UNITARIAN MONOTHEISM.

66

149

It may excite surprise that exactly at this time when Christianity came forth from the midst of the Pagan World, a unitarian monotheistic interest should be awakened, when we might rather have expected the influence of the polytheistic standpoint. But since Monotheism was always enforced with special energy against Polytheism, persons without acuteness or culture might easily apprehend an injury to Monotheism in the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus Tertullian* says, Ignorant people are alarmed at the names of the Trinity, and accuse us of wishing to teach three Gods while they would be the worshippers of one God." Origent also observed the same offence taken at the distinction of the Logos from God the Father. Many who profess that they love God are disturbed by believing that they admit two Gods, when they speak of the Logos and the Father. Either, they say, they deny the independent existence of the Son separate from the Father, since they confess him as God whom they call only by the name of Son, or they deny the divinity of the Son, but acknowledge his independent existence and being as separate from the Father. Here two classes of Monarchians are evidently to be distinguished; the one acknowledge Christ's Divinity, but deny the independent personal existence of the Son as distinct from the Father. They must therefore have taught that the Father is in the Son, and that the distinction is only nominal. The second party acknowledge a Son distinct from the Father, but deny his Divinity. Jesus therefore is acknowledged as man, but not as God in a special sense, but only endowed with divine powers. Also in the fragments of his Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, Origent distinguishes in the first place, those who call

* Adv. Prax. c. 3.

+ In Joann. t. ii. § 2.—Καὶ τὸ πολλοὺς φιλοθέους εἶναι εὐχομένους ταράσσον, εὐλαβουμένους δύο ἀναγορεῦσαι θεοῦς, καὶ παρα τοῦτο περιπίπτοντας ψευδέσι καὶ ἀσεβέσι δογμασιν, ἤτοι ἀρνουμένους ἰδιότητα υἱοῦ ἑτέραν παρὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς, ὁμολογοῦντας θεὸν εἶναι τὸν μέχρι ὀνόματος παρ' αὐτοῖς υἱὸν προσαγορευόμενον ἢ ἀρνουμένους τὴν Θεότητα τοῦ υἱοῦ, τιθέντας δε αὐτοῦ τὴν ἰδιότητα, καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν κατὰ περιγραφὴν τυγχάνουσαν ἑτέραν τοῦ πατρὸς ἐντεῦθεν λύεσθαι δύναται

Epist. ad Tit. frg. ii. ed. Lommatzsch. t. v.-Sed et eos, qui hominem dicunt Dominum Jesum præcognitum et prædestinatum, qui ante adventum carnalem substantialiter et proprie non existerit, sed quod homo natus Patris solam in se habuerit deitatem, ne illos quidam sine periculo est ecclesiæ numero sociari; sicut et illos qui superstitiose magis, quam religiose, uti ne videantur duos deos dicere, neque rursum

Т

the Lord Jesus a man foreknown and predestined by God who did not exist substantially and properly before his earthly existence, but who, being born as Man, only had the Divinity of the Father in himself; secondly, those who in order not to admit two Gods, and yet not to deny the Divinity of the Saviour, call the Being of the Father and the Son one and the same only with two names, in other words, they receive one Hypostasis with two names; these are called in Latin, Patripassians. It is evident that these two classes may be compared with the former; the Patripassians correspond to those described in the first passage [from Tertullian]; and those here named along with the Patripassians are those who regarded Jesus as a man in whom the Divinity of the Father acted in a certain manner. Both classes agree in this, that they knew not how to reconcile with Monotheism the doctrine of a self-subsistent divine Logos distinct from the Father. But they differ in proportion, as either the Monotheistic interest alone influenced them or the Christian interest in the Divinity of Christ. According to the first, Jesus was a man like any other, only specially enlightened by God; the others acknowledged the divine nature in Christ only not distinct from the Father; it was God himself who appeared in humanity and occupied the place of a human rational soul in Christ. As such he was distinguished by the peculiar name of Son. These were called Patripassians because they were charged with transferring the sufferings of the Son to the Father himself. The first party viewed the great religious question only from the standpoint of Monotheism; in order to comprehend how Christ was the Son of God it satisfied them that he possessed more divine illumination than all other prophets. They approxi mated to the Jewish mode of thinking, but it is not necessary to derive them from the Jewish-Christian party. The others, on the contrary, were concerned about the divinity of Christ, and we may say that the Church Teachers did not do enough for them on that point. It did not satisfy their Christian wants to make the Son subordinate to the Father, the Logos

negare Salvatoris deitatem unam eandemque subsistentiam Patris ac Filii asseverant id est. duo quidem nomina secundum diversitatem causarum recipientem unam tamen vπóσrasiv subsistere, id est, unam personam duobus nominibus subjacentam. qui latine Patripassiani appellantur.

must be the Father himself; the Christian interest had more weight with them than the Subordinationism of the Church Teachers. The first party followed a predominant dialectic tendency; from this the Patripassians were at the greatest remove, who were mainly actuated by the practical, religious interest; they were men of little cultivation, led more by the feelings than by the intellect, a great number, in short, of common Christians. In another passage Origen says, "The God of the Universe is the God of the elect, and still more the God of the Saviour of the Elect; but the Logos. is perhaps the God of those who refer everything to him and call him the Father himself." The latter must be those of whom he says, "They know nought but Jesus the Crucified, and think that they have the whole Logos in the Word made flesh. This is the character of the multitude of believers."* These were perhaps not the Ebionites of whom Origen speaks in the passage where Christ heals the blind man at Jericho, although he acknowledged only the Son of David in the Messiah.+ For of these it could not be said that they constituted the great multitude of believers. Hence, also, it is thought that the mass were intended who adopted the Patripassian theory of one divine Being, and of the Union of the divine Logos with the body without the human soul in Christ.

While the Logos doctrine stood in opposition to the Monarchian standpoint, men of higher culture, whose rational views the Patripassian scheme did not satisfy, nor that of the other Monarchians their religious consciousness, attempted a middle course. According to Dr. Bauer, the Logos doctrine itself proceeded from such an attempt at mediation, but it was least of all suited to that, since it gave a shock to the Monotheism of the parties as well as to the Christian Interest of the Patripassians. These mediating ideas formed themselves in altogether a different manner; they appeared in Beryllus, Bishop of Bostra in Arabia.‡ The words of Eusebius respecting

* In Joann. t. ii. § 3.—Ετεροι δὲ οἱ μηδὲν εἰδότες εἰ μὴ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, καὶ τοῦτον ἐσταυρωμένον, τὸν γενόμενον σάρκα λόγον τὸ πᾶν νομίσαντες εἶναι τοῦ λόγου, Χριστὸν κατὰ σάρκα μόνον γινώσκουσι· τοιοῦτον δέ ἐστι το πλῆθος τῶν πεπιστευκέναι νομιζομένων.

In Matth. t. xvi. § 12.

+ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi c. 33.—Βήρυλλος - τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ κύριον ἡμῶν λέγειν τολμῶν μὴ προϋφεστάναι κατ' ἰδίαν οὐσίας περιγραφὴν, πρὸ τῆς εἰς ἀνθρώπους ἐπιδημίας· μηδὲ μὴν θεότητα ἰδίαν ἔχειν, αλλ'

him, which are the chief source of our knowledge, are not free from obscurity. According to these, he taught that Christ before his appearance in Humanity was not in a self-subsistent existence, that he had not an indwelling divinity of his own, but only that of the Father. The first words might lead us to identify the doctrine of Beryllus with that of the first Monarchians, as Baur has done, but the second clause says too much for this class, who ascribed to Christ only a special illumination from God, and Eusebius, if he had not held the doctrine of Beryllus to be different from that which was suffi ciently well-known, would not have used so many words about it. But the passage quoted above, from Origen's Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, is also to be taken into account. Origen speaks there of two classes of Monarchians; and since one class is that of the Patripassians, it might be supposed that the other is similar to the Monarchians of the first class. But this is clearly not necessary since it cannot be maintained that Origen always contrasted only these two classes. If a new class had appeared, he might refer to that. We must say, that the words assert too much for the first class, and on the other hand, are perfectly in unison with the description of the doctrine of Beryllus given by Eusebius. Nor would Origen have expressed himself so mildly about these Monarchians. Consequently this reference to the meaning of the words is not sufficiently settled. But neither does the doctrine of Beryllus suit the standpoint of the Patripassians; for he ascribed to Christ as Man an ἰδία ουσίας περιγραφή but the Patripassians did not; hence the most natural conclusion is, that Beryllus belonged to neither of these two classes, but showed a conciliatory tendency which well suited his historical position. Origen, during his stay at Cæsarea, at a time when the views of Beryllus excited great attention, was called upon to oppose him, and convinced him of his error.* Of the Synod then held, Socrates says, that in opposition to Beryllus it established the doctrine of a rational soul in Christ. Beryllus must therefore have given occasion for this opposition. This

ἐμπολιτευομένην αὐτῷ μόνην τὴν πατρικήν. See Ullman, de Beryllo Bostrenso ejusque Doctrina Comm.: Hamb. 1835. 4to., and the passages quoted from Schleiermacher and Baur.-Dorner's Gesch. d. Lehre. v. d. Person J. Christi. i. 545.

*Neander's Church History ii. p. 317.

Doctrine had not, at that time, been generally received. though Origen had done much for its development. It happened very favourably, that Beryllus and the Synod gave him an opportunity of developing the doctrine, and of forwarding its general reception. We must therefore admit that the doctrine of Beryllus could not harmonize with the acknowledgment of a human soul in Christ. But then, it follows, that he could not agree with the first class of the Monarchians. He repudiated their views, because they were too meagre for his Christian sympathies; but the supposition of an immediate indwelling of the Father in Christ appeared to him inadmissible. He admitted an irradiation of the divine Essence, by which the personality in Christ was formed, and which occupied the place of the human soul, so that his human consciousness was a constant emanation from the divine Essence. Thus we may account for both the statements of Eusebius respecting Beryllus. In opposition to the Monarchians, Origen defined the distinction between the Logos and the Father. The belief in the hypostatic existence of the Logos distinct from the Supreme God was connected in his mind with belief in the existence of an objective real truth. His belief in the Hypostatic and the objective Reality concurred, and hence he raised against the Monarchians the objection, that according to their doctrine the Essence of the Truth had not existed before Christ's Advent.* Consequently he represents the Son as distinct from the Father, not merely in certain relations, but in number and self-subsistent existence. He opposes those who maintain that the Father and the Son are one not merely as to Essence, but also as to subject. He, on the contrary, places the Unity only in the Unity of Will.+ Sometimes he distinguishes ovcía and róoraois, but in other passages he considers them as identical, and with the peculiarity of the vooraσ15 maintains

* Contra Cels. viii. § 12.

+ Ibid.—εἰ δέ τις ἐκ τούτων περισπασθήσεται, μη πη αὐτομολοῦμεν πρὸς τοὺς ἀναιροῦντας δύο εἶναι ὑποστάσεις, πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν· ἐπιστη· σάτω τῷ· ἦν δε πάντων τῶν πιστευσάντων ἡ καρδία καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ μία “ἵνα θεωρήσῃ τὸ ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατηρ ἓν ἐσμεν θρησκεύομεν οὖν τὸν πατέρα της αληθείας, καὶ τὸν υἱὸν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ὄντα δύο τῇ ὑποστάσει πράγματα, ἓν δὲ τῇ ὁμονοίᾳ, καὶ τῇ συμφωνίᾳ, καὶ τῇ ταυτότητι τοῦ βουλήματος· ὡς τον ἑωρακότα τὸν υἱόν ὄντα ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτῆρα τῆς ὑποστάσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ, εωρακέναι ἐν αὐτῷ, ὄντι εἰκόνι τοῦ Θεοῦ, τὸν Θεόν.