time when this departure should take place. The recognition of the Logos could not fail ultimately to produce everywhere a ferment which transformed the Rule of Faith into the compendium of a scientific religion. It is hardly possible to conjecture how long and where Monarchians maintained their ground as independent sects in the West. It is yet most probable that there were Patripassians in Rome in the fourth century. The Western Fathers and opponents of heretics from the middle of the fourth century speak not infrequently of Monarchians -- Sabellians; but they, as a rule, have simply copied Greek sources, from which they have transferred the confusion that prevailed among the Greek representatives of Sabellianism, and to a still greater extent, we must admit, among the historians who were hostile to it. [216]

(c) The Modalistic Monarchians in the East: Sabellianism and the History of Philosophical Christology and Theology after Origen. [217]

After the close of the third century the name of "Sabellians" became the common title of Modalistic Monarchians in the East. In the West also the term was used here and there, in the same way, in the fourth and fifth centuries. In consequence of this the traditional account of the doctrines taught by Sabellius and his immediate disciples is very confused. Zahn has the credit of having shown that the propositions, especially, which were first published by Marcellus of Ancyra, were characterised by opponents as Sabellian because Monarchian, and in later times they have been imputed to the older theologian. But not only does the work of Marcellus pass under the name of Sabellius up to the present day, Monarchianism undoubtedly assumed very different forms in the East in the period between Hippolytus and Athanasius. It was steeped in philosophical speculation. Doctrines based on kenosis and transformation were developed. And the whole was provided by the historians with the same label. At the same time these writers went on drawing inferences, until they have described forms of doctrine which, in this connection, in all probability never existed at all. Accordingly, even after the most careful examination and sifting of the information handed down, it is now unfortunately impossible to write a history of Monarchianism from Sabellius to Marcellus; for the accounts are not only confused, but fragmentary and curt. It is quite as impossible to give a connected history of the Logos Christology from Origen to Arius and Athanasius, although the tradition is in this case somewhat fuller. But the orthodox of the fourth and fifth centuries found little to please them in the Logos doctrine of those earlier disciples of Origen, and consequently they transmitted a very insignificant part of their writings to posterity. This much is certain, however, that in the East the fight against Monarchianism in the second half of the third century was a violent one, and that even the development of the Logos Christology (of Origen) was directly and lastingly influenced by this opposition. [218] The circumstance, that "Sabelliansim" was almost the only name by which Monarchianism was known in the East, points, for the rest, to schisms having resulted only from, or, at any rate, after the appearance and labours of Sabellius in the East, therefore at the earliest since about 230-240. So long as Origen lived in Alexandria no schism took place in Egypt over the Christological question. [219]

Sabellius, perhaps by birth a Lybian from Pentapolis, [220] seems after his excommunication to have remained at the head of a small community in Rome. He was still there, to all appearance, when Hippolytus wrote the Philosophumena. Nor do we know of his ever having left the city, -- we are nowhere told that he did. Yet he must have, at least, set an important movement at work abroad from Rome as his centre, and have especially fostered relations with the East. When, in Pentapolis, about A.D. 260, and several years after the death of Origen, the Monarchian doctrine took hold of the Churches there (Dionys., l.c.) -- Churches which, it is significant, were to some extent Latin in their culture -- Sabellius can hardly have been alive, yet it was under his name that the heresy was promoted. [221] But it would seem as if this prominence was given to him for the first time about A.D. 260. Origen at least had not, so far as I know, mentioned the name of Sabellius in his discussions of Monarchianism. These date from as early as A.D. 215. At the time, Origen was in Rome, Zephyrine being still Bishop. From the relations which he then entered into with Hippolytus, it has been rightly concluded that he did not hold aloof from the contentions in Rome, and took the side of Hippolytus. This attitude of Origen's may not have been without influence on his condemnation afterwards in Rome by Pontian, 231 or 232. Origen's writings, moreover, contain many sharp censures on Bishops who, in order to glorify God, made the distinction between Father and Son merely nominal. And this again seems to have been said not without reference to the state of matters in Rome. The theology of Origen made him an especially energetic opponent of the Modalistic form of doctrine; for although the new principles set up by him -- that the Logos, looking to the content of his nature, possessed the complete deity, and that he from eternity was created from the being of the Father -- approached apparently a Monarchian mode of thought, yet they in fact repelled it more energetically then Tertullian and Hippolytus could possibly have done. He who followed the philosophical theology of Origen was proof against all Monarchianism. But it is important to notice that in all places where Origen comes to speak about Monarchians, he merely seems to know their doctrines in an extremely simple form, and without any speculative embroidery. They are always people who "deny that Father and Son are two Hypostases" (they say: hen ou monon ousia, alla kai hupokeimeo), who "fuse together" Father and Son (suncheein), who admit distinctions in God only in "conception" and "name", and not in "number", etc. Origen considers them therefore to be untheological creatures, mere "believers". Accordingly, he did not know the doctrine of Sabellius, and living in Syria and Palestine had even had no opportunity of learning it.

That doctrine was undoubtedly closely allied, as Epiphanius has rightly seen (H. 62. 1), to the teaching of Noëtus; it was distinguished from the latter, however, both by a more careful theological elaboration, and by the place given to the Holy Ghost. [222] The opinion of Nitzsch and others, that we must distinguish between two stages in the theology of Sabellius, is unnecessary, whenever we eliminate the unreliable sources. The central proposition of Sabellius ran that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were the same. Three names accordingly were attached to one and the same being. It was his interest in monotheism that influenced Sabellius. "What shall we say," urge his followers in Epiphanius (ch. 2), "have we one God or three Gods?" (ti an eipomen, hena Theon echoen, e treis Theous); and Epiphanius (ch. 3) replies: "we do not propound polytheism" (ou polutheian eisegoumetha). Whether Sabellius himself used the comparison between the threefold nature of man and the sun remains a question (one nature, three energies: to photistikon light giving, to thalpon heat giving, to schema the form). [223] The one being was also called by Sabellius huiopator, [224] an expression which was certainly chosen to remove any misunderstanding, to make it impossible to suppose that two beings were in question. This huiopator (son-father) was in Sabellius the ultimate designation for God Himself, and not, say, merely for certain manifestations of a monas (unit) resting in the background. Sabellius, however, taught -- according to Epiphanius and Athanasius -- that God was not at the same time Father and Son; but that he had, rather, put forth his activity in three successive "energies"; first, in the Prosopon (= form of manifestation, figure; not = Hypostasis) of the Father as Creator and Lawgiver; secondly, in the Prosopon of the Son as Redeemer, beginning with the incarnation and ending at the ascension; finally, and up till the present hour, in the Prosopon of the Spirit as giver and sustainer of life. [225] We do not know whether Sabellius was able strictly to carry out the idea of the strict succession of the Prosopa, so that the one should form the boundary of the other. It is possible, indeed it is not improbable, that he could not fail to recognise in nature a continuous energy of God as Father. [226] It is self-evident that the Sabellians would approve of the Catholic Canon; that they did, is confirmed by Epiphanius. They are said to have appealed especially to passages like Deut. VI. 4, Exod. XX. 3, Isa. XLIV. 6 and John X. 38. [227] But Epiphanius remarks besides that the Sabellians derived their whole heresy and its strength from certain Apocrypha, especially the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians. [228] This note is instructive; for it not only recalls to our recollection a lost literature of the second century, especially the Gospel of the Egyptians, [229] but it also shows that the use of an uncanonical Gospel had long continued among Catholics in the Pentapolis, or at any rate in Egypt. [230] Finally, it confirms the view that the Christology of Sabellius cannot have been essentially different from the older, the so-called Patripassian doctrine. It is distinguished from the latter neither by the assumption of a transcendental Monas resting behind the Prosopa, nor by the introduction of the category of the Logos -- which was made use of by Callistus, but not by Sabellius; nor by a speculative theory, borrowed from the Stoa, of the Deity, self-contained, and again unfolding itself; nor, finally, by a doctrine of the Trinity constructed in any fashion or by the expression huiopator, which, as used by Sabellius, simply affirmed the single personality of God. As to the doctrine of the Trinity, a triad was distinctly out of the question in Sabellius. The only noteworthy and real differences are found in these three points; first, in the attempt to demonstrate the succession of the Prosopa; secondly, as observed above, in the reference to the Holy Spirit; thirdly, in formally placing the Father on a parallel line with the two other Prosopa. The attempt mentioned above may be regarded as a return to the strict form of Modalism, which it was possible to hold was impugned by formulas like the compassus est pater filio (the Father suffered in sympathy with the Son). In the reference to the Holy Spirit, Sabellius simply followed the new theology, which was beginning to take the Spirit more thoroughly into account. Most important is the third point mentioned. For in ranging the Prosopon and energy of the Father in a series with the two others, not only was cosmology introduced into the Modalistic doctrine as a parallel to soteriology, but the preëminence of the Father over the other Prosopa was departed from in principle, and thus, in a curious fashion, the way was prepared for the Athanasian, and still more for the Western and Augustinian Christology. Here, undoubtedly, we have the decisive advance marked by Sabellianism within Monarchianism. It led up to the exclusive homoou'sios (consubstantial); for it is probable that Sabellians employed this expression. [231] They could apply it with perfect right. Further, while up to this time no evident bond had connected cosmology and soteriology within Modalistic theology, Sabellius now made the histories of the world and salvation into a history of the God who revealed himself in them. In other words, this Monarchianism became commensurate in form with that theology which employed the conception of the Logos, and this fact may have constituted by no means the least part of the attractiveness which Sabellianism proved itself to possess in no small degree up to the beginning of the fourth century and even later. [232] However, it is not to be concealed that the teaching of Sabellius relative to the Prosopon of the Father is particularly obscure. The sentence attributed to him by Athanasius, [233] "as there are diversities of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit, so also the Father is the same, but unfolds himself in Son and Spirit" -- seems at the first glance to contradict the details given above. Yet the different gifts are certainly the Spirit himself, which so unfolds himself in them that he does not remain an element behind them, but is completely merged in them. In the same way the Father unfolds himself in the Prosopa. The witnesses to the succession of the Prosopa in Sabellius are too strong to allow us to infer from this passage that the Father still remained Father after the unfolding (platusmos) in the Son. But this passage shows that philosophical speculations could readily attach themselves to the simple theory of Sabellius. Marcellus rejected his doctrine which he knew accurately. What he missed in it was the recognition of the Logos; therefore the idea of God had also not been correctly apprehended by him. [234] But the form given to Monarchianism by Marcellus [235] won few friends for that type of doctrine. Alexandrian theologians, or Western scholars who came to their assistance, had already perfected the combination of Origen's doctrine of the Logos with the Monarchian Homoousios; in other words, they had turned the category used by Origen against the logos ktisma conception (the Logos-created) of Origen himself. The saving formula, , the Logos of the same substance, not made" (logos homoousios ou poietheis), was already uttered, and, suspiciously like Monarchianism as it sounded at first, became for that very reason the means of making Monarchianism superfluous in the Church, and of putting an end to it.
[236]

But that only happened after great fights. One of these we know, the controversy of the two Dionysii, a prelude to the Arian conflict. [237] In the Pentapolis the Sabellian doctrine had, soon after the death of Origen, won a great following even among the Bishops, "so that the Son of God was no longer preached." Dionysius of Alexandria, therefore, composed various letters in which he tried to recall those who had been misled, and to refute Sabellianism. [238] In one of these, directed to Euphranor and Ammonius, he gave an extreme exposition of Origen's doctrine of the subordination of the Son. This letter seemed very questionable to some Christians -- probably in Alexandria, perhaps in Pentapolis. They lodged a complaint, soon after A.D. 260, against the Alexandrian Bishop with Dionysius in Rome. [239] The latter assembled a synod at Rome, which disapproved of the expressions used by the Alexandrian, and himself despatched to Alexandria a didactic letter against the Sabellians and their opponents, who inclined to subordinationism. In this letter the Bishop so far spared his colleague as not to mention his name; but he sent him a letter privately, calling for explanations. The Alexandrian Bishop sought to justify himself in a long document in four books (eleg chos kai apologia), maintained that his accusers had wickedly torn sentences from their context, and gave explanations which seem to have satisfied the Roman Bishop, and which Athanasius at any rate admitted to be thoroughly orthodox. But the letter of the Roman Bishop appears to have had no immediate influence on the further development in Alexandria (see under); the universal collapse of the Empire in the following decades permitted the Alexandrian theologians to continue their speculations, without needing to fear further immediate reproofs from Roman Bishops.

Two facts give a special interest to the controversy of the Dionysii. First, in spite of the acceptance of the sacred Triad, the Romans adhered simply, without any speculative harmonising, to the unity of the Deity, and decided that Origen's doctrine of subordination was Tritheism. Secondly, no scruple was felt at Alexandria in carrying out the subordination of the Son to the Father until it involved separation, though it was well known that such a view was supported, not by the tradition of the Church, but by philosophy alone. The accusers of the Alexandrian Dionysius charged him with separating Father and Son; [240] denying the eternal existence of the Son; [241] naming the Father without the Son and vice versâ; [242] omitting to use the word homoousios; [243] and finally, with regarding the Son as a creature, related to the Father as the vine to the gardener, or the boat to the shipbuilder. [244] In these censures, which were not inaccurate, it is obvious that Dionysius, continuing the Neoplatonic speculations of his teacher, conceived the logos as portio and derivatio of the monas, thus, in order to meet Sabellianism, actually dividing him from the deity. Dionysius sought to excuse himself in his elenchos (Refutation), and emphasised exclusively the other side of Origen's doctrine, at the same time admitting that in his incriminated writing he had incidentally employed somewhat unsuitable similes. Now he said that the Father had always been Father, and that Christ had always existed as the Logos and wisdom and power of God; that the Son had his being from the Father, and that he was related to the Father as the rays are to the light. [245] He explained that while he had not used the word homoousios, because it did not occur in Holy Scripture, figures were to be found in his earlier writings which corresponded to it; thus the figure of parents and children, of seed or root and plant, and of source and stream. [246] The Father was the source of all good, the Son the outflow; the Father the mind (nous), the Son the word (logos) -- reminding us very forcibly of Neoplatonism -- or the emanating mind (nous propedon), while the nous itself remains "and is what it was" (kai estin hoios en). "But being sent he flew forth and is borne everywhere, and thus each is in each, the one being of the other, and they are one, being two' (Ho de exepte propemphtheis kai pheretai pantachou kai houtos estin hekateros en hekatero heteros on thaterou, kai hen eisin, ontes duo). [247] But he now went further: any separation between Father and Son was to be repudiated. "I say Father, and before I add the Son, I have already included and designated him in the Father." The same holds true of the Holy Spirit. Their very names always bind all three together inseparably. "How then do I who use these names think that these are divided and entirely separated from each other? (pos oun ho toutois chromenos tois onomasi memeristhai tauta kai aphoristhai pantelos allelon oiomai;). [248] In these words the retreat was sounded; for what the Roman Bishop rejected, but Alexandrian theology never ventured wholly to discard, was the "dividing" (merizesthai). [249] The reservation lies in the word "entirely" (pantelos). Dionysius added in conclusion: "Thus we unfold the unit into the triad without dividing it, and we sum up the triad again into the unit without diminishing it," (houto men hemeis eis te ten triada ten monada platunomen adiaireton, kai ten triada palin ameioton eis ten monada sunkephalaioumetha). In this he has accommodated himself to a mode of looking at things which he could only allege to be his own under a mental reservation, as in the case of the qualification "entirely" (pantelos). For the terms platunein and sunkephalaiousthai were not those current in the school of Origen, and admit of a different interpretation. Finally, Dionysius denied the charge of the "sycophants" that he made the Father the Creator of Christ. [250]

The letter of Dionysius of Rome falls midway between these two manifestoes, which are so different, of the Alexandrian Bishop. We have to regret very deeply that Athanasius has only preserved one, though a comprehensive, fragment of this document. [251] It is extremely characteristic of the Roman Bishop, to begin with, that it seeks to settle the sound doctrine by representing it as the just mean between the false unitarian or Sabellian, and the false trinitarian or Alexandrian doctrine. [252] The second characteristic of the letter is that it regards the Alexandrian doctrine as teaching that there are three Gods, and draws a parallel between it and the Three principles of the Marcionites. This proves that the Roman Bishop did not trouble himself with the speculation of the Alexandrians, and simply confined himself to the result -- as he conceived it -- of three separate Hypostases. [253] Finally -- and this is the third characteristic feature -- the letter shows that Dionysius had nothing positive to say, further than that it was necessary to adhere to the ancient Creed, definitely interpreting it to mean that the three, Father, Son, and Spirit, were equally one. Absolutely no attempt is made to explain or to prove this paradox. [254] But here undoubtedly lies the strength of the Roman Bishop's position. When we compare his letter with that of Leo I. to Flavian and Agatho's to the Emperor, we are astonished at the close affinity of these Roman manifestoes. In form they are absolutely identical. The three Popes did not trouble themselves about proofs or arguments, but fixed their attention solely on the consequences, or what seemed to them consequences, of disputed doctrines. Starting with these deductions they refuted doctrines of the right and left, and simply fixed a middle theory, which existed merely in words, for it was self-contradictory. This they grounded formally on their ancient Creed without even attempting to argue out the connection: one God -- Father, Son and Spirit; one Person -- perfect God and perfect man; one Person -- two wills. Their contentment with establishing a middle line, which possessed the attribute of that known in mathematics, is, however, a proof that they had not a positive, but merely a negative, religious interest in these speculations. Otherwise they would not have been satisfied with a definition it was impossible to grasp; for no religion lives in conceptions which cannot be represented and realised. Their religious interest centred in the God Jesus, who had assumed the substantia humana.

The letter of the Roman Bishop produced only a passing impression in Alexandria. Its adoption would have meant the repudiation of science. A few years afterwards the great Synod of Antioch expressly rejected the term homoousios (consubstantial) as being liable to misconstruction.
[255] The followers of Origen in his training school continued their master's work, and they were not molested in Alexandria itself, as it seems, up till about the close of the third century. If we review the great literary labours of Dionysius, of which we, unfortunately, only possess fragments, and observe his attitude in the questions debated in the Church in his time, we see how faithfully he followed in the track of Origen. The only difference lay in greater laxity in matters of discipline. [256] He proved, in his work "On Promises" (peri epangelion) that he possessed the zeal against all Chiliasm and the dexterity in critical exegesis which characterised the school of Origen; [257] and in his work "On Nature" (peri phuseos) he introduced, and endeavoured to carry out, a new task in the science of Christian theology, viz., the systematic refutation of Materialism, i.e., of the Atomic theory. [258] Of the later heads of the training school we know very little; but that little is enough to let us see that they faithfully preserved the theology of Origen. Pierius, who also led a life of strict asceticism, wrote learned commentaries and treatises. Photius [259] testifies that he taught piously concerning the Father and Son, "except that he speaks of two "beings" and two natures; using the words being and nature, as is plain from the context, in place of Hypostasis, and not as those who adhere to Arius" (plen hoti ousias duo kai phuseis duo legei; to tes ousias kai phuseos onomati, hos delon, ek te ton hepomenon kai proegoumenon tou choriou anti tes hupostaseos kai ouch hos hoi Areio prosanakeimenoi chromenos). This explanation is hardly trustworthy; Photius himself is compelled to add that Pierius held impious doctrines as to the Holy Ghost, and ranked him far below the Father and Son. Now since he further expressly testifies that Pierius, like Origen, held the pre-existence of souls, and explained some passages in the O. T. "economically", i.e., contested their literal meaning, it becomes obvious that Pierius had not parted company with Origen; [260] indeed, he was even called "Origen Junior". [261] He was the teacher of Pamphilus, and the latter inherited from him his unconditional devotion to Origen's theology. Pierius was followed, in Diocletian's time, by Theognostus at the Alexandrian school. This scholar composed a great dogmatic work in seven books called "Hypotyposes". It has been described for us by Photius, [262] whose account shows that it was planned on a strict system, and was distinguished from Origen's great work, in that the whole was not discussed in each part under reference to one main thought, but the system of doctrine was presented in a continuous and consecutive exposition. [263] Thus Theognostus invented that form of scientific, Church dogmatic which was to set a standard to posterity -- though it was indeed long before the Church took courage to erect a doctrinal structure of its own. Athanasius had nothing but praise for the work of Theognostus, and has quoted a passage from the second book which undoubtedly proves that Theognostus did full justice to the Homoousian side of Origen's Christology. [264] But even the Cappadocians remarked certain affinities between Arius and Theognostus, [265] and Photius informs us that he called the Son a "creature" (ktisma), and said such mean things about him that one might perhaps suppose that he was simply quoting, in order to refute, the opinions of other men. He also, like Origen, taught heterodox views as to the Holy Spirit, and the grounds on which he based the possibility of the incarnation were empty and worthless. As a matter of fact, Theognostus' exposition of the sin against the Holy Ghost shows that he attached himself most closely to Origen. For it is based on the well-known idea of the master that the Father embraced the largest, the Son, the medium, and the Holy Spirit the smallest sphere; that the sphere of the Son included all rational beings, inclusive of the imperfect, while that of the Spirit comprehended only the perfect (teleioumenoi), and that therefore the sin against the Holy Ghost, as the sin of the "perfect", could not be forgiven. [266] The only novelty is that Theognostus saw occasion expressly to attack the view "that the teaching of the Spirit was superior to that of the Son" (ten tou pneumatos didaskalian huperballein tes tou huiou didaches). Perhaps he did this to oppose another disciple of Origen, Hieracas, who applied himself to speculations concerning Melchizedek, as being the Holy Spirit, and emphasised the worship of the Spirit. [267] This Copt, who lived at the close of the third and in the first half of the fourth century, cannot be passed over, because, a scholar like Origen, [268] he on the one hand modified and refined on certain doctrines of his master, [269] and on the other hand, emphasised his practical principles, requiring celibacy as a Christian law. [270] Hieracas is for us the connecting link between Origen and the Coptic monks; the union of ascetics founded by him may mark the transition from the learned schools of theologians to the society of monks. But in his proposition that, as regards practice, the suppression of the sexual impulse was the decisive, and original, demand of the Logos Christ, Hieracas set up the great theme of the Church of the fourth and following century.

In Alexandria the system of faith and the theology of Origen were fused more and more completely together, and it cannot be proved that the immediate disciples of Origen, the heads of the training-school, corrected their master. [271] The first to do this in Alexandria was Peter, Bishop and Martyr. [272] In his writings "Concerning divinity" (peri theotetos), "Concerning the sojourn of our Saviour" (peri tes soteros hemon epidemias), and especially in his books "Concerning (the fact) that the soul does not preexist, nor has entered this body after having sinned" (peri tou mede prouparchein ten psuchen mede amartesasan touto eis soma blethenai), he maintains against Origen the complete humanity of the Redeemer, the creation of our souls along with our bodies, and the historical character of the events narrated in Gen. III., and he characterises the doctrine of a pre-mundane fall as a "precept of Greek philosophy which is foreign and alien to those who desire to live piously in Christ" (mathema tes Hellenikes philosophias, xenes kai allotrias ouses ton en Christo eusebos thelonton zen). [273] This utterance proves that Peter had taken up a position definitely opposed to Origen; [274] but his own expositions show, on the other hand, that he only deprived Origen's doctrines of their extreme conclusions, while otherwise he maintained them, in so far as they did not come into direct conflict with the rule of faith. The corrections on Origen's system were therefore not undertaken silently even in Alexandria. A compromise took place between scientific theology, and the ancient antignostically determined Creed of the Church, or the letter of Holy Scripture, to which all the doctrines of Origen were sacrificed that contradicted the tenor of the sacred tradition. [275] But above all, the distinction made by him between the Christian science of the perfect and the faith of the simple was to be abolished. The former must be curtailed, the latter added to, and thus a product arrived at in a uniform faith which should be at the same time ecclesiastical and scientific. After theology had enjoyed a period of liberty, the four last decades of the third century, a reaction seems to have set in at the beginning of the fourth, or even at the end of the third century, in Alexandria. But the man had not yet risen who was to preserve theology from stagnation, or from being resolved into the ideas of the time. All the categories employed by the theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries were already current in theology, [276] but they had not yet received their definite impress and fixed value.
[277] Even the Biblical texts which in those centuries were especially exploited pro and contra, had already been collected in the third. Dionysius of Alexandria had already given warning that the word homoousios did not occur in Holy Scripture, and this point of view seems, as a rule, to have been thoroughly decisive even in the third century. [278]

We get an insight into the state of religious doctrine about the middle of the third century and afterwards from the works of Gregory, [279] the miracle-worker, who was one of the most eminent of Origen's disciples, and whose influence in the provinces of Asia Minor extended far into the fourth century. This scholar and Bishop who delivered the first Christian panegyric -- one on Origen -- and has in it given his autobiography, remained throughout his life an enthusiastic follower of Origen, and adhered, in what was essential, to his doctrine of the Trinity. [280] But Gregory felt compelled, in opposition to Christians whose conception of the Trinity was absolutely polytheistic, to emphasise the unity of the Godhead. He did this in his "Confession of faith", [281] and in a still greater degree, according to the testimony of Basilius, in his lost work dialexis pros Alianon (Debate with Ailianus), [282] which contained a proposition, afterwards appealed to by Sabellians, and somewhat to the following effect, viz., Father and Son are two in thought, but one in substance (pater kai huios epinoia men eisi duo, hupostasei de hen). Gregory, on the other hand, described the Logos as creature (ktisma) and created (poiema) -- so Basilius tells us, -- and this form of expression can probably be explained by the fact that he thought it necessary, in this way and aggressively (agonistikos), to emphasise, on the basis of Origen's idea of the Homoousia of the Son, the substantial unity of the deity, in opposition to a view of the divine Hypostases which approximated to polytheism. On the whole, however, we cannot avoid supposing, that at the time when theology was introduced into the faith -- a work in which Gregory especially took part, -- and in consequence the worst confusions set in, [283] the tendency to heathen Tritheism had grown, and theologians found themselves compelled to maintain the "preaching of the monarchy" (kerugma tes monarchias) to an increasing extent. This is proved by the correspondence of the Dionysii, the theology of Hieracas, and the attitude of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria; but we have also the evidence of Gregory. True, the genuineness of the writing ascribed to him, on the "essential identity" [284] (of the three Persons), is not yet decided, but it belongs, at all events, to the period before Athanasius. In this treatise the author seeks to establish the indivisibility and uniqueness of God, subject to the hypothesis of a certain hypostatic difference. In this he obviously approaches Monarchian ideas, yet without falling into them. Further, the very remarkable tractate, addressed to Theopompus, on the incapability and capability of suffering, [285] treats this very subject, without even hinting at a division between Father and Son in this connection; on the other hand, the author certainly does not call it in question. We can study in the works of Gregory, and in the two treatises [286] just mentioned, which bear his name, the state of theological stagnation, connected with the indeterminateness of all dogmatic ideas, and the danger, then imminent, of passing wholly over to the domain of abstract philosophy, and of relaxing the union of speculation with the exegesis of Holy Scripture. The problems are strictly confined to the sphere of Origen's theology; but that theology was so elastic that they threatened to run wild and become thoroughly secular. [287] If, e.g., we review the Christological tenets of Eusebius of Cæsarea, one of Origen's most enthusiastic followers, we are struck by their universal hollowness and emptiness, uncertainty and instability. While Monotheism is maintained with an immense stock of Bible texts and a display of all possible formulas, a created and subordinate God is, in fact, interposed between the deity and mankind.

But there was also in the East a theology which, while it sought to make use of philosophy, at the same time tried to preserve in their realistic form the religious truths established in the fight with Gnosticism. There were theologians who, following in the footsteps of Irenæus and Hippolytus, by no means despised science, yet found the highest truth expressed in the tenets handed down by the Church; and who therefore, refusing the claim of philosophical Gnosis to re-edit the principles of faith, only permitted it to support, connect, and interpret them. These theologians were necessarily hostile to the science of religion cultivated in Alexandria, and enemies of its founder Origen. We do not know whether, during his life-time, Origen came into conflict in the East with opponents who met him in the spirit of an Irenæus. [288] From his own statements we must suppose that he only had to deal with untrained disputants. But in the second half of the third century, and at the beginning of the fourth, there were on the side of the Church antagonists of Origen's theology who were well versed in philosophical knowledge, and who not merely trumped his doctrine with their psile pistis (bare faith), but protected the principles transmitted by the Church from spiritualising and artificial interpretations, with all the weapons of science. [289] The most important among them, indeed really the only one of whom we have any very precise knowledge, besides Peter of Alexandria (see above), is Methodius. [290] But of the great number of treatises by this original and prolific author only one has been till now preserved complete in the original -- Conviv. decem virg., while we have the greater part of a second -- De resurr. [291] The rest has been preserved in the Slavic language, and only very lately been rendered accessible. The personality of Methodius himself, with his position in history, is obscure. [292] But what we do know is enough to show that he was able to combine the defence of the Rule of Faith as understood by Irenæus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, [293] with the most thorough study of Plato's writings and the reverent appropriation of Plato's ideas. Indeed he lived in these. [294] Accordingly, he defended "the popular conception of the common faith of the Church" in an energetic counterblast to Origen, and rejected all his doctrines which contained an artificial version of traditional principles. [295] But on the other hand, he did not repudiate the basis on which Origen's speculation rested. He rather attempted with its presuppositions and method to arrive at a result in harmony with the common faith. There seems to be no doubt that he took the great work of Irenæus as his model; for the manner in which Methodius has endeavoured to overcome dualism and spiritualism, and to establish a speculative realism, recalls strikingly the undertaking of Irenæus. Like the latter, Methodius sought to demonstrate the eternal importance of the natural constitution in spirit and body of the creatures made by God; and he conceived salvation not as a disembodying, not in any sense as a division and separation, but as a transfiguration of the corporeal, and a union of what had been unnaturally divided. He rejected the pessimism with which Origen had, like the Gnostics, viewed the world as it is, the sustasis tou kosmou, making it, if a well-ordered and necessary prison, yet a prison after all. This he confronted with the optimistic conviction, that everything which God has created, and as he has created it, is capable of permanence and transfiguration. [296] Accordingly, he opposed Origen's doctrines of the pre-existence of souls, the nature and object of the world and of corporeality, the eternal duration of the world, a premundane Fall, the resurrection as a destruction of the body, etc. At the same time he certainly misrepresented them, as, e.g., Origen's doctrine of sin, p. 68 sq. Like Irenæus, Methodius introduced curious speculations as to Adam for the purpose of establishing realism, i.e., the maintenance of the literal truth of sacred history. Adam was to him the whole of natural humanity, and he assumed, going beyond Irenæus, that the Logos combined the first man created (protoplast) with himself. [297] This union was conceived as a complete incorporation: "God embraced and comprehended in man;" and, starting from this incorporation, the attempt was made to explain redemption in terms of a mystical realism. Salvation was not consummated in knowledge (Gnosis), but it came to light, already achieved for mankind, in the constitution of the God-man. [298] But for this very reason Methodius borders, just like Irenæus, on a mode of thought which sees in the incarnation the necessary completion of creation, and conceives the imperfection of the first Adam to have been natural. [299] Adam, i.e., mankind, was before Christ still in a plastic condition, capable of receiving any impression and liable to dissolution. Sin, which had exclusively an external source, had therefore an easy task; humanity was first consolidated in Christ. In this way freedom is retained, but we easily see that Origen's idea of sin was more profound than that of Methodius. [300] The fantastic realism of the latter's view is carried out in his speculations on the transference of salvation from Christ to individuals. The deep sleep of the Protoplast is paralleled in the second Adam by the sleep of death. Now as Eve was formed from, and was part of the being of sleeping Adam, so the Holy Spirit issued from Christ lying in the sleep of death, and was part of his being; [301] and from him the Church was fashioned.

"The Apostle has excellently applied the history of Adam to Christ. So we will require to say with him that the Church is of the bone and flesh of Christ, since for her sake the Logos left the Heavenly Father, and came down that he might cleave to his spouse; and he fell asleep unconscious of suffering, dying voluntarily for her, that he might present the Church to himself glorious and faultless, after he had purified her by the bath; so that she might receive the spiritual and blessed seed, which he himself, instilling and implanting, scatters into the depths of the Spirit, whom the Church receives and, fashioning, develops like a spouse, that she may bear and rear virtue. For in this way the word is also excellently fulfilled Grow and increase'; since the Church increases daily in greatness, beauty, and extent; because the Logos dwells with her, and holds communion with her, and he even now descends to us, and in remembrance (Anamnesis) of his suffering (continually) dies to himself. For not otherwise could the Church continually conceive believers in her womb, and bear them anew through the bath of regeneration, unless Christ were repeatedly to die, emptying himself for the sake of each individual, in order to find acceptance by means of his sufferings continuing and completing themselves; unless, descending from heaven, and united with his spouse, the Church, he imparted from his own side a certain power, that all who are edified in him should attain growth, those, namely, who, born again through baptism, have received flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, i.e., of his holiness and glory. He, however, who calls bone and flesh wisdom and virtue, speaks truly; but the side is the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, from whom the enlightened receiving their portion are born again, in a worthy manner, to immortality. But no one can participate in the Holy Spirit, and be accounted a member of Christ, unless the Logos has first descended upon him, and, falling asleep, has emptied' himself, that he, rising again and rejuvenated, along with him who fell asleep for his sake, and re-fashioned in his own person, may participate in the Holy Spirit. For the side (pleura) of the Logos is really the spirit of truth, the seven-formed of the prophet, from whom God, in accordance with the self-sacrifice of Christ, that is, the incarnation and suffering of Christ, takes away something, and fashions for him his spouse, in other words, souls fit for him and prepared like a bride." [302]

Methodius accordingly, starts in his speculations from Adam and Eve as the real types of Christ and the Church; but he then varies this, holding that the individual soul rather must become the bride of Christ, and that for each the descent of the Logos from heaven and his death must be repeated -- mysteriously and in the heart of the believer.

This variation became, and precisely through the instrumentality of Methodius, of eminent importance in the history of dogma. [303] We would not have had in the third century all the premises from which Catholic Christianity was developed in the following centuries, unless this speculation had been brought forward, or, been given a central place, by a Christian theologian of the earlier period. It marks nothing less than the tapering of the realistic doctrinal system of the Church into the subjectivity of monkish mysticism. For to Methodius, the history of the Logos-Christ, as maintained by faith, was only the general background of an inner history, which required to repeat itself in each believer: the Logos had to descend from heaven, suffer, die, and rise again for him. Nay, Methodius already formulated his view to the effect that every believer must, through participation in Christ, be born as a Christ. [304] The background was, however, not a matter of indifference, seeing that what took place in the individual must have first taken place in the Church. The Church, accordingly, was to be revered as mother, by the individual soul which was to become the bride of Christ. In a word: here we have the theological speculation of the future monachism of the Church, and we see why it could not but pair with the loftiest obedience, and greatest devotion to the Church.

But the evidence that we have really here the fundamental features of the monkish mysticism of the Church, is contained in the correct perception of the final object of the work from which the above details are taken. The whole writing seeks to represent the state of virginity as the condition of Christlikeness (I. 5, p. 13). Everything is directed to this end; yet marriage is not forbidden, but is admitted to possess a mystery of its own. Unstained virginity is ranked high above the married state; towards it all Christians must strive; it is the perfectly Christian life itself. Yet Methodius succeeds in maintaining, beside it, marriage and sin-stained birth from the flesh (II. 1 sq.). He had already arrived at the position of Catholic monasticism; the body belonging to the soul that would be the bride of Christ must remain virgin. The proper result of the work of Christ is represented in the state of virginity of the believers who still walk upon earth, and it is the bloom of imperishableness:

"Exceedingly great and wonderful and glorious is virginity, and to speak plainly, following Holy Scripture, this most noble and fair practice is alone the ripe result, the flower and first fruits of incorruption, and therefore the Lord promises to admit "those who have preserved their virginity into the kingdom of heaven . . . for we must understand that virginity, while walking "upon the earth, reaches the heavens":

megale tis estin huperphuos kai thaumaste kai endoxos he parthenia, kai ei chre phaneros eipein epomenen tais hagiais graphais, to outhar tes aphtharsias kai to anthos kai he aparche autes touto to ariston kai kalliston epitedeuma monon tunchanei, kai dia tauta kai ho kurios eis ten basileian eiselasai ton ouranon tous apopartheneusantas sphas autous epangelletai . . . , parthenian gar bainein men epi ges, epipsauein de ton ouranon hegeteon (Conv. I. 1, p. 11).

Methodius started from other premises than the school of Origen, and bitterly opposed the latter, but in the end he came to the same practical result -- witness the followers of Hieracas. Their speculations also led to the depreciation of the objective redemption, and to monachism. But the concrete forms were very different. In Origen himself and his earliest disciples the Church was by no means really the mother, or, if it were, it was in a wholly different sense from that of Methodius. Asceticism and in particular virginity were not in themselves valuable, an end in themselves, but means to the end. Finally, Gnosis (knowledge) was different from Pistis (faith), and the ideal was the perfect Gnostic, who is freed from all that is alien and fleeting, and lives in the eternal and abiding. Methodius' teaching was different. Pistis and Gnosis were related to each other as theme and exposition: there is only one truth, which is the same for all; but on the soil of the Church there is room for the state of virginity, which is the goal of the incarnation, though all may not yet reach it. The important and momentous achievement of Methodius [305] consisted in subordinating a realistic Church theology, which yet was not destitute of a speculative phase, and even made a moderate use of the allegorical method, to the practical object of securing virginity, a life in which God and Christ were imitated, (Conv. I. 5, p. 13: to imitate God is to escape from corruption [homoiosis Theo phthoras apophuge]; Christ is not only arch-shepherd and arch-prophet [archipoimen-archiporophetes], but also archetypal virgin [archiparthnos]). This doctrine, as well as the practical attitude of Hieracas, and many other features, as, e.g., the considerably earlier Pseudo-Clementine epistles "De virginitate,"
[306] prove that the great aspiration of the time in the East was towards monachism, and Methodius succeeded in uniting this with a Church theology. In spite of his polemic against Origen he did not despise those phases of the latter's theology, which were at all compatible with the traditional comprehension of religious doctrine. Thus he accepted the doctrine of the Logos implicitly in the form given to it by Origen's school, without, of course, entangling himself in the disputed terminology (see, e.g., De creat. 11, p. 102); so far as I know, he made no express defence of Chiliasm, in spite of the high value he put on the Apocalypse. He is even said by Socrates (H. E. VI.
13) to have admired Origen, in one of his latest writings, "a sort of recantation" (hos ek palinodias). However that may be, the future belonged not to Origen, nor to the scientific religion that soared above faith, but to compromises, such as those, stamped with monachism, which Methodius concluded, to the combination of realistic and speculative elements, of the objectivity of the Church and the mysticism of the monks. [307] The great fight in the next decades was undoubtedly to be fought out between two forms of the doctrine of the Logos; the one, that of Lucian the martyr and his school, which had adopted elements distinctive of Adoptianism, and the other, professed by Alexander of Alexandria and the Western theologians, which with Sabellianism held fast the unity of the divine nature. But, in the case of the majority of Eastern Christians in the 4th century, the background or basis of these opposite views was formed, not by a theology purely Origenist, but by one of compromise, which had resulted from a combination of the former with the popular idea of the rules of faith, and which sought its goal, not in an absolute knowledge and the calm confidence of the pious sage, but in virginity, ecclesiasticism, and a mystical deification. Men like Methodius became of the highest consequence in the development of this theological genus, which, indeed, could not but gain the upper hand more and more, from the elemental force of factors existent in the Church. [308]

But while as regards Origen's theology reservations may have gradually grown stronger and more numerous in the course of the next decades, theological speculation aimed in the East, from about 250-320, at a result than which nothing grander or more assured could be imagined. In the West the old, short, Creed was retained, and, except in one case,
[309] the Christological conflicts did not induce men to change it. But in the leading Churches of the East, and during the given period, the Creeds were expanded by theological additions, [310] and thus exegetical and speculative theology was introduced into the Apostolic faith itself. [311] Thus, in the Catholic Churches of the East, this theology was for ever fused with the faith itself. A striking example has been already quoted; those six Bishops who wrote against Paul of Samosata in the seventh decade of the third century, submitted a Rule of Faith, which had been elaborated philosophically and theologically, as the faith handed down in the holy Catholic Church from the Apostles
[312] But we possess numerous other proofs. Gregory of Nyssa tells us that from the days of Gregory Thaumaturgus till his own, the Creed of the latter formed the foundation of the instruction given to catechumens in Neo-Cæsarea. But this Creed [313] was neither more nor less than a compendium of Origen's theology, [314] which, here, was thus introduced into the faith and instruction of the Church. Further, it is clear from the letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Constantinople, that the Church of Alexandria possessed at that time a Creed which had been elaborated theologically. [315] After the Bishop has quoted extensive portions of it, which he describes as "the whole pious Apostolic doctrine" (pasa he apostolike eusebes doxa), he closes with the words "these things we teach and preach, that is the Apostolic dogmas of the Church" (tauta didaskomen, tauta keruttomen, tauta tes ekklesias ta apostolika dogmata) But these dogmas belong to Origen's theology. Finally, we perceive from the Nicene transactions, that many Churches then possessed Creeds, which contained the Biblical theological formulas of Origen. We may assert this decidedly of the Churches of Cæsarea, Jerusalem, and Antioch. [316] The entire undertaking of the Fathers of the Nicene Council to set up a theological Creed to be observed by the whole Church, would have been impossible, had not the Churches, or at least the chief Churches, of the East already been accustomed to such Symbols. These Churches had thus passed, in the generations immediately preceding the Nicene, through a Creed-forming period, to which little attention has hitherto been paid. In its beginning and its course it is wholly obscure, but it laid the foundation for the development of theological dogmatics, peculiar to the Church, in the fourth and fifth centuries. It laid the foundation -- for the following epoch was distinguished from this one by the fact that the precise definitions demanded by the doctrine of redemption, as contained within the frame-work of Origen's theology, were fixed and made exclusive. Thus the dangers were guarded against, which rose out of the circumstance, that the philosophical theory of God, and the idea of the Logos which belonged to it, had been received into the system of religion, i.e., the Neo-platonic method and circle of ideas had been legitimised, without the traditional tenets of the faith having been sufficiently protected against them. In the new Creeds of the period 260-325 we find the conditions to hand for a system of religion based on the philosophical doctrine of God, a system specifically belonging to the Church, completely expressed in fixed and technical terms, and scientific. We find the conditions ready -- but nothing more, or less. But it was also due to the Creeds that in after times every controversy of the schools necessarily became a conflict that moved and shook the Church to its very depths. The men, however, who in the fourth and fifth centuries made orthodox dogma, were undoubtedly influenced, to a greater degree than their predecessors of from A.D. 260-315, by specifically Church ideas; and their work, if we measure it by the mixture of ideas and methods which they received from tradition, was eminently a conservative reduction and securing of tradition, so far as that was still in their possession. It was really a new thing, a first step of immeasurable significance, when Athanasius staked his whole life on the recognition of a single attribute -- the consubstantiality -- of Christ, and rejected all others as being liable to pagan misinterpretation.

At the beginning of the fourth century, Rules of Faith and theology were differently related to each other in the Churches of the East and West. In the latter, the phraseology of the primitive Creed was strictly adhered to, and a simple antignostic interpretation was thought sufficient, by means of formulas like "Father, Son, and Spirit: one God" -- "Jesus Christ, God and man" -- "Jesus Christ, the Logos, wisdom, and power of God" In the former, theological formulas were admitted into the Confession of Faith itself, which was thus shaped into a theological compendium ostensibly coming from the Apostles. But in both cases, the personal reality, and, with it, the pre-existence of the divinity manifested in Christ, were recognised by the vast majority; [317] they were included in the instruction given to Catechumens; they furnished the point of view from which men sought to understand the Person of Christ. And, accordingly, the accurate definition of the relation of the Deity to that other divine nature which appeared on earth necessarily became the chief problem of the future. __________________________________________________________________

[125] Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus, 1853. Volkmar, Hippolyt. und die röm. Zeitgenossen, 1855. Hagemann, Die römische Kirche, 1864. Langen, Gesch. d. römischen Kirche I., p. 192 ff. Numerous monographs on Hippolytus and the origin of the Philosophumena, as also on the authorities for the history of the early heretics, come in here. See also Caspari, Quellen III., vv. ll. The authorites are for Noëtus, the Syntagma of Hippolytus (Epiph., Philaster, Pseudo-Tertull.), and his great work against Monarchianism, of which the so-called Homilia Hippolutou eis ten hairesin Noetou tinos (Lagarde, Hippol. quæ feruntur, p. 43 sq.) may with extreme probability be held to be the conclusion. Both these works have been made use of by Epiph. H. 57. [When Epiph. (l.c. ch. 1) remarks that "Noëtus appeared ± 130 years ago", it is to be inferred that he fixed the date from his authority, the anti-monarchian work of Hippolytus. For the latter he must have had a date, which he believed he could simply transfer to the period of Noëtus, since Noëtus is described in the book as ou pro pollou chronou genomenos. But in that case his source was written about A.D. 230-240, i.e., almost at the same time as the so-called Little Labyrinth. It is also possible, however, that the above date refers to the excommunication of Noëtus. In that case the work which has recorded this event, can have been written at the earliest in the fourth decade of the fourth century]. Most of the later accounts refer to that of Epiph. An independent one is the section Philos. IX. 7 sq. (X. 27; on this Theodoret is dependent H. F. III. 3). For Epigonus and Cleomenes we have Philos. IX. 7, 10, 11, X. 27; Theodoret H. F. III. 3. For Æschines: Pseudo-Tertull. 26; Philos. VIII. 19, X. 26; for Praxeas: Tertull. adv. Prax., Pseudo-Tertull. 30. The later Latin writers against heretics are at this point all dependent on Tertullian; yet see Optat., de schism. I. 9. Lipsius has tried to prove that Tertullian has used "Hippolytus against Noëtus" in his work adv. Prax. (Quellen-kritik, p. 43; Ketzergeschichte, p. 183 f.; Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie, 1868, p. 704); but the attempt is not successful (see Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol., 1874, p. 200 f.). For Victorinus we have Pseudo-Tertull. 30. For Zephyrinus and Callistus: Philos. IX. 11 sq. Origen has also had Roman Monarchians in view in many of the arguments in his commentaries. On Origen's residence in Rome and his relations with Hippolytus, see Euseb. H. E. VI. 14; Jerome, De vir. inl. 61; Photius Cod. 121; on his condemnation at Rome, see Jerome Ep. 33, ch. 4.

[126] Orig. in Titum, Lomm. V., p. 287 ". . . sicut et illos, qui superstitiose magis quam religiose, uti ne videantur duos deos dicere, neque rursum negare salvatoris deitatem, unam eandemque substantiam patris ac filii asseverant, id est, duo quidem nomina secundum diversitatem causarum recipientes, unam tamen hupostasin subsistere, id est, unam personam duobus nominibus subiacentem, qui latine Patripassiani appellantur." Athanas., de synod. 7 after the formula Antioch. macrostich.

[127] IX. 6: megiston tarachon kata panta ton kosmon en pasin tois pistois emballousin.

[128] Ad. Prax. 3: Simplices quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotæ, quæ maior semper pars credentium est, quoniam et ipsa regula fidei a pluribus diis sæculi ad unicum et verum deum transfert, non intelligentes unicum quidem, sed cum sua oikonomi'a esse credendum, expavescunt ad oikonomi'a . . . Itaque duos et tres iam iactitant a nobis prædicari, se vero unius dei cultores præsumunt, . . . monarchiam inquiunt tenemus." Orig., in Joh. II 3. Lomm. I. p. 95: Heteroi de hoi meden eidotes, ei me Iesoun Christon kai touton estauronenon, ton genomenon sarka logon to pan nomisantes einai tou logou, Christon kata sarka monon gignoskousi toiouton de esti to plethos ton pepisteukenai nomizomenon. Origen has elsewhere distinguished four grades in religion: (1) those who worship idols, (2) those who worship angelic powers, (3) these to whom Christ is the entire God, (4) those whose thoughts rise to the unchangeable deity. Clement (Strom. VI. 10) had already related that there were Christians who, in their dread of heresy, demanded that everything should be abandoned as superfluous and alien, which did not tend directly to blessedness.

[129] See above (Vol. I., p. 195) where reference is made, on the one hand, to the Modalism reflected in Gnostic and Enkratitic circles (Gosp. of the Egypt., and Acta Lenc., Simonians in Iren. I. 231); on the other, to the Church formulas phrased, or capable of being interpreted, modalistically (see II. Ep. of Clement, Ign. ad Ephes., Melito [Syr. Fragments]; and in addition, passages which speak of God having suffered, died, etc.). It is instructive to notice that the development in Marcionite Churches and Montanist communities moved parallel to that in the great Church. Marcion himself, being no dogmatist, did not take any interest in the question of the relation of Christ to the higher God. Therefore it is not right to reckon him among the Modalists, as Neander has done (Gnost. Syxteme, p. 294, Kirchengesch. I. 2. p. 796). But it is certain that later Marcionites in the West taught Patripassianism (Ambros. de fide V. 13. 162, T. II., p. 579; Ambrosiaster ad I. Cor. II. 2, T. II., App. p. 117). Marcionites and Sabellians were therefore at a later date not seldom classed together. Among the Montanists at Rome there were, about A.D. 200, a Modalistic party and one that taught like Hippolytus; at the head of the former stood Æschines, at the head of the latter Proculus. Of the followers of Æschines, Hippolytus says (Philos. X. 26) that their doctrine was that of Noëtus: auton einai huion kai patera, horaton kai aoraton; genneton kai agenneton, thneton kai athanaton. It is rather an idle question whether Montanus himself and the prophetic women taught Modalism. They certainly used formulas which had a Modalistic sound; but they had also others which could afterwards be interpreted and could not but be interpreted "economically". In the Test. of the XII. Patriarchs many passages that, in the Jewish original, spoke of Jehovah's appearance among his people must now have received a Christian impress from their Christian editor. It is remarkable that, living in the third century, he did not scruple to do this, see Simeon 6: hoti ho kurios ho Theos megas tou Israel, phainomenos epi ges hos anthropos kai sozon en auto ton Adam . . . hoti ho Theos soma labon kai sunesthion anthropois esosen anthropous; Levi 5, Jud. 22, Issachar. 7: echontes meth' heauton ton Theon tou ouranou, sumporeuomenon tois anthropois: Zebul. 9: hopsesthe Theon en schemati anthropou; Dan. 5; Naphth. 8: ophthesetai Theos katoikon en anthropois epi tes ges: Asher 7: heos hou ho hupsistos episkepsetai ten gen, kai autos elthon hos anthropos meta anthropon esthion kai pinon; Benjamin
10. Very different Christologies, however, can be exemplified from the Testaments. It is not certain what sort of party Philaster (H. 51) meant (Lipsius Ketzergesch., p. 99 f.). In the third century Modalism assumed various forms, among which the conception of a formal transformation of God into man, and a real transition of the one into the other, is noteworthy. An exclusive Modalistic doctrine first existed in the Church after the fight with Gnosticism.

[130] Tertull. l.c. and ch. I.: "simplicitas doctrinæ", ch. 9, Epiphan.
H. 62. 2 aphelestatoi e akeraioi. Philos. IX. 7, 11: Zephurinos idiotes kai agrammatos, l.c. ch. 6: amatheis.

[131] That the scientific defenders of Modalism adopted the Stoic method -- just as the Theodotians had the Aristotelian (see above) -- is evident, and Hippolytus was therefore so far correct in connecting Noëtus with Heraclitas, i.e., with the father of the Stoa. To Hagemann belongs the merit (Röm. Kirche, pp. 354-371) of having demonstrated the traces of Stoic Logic and Metaphysics in the few and imperfectly transmitted tenets of the Modalists. (See here Hatch, The influence etc., p. 19 f. on the supaschein and the substantial unity of psuche and soma). We can still recognise, especially from Novatian's refutation, the syllogistic method of the Modalists, which rested on nominalist, i.e., Stoic, logic. See, e.g., the proposition: "Si unus deus Christus, Christus autem deus, pater est Christus, quia unus deus; si non pater sit Christus, dum et deus filius Christus, duo dii contra scripturas introducti videantur." But those utterances in which contradictory attributes, such as visible-invisible etc., are ascribed to God, could be excellently supported by the Stoic system of categories. That system distinguished idia (ousia, hupokeimenon) from sumbebekota, or more accurately (1) hupokeimena (substrata, subjects of judgment); (2) poia (qualitatives); (3) pos echonta (definite modifications) and (4) pros ti pos echonta (relative modifications). Nos. 2-4 form the qualities of the idea as a sunkechuomenon; but 2 and 3 belong to the conceptual sphere of the subject itself, while 4 embraces the variable relation of the subject to other subjects. The designations Father and Son, visible and invisible etc., must be conceived as such relative, accidental, attributes. The same subject can in one relation be Father, in another Son, or, according to circumstances, be visible or invisible. One sees that this logical method could be utilised excellently to prove the simple unreasoned propositions of the old Modalism. There are many traces to show that the system was applied in the schools of Epigonus and Cleomenes, and it is with schools we have here to deal. Thus, e.g., we have the accusation which, time and again, Origen made against the Monarchians, that they only assume one hupokeimenon, and combine Father and Son indiscriminately as modes in which it is manifested. (Hagemann refers to Orig. on Matt. XVI. 14: hoi suncheontes patros kai huiou ennoian; and on John X. 21: suncheomenoi en to peri patros kai huiou topo -- but suncheein is the Stoic term). The proposition is also Stoic that while the one hupokeimenon is capable of being divided (diarein), it is only subjectively, in our conceptions of it (te epinoia mone), so that merely onomata not differences kath' hupostasin, result. Further, the conception of the Logos as a mere sound is verbally that of the Stoics, who defined the phone (logos) as aer peplegmenos e to idion aistheton akoes. Tertullian adv. Prax.7; "quid est enim, dices, sermo nisi vox et sonus oris et sicut grammatici tradunt, aër offensus, intelligibilis auditu, ceterum vacuum nescio quid et inane et incorporale?" Hippolyt., Philos. X. 33: Theos logon apogenna, ou logon hos phonen. Novatian, de trinit. 31: "sermo filius natus est, qui non in sono percussi aëris aut tono coactæ de visceribus vocis accipitur." The application of Nominalist Logic and Stoic Methaphysics to theology was discredited in the controversy with the Modalists under the names of "godless science", or "the science of the unbelievers", just as much as Aristotelian philosophy had been in the fight with the Adoptians. Therefore, even as early as about A.D. 250, one of the most rancorous charges levelled at Novatian by his enemies was that he was a follower of another, i.e., of the Stoic, philosophy (Cornelius ap. Euseb. H. E. VI. 43. 16; Cypr. Ep. 55. 24, 60. 3). Novatian incurred this reproach because he opposed the Monarchians with their own, i.e., the syllogistic, method, and because he had maintained, as was alleged, imitating the Stoics, "omnia peccata paria esse." Now if the philosophy of Adoptian scholars was Aristotelian, and that of Modalistic scholars was Stoic, so the philosophy of Tatian, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen, in reference to the One and Many, and the real evolutions (merismos) of the one to the many is unmistakably Platonic. Hagemann (l.c. pp. 182-206) has shown the extent to which the expositions of Plotinus (or Porphyry) coincide in contents and form, method and expression -- see especially the conception of Hypostasis (substance) in Plotinus -- with those of the Christian theologians mentioned, among whom we have to include Valentinus. (See also Hipler in the östr. Vierteljahrsschr. f. Kath. Theol. 1869, p. 161 ff., quoted after Lösche, Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1884, p. 259). When the Logos Christology triumphed completely in the Church at the end of the third century, Neoplatonism also triumphed over Aristotelianism and Stoicism in ecclesiastical science, and it was only in the West that theologians, like Arnobius, were tolerated who in their pursuit of Christian knowledge rejected Platonism.

[132] Hippol. c. Noët. I., Philos. IX. 7.
[133] Epiph. l.c., ch. I.

[134] According to Hippol. c. Noët. I., he was not condemned after the first trial, but only at the close of a second, -- a proof of the uncertainty that still prevailed. It is impossible now to discover what ground there was for the statement that Noëtus gave himself out to be Moses, and his brother to be Aaron.

[135] The fact that Noëtus was able to live for years in Asia Minor undisturbed, has evidently led Theodoret into the mistake that he was a later Monarchian who only appeared after Epigonus and Cleomenes. For the rest, Hippolytus used the name of Noëtus in his attack on him, simply as a symbol under which to oppose later Monarchians (see Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1874, p. 201); this is at once clear from ch. 2.

[136] Philos. IX. 12: Houtos ho Kallistos meta ten tou Zephurinou teleuten nomizon tetuchekenai hou etherato, ton Sabellion apeosen hos me phronounta orthos, dedoikos eme kai nomizon houto dunasthai apotripsasthai ten pros tas ekklesias kategorian, hos me allotrios phronon. Hippolytus, whose treatment of Sabellius is respectful, compared with his attitude to Callistus, says nothing of his own excommunication; it is therefore possible that he and his small faction had already separated from Callistus, and for their part had put him under the ban. This cannot have happened under Zephyrine, as is shown directly by Philos. IX. 11, and all we can infer from ch. 7 is that the party of Hippolytus had ceased to recognise even Zephyrine as Bishop; so correctly Döllinger, l.c., p. 101 f., 223 f., a different view in Lipsius, Ketzergeschichte, p. 150. The situation was doubtless this: Epigonus and Cleomenes had founded a real school (didaskaleion) in the Roman Church, perhaps in opposition to that of the Theodotians, and this school was protected by the Roman bishops. (s. Philos. IX. 7: Zephurinos [to kerdei prospheromeno teithomenos] sunechorei tois prosiousi to Kleomenei matheteuesthai . . . Touton kata diadochen diemeine to didaskaleion kratunomenon kai epauxon dia to sunairesthai autois ton Sephurinon kai ton Kalliston). Hippolytus attacked the orthodoxy and Church character of the school, which possessed the sympathy of the Roman community, and he succeeded, after Sabellius had become its head, in getting Callistus to expel the new leader from the Church. But he himself was likewise excommunicated on account of his Christology, his "rigourism" and his passionate agitations. At the moment the community of Callistus was no longer to him a Catholic Church, but a didaskaleion (see Philos. IX. 12, p 458, 1; p. 462, 42).

[137] The attempt has been made in the above to separate the historical kernel from the biassed description of Hippolytus in the Philos. His account is reproduced most correctly by Caspari (Quellen III., p. 325 ff.). Hippolytus has not disguised the fact that the Bishops had the great mass of the Roman community on their side (IX. 11), but he has everywhere scented hypocrisy, intrigues and subserviency, where it is evident to the present day that the Bishops desired to protect the Church from the rabies theologorum. In so doing, they only did what their office demanded, and acted in the spirit of their predecessors, in whose days the acceptance of the brief and broad Church confession was alone decisive, while beyond that freedom ruled. It is also evident that Hippolytus considered Zephyrine and the rest a set of ignorant beings (idiotes), because they would not accede to the new science and the "economic" conception of God.

[138] According to Pseudo-Tertull. 30, where in fact the name of Praxeas is substituted for Noëtus.

[139] De Rossi, Bullet. 1866, p. 170.

[140] So, e.g., Hagemann, l.c., p. 234 f., and similarly at an earlier date, Semler.

[141] L.c., p. 198.
[142] Jahrb. f. deutsche Theologie, 1868, H. 4.

[143] The name has undoubtedly not been shown elsewhere up till now.

[144] Chronol. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 173 f.

[145] Adv. Prax.: Iste primus ex Asia hoc genus perversitatis intulit Romam, homo et alias inquietus, insuper de iactatione martyrii inflatus ob solum et simplex et breve carceris tædium.

[146] L.c.: Ita duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romæ procuravit, prophetiam expulit et hæresim intulit, paracletum fugavit et patrem crucifixit.

[147] Pseudo-Tertull.: Praxeas quidem hæresim introduxit quam Victorinus corroborare curavit. This Victorinus is rightly held by most scholars to be Bishop Victor; (1) there is the name (on Victor = Victorinus, see Langen l c., p. 196; Caspari, Quellen III., p. 323, n. 102); (2) the date; (3) the expression "curavit" which points to a high position, and is exactly paralleled by the sunai'resthai used by Hippolytus in referring to Zephyrine and Callistus (see p. 58, note 1); lastly, the fact that Victor's successors, as we know definitely, held Monarchian views. The excommunication of Theodotus by Victor proves nothing, of course, to the contrary; for the Monarchianism of this man was of quite a different type from that of Praxeas.

[148] This is definitely to be inferred from the words of Tertullian (l.c.): "Fructicaverant avenæ Praxeanæ hic quoque superseminatæ dormientibus multis in simplicitate doctrinæ"; see Caspari, l.c.; Hauck, Tertullian, p. 368; Langen, l.c., p. 199; on the other side Hesselberg, Tertullian Lehre, p. 24, and Hagemann, l.c.

[149] Tertullian, l.c.: Avenæ Praxeanæ traductæ dehinc per quem deus voluit (scil. per me), etiam evulsæ videbantur. Denique caverat pristinum doctor de emendatione sua, et manet chirographum apud psychicos, apud quos tunc gesta res est; exinde silentium.

[150] Tertull., l.c. Avenæ vero illæ ubique tunc semen excusserant. Ita altquamdiu per hypocrisin subdola vivacitate latitavit, et nunc denuo erupit. Sed et denuo eradicabitur, si voluerit dominus.

[151] Philos. IX. 12, X. 27. Epiph. H. 57. 2.

[152] C. 1: ephe ton Christon auton einai ton patera kai auton ton patera gegennesthai kai peponthenai kai apotethnekenai.

[153] C. 2: Ei oun Christon homologo Theon, autos ara estin ho pater, ei ge estin ho Theos. epathen de Christos, autos on Theos, ara oun epathen pater, pater gar autos en.

[154] Phaskousin sunistan hena Theon (c. 2).

[155] Hippolytus defends himself, c. 11. 14: ou duo theous lego, s. Philos. IX. 11, fin. 12: demosia ho Kallistos hemin oneidizei eipein; ditheoi este. From c. Noët. 11 it appears that the Monarchians opposed the doctrine of the Logos, because it led to the Gnostic doctrine of Æons. Hippolytus had to reply: tis apophai'netai ple'thun Theon paraballome'nen kata` kairou's. He sought to show (ch. 14 sq.) that the muste'rion oikonomi'as, of the Trinity taught by him was something different from the doctrine of the Æons.

[156] Hippol. (c. Noët. I.) makes his opponent say, ti oun kakon poio doxa'zon to`n Christo'n; see also ch. II. sq.; see again ch. IX. where Hippolytus says to his opponents that the Son must be revered in the way defined by God in Holy Scriptures.

[157] S. c. 15: all' erei moi tis; Xenon phereis logon legon huion. Ioannes men gar legei logon, all' allos allegorei.

[158] L. IX. 10. See also Theodoret.

[159] We perceive very clearly here that we have before us not an unstudied, but a thought-out, and theological Modalism. As it was evident, in the speculations about Melchisedec of the Theodotians, that they, like Origen, desired to rise from the crucified Jesus to the eternal, godlike Son, so these Modalists held the conception, that the Father himself was to be perceived in Jesus, to be one which was only meant for those who could grasp it.

[160] See above (p. 55, note 1). In addition Philos. X. 27: touton ton patera auton uion nomizousi kata kairous kaloumenon pros ta sumbainonta.

[161] See Ignat. ad Ephes. VII. 2: heis iatros estin sarkikos te kai pneumatikos, gennetos kai agennetos, en sarki genomenos Theos, en thanato zoe alethine, kai ek Marias kai ek Theou, proton pathetos kai tote apathes, Iesous Christos; and see for Clement Vol. I., p. 186 ff.

[162] It is interesting to notice that in the Abyssinian Church of to-day there is a theological school which teaches a threefold birth of Christ, from the Father in eternity, from the virgin, and from the Holy Ghost at the Baptism; see Herzog, R. E., 2 Aufl., Bd. I., p. 70.

[163] C. 1: "Ipsum dicit patrem descendisse in virginem, ipsum ex ea natum, ipsum passum ipsum denique esse Iesum Christum." c. 2: "post tempus pater natus et pater passus, ipse deus, dominus omnipotens, Iesus Christus prædicatur"; see also c. 13.

[164] C. 7: "Quid est enim, dices, sermo nisi vox et sonus oris, et sicut grammatici tradunt, aër offensus, intellegibilis auditu, ceterum vanum nescio quid."

[165] C. 2: "Unicum deum non alias putat credendum, quem si ipsum eundemque et patrem et filium et spiritum s. dicat." c. 3: "Duos et tres iam iactitant a nobis prædicari, se vero unius dei cultores præsamunt . . . monarchiam, inquiunt, tenemus." c. 13: "inquis, duo dii prædicuntur." c. 19: "igitur si propterea eundem et patrem et filium credendum putaverunt, ut unum deum vindicent etc." c. 23: "ut sic duos divisos diceremus, quomodo iactitatis etc."

[166] C. 8: "Hoc si qui putaverit me probolen aliquam introducer," says Tertullian "quod facit Valentinus, etc."

[167] See C. 14. 15: "Hic ex diverso volet aliquis etiam filium invisibilem contendere, ut sermonem, ut spiritum . . . Nam et illud adiiciunt ad argumentationem, quod si filius tunc (Exod. 33) ad Moysen loquebatur, ipse faciem suam nemini visibilem pronuntiaret, quia scil. ipse invisibilis pater fuerit in filii nomine. Ac per hoc si eundem volunt accipi et visibilem et invisibilem, quomodo eundem patrem et filium . . . Ergo visibilis et invisibilis idem, et quia utrumque, ideo et ipse pater invisibilis, qua et filius, visibilis . . . Argumentantur, recte utrumque dictum, visibilem quidem in carne, invisibilem vero ante carnem, ut idem sit pater invisibilis ante carnem, qui et filius visibilis in carne."

[168] Thus to Exod. XXXIII. (ch. 14), Rev. I. 18 (ch. 17), Isa XXIV. 24 (ch. 19), esp. John X. 30; XIV. 9, 10 (ch. 20), Isa. XLV. 5 (ch. 20). They admit that in the Scriptures sometimes two, sometimes one, are spoken of; but they argued (ch 18): Ergo quia duos et unum invenimus, ideo ambo unus atque idem et filius et pater."

[169] Ch. 10: "Ipse se sibi filium fecit."

[170] Ch. 11: "Porro qui eundem patrem dicis et filium, eundem et protulisse ex semetipso facis."

[171] To this verse the Monarchians, according to ch. 10, appealed, and they quoted as a parallel the birth from the virgin.

[172] Ch. 27: "Æque in una persona utrumque distinguunt, patrem et filium, discentes filium carnem esse, id est hominem, id est Iesum, patrem autem spiritum, id est deum, id est Christum." On this Tertullian remarks: "et qui unum eundemque contendunt patrem et filium, iam incipiunt dividere illos potius quam unare; talem monarchiam apud Valentinum fortasse didicerunt, duos facere Iesum et Christum." Tertullian, accordingly, tries to retort on his opponents the charge of dissolving the Monarchia; see even ch. 4. The attack on the assumption of a transformation of the divine into the human does not, for the rest, affect these Monarchians (ch. 27 ff.).

[173] See ch. 26, 27: "propterea quod nascetur sanctum, vocabitur filius dei; caro itaque nata est, caro itaque erit filius dei."

[174] Ch. 29: "mortuus est non ex divina, sed ex humana substantia."

[175] L. c.: "Compassus est pater filio."

[176] Philos. IX. 7, p. 440. 35 sq.; 11, p. 450. 72 sq.

[177] Ego oida hena Theon Christon Iesoun kai plen autou heteron oudena genneton kai patheton -- ouch ho pater apethanen, alla ho huios.

[178] L.c. IX. 12, p. 458, 78: alla kai dia to hupo tou Sabelliou suchnos kategoreisthai hos parabanta ten proten pistin. It is apparently the very formula "Compassus est pater filio" that appeared unacceptable to the strict Monarchians.

[179] Philos. IX. 12, p. 458, 80: Kallistos legei ton logon auton einai huion, auton kai patera onomati men kaloumenon, hen de hon to pneuma adiaireton. ouk allo einai patera, allo de huion, hen de kai to auto huparchein, kai ta panta gemein tou theiou pneumatos ta te ano kai kato; kai einai to en te partheno sarkothen pneuma ouch heteron para ton patera, alla hen kai to auto. Kai touto einai to eiremenon. John.
14. 11. To men gar blepomenon, hoper estin anthropos, touto einai ton huion, to de en to huio chorethen pneuma touto einai ton patera; ou gar, Besin, ero duotheous patera kai huion, all' hena. Ho gar en auto genomenos pater proslabomenos ten s8arka etheopoiesen henosas heauto, kai epoiesen hen, hos kaleisthai patera kai huion hena Theon. kai touto hen on prosopon me dunasthai einai duo, kai houtos ton patera sumpeponthenai to huio; ou gar thelei legein ton patera peponthenai kai hen einai prosopon . . . Here something is wanting in the text.

[180] Catholic theologians endeavour to give a Nicene interpretation to the theses of Callistus, and to make Hippolytus a ditheist; see Hagemann, l.c.; Kuhn, Theol. Quartalschrift, 1885, II.; Lehir, Études bibliques, II., p. 383; de Rossi and various others.

[181] This is also Zahn's view, Marcell., p. 214. The doctrine of Callistus is for the rest so obscure, -- and for this our informant does not seem to be alone to blame -- that, when we pass from it to the Logos Christology, we actually breathe freely, and we can understand how the latter simpler and compact doctrine finally triumphed over the laboured and tortuous theses of Callistus.

[182] See the Christology of Origen.
[183] See Vol. II., p. 256.

[184] This can be clearly perceived by comparing the Christology of Tertullian and Hippolytus with that of Irenæus.

[185] See Tertullian adv. Prax. 3; Hippol. c. Noët. 11.

[186] Adv. Prax. 8, 13. It is the same with Hippolytus; both have in their attacks on the Modalists taken Valentine, comparatively speaking, under their protection. This is once more a sign that the doctrine of the Church was modified Gnosticism.

[187] Ch. 18, in other passages otherwise.
[188] Tertull. adv. Prax. 2. Hippol. c. Noët. I.

[189] The Monarchian dispute was conducted on both sides by the aid of proofs drawn from exegesis. Tertullian, besides, in Adv. Prax., appealed in support of the "economic" trinity to utterances of the Paraclete.

[190] See ad. Prax. 21: "Ceterum Iudaicæ fidei ista res, sic unum deum credere, ut filium adnumerare ei nolis, et post filium spiritum. Quid enim erit inter nos et illos nisi differentia ista? Quod opus evangelii, si non exinde pater et filius et spiritus, tres crediti, unum deum sistunt?"

[191] Pisteusomen, says Hippolyt. c. Noët. 17 -- kata ten paradosin ton apostolon hoti Theos logos ap' ouranon katelthen, -- see already Tatian, Orat. 5 following Joh. I. 1: Theos en en arche, ten de archen logou dunamin pareilephamen.

[192] See above, p. 63.

[193] In the Symbolum the "gennethenta ek pneumatos hagiou" is to be understood as explaining ton huion tou Theou.

[194] See Adv. Prax. 16.

[195] On these grounds the doctrine of Sabellius will be described under, in the history of Eastern Modalism.

[196] In forged Acts of Synod of the 6th century we read (Mansi, Concil. II., p. 621): "qui se Callistus ita docuit Sabellianum, ut arbitrio suo sumat unam personam esse trinitatis." The words which follow later, "in sua extollentia separabat trinitatem" have without reason seemed particularly difficult to Döllinger (l.c., p. 247) and Langen (l.c., p. 215). Sabellianism was often blamed with dismembering the Monas (see Zahn, Marcell. p. 211.)

[197] See Döllinger, l.c., Hippolytus was under Maximinus banished along with the Roman Bishop Pontian to Sardinia. See the Catal. Liber. sub "Pontianus" (Lipsius, Chronologic, pp. 194, 275).

[198] This writing shows, on the one hand, that Adoptians and Modalists still existed and were dangerous in Rome, and on the other, that they were not found within the Roman Church. On the significance of the writing see Vol. II., p. 313 f.

[199] The Roman doctrine of Christ was then as follows: He has always been with the Father (sermo dei), but he first proceeded before the world from the substance of the Father (ex patre) for the purpose of creating the world. He was born into the flesh, and thus as filius dei and deus adopted a homo; thus he is also filius hominis. "Filius dei" and "filius hominis" are thus to be distinguished as two substances (substantia divina -- homo), but he is one person; for he has completely combined, united, and fused the two substances in himself. At the end of things, when he shall have subjected all to himself, he will subject himself again to the Father, and will return to and be merged in him. Of the Holy Spirit it is also true, that he is a person (Paraclete), and that he proceeds from the substance of the Father; but he receives from the Son his power and sphere of work, he is therefore less than the Son, as the latter is less than the Father. But all three persons are combined as indwellers in the same substance, and united by love and harmony. Thus there is only one God, from whom the two other persons proceed.

[200] Sabellios blasphemei, auton ton huion einai legon ton patera. See Routh, Reliq. S. III., p. 373

[201] Expos. Symboli Apost. ch. 19. The changes which can be shown to have been made on the first article of the Creed elsewhere in the West -- see especially the African additions -- belong probably at the earliest to the fourth century. Should they be older, however, they are all, it would seem, to be understood anti-gnostically; in other words, they contain nothing but explanations and comfirmatory additions. It is in itself incredible and incapable of proof that the Roman and after it the Western Churches should, at the beginning of the third century, have deleted, as Zahn holds, a hena which originally stood in the first article of the Creed, in order to confute the Monarchians.

[202] See Vol. IV.

[203] We, unfortunately, do not know on what grounds the Roman Bishop approved of the excommunication of Origen, or whether Origen's doctrine of subordination was regarded in Rome as heretical.

[204] Here follow in the original illustrations which we relegate to this footnote. Compare Instruct. II. 1 (Heading): "De populo absconso sancto omnipotentis Christi dei vivi;" II. 1, p. 28. 22, ed. Ludwig): "omnipotens Christus descendit ad suos electos;" II. 23, p. 43, 11 sq.: "Unde deus clamat: Stulte, hac nocte vocaris." II. 39. 1, p. 52. Carmen apolog. 91 sq.: "Est deus omnipotens, unus, a semetipso creatus, quem infra reperies magnum et humilem ipsum. Is erat in verbo positus, sibi solo notatus, Qui pater et filius dicitur et spiritus sanctus;" 276: "Hic pater in filio venit, deus unus ubique." (See also the following verses according to the edition of Dombart): 285: "hic erat Omnipotens;" 334: "(ligno) deus pependit dominus;" 353: "deum talia passum, Ut enuntietur crucifixus conditor orbis;" 359 sq.: "Idcirco nec voluit se manifestare, quid esset, Sed filium dixit se missum fuisse a patre;" 398: "Prædictus est deus carnaliter nasci pro nobis;" 455: "quis deus est ille, quem nos crucifiximus;" 610: "ipsa spes tota, deo credere, qui ligno pependit;" 612: "Quod filius dixit, cum sit deus pristinus ipse;" 625: "hic erat venturus, commixtus sanguine nostro, ut videretur homo, sed deus in carne latebat . . . dominus ipse veniet." 630, 764: "Unus est in cælo deus dei, terræ marisque, Quem Moyses docuit ligno pependisse pro nobis;" etc. etc. Commodian is usually assigned to the second half of the third century, but doubts have recently been expressed as to this date. Jacobi, Commodian u. d. alt Kirchlich. Trinitätslehre, in der deutschen Ztschr. f. Christl. Wissensch., 1853, p, 203 ff.

[205] Et patitur, quomodo voluit sub imagine nostra.

[206] Iam caro deus erat, in qua dei virtus agebat.

[207] See Francke's fine discussion, Die Psychologie und Erkentnisslehre des Arnobius (Leipzig, 1878).

[208] We recall the Theodotians of Rome.

[209] See Instit. IV. 6-30. The doctrine of the Logos is naturally worked out in a subordinationist sense. Besides this, many other things occur which must have seemed very questionable to the Latin Fathers 60 years afterwards: "Utinam," says Jerome, "tam nostra confirmare potuisset quam facile aliena destruxit."

[210] Commod., Carmen apolog. 761.

[211] See the Christological expositions, in part extremely questionable, of Arnobius I. 39, 42, 53, 60, 62, and elsewhere. A. demands that complete divinity should be predicated of Christ on account of the divine teaching of Christ (II. 60). In his own theology many other antique features crop up; he even defends the view that the supreme God need not be conceived as creator of this world and of men (see the remarkable chap. 46 of the second book, which recalls Marcion and Celsus). Many Church doctrines Arnobius cannot understand, and he admits them to be puzzles whose solution is known to God alone (see e.g., B. II. 74). Even in the doctrine of the soul, which to him is mortal and only has its life prolonged by receiving the doctrine brought by Christ, there is a curious mixture of antique empiricism and Christianity. If we measure him by the theology of the fourth century, Arnobius is heterodox on almost every page.

[212] See the Carmen apolog. with its detailed discussions of the final Drama, Antichrist (Nero) etc.; Lactant IV. 12, VII. 21 sq.; Victorinus, Comm. on Revelation.

[213] We can notice throughout in Commodian the influence of the institution of penance, that measuring-tape of the extent to which Church and World are entwined.

[214] The oldest commentary preserved, in part, to us is that of Victorinus of Pettan on the Apocalypse.

[215] The work of Arnobius is, in this respect, very instructive. This theologian did not incline as a theologian to Neoplatonism, at a time when, in the East, the use of any other philosophy in Christian dogmatics was ipso facto forbidden as heretical.

[216] Epiphanius (H. 62. 1) tells us that there were Sabellians in Rome in his time. Since he was acquainted with no other province or community in the West we may perhaps believe him. This information seems to be confirmed by a discovery made in A.D. 1742 by Marangoni. "He found at the Marancia gate on the road leading to S. Paolo a stair closed in his time which, as the discoverer believed, led to a cubiculum of S. Callisto, and in which were painted Constantine's monogram in very large letters, and, secondly, Christ sitting on a globe, between Peter and Paul. On the cover, in a mosaic of green stones, stood the inscription "Qui et filius diceris et pater inveniris" (Kraus, Rom. sott. 2 Aufl., p. 550). De Rossi, Kraus, and Schultze (Katakomben, p. 34) suppose that we have here the discovery of a burial place of Modalistic Monarchians, and that, as the monogram proves, of the fourth century. The sepulchre has again disappeared, and we have to depend entirely on Marangoni's account, which contains no facsimile. It is not probable that a Sabellian burial-place lay in immediate proximity to Domitilla's catacomb in the fourth century, or that the grave-yard of any sect was preserved. If we can come to any decision at all, in view of the uncertainty of the whole information, it seems more credible that the inscription belongs to the third century, and that the monogram was added to deprive it of its heretical character. Whether Ambrosius and Ambrosiaster refer in the following quotations to Roman or say Western Monarchians living in their time is at least questionable. (Ambrosius, de fide V. 13. 162, Ed. Bened. II. p. 579 "Sabelliani et Marcionitæ dicunt, quod hæc futura sit Christi ad deum patrem subjectio, ut in patrem filius refundatur"; Ambrosiaster in Ep. ad Cor. II. 2, Ed. Bened. App. II., p. 117, "quia ipsum patrem sibi filium appellatum dicebant, ex quibus Marcion traxit errorem"). Optatus (I. 9) relates that in the African provinces not only the errors, but even the names, of Praxeas and Sabellius had passed away; in I. 10, IV. 5, V. 1 he discusses the Patripassians briefly, but without giving anything new. Nor can we infer from Hilary (de trinitate VII. 39; ad Constant. II. 9) that there were still Monarchians in his time in the West. Augustine says (Ep. 118 c. II. [12] ed. Bened. II., p. 498) "dissensiones quæstionesque Sabellianorum silentur." Secondhand information regarding them is to be found in Augustine, Tract. in Joh. (passim) and Hær. 41. (The remarks here on the relation of Sabellius to Noëtus are interesting. Augustine cannot see why orientals count Sabellianism a separate heresy from Monarchianism). Again we have similar notices in Aug. Prædest. H. 41 -- in H. 70 Priscillians and Sabellians are classed together; as already in Leo I -- , in Isidor, H. 43, Gennadius, Eccl. Dogm. I. 4 ("Pentapolitana hæresis") Pseudo-hieron. H. 26 ("Unionita" etc., etc. In the Consult. Zacch. et Appollon. l. II. 11 sq. (Gallandi -T. IX., p. 231 sq) -- a book written about 430 -- a distinction is made between the Patripassians and Sabellians. The former are correctly described, the latter confounded with the Macedonians. Vigilius Dial. adv. Arian. (Bibl. Lugd. T. VIII.).

[217] S. Schleiermacher in the Theol. Zeitschr. 1822, part 3; Lange in the Zeitschr. f. d. histor. Theol. 1832, II. 2. S. 17-46; Zahn, Marcell. 1867. Quellen: Orig., peri arch. I. 2; in John. I. 23, II. 2. 3, X. 21; in ep. ad Titum fragm. II; in Mt. XVI. 8, XVII. 14; c. Cels. VIII. 12, etc. For Sabellius, Philosoph. IX. is, in spite of its meagreness, of fundamental importance. Hippolytus introduces him in a way that shows plainly he was sufficiently well known at the time in the Roman Church not to need any more precise characterisation (see Caspari, Quellen III., p. 327.). Epiphanius (H. 62) has borrowed from good sources. If we still possessed them, the letters of Dionysius of Alex. would have been our most important original authorities on S. and his Libyan party. But we have only fragments, partly in Athanasius (de sententia Dionysii), partly in later writers -- the collection in Routh is not complete, Reliq S. III., pp. 371-403. All that Athanasius imparts, though fragmentary, is indispensable (espec. in the writings De synod.; de decret. synod. Nic. and c. Arian. IV. This discourse has from its careless use led to a misrepresentation of Sabellian teaching; yet see Rettberg, Marcell. Præf.; Kuhn, Kath. Dogmatik II. S. 344; Zahn, Marcell. S. 198 f.). A few important notices in Novatian, de trinit. 12 sq.; Method., Conviv. VIII. 10; Arius in ep. ad. Alex. Alexandriæ (Epiph., H. 69. 7); Alexander of Alex. (in Theodoret , H. E. I.3); Eusebius, c. Marcell. and Præpar. evang.; Basilius, ep. 207, 210, 214, 235; Gregory of Nyssa, logos kata Areiou kai Saelliou (Mai. V. P. Nova Coll. VIII. 2, p. 1 sq.) -- to be used cautiously -- ; Pseudo-Gregor (Appollinaris) in Mai, 1.c. VII. 1., p. 170 sq.; Theodoret. H. F. II. 9; Anonymus, pros tous Sabellizontas (Athanas. Opp. ed. Montfaucon II., p. 37 sq.); Joh. Damascenus; Nicephorus Call.,
H. E. VI. 25. For Monarchianism we have a few passages in Gregorius Thaumaturg. The theologians after Origen and before Arius will be cited under.

[218] Emendations both to support and to refute Sabellianism were proposed in the valued works of the past; the N. T., as well as other writings belonging to primitive Christian literature, being tampered with. Compare Lightfoot's excursus on I. Clem. II., where Cod. A reads tou Theou while C and S have tou Christou, the latter an emendation opposed to Monarchianism or Monophysitism (St. Clement of Rome, Appendix, p. 400 sq.). The old formulas to haima, ta pathemata tou Theou and others came into disrepute after the third century. Athanasius himself disapproved of them (c. Apoll. II. 13. 141, I., p. 758), and in the Monophysite controversy they were thoroughly distrusted. Thus in Ignatius (ad. Eph. I.) en haimati Theou and (ad. Rom. VI.) tou pathous tou Theou mou were corrected. On the other hand (II. Clem. IX.) the title of pneuma for Christ was changed into logos. In the N. T. there are not a few passages where the various readings show a Monarchian or anti-Monarchian, a monophysite or dyophysite leaning. The most important have been discussed by Ezra Abbot in several essays in the "Bibliotheca Sacra" and the "Unitarian Review". But we can trace certain various readings due to a Christological bias as far back as the second century: thus especially the famous ho monogenes huios for monogenes Theos John I. 18; on this see Hort., Two Dissertations I., on MONOGENES ThEOS in Scripture and Tradition, 1878; Abbot in the Unitarian Review, June 1875. Since the majority of the important various readings in the N. T. belong to the second and third century, a connected examination of them would be very important from the standpoint of the history of dogma. For dogmatic changes in the western texts, the remarkable passage in Ambrosiaster on Rom. V. 14 falls especially to be noticed.

[219] See Dionys. Alex. in Euseb. VII. 6. Dionysius speaks as if the appearance of Sabellian doctrine in his time in the Pentapolis were something new and unheard of.

[220] This information, however, first appears in Basil, then in Philaster, Theodoret, and Nicephorus; possibly, therefore, it is due to the fact that Sabellius' teaching met with great success in Libya and Pentapolis.

[221] Athanas de sententia Dionysii 5.

[222] This appears also from our oldest witness, the letter of Dionysius, Eusebius H. E. VII. 6: peri tou nun kinethentos en te Ptolemaidi tes Pentapoleos dogmatos, ontos asebous kai blasphemian pollen echontos peri tou pantokratoros Theou patros kai tou kuriou hemon Iesou Christou, apistian te pollen echontos peri tou monogenous paidos autou kai prototokou pases ktiseos, tou enathropesantos logou, anaisthesian de tou hagiou pneumatos.

[223] Epiph., l. c.: Dogmatizei gar houtos kai hoi ap' autou Sabellianoi ton auton einai patera, ton auton huion, ton auton einai hagion pneuma; ho einai en mia hupostasei treis onomasias, e hos en anthropo soma kai psuche kai pneuma. Kai einai men to sona hos eitein ton patera, psuchen de hos eipein ton huion, to pneuma de hos anthropou, houtos kai to hagion pneuma en te theoteti. E hos ean e en helio onti men en mia hupostasei, treis de echonti tas energeias k.t.l. Method. Conviv. VIII. 10 (ed. Jahn, p. 37): Sabellios legei ton pantokratora peponthenai.

[224] Athanas., de synod. 16; Hilar., de trin IV. 12.

[225] Epiph. H. 62, c. 1: Pemphthenta ton huion kairo pote, hosper aktina kai ergasamenon ta panta en to kosmo ta tes oikonmias tes euangelikes kai soterias ton anthropon, analephthenta de authis eis ouranon, hos hupo heliou pemphtheisan aktina, kai palin eis ton helion anadramousan, To de hagion pneuma pempesthai eis ton kosmon, kai kathexes kai kath' hekasta eis hekaston ton kataxioumenon k.t.l. C. 3 Epiphanius says: Ouch ho huios heauton egennesen, oude ho pater metabebletai apo tou "pater" tou einai "huios" k.t.l. . . . pater aei pater, kai ouk en kairos hote ouk en pater pater.

[226] See Zahn, Marcell., p. 213.
[227] Epiph., l. c., c. 2.

[228] L. c.: Ten de pasan auton planen kai ten tes planes auton dunamin echousin ex Apokruphon tinon, malista apo tou kaloumenou Aiguptiou euangeliou, ho tines to onoma epethento touto. En auto gar polla toiauta hos en parabusto musteriodos ek prosopou tou soteros anapheretai, hos autou delountos tois mathetais ton auton einai patera, ton auton einai huion, ton auton einai hagion tneuma.

[229] In the 2nd Ep. of Clement where it is frequently used, though this is disputed by some, Modalistic formulas occur.

[230] Clemens Alex. knew it; see Hilgenfeld, Nov. Testam. extra can. recept., 2 ed., fasc. 4, p. 42 sq.

[231] See above, p. 45.

[232] There were still Sabellians in Neo-Cæsarea in the time of Basilius; Epiphanius knows of them only in Mesopotamia (H. 62 c. 1). The author of the Acta Archelai (c. 37) also became acquainted with them there; he treats them like Valentinians, Marcionites, and followers of Tatian as heretics.

[233] Orat. c. Arian IV. 25: hosper diaireseis charismaton eisi, to de auto pneuma, houto kai ho pater ho autos men esti, platunetai de eis huion kai pneuma.

[234] Euseb. c. Marcell., p. 76 sq.
[235] See on this Volume IV.

[236] Sabellius seems to have been held a heretic all over the West about A.D. 300; see the Acta Archelai, Methodius etc.

[237] Hagemann, l.c., p. 411 ff.; Dittrich, Dion. d. Gr. 1867; Förster, in the Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol., 1871) p. 42 ff.; Routh, Reliq. S. III., pp. 373-403. The main source is Athanasius de sentent, Dionysii, a defence of the Bishop, due to the appeal of the Arians to him; see also Basilius de spiritu, p. 29; Athan. de synod. 43-45.

[238] Euseb., H. E. VII. 26. 1: Epi tautais tou Dionusiou pherontai kai allai pleious epistolai, hosper hai kata Sabelliou pros Ammona tes kata Bereniken ekklesias episkopon, kai he pros Telesphoron kai he pros Euphranora, kai palin Ammona kai Euporon. Suntattei de peri tes autes hupotheseos kai alla tessara sungrammata, ha to kata Rhomen homonumo Dionusio prosphonei. Dionysius had already called the attention of Sixtus II., the predecessor of the Roman Dionysius, to the revolt in the Pentapolis.

[239] Hagemann maintains that they first turned to the Alexandrian Bishop himself, and that he wrote an explanatory letter, which, however, did not satisfy them; but this cannot be proved (Athanasius de sentent. Dion. 13 is against it). The standpoint of the accusers appears from their appeal to the Roman Bishop, from the fact that he made their cause his own, and from the testimony of Athanasius. who describes them as orthodox Churchmen (de sentent. Dion. 13) -- they were orthodox in the Roman sense. It is entirely wrong, with Dorner (Entwickelungsgesch. I., p. 748 f.) and Baur (Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit I., p. 313), to identify the accusers with those heretics, who, according to Dionysius' letter, taught there were three Gods; for the heretics meant were rather the Alexandrian theologians.

[240] De sententia 10. 16.

[241] De sententia 14: ouk aei en ho Theos pater, ouk aei en ho huios, all' ho men Theos en choris tou logou, autos de ho huios ouk en prin genethe, all' en pote hote ouk en, ou gar aidios estin, all' husteron epigegonen.

[242] De sententia 16: patera legon Dionusios ouk onomazei ton huion, kai palin huion legon ouk onomazei ton patera, alla diairei kai makrunei kai merizei ton huion apo tou patros.

[243] L. c. 18: prospherousin enklema kat' emou pseudos on hos ou legontos ton Kriston homoousion einai to Theo.

[244] L. c. 18: plen ego geneta tina -- says Dion. Alex. -- kai poieta tina phesas noeisthai, ton men toiouton hos achreioteron ex epidromes eipon paradeigmata, epei mete to phuton ephen (to auto einai) to georgo, mete to naupego to skaphos; -- Hena ton geneton einai -- say the opponents of Dion. -- ton huion kai me homoousion to patri. The passage in the letter to Euphranor ran (c. 4): poiema kai geneton einai ton huion tou Theou, mete de phusei idion, alla xenon kat' ousian auton einai tou patros, hosper estin ho georgos pros ten ampelon kai ho naupegos pros to skaphos. kai gar hos poiema on ouk en prin genetai.

[245] L. c. 15.
[246] L. c. 18.

[247] L. C. 23. The expositions of nous and logos which were found both in the 2 and 4 books of Dionysius quite remind us of Porphyry: kai estin ho men hoion pater ho nous tou logou, on eph' eautou, ho de kathaper huios ho logos tou nou. pro ekeinou men adunaton, all' oude exothen pothen, sun ekeino genomenos, blastesas de ap' autou. houtos ho pater ho megistos kai katholou nous proton ton nhion logon hermenea kai angelon heautou echei.

[248] L. c. 17.

[249] We see from the passages quoted by Basilius that Dionysius adhered to the expression "treis hupostaseis," but discarded the "merismenas einai." while his accusers must have attacked the former expression also: Ei to treis einai tas upastaseis memerismenas einai legousi, treis eisi, kan me thelosin e ten theian triada pantelos aneletosan.. This accordingly is to be translated: "if they maintain that a separation is necessarily involved in the expression three Hypostases,' yet there are three -- whether they admit it or no -- or they must completely destroy the divine triad."

[250] L.c. 20, 21. It is very noteworthy, that Dionysius has not even brought himself to use the expression homoousios in his elenchos. If he had Athanasius would have given it in his extracts. For the rest, the attempt of Athanasius to explain away the doubtful utterances of Dionysius, by referring them to the human nature of Christ, is a makeshift born of perplexity.

[251] De decret. synod. Nic. 26 (see besides de sentent. Dion. 13).

[252] The attack on the latter has alone been preserved by Athanasius along with the concluding argument; it is thus introduced: Hoti de poiema oude ktisma ho tou Theou logos, all' idion tes tou patros ousias gennema adiairet?on estin, hos egrapsen he megale sunodos, idou kai ho tes Rhomes episkopos Dionusios graphon kata ton ta tou Sabelliou phronounton, schetliazei kata ton tauta tolmonton legein kai phesin houtos.

[253] Hexes d' an eikotos legoimi kai pros tous diairountas kai katatemnontas kai anairountas to semnotaton kerugma tes ekklesias tou Theou, ten monarchian -- thus begins the fragment communicated by Athanasius, -- eis treis dunameis tinas kai memerismenas hupostaseis kai theotetas treis; pepusmai gar einai tinas ton par' humin katechounton kai didaskonton ton theion logon, tautes huphegntas tes phroneseos; ohi kata diametron, hos epos eipein, antikeintai te Sabelliou gnome; ho men gar blasphemei, auton ton huion einai legon ton patera, kai empalin; hoi de treis theous tropon tina keruttousin, eis treis hupostaseis xenas allelon, pantapasi kechorismenas, diairountes ten agian monada. henosthai gar ananke to Theo ton holon ton theion logon, emphilochorein de to Theo kai endiaitasthai dei to hagion pneuma, ede kai ten theian triada eis hena, hosper eis koruphen tina (ton Theon ton holon ton pantokratora lego) sunkephalaiousthai te kai sunagesthai pasa ananke. Markionos gar tou mataiophronos didagma eis treis archas tes monarchias tomen kai diairesin (diorizei), paideuma on diabolikon, ouchi de ton ontos matheton tou Christou . . . houtoi gar triada men keruttomenen hupo tes theias graphes saphos epistantai, treis de theous oute palaian oute kainen diatheken keruttousan According to Dionysius, then, some Alexandrian teachers taught "tropon tina" -- this is the only limitation -- a form of Tritheism. The whole effort of the Bishop was to prevent this. We recognise here the old Roman interest in the unity of God, as represented by Victor, Zephyrine, and Callistus, but Dionysius may also have remembered, that his predecessors, Pontian and Fabian, assented to the condemnation of Origen. Should we not connect the angry reproach, levelled at the Alexandrian teachers, that they were Tritheists, with the charge made by Callistus against Hippolytus, that he was a Ditheist; and may we not perhaps conclude that Origen himself was also accused of Tritheism in Rome?

[254] The positive conclusion runs: Out' oun katamerizein chre eis treis theotetas ten thaumasten kai theian monada, oute poiesei koluein to axioma kai to huperballon megethos tou kuriou; alla pepisteukenai eis Theon patera pantokratora kai eis Christon Iesoun ton huion autou kai eis to hagion pneuma, henosthai de to Theo ton holon ton logon; ego gar, phesi. kai ho pater hen esmen. kai ego en to patri kai ho pater en emoi -- these are the old Monarchian proof-texts -- houto gar an kai he theia trias kai to hagion kerugma tes monarchias diasozoito. We see that Dionysius simply places the "holy preaching of the Monarchy" and the "Divine Triad" side by side: "stat pro ratione voluntas." Between this conclusion and the commencement of the fragment preserved by Athanasius given in the preceding note, we have a detailed attack on those who hold the Son to be a poiema like other creatures, "while the Holy Scriptures witness to his having an appropriate birth, but not to his being formed and created in some way." The attack on the en hote ouk en touches the fundamental position of the Alexandrian scholars as little as the opposition to three Gods; for Dionysius contents himself with arguing that God would have been without understanding, if the Logos had not always been with him; a thing which no Alexandrian doubted. The subtle distinction between Logos and Logos Dionysius leaves wholly out of account, and the explanation of the Roman Bishop on Proverbs VIII. 32 (kurios ektise me archen hodon autou): ektise entautha akousteon anti tou epestese tois up' autou gegonosin ergois, gegonosi de di' autou tou huiou, must merely have caused a compassionate smile among the theologians of Alexandria.

[255] See above, page 45.

[256] See the letter to Fabius of Antioch, and the attitude of Dionysius in the Novatian controversy, in which he sought at first to act as mediator precisely as he did in the dispute over the baptism of heretics (Euseb. H. E. VI. 41, 42, 44-46, VII. 2-9).

[257] See the fragments in Euseb. H. E. VII. 24, 25. The criticism of the Apocalypse is a master-piece.

[258] See Euseb. H. E. VII. 26, 2; the fragments of the work in Routh, Reliq. S. IV., p. 393 sq. On this, Roch, die Schrift des Alex. Bischofs, Dionysius d. Gr. über die Natur (Leipzig 1882) and my account of this dissertation in the Th. L. Z. 1883, No. 2. Dionysius' work, apart from a few Biblical quotations which do not affect the arguments, might have been composed by a Neo-platonic philosopher. Very characteristic is the opening of the first fragment preserved by Eusebius. Poteron en esti sunaphes to pan, hos hemin te kai tois sophotatois Hellenon Platoni kai Puthagora kai tois apo tes Stoas kai Herakleito phainetai; there we have in a line the whole company of the saints with whom Epicurus and the Atomists were confronted. We notice that from and after Justin Epicurus and his followers were extremely abhorred by Christian theologians, and that in this abhorrence they felt themselves at one with Platonists, Pythagoreans, and Stoics. But Dionysius was the first Christian to take over from these philosophers the task of a systematic refutation.

[259] Photius Cod. 119.
[260] Routh, Reliq. S. III., pp. 425-435.

[261] Jerome, de vir. 76 ; see also Euseb. H. E. VII. 32.

[262] Cod. 106.

[263] The first book dealt with the Father and Creator; the second, with the necessity that God should have a son, and the Son; the third, took up the Holy Ghost; the fourth, angels and demons; the fifth and sixth, the possibility and actuality of the Son's incarnation; the seventh, God's creative work. From the description by Photius it appears that Theognostus laid the chief stress on the refutation of two opinions, namely, that matter was eternal, and that the incarnation of the Logos was an impossibility. These are, however, the two theses with which the Neoplatonic theologians of the 4th and 5th centuries confronted Christian science, and in whose assertion the whole difference between Neo-platonism, and the dogmatic of Alexandrian churchmen at bottom consisted. It is very instructive to notice that even at the end of the 3rd century the antithesis thus fixed came clearly to the front. If Theognostus, for the rest, rejected the opinion that God created all things from a matter equally eternal with himself, this did not necessarily imply his abandonment of Origen's principle of the eternity of matter; yet it is at any rate possible that in this point he took a more guarded view of the master's doctrine.

[264] The fragment given by Athanasius (de decr. Nic. syn. 25) runs as follows: Ouk exothen tis estin epheuretheisa he tou huiou ousia, oude ek me onton epeisechthe; alla ek tes tou patros ousias ephu, hos tou photos to apaugasma, hos hudatos atmis; oute gar to apaugasma oute he atmis auto to hudor estin e autos ho helios, oute allotrion; kai oute autos estin ho pater oute allotrios alla aporrhoia tes tou patros ousias, ou merismon hupomeinases tes tou patros ousias; hos gar menon ho helios ho autos ou meioutai tais ekcheomenais hup' autou augais, houtos oude he ousia tou patros alloiosin hupemeinen, eikona heautes echousa ton huion. Notice that the merismos is here negatived; but this negative must have been limited by other definitions. At all events we may perhaps regard Theognostus as midway between Pierius and Alexander of Alexandria.

[265] See Gregory of Nyssa, c. Eunom. III. in Routh, l.c., p. 412; he proscribes the proposition of Theognostus: ton Theon boulomenon tode to pan kataskeuasai, proton ton huion hoion tina kanona tes demiourgias proupostesasthai. Stephanus Gobarus has expressly noted it as a scandal that Athanasius should nevertheless have praised Theognostus (in Photius, Cod. 282). Jerome did not admit him into his catalogue of authors, and it is remarkable that Eusebius has passed him over in silence; this may, however, have been accidental.

[266] See Athanas. Ep. ad Serap. IV., ch. 11; Routh, l.c., pp. 407-422, where the fragments of Theognostus are collected.

[267] See Epiph. H. 67. 3, 55. 5.

[268] Epiphanius (H. 67) speaks in the highest terms of the knowledge, learning, and power of memory, possessed by Hieracas.

[269] H. understood the resurrection in a purely spiritual sense, and repudiated the restitutio carnis. He would have nothing to do with a material Paradise; and Epiphanius indicates other heresies, which H. tried to support by a comprehensive scriptural proof. The most important point is that he disputed, on the ground of 2 Tim. II. 5, the salvation of children who died even when baptised; "for without knowledge no conflict, without conflict no reward." Epiphanius expressly certifies his orthodoxy in the doctrine of the Trinity; in fact. Arius rejected his Christology along with that of Valentinus, Mani, and Sabellius, in his letter to Alexander of Alex. (Epiph. H. 69. 7). From his short description of it (oud hos Hierakas luchnon apo luchnou, e hos lampada eis duo -- these are figures already employed by Tatian) we can only, however, conclude that H. declared the ousia of the Son to be identical with that of the Father. He may have developed Origen's Christology in the direction of Athanasius.

[270] See my Art. in Herzog's R. E. 2 Aufl. VI., p. 100 f. Hieracas recognised the essential difference between the O. and N. T. in the commandments as to agneia, enkrateia, and especially, celibacy. "What then did the Logos bring that was new?" or what is the novelty proclaimed and instituted by the Only-begotten? The fear of God? The law already contained that. Was it as to marriage? The Scriptures (= the O. T.) had already dealt with it. Or as to envy, greed, and unrighteousness? All that is already contained in the O. T. Hen de monon touto katorthosai elthe, to ten enkrateian keruxai en to kosmo kai heauto analexasthai hagneian kai enkrateian. Aneu de toutou me dunasthai zen (Epiph. H. 67, ch. 1). He appealed to 1 Cor. VII., Hebr. XII. 14, Math. XIX. 12, XXV. 21.

[271] Procopius undoubtedly maintains (Comm. in Genes., ch. III., p. 76, in Routh, Reliq. S. IV., p. 50) that Dionysius Alex., in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, contradicted the allegorical explanation of Gen. II., III; but we do not know in what the contradiction consisted.

[272] Eusebius, H. E. IX. 6: Peter was made a martyr, probably in A.D. 311.

[273] See the fragments of Peter's writings in Routh, l.c., pp. 21-82, especially pp. 46-50. Vide also Pitra, Analecta Sacra IV., p. 187 sq., 425 sq.

[274] Decidedly spurious is the fragment of an Mustagogia alleged of Peter, in which occur the words: ti de eipo Heraklan kai Demetrion tous makkarious episkopous, hoious peirasmous hupestesan hupo tou manentos Origenous, kai autou schismata ballontos en te ekklesia, ta heos semeron tarachas aute egeiranta (Routh, l.c., p. 81).

[275] We have unfortunately no more precise information as to Peter's attitude; we may determine it, however, by that of Methodius (see under).

[276] So monas -- trias -- ousia - phusis -- hupokeimenon -- hupostasis -- prosopon -- perigraphe -- merizesthai -- diairein -- platunein -- sunkephalaiousthai -- ktizein -- poiein -- gignesthai gennan -- homoousios -- ek tes ousias tou patros -- dia tou thelematos -- Theos ek Theou -- phos ek photos -- gennethenta ou poiethenta -- en hote ouk en -- ouk en hote ouk en -- en hote ouk en -- heteros kat' ousian -- atreptos -- analloiotos -- agennetos -- allotrios -- pege tes theotetos -- duo ousiai -- ousia ousiomene -- enanthropesis -- theanthropos -- henosis ousiodes -- henosis kata metousian -- sunapheia kata mathesin kai metousian -- sunkrasis -- enoikein etc. Hipler in the Oesterr. Vierteljahrschrift für kathol. Theol. 1869, p. 161 ff. (quoted after Lösche, Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1884, S. 259) maintains that expressions occurred in the speculations of Numenius and Porphyry as to the nature of God, which only emerged in the Church in consequence of the Nicene Council. Those technical terms of religio-philosophical speculation, common to the Neoplatonists of the 3rd century, the Gnostics and Catholic theologians, require reexamination. One result of this will be perhaps the conclusion that the philosophy of Plotinus and Porphyry was not uninfluenced by the Christian system, Gnostic and Origenistic, which they opposed. We await details under this head from Dr. Carl Schmidt.

[277] The meaning which was afterwards attached to the received categories was absolutely unthinkable, and corresponded perfectly to none of the definitions previously hit upon by the philosophical schools. But this only convinced men that Christianity was a revealed doctrine, which was distinguished from philosophical systems by mysterious ideas or categories.

[278] But we have not yet ascertained the method followed in the earlier period of collecting the verdicts of the older Fathers, and of presenting them as precedents; yet it is noteworthy that Irenæus and Clement already delighted in appealing to the presbuteroi, which meant for them, however, citing the Apostles' disciples, and that Paul of Samosata was accused in the epistle of the Synod of Antioch, of despising the ancient interpreters of the Divine Word (Euseb. VII. 30).

[279] See Caspari IV., p. 10 ff.; Ryssel, Gregorius Thaumaturgus, 1880. Vide also Overbeck in the Th. L.-Z., 1881, No. 12, and Dräscke in the Jahrb. f. protest. Theol. 1881, H. 2. Edition by Fronto. Ducäus, 1621. Pitra, Analecta Sacra III.; also Loofs, Theol. L. Z., 1884, No. 23.

[280] See Caspari's (l.c.) conclusions as to Gregory's confession of faith, whose genuineness seems to me made out. Origen's doctrine of the Trinity appears clearly in the Panegyric. The fragment printed by Ryssel, p. 44 f., is not by Gr. Thaumaturgus.

[281] See Caspari, l.c., p. 10: trias teleia, doxe kai aidioteti kai basileia me merizomene mede apallotrioumene. Oute oun ktiston ti e doulon en te triadi oute epeisakton, hos proteron men ouch huparchon, husteron de epeiselthon; oute gar enelipe pote huios patri, oute thio pneuma, all' atreptos kai analloiotos he aute trias aei.

[282] Basil., ep. 210.

[283] It remained a matter of doubt in the East up to the beginning of the fourth century, whether one ought to speak of three Hypostases (essences, natures), or one.

[284] Ryssel, p. 65 f., 100 f.; see Gregor. Naz., Ep. 243, Opp, p. II., p. 196 sq., ed. Paris, 1840.

[285] Ryssel, p. 71 f., 118 f. The genuineness of the tractate is not so certain as its origin in the 3rd century; yet see Loofs, l.c.

[286] See also the Sermo de incarnatione attributed to Gregory (Pitra III., p. 144 sq., 395 sq.)

[287] Origen himself always possessed in his unconditional adherence to the Bible a kind of corrective against the danger of passing entirely over to philosophy. Though thoroughly versed in philosophical science, he sought never to be more than a scriptural theologian, and urged his disciples -- witness his letter to Gregor. Thaum. -- to give up their philosophical studies, and devote themselves wholly to the Bible. No professedly philosophical expositions occur in Origen himself, so far as I know, like those transmitted by his disciples. For the latter the comprehensive chapter of Eusebius (H. E. VII. 32) is very instructive. Here we meet with Bishops who seem to have been scholars first and clerics afterwards. This Eusebius (§ 22) has to tell of one: logon men philosophon kai tes alles par' Hellesi paideias para tois pollois thaumastheis, ouch homoios ge nen peri ten theian pistin diatetheimenos.

[288] It is unknown who was the kallion hemon presbutes kai` makaristos aner quoted by Epiph. (H. 64, ch. 8 and 67) as an opponent of Origen.

[289] Besides these we have Eastern theologians, who, while they did not write against Origen, show no signs in their works of having been influenced by Alexandrian theology, but rather resemble in their attitude Irenæus and Hippolytus. Here we have especially to mention the author of five dialogues against the Gnostics, which, under the title "De recta in deum fide," bear the name of Adamantius; see the editio princeps by Wetstein, 1673, and the version of Rufinus discovered by Caspari (Kirchenhistorische Anecdota, 1883; also Th. L.-Z. 1884, No. 8) which shows that the Greek text is interpolated. The author, for whom we have perhaps to look in the circle of Methodius, has at any rate borrowed not a little from him (and also from the work of Theophilus against Marcion?). See Jahn, Methodii, Opp. I., p. 99, II. Nos. 474, 542, 733-749, 771, 777. Möller in Herzog's R. E., 2 Ed., IX., p. 725. Zahn, Ztschr. f. Kirchengesch., Vol. IX., p. 193 ff.: "Die Dialoge des Adamantius mit den Gnostikern." The dialogues were written ± 300, probably somewhere in East Asia Minor, or in West Syria, according to Zahn about 300-313 in Hellenic Syria, or Antioch. They are skilfully written and instructive; a very moderate use is made of philosophical theology. Perhaps the Ep. ad Diogn. also came from the circle of Methodius. Again, there is little philosophical theology to be discovered in the original edition of the first six books of the apostolic Constitutions, which belongs to the third century. See Lagarde in Bunsen's Analecta Ante-Nicæna T. II. The author still occupied the standpoint of Ignatius, or the old anti-gnostic teachers. The dogmatic theology, in the longer recension of the work, preserved in Greek, belongs entirely to the reviser who lived in or after the middle of the 4th century (so App. Const. II. 24, VI. 11, 14, 41 [Hahn, Biblioth. der Symbole, 2 Aufl., §§ 10, 11, 64]; see my edition of the Didache, p. 241 ff. That Aphraates and the author of the Acta Archelai were unaffected by Origen's theology will have been clear from what was said above, p. 50 f.

[290] Jahn, S. Methodii Opp., 1865; Pars II. S. Methodius Platonizans, 1865; Bonwetsch, M. von Olympus I. 1891. Vide also Pitra, Analecta Sacra T. III., IV. (see Loofs, Th. L.-Z., 1884, No. 23, col. 556 ff.). Möhler, Patrologie, pp. 680-700. Möller, l.c., p. 724 ff. Salmon Dict. of Christian Biogr. III. p. 909 sq.

[291] Besides smaller fragments are found, increased by Pitra.

[292] See Zahn, Ztschr. f. Kirchengesch. Vol. VIII., p. 15 ff. Place: Olympus in Lycia.

[293] He was ranked in later times with Irenæus and Hippolytus (see Andreas Cæs. in præf. in Apoc., p. 2.) and that as a witness to the inspiration of John's Apocalypse.

[294] See Jahn, l.c.

[295] See the long fragments of the writing de resurrectione which was directed against Origen, as also the work peri ton geneton. Methodius called Origen a "Centaur" (Opp. I. 100, 101), i.e., "Sophist," and compared his doctrine with the Hydra (I. 86). See the violent attack on the new-fashioned exegetes and teachers in De resurr. 8, 9 (Opp I. 67 sq.) and 20, (p. 74), where the osta noeta and sarkas noetas of Origen's school are ridiculed; ch. 21, p. 75; 39, p. 83.

[296] See the short argument against Origen, De resurr. 28, p. 78: Ei gar kreitton to me einai tou einai ton kosmon, dia ti to cheiron hereito poiesas ton kosmon ho Theos; all' ouden ho Theos mataios e cheiron epoiei. oukoun eis to einai kai menein ten ktisin ho Theos diekosmesato. Wisdom I. 14 and Rom. VIII. 19 follow. The fight waged by Methodius against Origen presents itself as a continuation of that conducted by Irenæus against the Gnostics. It dealt in part with the same problems, and used the same arguments and proofs. The extent to which Origen hellenised the Christian tradition was in the end as little tolerated in the Church as the latitude taken by the Gnostics. But while Gnosticism was completely ejected in two or three generations it took much longer to get rid of Origenism. Therefore, still more of Origen's theology passed into the "revealed" system of Church doctrine, than of the theology of the Gnostics.

[297] See Conviv. III. 6 (p. 18 sq.): taute gar ton anthropon aneilephen ho logos, hopos de di' autou kataluse ten ep' olethro gegonuian katadiken, hettesas ton ophin. hermoze gar me di' heterou nikethenai ton poneron alla di' ekeinou, hon de kai ekompazen apatesas auton teturannekenai, hoti me allos ten hamartian luthenai kai ten katakrisin dunaton en, ei me palin ho autos ekeinos anthropos, di' hon eireto to "ge ei kai eis gen apeleuse," anaplastheis aneluse ten apophasin ten di' auton eis pantas exenenegmenen. hopos, kathos en to Adam proteron pantes apothneskousin, houto de palin kai en to aneilephoti Chpisto ton Adam pantes zoopoiethosin. Still clearer is III. 4, where it is expressly denied that Adam is only a type of Christ: phere gar hemeis episkepsometha pos orthodoxos anegage ton Adam eis ton Christon, ou monon tupon auton hegoumenos einai kai eikona, alla kai auto touto Christon kai auton gegonenai dia to ton pro aionon eis auton enkataskepsai logon. hermoze gar to protogonon tou Theou kai proton blastema kai monogenes ten sophian to protoplasto kai proto kai protogono ton anthropon anthropo kerastheisan enenthropekenai, touto gar einai ton Christon, anthropon en akrato theoteti kai teleia pepleromenon kai Theon en anthropo kechoremenon; en gar prepodestaton ton presbutaton ton aionon kai proton ton archangelon, anthropois mellonta sunomilein, eis ton presbutaton kai proton ton anthropon eisoikisthenai ton Adam. See also III. 7 8: progegumnasthai gar . . . hos ara ho protoplastos oikeios eis auton anapheresthai dunatai ton Christon, ouketi tupos on kai apeikasma monon kai eikon tou monogenous, alla kai auto touto sophia gegonos kai logos. diken gar hudatos sunkerastheis ho anthropos te sophia kai te zoe touto gegonen, hoper en auto to eis auton enkataskepsan akraton phos.

[298] Yet see, under, the new turn given to the speculation.

[299] S. Conviv. III. 5: eti gar pelourgoumenon ton Adam, hos estin eipein, kai tekton onta tai hudare, kai medepo phthasanta diken ostrakou te aphtharsia krataiothenai kai pagiothenai, hudor hosper kataleibomene kai kapastazousa dielusen auto he hamartia. dio de palin anothen anadeuon kai peloplaston ton auton eis timen ho Theos en te parthenike krataiosas proton kai pexas metra kai sunenosas kai sunkerasas to logo, atekton kai athrauston exegagen eis ton bion, hina me palin tois tes phthoras expsthen epiklustheis hieumasin, tekedona gennesas diapese. Methodius, like Irenæus, gave much study to Paul's Epistles, because they were especially quoted by Origen and his school (see ch. 51 fin., p. 90); on the difficulties which he felt see De resurr. 26, p. 77; 38, p. 83.

[300] The expositions of concupiscence, sin, and death, are distinguished very strongly from those of Origen. (For death as means of salvation see De resurr. 23, 49). They resemble the discussions of Irenæus, only Methodius maintains -- a sign of the times -- that sinlessness is impossible even to the Christian. See De resurr. 22 (I., p. 75): zontos gar eti tou somatos pro tou tethnexesthai suzen ananke kai ten hamartian, endon tas rhizas autes en hemin apokruptousan, ei kai exothen tomais tais apo ton sophronismon kai ton noutheteseon anestelleto, epei ouk an meta to photisthenai sunebainen adikein, hate pantapasin eilikrinos apheremenes aph' hemon tes amartias; nun de kai meta to pisteusai kai epi to hudor elthein tou hagnismou pollakis en amartiais ontes heuriskometha; oudeis gar houtos hamartias ektos einai heauton kauchesetai, hos mede kan enthumethenai to sunolon holos ten adikian. To this conception corresponds the view of Methodius that Christianity is a cultus of mysteries, in which consecration is unceasingly bestowed on the teleioumenoi. Methodius also referred Rom. VII. 18 f. to those born again.

[301] The allegory receives another version Opp. I., p. 119: me pos ara hai treis hautai ton progonon kephalai pases tes anthropotetos homoousioi hupostaseis kat' eikona tina, hos kai Methodio dokei -- the passage occurs in Anastasius Sin. ap. Mai, Script. Vet. N. Coll. IX. p. 619 -- tupikos gegonasi tes hagias kai homoousiou triados, tou men anaitiou kai agennetou Adam tupon kai eikona echontos tou anaitiou kai panton haitiou pantokratoros Theou kai patros, tou de gennetou huiou autou eikona prodiagraphontos tou gennetou huiou kai logou tou Theou. tes de ekporeutes Euas semainouses ten tou hagiou pneumatos ekporeuten hupostasin.

[302] Conviv. III. 8.

[303] It was not altogether absent in earlier times, and on this see ch. V. § 2. As we have remarked above, individualism in this extreme form occurs also in Origen; see, e.g., "De orat." 17.: "He who has perceived the beauty of the bride whom the Son of God loves as bridegroom, namely, the soul."

[304] Conviv. VIII. 8: Ego gar ton arsena (Apoc. XII. 1 f.) taute gennan eiresthai nomizo ten ekklesian, epeide tous charakteras kai ten ektuposin kai ten arrenopian tou Christou proslambanousin hoi photizomenoi, tes kath' homoiosin morphes en autois ektupoumenes tou logou kai en autois gennomenes kata ten akribe gnosin kai pistin hoste en hekasto gennasthai ton Christon noetos; kai dia touto he ekklesia sparga kai hodinei, mechriper an ho Christos en hemin morphothe gennetheis, hopos hekastos ton hagion to metechein Christou Christos gennethe, kath' hon logon kai en tini graphe pheretai "me hapsesthe ton Christon mou" hoionei Christon gegonoton ton kata metousian tou pneumatos eis Christon bebaptismenon, sumballouses entautha ten en to logo tranosin auton kai metamorphosin tes ekklesias. Even Tertullian teaches (De pud. 22) that the martyr who does what Christ did, and lives in Christ, is Christ.

[305] The theology of Methodius was in the Eastern Church, like Tertullian's in the West, a prophecy of the future. His method of combining tradition and speculation was not quite attained even by the Cappadocians in the 4th century. Men like Cyril of Alexandria were the first to resemble him. In Methodius we have already the final stage of Greek theology.

[306] See Funk, Patr. App. Opp. II. pp. 1-27, and Harnack, Sitzungsberichte d. Preuss. Akad. d. Wissensch. 1891, p. 361 ff.

[307] On the authority of Methodius in later times, see the Testimonia Veterum in Jahn, 1. c. I., p. 6 sq. The defence of Origen against Methodius by Pamphilus and Eusebius has unfortunately been preserved only to a very small extent. See Routh, Reliq. S. IV., p. 339 sq.

[308] It is instructive to notice how Athanasius has silently and calmly shelved those doctrines of Origen which did not harmonise with the wording of the rule of faith, or allegorised facts whose artificial interpretation had ceased to be tolerated.

[309] See above, p. 75.

[310] It is possible, and indeed probable, that Creeds were then set up for the first time in many Churches. The history of the rise of Creeds -- further than the Baptismal formula -- in the East is wholly obscure. Of course there always were detailed Christological formulas, but the question is whether they were inserted into the Baptismal formula.

[311] It has been already pointed out on p. 48, note 1, that the Biblical character of some of those additions cannot be used against their being regarded as theological and philosophical formulas. The theology of Origen -- witness his letter to Gregory -- was throughout exegetical and speculative; therefore the reception of certain Biblical predicates of Christ into the Creeds meant a desire to legitimise the speculation which clung to them as Apostolic. The Churches, however, by setting up theological Creeds only repeated a development in which they had been anticipated about 120 years before by the "Gnostics." The latter had theologically worked out Creeds as early as in the second century. Tertullian, it is true, says of the Valentinians (adv. Valent. I.) "communem fidem affirmant," i.e., they adapt themselves to the common faith; but he himself relates (De carne, 20; see Iren. I. 7, 2) that they preferred "dia Marias" to "ek Marias"; in other words, of these two prepositions, which were still used without question even in Justin's time, they, on theological grounds, admitted only the one. So also they said "Resurrection from the dead" instead of "of the body." Irenæus as well as Tertullian has spoken of the "blasphemous" regulæ of the Gnostics and Marcionites which were always being changed (Iren. I. 21 5, III. 11 3, I. 31 3; II præf.; II. 19 8, III. 16, I. 5; Tertull., De præscr. 42; Adv. Valent. 4; Adv. Marc. I. 1, IV. 5, IV. 17). We can still partly reconstruct these "Rules" from the Philosoph. and the Syntagma of Hippolytus (see esp. the regula of Apelles in Epiphan. H. XLIV. 2). They have mutatis mutandis the most striking similarity to the oriental confessions of faith published since the end of the third century; compare, e.g., the Creed, given under, of Gregorius Thaumaturgus with the Gnostic rules of faith which Hippolytus had before him in the Philosoph. There is, further, a striking affinity between them in the fact that the ancient Gnostics already appealed in support of their regulæ to secret tradition, be it of one of the Apostles or all, yet without renouncing the attestation of these rules by Holy Scripture through the spiritual (pneumatic) method of Exegesis. Precisely the same thing took place in the Eastern Churches of the next age. For the tenor and phrasing of the new Creeds which seemed to be necessary, the appeal to Holy Scripture was even here insufficient, and it was necessary to resort to special revelations, as in the case alluded to, p. 115, note 3, or to a paradosis agraphos of the Church. That the new theology and Christology had found their way into the psalms sung in the Church, can be seen from the Synodal document on Paul of Samosata (Euseb. VII. 30, 11), where it is said of the Bishop: psalmous tous men eis ton kurion hemon I. Chr. pausas hos de neoterous kai neoteron andron sungrammata; i.e., Paul set aside those Church songs which contained the philosophical or Alexandrian christology. In this respect also the Church followed the Gnostics: compare in the period immediately following, the songs of Arius, on the one hand, and the orthodox hymns on the other; for we know of Marcionite, Valentinian, and Bardesanian psalms and hymns. (See the close of the Muratorian Fragment, further my investigations in the Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol., 1876, p. 109 ff.; Tertull., De Carne Chr. 17; Hippol., Philos. VI. 37; the psalms of Bardesanes in Ephraim; the Gnostic hymns in the Acts of John and Thomas, in the Pistis Sophiæ, etc.). It is self-evident that these psalms contained the characteristic theology of the Gnostics; this also appears from the fragments that have been preserved, and is very clearly confirmed by Tertullian, who says of Alexander the Valentinian (1. c.): "sed remisso Alexandro cum suis syllogismis, etiam cum Psalmis Valentini, quos magna impudentia, quasi idonei alicuius auctoris interserit." The scholastic form of the Church was more and more complete in the East in the second half of the third century Alexandrian Catechists, had finally succeeded in partly insinuating its teaching into the Church. Where Valentine Basilides, etc., had absolutely failed, and Bardesanes partly succeeded, the School of Origen had been almost entirely successful. It is very characteristic that the ecclesiastical parties which opposed each other in the third century applied the term "school" (didaskaleion) as an opprobrious epithet to their antagonists. This term was meant to signify a communion which rested on a merely human, instead of a revealed doctrine. But the Church nearly approximated, in respect of doctrine, to the form of the philosophic schools, at the moment when her powerful organisation destroyed every analogy with them, and when the possession of the two Testaments marked her off definitely from them. Much might be said on "schola" and "ecclesia"; a good beginning has been made by Lange, Haus und Halle, 1885, p. 288 ff. See also v. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, "Die rechtliche Stellung der Philosophenschulen," 1881.

[312] See also the document in Eusebius, H. E. VIII. 30, 6, where it is said of Paul: apostas tou kanonos epi kibdela kai notha didagmata meteleluthen.

[313] Caspari, l. c. IV., p. 10. 27. Hahn, § 114.

[314] It runs: Heis Theos, pater logou zontos, sophias huphestoses kai dunameos kai charakteros aidiou, teleios teleiou gennetor, pater huiou monogenous, Heis kurios, monos ek monou, Theos ek Theou, charakter kai eikon tes theotetos, logos energos, sophia tes ton holon sustaseos periektike kai dunamis tes holes ktiseos poietike, huios alethinos aklethinou patros, aoratos aoratou kai aphthartos aphthartou kai athanatos athanatou kai aidios aidiou. Kai hen pneuma hagion, ek Theou ten huparxin echon kai di' huiou pephenos [delade tois anthropois], eikon tou huiou, tekeiou tekeia, zoe zonton aitia, [pege hagia] hagiotes hagiasmou choregos, en ho phaneroutai Theos ho pater ho epi panton kai en pasi, kai Theos ho huios ho dia panton-trias teleia, doxe kai aidioteti kai basileia me merizomene mede apallotrioumene. Oute oun ktiston ti e doulon en te triadi, oute epeisakton, hos proteron men ouch huparchon, husteron de epeiselthon; oute gar enelipe pote huios patri oute huio pneuma, all' atreptos kai analloiotos he aute trias aei. It ought to be distinctly noticed that the genuineness of this Creed is, in spite of Caspari's brilliant defence, not raised above all doubt. But the external and internal evidence in support of its authenticity seem to me overwhelming. According to Gregory of Nyssa it was said to have been revealed to Gregory Thaumaturgus immediately before entering on his Bishopric, by the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John. If this legend is old, and there is nothing to show it is not, then we may regard it as proving that this confession of faith could only be introduced into the Church by the use of extraordinary means. The abstract, unbiblical character of the Creed is noteworthy; it is admirably suited to a follower of Origen like Gregory; but it is less suited to a post-Nicene Bishop. Origen himself would hardly have approved of so unbiblical a Creed. It points to a time in which there was imminent danger of theological speculation relaxing its connection with the Books of Revelation.

[315] See Theodoret, H. E. I. 4; Hahn, l. c., § 65: Pisteuomen, hos te apostolike ekklesia dokei, eis monon agenneton patera, oudena tou einai auto ton aition echonta . . . kai eis hena kurion Iesoun Christon, ton huion tou Theou ton monogene, gennethenta ouk ek tou me ontos, all' ek tou ontos patros . . . pros de te eusebei taute peri patros kai huiou doxe, kathos hemas hai theiai graphai didaskousin, hen pneuma hagion homologoumen, to kainisan tous te tes palaias diathekes hagious anthropous kai tous tes chrematizouses kaines paideutas theious. mian kai monen katholiken, ten apostoliken ekklesian, akathaireton men aei, kan pas ho kosmos aute polemein bouleuetai . . . Meta touton ten ek nekron anastasin oidamen, hes aparche gegonen ho kurios hemon I. Chr., soma phoresas alethos kai ou dokesei ek tes theotokou (one of the earliest passages, of which we are certain, for this expression; yet it was probably already used in the middle of the third century; a treatise was also written peri tes theotokou by Pierius) Marias epi sunteleia ton aionon, eis athetesin hamartiase pidemesas to genei ton anthropon, staurotheis kai apothanon, all' ou dia tauta tes heautou theotetos hetton gegenemenos, anastas ek nekron, analemphtheis en ouranois, kathemenos en dexia tes megalosunes.

[316] The Cæsarean Creed in Athanasius, Socrates, Theodoret and Gelasius, see. Hahn, § 116 and Hort, Two Dissertations, pp. 138, 139. It runs: Pisteuomen eis hena Theon patera pantokratora, ton ton hapanton horaton te kai aoraton poieten. Kai eis hena kurion I. Chr., ton tou Theou logon, Theon ek Theou, phos ek photos, zoen ek zoes, huion monogene, prototokon pases ktiseos, pro panton ton aionon ek tou patros gegennemenon, di' hou kai egeneto ta panta; ton dia ten hemeteran soterian sarkothenta kai en anthropois politeusamenon, kai pathonta, kai anastanta te trite hemera, kai anelthonta pros ton patera, kai hexonta palin en doxe krinai zontas kai nekrous. Kai eis pneuma hagion. This Creed is also remarkable from its markedly theological character. On the Creeds of Antioch and Jerusalem, which are at any rate earlier then A.D. 325. see Hort, (l.c 73) and Hahn, § 63. We cannot appeal, as regards the phrasing, to the so-called Creed of Lucian (Hahn, § 115). Yet it is extremely probable that it is based on a Creed by Lucian.

[317] See the interesting passage in Eusebius' letter to his Church, in which he (sophistically) so defends the rejection of the ouk en pro tou gennethenai, as to fall back upon the universally recognised pre-existence of Christ (Theodoret, H. E. I. 12). __________________________________________________________________

[3] See Dorner, Entw.-Gesch. d. Lehre v. d. Person Christi, 1 Thl. 1845; Lange, Gesch. u. Entw. der Systeme der Unitarier vor der nic. Synode, 1831; Hagemann, Die römische Kirche und ihr Einfluss auf Disciplin und Dogma in den ersten drei Jahrh. 1864, (the most important and most stimulating monograph on the subject); and my art. Moriarchianismus' in Herzog's R. E., 2nd ed., vol. X., pp. 178-213, on which the following arguments are based. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

DIVISION II.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOGMA OF THE CHURCH. __________________________________________________________________

BOOK I.

THE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA AS THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOD-MAN ON THE BASIS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.

Ta kratoumena to logo tes phuseos ouk echei epainon, ta de schesei philias kratoumena huperaineitai.

Paul of Samosata.

Ohne Autorität kann der Mensch nicht existiren, und doch bringt sie ebensoviel Irrthum als Wahrheit mit sich; sie verewigt im Einzelnen. was einzeln vorübergehen sollte, lehnt ab und lässt vorübergehen, was festgehalten werden sollte, und ist hauptsächlich Ursache dass die Menschheit nicht vom Flecke kommt.

BOOK I.

THE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA AS THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOD-MAN ON THE BASIS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. __________________________________________________________________