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the eternity of Christ, he says, " Christ is the wisdom of God, and the power of God; if, therefore, God had ever been without Christ, he must have been without wisdom and without power." And he says, that "Christ by his own power rose from the dead." Lastly, in answer to the question why we may not as well say that there are two persons in Christ, as two natures, he says, as in God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, are three persons, and but one God; so in Christ, the Godhead is one person, and the manhood another person; and yet these are not two persons, but one person." ."3 My reader, I hope, will not be disappointed in finding no great light on this subject from this learned archbishop; nor must he form much higher expectations either from Peter Lombard or Thomas Aquinas.

Peter Lombard has many new distinctions on the subject of the Trinity; and, as an article of some curiosity, I shall recite a few things from him, as well as from Thomas Aquinas, who wrote in the century following, and who is abundantly more copious, as well as more systematical.

Peter Lombard illustrates Austin's comparison of the three persons in the Trinity, by the memory, understanding and will of man, observing, that they all comprehend one another. "Thus we can say, I remember that I remember, that I understand, and that I will; I can also say I understand that I understand, that I remember, and that I will; and, lastly, I can say I will that I will, understand, and remember."4 He decides the question whether the Father begat the Son willingly or unwillingly, by saying that he begat him by nature, and not by will (natura non vo!untates), so that he retained the idea without adopting the offensive expression nolens. It is something extraordied in 1109, aged 75. See Biog. Brit. I. pp. 205

215. There is a list of his works, p. 213, note. Ad Cor. C. i. II. p. 102. (P.)

2 Ad Rom. C. x. II. p. 67. (P.

3 De Incarnatione, C. v. III. p. 39. (P.) 4 Petri Lombardi Sententiæ, L. i. Dist. iii.

dinary that he owns that he cannot distinguish between the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit."

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After asserting, after Austin, that no one person in the Trinity is less than the other two, or than all the three, he says, he that can receive this, let him receive it; he that cannot, let him, however, believe it; and let him pray that what he believes he may understand." In this, which is certainly not a little curious, this subtle writer seems to have been followed by some moderns; and the last article I shall quote from him is not less curious, though I believe none of the moderns will choose to adopt his language; which, however, is very honest. After asking why, as we say that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, we may not say there are three Gods; "Is it," says he, "because the Scripture does not say so? But neither does the Scripture say that there are three persons in the Trinity. But this does not contradict the Scripture, which says nothing about it; whereas it would be a contradiction to the Scripture to say there are three Gods, because Moses says, Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord."8 As to a contradiction with respect to reason and common sense, this Writer seems to have made no difficulty of it, not having thought it worth his while to take it into consideration.

I must mention another peculiarity of Peter Lombard, because it was the occasion of some controversy. He, like the Damianists in the East, made some distinction "between the divine essence and the three persons in the Godhead." But on this he was attacked in a large work by Joachim, abbot of Flora, who

denied that there was anything, or any essence, that belonged in common to the three persons...by which doctrine the substantial union between the three persons was taken away," and nothing but a numerical oT moral union was left.

6 Ibid. Dist. xii. p. 73. (P.)

7 Ibid. L. i. Dist. xix. p. 215. (P.) * Ibid. Dist. xxiii. p. 136. (P.)

This explication was, therefore, condemned by Innocent the Third, in 1215.1 Though Thomas Aquinas writes very largely on the subject of the Trinity, he has not much that is peculiar to himself. He defines a person to "be an individual substance of a rational nature," and pretends to demonstrate, a priori, that there must be more persons than one in the divine essence,3 but not more than three. And, lastly, after asserting that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father, he says, that the Father and Son are but one Origin (unum principium) of the Holy Spirit.6

SECTION X.

THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY AFTER THE EUTYCHIAN CON

TROVERSY.

The doctrine of the Trinity, as it was ever held in the western part of the world, had now received its last improvements; and indeed continued with little alteration from the time of Austin. A few more subtleties, however, were started upon the subject, especially in the East, which require to be noticed.

In 519, some monks of Scythia, at the head of whom was P. Fullo, having a dispute with one Victor, a deacon in Constantinople, whom they accused of being a Nestorian, insisted upon his saying that one of the persons in the Trinity was crucified for us, an expreswhich no Nestorian would use. They both appealed to the Pope's legates, who were then at Constantinople. But though these thought the words capable of a good sense, yet, since they might be suspected of the Eutychian 1 Mosheim, III. p. 134. (P.). The "sentence,

however," adds Mosheim, "did not extend to the person or fame of the abbot himself.

Joachim has at this day a considerable number of adherents and defenders, more especially among those of the Franciscans, who are called Observants." Eccl. Hist. Cent. xiii. Pt. ii. Ch. v.

Sect. xv.

2 Thomæ Aquinatis Summa, 1631, Pt. i.

Qu. xxix. Art. i. p. 70. (P.)

3 Ibid. Qu. xxx. p. 72. (P.)
4 Ibid. Qu. xxxiii. p. 80. (P.)
5 Ibid. Qu. xxxvi. p. 85. (P.)

heresy, they thought it was better not to use them. The monks, not satisfied with this decision, appealed to Pope Hormisdas, who condemned the expression, but his successor, John, approved of it. Then, finding that the expression was not generally relished, they proposed to change it, and to say that the Logos, or the Word, had suffered for us; but this was also thought to savour too much of Entychianism. Happily this controversy ended without any serious consequences.

6

It has been observed, that all the ancient, orthodox fathers supposed that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that the Logos became a ferson immediately before the creation, having been originally nothing but an attribute of the divine nature. This opinion, it seems, was not quite extinct in the year 529. For we then find a decree of a synod of Vaison, in France, condemning it, and the preamble shows that the opinion was pretty general: Because," say they, "not only in the apostolic see, but also in all the East, and in all Africa and Italy, heretics blasphemed, saying that the Son of God was not always with the Father, but had a beginning in time, they ordered it to be chanted in the common service, Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning." A form which has continued

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to be in use ever since.7

The next controversy of which I shall give an account, shows, at the same time, the subtlety of the mind of man in devising distinctions, and the impotence seventh century, the emperor Heracof power to restrain or guide it. In the lius, considering the detriment which his empire received from the migration of the persecuted Nestorians, and their settlement in Persia, was very desirous of uniting the Monophysites, and thought to prevent the diversity of opinions among them by inducing them to accede to the following proposition (suggested to him, it is said, by Anastasius,

o Sueur, A.d. 519. (P.) 7 Ibid. A.D. 529. (P.)

the chief of the Jacobites, and who pretended to renounce Eutychianism, in order to be made bishop of Antioch), "There was in Jesus Christ, after the union of the two natures, but one will and one operation." Accordingly he published an edict in favour of this doctrine, which was called that of the Monothelites, in 630.

It was afterwards confirmed in a council, and for some time seemed to have the intended effect. But soon after it was the occasion of new and violent animosities, in consequence of the opposition made to it by Sophronius, a monk of Palestine. He, being raised to the see of Jerusalem, was the occasion of a council being held at Constantinople in 680, which was called the sixth general council, hi which the doctrine of the Monothelites was condemned. Not withstanding this condemnation, this doctrine was embraced by the Mardiates, a people who inhabited Mount Libanus, and were afterwards called Maronites, from Maro, their first bishop; but in the twelfth century they joined the church of Rome.1

In the condemnation of this doctrine, it is remarkable that it was not stated, nor anything opposite to it asserted; the writings only which contained it being condemned, as containing propositions "impious and hurtful to the soul;" and they were therefore ordered to be exterminated and burned. It is, indeed, no wonder that those who are called orthodox with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, should be embarrassed with two intelligent principles in one person, in what manner soever they may imagine them to be united. If there be but one intelligent principle, or nature, there can be but one will, but if there be two intelligent principles, it is natural to expect two wills. But then what certainty can there be that these two wills will always coincide, and what inconvenience would there not arise from their difference?

The Christian fathers who first ima

1 Sueur, A.D. 629 and 6S0. Mosbeim, [Vol. II.J p. 37. (P.) Eccl. Hist. Cent. vii. Pt. ii. Ch. ▼. Sect. xi.

gined that Christ was the Logos of the Father, had no dispute about the sense in which he was the Son of God. That he was so by adoption, and not in his own nature, as immediately derived from God, had been peculiar to those who held his proper humanity. But in the eighth century, Felix, bishop of Urgella, in Spain, would have introduced a distinction in this case, in fact uniting the two opinions. For he held "that Christ, considered in his divine nature, was truly and essentially the Son of God, but that considered as a man, he was only so, nominally and by adoption." But this opinion was condemned by several councils, and especially in one held by Charlemagne, at Ratisbon, in 792.2

But the most ridiculous of all opinions that was, perhaps, ever seriously maintained, and which yet proceeded from an unfeigned respect to Christ, (and which I mention only to relieve my readers from their attention to things that were either of a more serious nature, or that had more serious consequences,) was one that was started in the ninth century, about the manner in which Christ was born of the Virgin. For, Paschasius Radbert, the same who was so much concerned in establishing the doctrine of transubstantiation, composed in this century "an elaborate treatise, to prove that Christ was born without his mother's womb being opened, in the same manner as he came into the chamber where his disciples were assembled, after his resurrection, though the door was shut." 3

A controversy much more serious in its consequences, as it ended in the final separation of the Greek and Latin churches, was started in the same century, about the procession of the Holy Spirit. In the Nicene Creed, with the addition which was afterwards made to it, it is said, I believe in the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father; and by this it was probably meant that the

2 Mosheim, II. p. 100. (F.) Eccl. Hist. Cent. viii. Pt. ii. Ch. v. Sect. iii.

3 Ibid. p. 162. (P.) Cent. ix. Pt. ii. Ch. iii. Sect. xxvi.