It is plain from the writings of Origen that there were many in the East who rejected the Logos-Christology. The majority of these were modalists, but there were also those who ascribed to the Son merely a human nature, and others still who regarded Christ as a man filled with the Godhead but not specifically different from the prophets. Origen did not brand those who held these tenets as heretics, but considered them misguided or simple, reclaimable by a friendly attitude. Origen's own complicated Christology was unjustly consid ered by some to be adoptionistic. Dynamistic Mo narchianism seems to have been taught by Beryllus of Bostra (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., vi. 33; Socrates, Hist. cad.
The wide dissemination of dynamistic Christology in the Semitic and Hellenistic East is shown by the fact that Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, the most important see of the East, began expressly to promulgate it about 260 and opposed the doctrine of the essential divinity of Christ. The result was the great Eastern controversy which ended with the downfall of adoptionism. The Alex andrine theology of the third century had made the terms logos, ouzioa, pros", and the like cur rent and indispensable in dogmatics; and at the same time the belief had become widely prevalent that the original nature of the Redeemer was not human but divine, and that he did not first come into existence with his birth on earth. These tenets were opposed by Paul, and-though little is known of the beginning of the controversy-there is rea son to suppose that he, as the viceroy of Zenobia, was opposed by the Roman party in Syria. His fall, therefore, meant their triumph, and behind the theological controversy there lay political strife. But Paul proved a doughty antagonist. A great synod was convened at Antioch in 264, attended by bishops from the most various parts of the East, but their debates, like those of a second synod, came to no result. It was not until a third synod, held at Antioch between 266 and 269 (probably in 268), that the metropolitan was excommunicated and succeeded by Domnus. The proceedings of the synod were sent by its members to Rome and An tioch and to all the Catholic churches. Neverthe less, Paul remained in office with Zenobia for four years, while the church in Antioch was divided. Iii 272, however, Antioch was taken by Aurelian, who, when appealed to, decided that the church edifice should be given to him with whom the Chris tian bishops of Italy and the city of Rome were in correspondence. The teaching of Paul of Samosata was as follows: The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
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are one person; and though in God the Logos (Son)
and "Wisdom" (Holy Ghost; elsewhere in Paul
Logos is identical with " Wisdom ") may be distinguished, they nevertheless remain qualities of
God. God sent forth the Logos from himself from
eternity and even begat him, so that the Logos may
be termed "Son" and have a being ascribed to
him, though he remains an impersonal power. The
Logos, which can not be made manifest, worked
in the prophets, still more in Moses, and most of
all in the son of David born of the Holy Ghost by
the Virgin. The Redeemer is, therefore, human in
essence and comes "from hence," while the Logos
works in him "from above." The union of the
Logos with the man Jesus is to be considered an
indwelling (with an appeal by Paul to
He is especially characterized, however, by his conscious substitution of history and ethics for metaphysics, as in his rejection of Platonizing dogmatics. While, moreover, he considered the peculiar divinity of Jesus to consist in his attitude and his will rather than in his nature, he held that the spirit and the grace of God rested in special measure (in accord with the divine promises) on Christ as the peculiar object of the predestination of God, Christ's activity and his life in and with God thus becoming unique. By this theory room was left for a human life.
Yet Paul taught an eternal son of God, and an indwelling of that son in Jesus; he proclaimed the
divinity of Christ, held the doctrine 3. Paul's of two persons (God and Jesus); and,
Homoousi- like the Alexandrine theologians, reanism and jected Sabellianism. The very synod Influence. of Antioch which condemned him ap-
parently rejected the term homoousios in deference to him, on the ground that (according to the conjecture of Athanasius), if Christ was of the same nature as the Father, the latter was not the ultimate source of divinity, but both the Father and the Son must be derived from a primordial substance, and thus be in the relation of brothers. The possibility must also be borne in mind, however, that, as Hilary says, the synod rejected the term homoousios because Paul himself had declared God and the (impersonal) Logos (the Son) to be of the same substance. At all events, the majority of the synod considered the doctrines of Paul extremely heterodox, and, with ail their own uncertainty on the precise character of the essentially divine element in Christ, they picked a very real flaw in Paul's Christology-his practical teaching of two sons of God, though the actual difference between the two parties lay in the problem of the divine nature of the Redeemer. With the deposition of Paul of Samosata it was no longer possible to gain a hearing for a Christology which denied the personal, independent preexistence of the Redeemer. It was no longer sufficient to interpret his theanthropic life from his deeds, but it was necessary to believe in his divine nature. Nevertheless Paul's school lingered on for a time, giving inspiration to the tenets of Lucian of Samosata (q.v.) and his followers, who ultimately developed into the Arians. In the fourth century Photinus approximated the teachings of Paul, whose affinity with the great Antiochian theologians is also clear, independent though the tenets of the latter school were in their origin. Among the great Antiochians Paul of Samorata was again condemned, and his name was used a third time in the Monothelite controversy (see Monothelites). Even in the early fourth century the Acts Archelai show that in easternmost Christendom there was a Christology untouched by Alexandrine teachings and to be ranked with Adoptionism. Here it is clearly evident that as late as this period the Logos-Christology had not overpassed the boundaries of the Christianity confederated in the empire.
[The influence of Paul of Samosata was probably perpetuated in the Paulicians of Armenia (q.v.), and his name appears in their denominational
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. It was then he became chief of beings heavenly and earthly, then he became light of the world, then he became the way, the truth, and the life. Then he became the door of heaven, then he became the rock impregnable at the gate of hell; then he became the foundation of our faith; then he became savior of us sinners; then he was filled with the Godhead . . . . Furthermore, he then put on the primal raiment of light which Adam lost in the garden. Then accordingly it was that he was invited by the Spirit of God to converse with the heavenly Father," etc. A. a. x.]
V. Modalistic Monarchianiem in Asia Minor, Rome, and Carthage: The real peril to the LogosChristology between 180 and 240 was not the dynamistic Monarchianism thus far disc. Wide cussed, but the view which regarded Popularity Christ as God in person, and as the of Modal- Father incarnate. Called Monarchiiatic Mon- ans and Patripassians in the West, ambianism. and Sabellians in the East, they were combated by Tertullian, Origen, Novatian,, and, above all, Hippolytus. According to the latter, the Monarchian controversy disturbed the entire Church; while Tertullian and Origen declare that in their day the "economic" Trinity and the application of the concept of the Logos to Christ were regarded with suspicion by the majority of Christians. The popularity of modalism, especially in the East, is reflected in the multitude of apocryphal acts of the apostles (see Apocrypha, B, II.), which almost invariably represent or approximate modalistic Christology. Here, too, falls the Christology of Irenæus, with its strange attempt to blend the Logos-Christology with modalism. In Rome Monarchianism had been the official teaching for nearly a generation; apd that it was no new thing in the Church is clear from the presence of a Monarchian faction among the Montanists and Marcionites. The predominance of Monarchianism in the Church was due primarily to the struggle with Gnosticism; and though its adherents were mostly not professed theologians, adherents of scientific training were not lacking. The modalists claimed by their doctrines to obviate ditheism, to assert the complete divinity of Christ, and to cut the ground from under Gnosticism. But the weakness of its cardinal hypothesis was too evident, and it was lost as soon as it saw itself obliged to assume either the defensive or offensive. Its contest with orthodoxy was strikingly reminiscent of the controversy between the genuine and the Platonizing Stoics on the concept of God. As the latter subordinated Plato's transcendental, dispassionate God to the Logos (God) of Heraclitus and the Stoics, so Origen reproached the Monarchians with remaining content with the visible God operating in the world, instead of proceeding to the "ultimate" God. It is not surprising, therefore, that when once modalistic Monarchianism had invoked the aid of science (i.e., of Stoicism), it was on the road to a pantheistic concept of God. Nevertheless, the earliest literary representatives of Monarchianism had a distinctly monotheistic interest which centered in Biblical Christianity.
As dynamistic Monarchianism first gained vogue in Asia Minor, the Church of this same region seems to have been the scene of the earliest Patripamian controversy; and in both instances s. Rise Asia Minor may be regarded as having of Patri- transplanted the strife to Rome. Noopasaianism tus, who seems to have been excom- at Rome. municated about 230, doubtless first attracted attention as a Monarchian, probably in the last fifth of the second century, either at his native city Smyrna, or at Ephesus. His excommunication in Asia Minor seems to have taken place after the entire controversy had been settled at Rome. Epigonus (d. 200), a pupil of Noetus, came to Rome during the pontificate of Zephyrinus, and is said there to have promulgated the teachings of his master and to have founded a separate Patripassian party. The first head of the faction was Cleomenes, the pupil of Epigonus, and in 215 he was succeeded by Sabellius. Although they were opposed at Rome especially by Hippoly. tus, the sympathy of the majority of the Roman Christians was Monarchian. Even Zephyrinus, like his predecessor Victor, was inclined toward modalism, though his chief endeavor seems to have been to avoid schism at any cost. His policy was fol lowed by his successor Calixtus (217-222); but when the struggle only became intensified, he re solved to excommunicate both Sabellius and Hip polytus, though it is not impossible that Hippolytus and his minority had already broken with Calix tus. The moderates of both parties seem to have been satisfied with the Christological formula pro posed by Calixtus, and formed the bridge by which the Roman Christians passed from Monarchian to hypostatic Christology. The small faction of Hip polytus maintained an existence in Rome for some fifteen years; the Sabellians survived still longer. The scantiness of the sources for the history of Monarcbianism in Rome-to say nothing of other cities-despite the discovery of the Philosophu mend, is exemplified in the fact that Tertullian never mentions Noetus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, or Calixtus, but mentions a monarchian in Rome
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The sources are too scanty for a complete presentment of the tenets of the earlier modalistic
Monarchianism. Yet the sources are not alone to
blame; for the theory that in Christ
3. Doctrines
God himself had become incarnate
of might lead to wild hypotheses of trans-
the Early formation or approximate dynamistic
Modalists. Monarchianism. Again, so soon as the
indwelling of
the "divinity
of the Fa
ther" in Jesus was not regarded strictly as an in
carnation, the way was open for the Artemonite
heresy (see
Artemon). In the wtitings of Origen
are many passages which may refer to either mod
alists or Artemonites, especially as the two were
united by their opposition
to the Logos-Christology.
The best account of the older modalists is contained
in the polemic of Hippolytus against Noetus. His
followers held that Christ was the Father, and that
the Father himself had been born, had suffered,
and died. If Christ is God, he is surely the Father,
or else not God; and therefore, if Christ suffered,
then God suffered. Yet it was not only their de
cided monotheism, which made them term their
opponents ditheists, that led them on; they were
impelled, besides this, by their interest in the divinity
of Jesus, which, in their opinion, could be main
tained solely by their teachings, in support of which
they appealed to such passages as
The concept and importance of the human
"flesh" of Jesus, according to these Monarchians,
is uncertain (see
Flesh). More complicated are
the Monarchianistic formulas attacked by Tertullian in the Advemus Praxeam and as-
4. Later cribed by Hippolytus to Calixtus.
Modalism Tertullian's Monarchians maintain the
and Catho- complete identity of the Father and
lic Com- the Son, and had no place for the Logos
promise. in their Christology, regarding the
word as
empty sound. Like the Noe
tians, they were intensely monotheistic and feared
the recrudescence of
Gnosticism in hypostatic
Christology. Obliged to explain the Biblical pas
sages in which the Son appears as distinct from the
Father, they asserted that the flesh made the Fa
ther the Son, or that in the person of the Redeemer
the flesh (the man, Jesus) was the Son, and the
spirit (God, Christ) was the Father, appealing, in
support of their view, to
Hypostatic Christology, as opposed to modalism, was evolved between 200 and 250 on the basis of the theology of the apologists. It easily refuted, by arguments from the Bible, the Monarchian identification of the Father with the Son, and rejected
460 |
anism must have been bitter in the East, and that the development of the Logos Christology was there directly influenced by this opposition. The very fact that in the East Monarchianism was almost exclusively known as " Sabellianism "shows that schisms first arose there through the activity of Sabellius, that is, after the fourth decade of the third century. Apparently during the pontificate of Zephyrinus, Sabellius, who was probably born in the Pentapolis in Libya, became the successor of Cleomenes as the head of the Monarehians at Rome. With his excommunication by Calixtus, he became the leader of a Monarehian sect ~ which branded Calixtus as an apostate. He was still in Rome when Hippolytus wrote the Philosophumena, and there developed far-reaching relations, especially with the East. His doctrines, which were evidently unknown to Origen, were closely akin to those of Noetus, from which they differed, however; both in their more exact theology and in their recognition of the Holy Ghost. The cardinal tenet of Sabellius was that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are identical, but with three names. Ever inspired by a rigid monotheism, Sabellius also termed the one God the "Son-Father," evidently to avoid all suspicion of ditheism, meaning hereby the final designation of God himself, and not any manifestations of a monad remaining in the background. At the same time, he taught that God is not the Father and the Son simultaneously; but that he became operative in three successive energies: first, as the person (" manifestation," not " hypostasis ") of the Father, the creator and legislator; then as the person of the Son as the Redeemer (this period extending from the incarnation to the assumption); and finally as the person of the Holy Ghost as the maker and giver of life. It is improbable, however, that he was able to make a strict delimitation of these successive persons, for he can scarcely have avoided the recognition of the continuous activity of God the Father in nature.
While both Sabellius and his followers acknowledged the catholic canon, Epiphanius states that they derived their entire heresy from certain apocryphal books, especially from the Gospel of the Egyptians. It is thus evident that the Sabellian
Christology was not essentially differs. Relations ent from the older Patripassian sys-
and Decay ten. The only noteworthy points of of Sabef- divergence were the attempt to dem lianism. onstrate the succession of the per sons; the recognition of the Holy Ghost; and the formal parallelization of the per son of the Father with the two other persons. The first point may be regarded as a harking back to rigid modalism, while the second was in keeping with the new theological school. The most impor tant point was the third, since by paralleling the person and the energy of the Father with the other two persons, not only was cosmology introduced into modalism as a parallel to soteriology, but the preeminence of the Father over the Son and the Holy Ghost was broken. Thus the way was pre pared for Athanasian and Augustinian Christology --Sabellius was the forerunner of the exclusive
461 |
Bibliography: Consult the literature under Anoal, and 5nder the sketches of the leaders named in the text, especially Epiphsnius, Hippolytus, Trengeus, and Philaeter. Important ere the works on the history of doctrine, cape. cially: Harnack, Dogma, i. 198, 331 ii. passim, iii. S-B8, 93; K. R. Hagenbach, History of Christian Doctrines, i. 74, 180, 178, Edinburgh, 1880; I. A. Dorner, Die Lshra von der Parson Christi, 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1848-58, Eng trend., History of the Development of as Doctrine of the Parson of Christ, b vols., Edinburgh, 1881-1883. Also the works on the church history of the period, eg., Schaff, Christian Church, ii. 571-583; and Neander, Christian Church, i, 575 sqq., ii. passim. Consult also: L. Lange, Geschichte und Lehrleprily' der Unitarier vor der nicdnierhen Syaode, Leipsic, 1831; F. D. E. Schleiermacher, SBmmh licks Wer)re-Zur Theotop9e, vol. ii., 30 vols., Berlin, 183b1884; J. Schwane, Dogmengeschichte der roorreicSniachan Zait, pp 142-158, 199-203, Münster, 1882; H. Hegemann, Die römische ICsrchs in den araten dre's Jahrhundertan, Freiburg, 1884; J. Bornemsnn, Die Taufa Christi, Leipsic, 1898; Hefele, Concii%enpeachicTUa, vols. i.-ii., Eng. transl., vols. i.-iii.
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