SECTION IV. OF THE DIFFICULTY WITH WHICH THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST WAS ESTABLISHED. Ir is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism, that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross, by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour. To make the new doctrine less exceptionable, the advocates for it invented a new term, viz. economy or distribution, as it may be rendered; saying they were far from denying the unity of God, but that there was a certain economy, or distribution respecting the divine nature and attributes, which did not interfere with it; for that, according to this economy the Son might be God, without detracting from the supreme divinity of the Father. But this new term, it appears, was not well understood or easily relished, by those who called themselves the advocates for the monarchy of the Father, a term much used in those days, to denote the supremacy and sole divinity of the Father, in opposition to that of the Son. All this is very clear from the following passage in Tertullian : "The simple, the ignorant, and the unlearned, who are always the greater part of the body of Christians, since the rule of faith itself," (meaning perhaps the apostles' creed, or as much of it as was in use in his time,) "transfers their worship of many gods to the one true God, not understanding that the unity of God is to be maintained, but with the economy, 1 This shows that the greater part of Christians, in the time of Tertullian, were Unitarians, and exceedingly averse to the doctrine of the Trinity. (P.) dread this economy, imagining that this number and disposition of a trinity is a division of the unity. They therefore will have it, that we are worshippers of the two, and even of three Gods; but that they are the worshippers of one God only. We, they say, hold the monarchy. Even the Latins have learned to bawl out for monarchy, and the Greeks themselves will not understand the economy;"2 monarchy being a Greek term and yet adopted by the Latins, and economy, though a Greek term, not being relished even by the Greek Christians. Upon another occasion we see by this writer how offensive the word Trinity was to the generality of Christians. "If the number of the Trinity still shocks you," &c., says he. For this reason, no doubt, Origen says, "that to the carnal they taught the gospel in a literal way, preaching Jesus Christ, and him crucified, but to persons farther advanced, and burning with love for divine celestial wisdom," (by which he must mean the philosophical part of their audience) "they communicated the Logos." 4 66 Origen candidly calls these adherents to the doctrine of the strict unity of God, pious persons (piλoleous). " 'Hence," says he, we may solve the scruple of many pious persons, who, through fear lest they should make two gods, fall into false and wicked notions." He endeavours to relieve them in this manner. "This scruple of many pious persons may thus be 2 "Simplices enim quippe ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotæ, quæ major semper credentium pars est, quoniam et ipsa regula fidei a pluribus diis seculi ad unicum et Deum verum transfert, non intelligentes unicum quidem, sed cum sun economiâ esse, credendum, expavescunt ad economiam. Numerum et dispositionem trinitatis divisionem præsumunt unitatis. Itaque vero unius Dei cultores præsumunt duos et tres jam jactitant, a nobis prædicari, se .. Monarchiam inquiunt tenemus Monarchiam sonare student Latini, economiam intelligere nolunt etiam Græci." Adv. Praxeam, Sect. iii. p. 502. (P.) 3 "Si te adhuc numerus scandalizat trinitatis," &c. Adv. Praxeam, Sect. xii. p. 506. Preface to his Comment on John, Opera, II. p. 255. (P.) solved. "We must tell them, that he who is of himself God, (avro@eos) is that God, (God with the article) (ò eos),—but that whatsoever besides that self-existent person," is "rather a divine person, is God without the article, (eos)" as was observed before.1 How far this solution of the difficulty was satisfactory to these pious, unlearned Christians does not appear. It does not seem calculated to remove a difficulty of any great magnitude. That these ancient Unitarians, under all the names by which their adversaries thought proper to distinguish them, have been greatly misrepresented, is acknowledged by all who are candid among the moderns. The learned Beausobre, himself a Trinitarian, is satisfied that it was a zeal for the unity of God that actuated the Sabellians (who were no more than Unitarians under a particular denomination). Epiphanius says, that when a Sabellian met the orthodox, they would say, "My friends, do we believe one God or three ? "3 Eusebius speaking with great wrath against Marcellus of Ancyra, allows that he did not deny the personality of the Son, but for fear of establishing two Gods. This also appears from the manner in which Eusebius expresses himself when he answers to the charge of introducing two Gods. "But you are afraid, (poßn) perhaps, lest acknowledging two distinct subsistences, you should introduce two original principles, and so destroy the monarchy of God." 5 Basil complains of the popularity of the followers of Marcellus, whose disciple Photinus is said to have been, at the same time that the name of Arius 1 Clarke's Scrip. Doc. p. 338. See supra, p. 17. 2 "Lorsque j'en recherche la source (L'Heresie Sabellienne), je n'en trouve point d'autre que la crainte de multiplier la Divinité, en multipliant les Personnes Divines, et de ramener dans l'Eglise le Polythéisme, qui renverse le premier principe de la Religion. C'est ce que témoignent assez unanimément les anciens Pères." L. iii. Ch. vi. Sect. viii. 1. p. 535. 3 Hær. 62, Opera, I. p. 514. (P.) 4 Ibid. p. 536. (P.) Clarke's Scrip. Doc. p. 345. (P.) was execrated. "Unto this very time," says he, in his letter to Athanasius, "in all their letters they fail not to anathematize the hated name of Arius; but with Marcellus, who has profanely taken away the very existence of the divinity of the only begotten Son, and abused the signification of the word Logos, with this man they seem to find no fault at all."6 It was impossible not to perceive that this economy, and the style and rank of God, given to Christ, made a system, entirely different from that of the Jews, as laid down in the Old Testament. For Christians either had not at that time laid much stress on any argument for the doctrine of the Trinity drawn from the books of Moses, or at least had not been able to satisfy the Jews, or the Jewish Christians, with any representations of that kind. Tertullian, therefore, makes another, and, indeed, a very bold attempt for the same purpose, saying, that it was peculiar to the Jewish faith so to maintain the unity of God, as not to admit the Son or Spirit to any participation of the divinity with him; but that it was the characteristic of the gospel, to introduce the Son and Spirit, as making one God with the Father. He says, that God was determined to renew his covenant in this new form. I shall give his own words, which are much more copious on the subject, in a note. When the philosophizing Christians went beyond the mere personification of a divine attribute, and proceeded to speak of the real substance, as I may say, of the divine Logos, they were evidently in danger of making a diversity, or a separation in the divine nature. 6 Opera, III. p. 80. (P.) 7 "Judaicæ 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 unum deum sistunt. Sic Deus voluit novare sacramentum, ut nove unus crederetur per Filium et Spiritum, et coram jam Deus in suis propriis nominibus et personis cognosceretur, qui et retro per Filium et Spiritum predicatus non intelligebatur." Adv. Praxeam, Sect. xxx. p. 518. (P.) That the common people did make considering him as united in one subthis very objection to the new doctrine stance with the Father, the unity of is clearly intimated by Tertullian. God being then defended on no other "When I say that the Father is one, principle than that of the supremacy the Son another, and the Spirit a third, of the Father; so that, though Christ an unlearned or perverse person un- might be called God in a lower sense derstands me as if I meant a diversity, of the word, the Father was God in a and in this diversity he pretends that sense so much higher than that, that there must be a separation of the strictly speaking, it was still true that Father, Son and Spirit." there was but one God, and the Father The objection is certainly not ill only was that God. But, by the time stated. Let us now consider how this of Hilary, the philosophizing Chriswriter answers it: for at this time it tians, finding perhaps that this acwas not pretended that the subject was count of the unity of God did not give above human comprehension, or that entire satisfaction, were willing to reit could not be explained by proper present the Son, not only as deriving comparisons. In order, therefore, to his being and his divinity from the show that the Son and Spirit might Father, but as still inseparably united be produced from the Father, and yet to him, and never properly detached not be separated from him, he says from him; and, therefore, the former that God produced the Logos (Sermo- comparison of one torch lighted by nem) as the root of a tree produces the another would no longer answer the branch, as a fountain produces the purpose. But this could not be ob river, or the sun a beam of light.2 The last of these comparisons is also adopted by Athenagoras, in his Apology, in which he describes a beam of light as a thing not detached from the sun, but as flowing out of it, and back to it again. For one Hierarchas had been censured for comparing the production of the Son from the Father to the lighting of one candle at another, because the second candle was a thing subsisting of itself, and entirely separated from the former, so as to be incompatible with unity.1 Justin Martyr, however, as we have seen, made use of the same comparison, and as far as appears, without censure. But after his time, the ideas of philosophizing Christians had undergone a change. He and his contemporaries were only solicitous to make out something like divinity in the Son, without 1 "Ecce enim dico alium esse Patrem, et alium Filium, et alium Spiritum. Male accipit idiotes quisque aut perversus hoc dictum, quasi diversitatem sonet, et ex diversitate separationem protendat Patris, Filii et Spiritus. Adv. Praxeam, Sect. ix. p. 504. (P.) 2 Adv. Praxeam, C. viii. p. 504. (P.) 8 P. 86. (P.) 4 See Hilary de Trinitate, L. iv. [Sect. xii.] Opera, p. 59. (P.) jected to the comparison of the root and the branch, the fountain and the stream, or the sun and the beam of light, according to the philosophy of those times. For, in all these cases, things were produced from the substance of their respective origins, and yet were not separated from them. These explanations suited very well with the doctrine of the Trinity as held by the council of Nice; when it was not pretended, as it is now, that each person in the Trinity is equally eternal and uncaused. But they certainly did not sufficiently provide for the distinct personality of the Father, Son and Spirit; which, however, especially with respect to the two former, they asserted. With respect to the latter, it is not easy to collect their opinions; for, in general, they expressed themselves as if the Spirit was only a divine power. In order to satisfy the advocates of the proper unity of God, those who then maintained the divinity of Christ make, upon all occasions, the most solemn protestations against the introduction of two Gods, for the deification of the Spirit was then not much objected to by them. But they thought is the salvo at present, was not then known. Some persons in opposing Sabellius, having made three hypostases, which we now render persons, separate from each other, Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, quoted with approbation by Athanasius himself, said that it was making three Gods.5 that they guarded sufficiently against Son and Spirit in conjunction, but the worship of two Gods, by strongly always the Father only. The distincasserting the inferiority and subordi- tion between person and being, which nation of the Son to the Father; some of them alleging one circumstance of this inferiority, and others another. Tertullian cautions us not to destroy the monarchy when we admit a Trinity, since it is to be restored from the Son to the Father. Novatian lays the stress on Christ's being begotten and the Father not begotten. "If," says he, "the Son had not been begotten, he and the Father being upon a level, they would both be unbegotten, and, therefore, there would be two Gods," &c. Again, he says, "when it is said that Moses was appointed a God to Pharaoh, shall it be denied to Christ, who is a God, not to Pharaoh, but to the whole universe ?"3 But this kind of divinity would not satisfy the moderns. Eusebius's apology for this qualified 1 Adv. Praxeam, C. iv. p. 502. (P.) 3 C. xx. p. 77. (P.) 4 Clarke's Scrip. Doc. p. 343. (P.) I have observed before, and may have occasion to repeat the observation hereafter, that, in many cases, the phraseology remains when the ideas which originally suggested it have disappeared; but that the phraseology is an argument for the pre-existence of the corresponding ideas. Thus it has been the constant language of the church, from the time of the apostles, and is found upon all occasions in their writings, that Christ suffered; meaning, no doubt, in his whole person, in everything which really entered into his constitution. This, however, was not easily reconcilable with the opinion of any portion of the divinity being a proper part of Christ; and therefore the Docetæ, who first asserted the divine origin of the Son of God, made no scruple to deny, in express words, that Christ suffered. For they said, that Jesus was one thing, and the Christ, or the heavenly inhabitant of Jesus, another; and that when Jesus was going to be crucified, Christ left him. Irenæus, writing against this heresy, quotes the uniform language of the Scriptures as a sufficient refutation of it; maintaining that Christ himself, in his whole nature, suffered. "It was no impassible Christ," he says, "but Jesus Christ himself, who suffered for us.' "6 It is evident, however, that this writer, who was one of the first that adopted the idea of the divinity of Christ (but on a principle different from that of the Docetæ, viz. the personification of the Logos of the Father), 5 De Synodo Nicæna, Opera, p. 275. (P.) L. iii. C. xx. p. 246. (P.) could not himself strictly maintain the passibility of his whole nature; for then he must have held that something, which was a proper part of the Deity himself, was capable of suffering. He, therefore, but in a very awkward and ineffectual manner, endeavours to make a case different from that of the Docetæ, by supposing a mixture of the two natures in Christ. "For this reason," he says, "The word of God became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man, being mixed with the word of God, that receiving the adoption, he might become the Son of God. For we could not receive immortality, unless we were united to immortality," &c. Origen also, in his third book against Celsus, speaks of the mixture of the humanity with the divinity of Christ. He even speaks of the mortal quality of the very body of Christ, as changed into a divine quality.2 This confusion of ideas and inconsistency appears to have been soon perceived. For we presently find that all those who are called orthodox, ran into the very error of the Docetæ, maintaining that it only was the human nature of Christ that suffered, while another part of his nature, which was no less essential to his being Christ, was incapable of suffering; and to this day all who maintain the proper divinity of Christ, are in the same dilemma. They must either flatly contradict the Scriptures, and say, with the Docetæ, that Christ did not suffer, or that the divine nature itself may feel pain. This being deemed manifest impiety, they generally adopted the former opinion, viz. that the human nature of Christ only suffered, and contented themselves with asserting some inexplicable mixture of the two natures; notwithstanding the idea of one part of the same person (and of the intellectual part too) not feeling pain, while the other did, is evidently 1 L. iii. C. xxi. Opera, p. 249. (P.) 2 Ibid. p. 136. (P.) inconsistent with any idea of proper union or mixture. The very next writer we meet with, after Irenæus, viz. Tertullian, asserts, contrary to him, that it was not Christ, but only the human nature of Christ, that suffered. "This voice," says he, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' was from the flesh and soul, that is, the man, and not the word or spirit, that is, it was not of the God, who is impassible, and who left the Son while he gave up his man to death."3 What could any of the Docetæ have said more ? Arnobius expresses himself to the same purpose. Speaking of the death of Christ, with which the Christians were continually reproached, "That death," says he, "which you speak of, was the death of the man that he had put on, not of himself, of the burden, not of the bearer."4 Hilary, who wrote after the council of Nice, went even farther than this, and maintained at large that the body of Christ was at all times incapable of feeling pain, that it had no need of refreshment by meat and drink, and that he ate and drank only to show that he had a body. Could that hand," says he, "which gave an ear to the man that Peter smote, feel the nail that was driven through it? And could that flesh feel a wound which removed the pain of a wound from another ? "5 Later writers, indeed, did not follow Hilary in this extravagance, but Epiphanius says, that Christ in his death upon the cross, suffered nothing in his divinity. This, too, is the language of those who are called orthodox at this day, but how this is consistent with their doctrine of atonement, which 6 |