1. Heresies. The ecclesiastical development of the fundamental dogma started from Peter's confession of the Mesaiahship of Jesus (
Matt. xvi. 16 ), and from John's doctrine of the incarnate
Logos (
John i. 14 ). It was stimulated by two opposite heresies-Ebionism and Gnosticism; the one essentially Jewish, the other essentially heathen; the one affirming the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of his divinity, the other running into the opposite error by resolving his humanity into a delusive show (Gk.
dokesis, phmntasma; see DOCETISM); both agreeing in the denial of the incarnation, or the real and abiding union of the divine and human in the person of our Lord. There also arose in the second and third centuries two forma of Unitarianism or Monarchianism: (1) The Rationalistic or Dynamic Unitarianism-represented by the Alogi, Theodotus, Artemon, and Paul of Samosata-which either denied the divinity of Christ altogether, or resolved it into a mere power (Gk.
dynamis), although its representatives generally admitted his supernatural generation by the Holy Spirit. (2) The Patripassian and Sabellian Unitarianism, which maintained the divinity of Christ, but merged it into the essence of the Father, and so denied the independent, preexistent personality of Christ. So Praxeas, Noetus, Callistus (Pope Calixtus I.), Beryllus of Boatra, and Sabellius. See the articles on the heresies named and their representatives.
2. The Church Doctrine. In antagonism to these heresies, the Church taught the full divinity of Christ (against Ebionism and rationalistic Monarchianism), his full humanity (against Gnosticism and Manicheiem), and his independent personality (against Patripassianism and Sabellianism). The dogma was developed in close connection with the dogma of the Trinity, which resulted, by logical necessity, from the deity of Christ and the deity of the Holy Spirit on the basis of the fundamental truth of Monotheism.
3.The Divinity of Christ Consistently Held. The ante-Nicene christology passed through many obstructions, loose statements, uncertain conjectures and speculations; but the instinct and main current of the Church was steadily toward the Nicene and Chalcedonian creed-statements
ments, especially if the worship and devotional life as well as the theological literature be considered. Christ was the object of worship, prayer, and praise from the of very beginning, as must be inferred from such passages of the New Testament as
John xx. 28;
Acts vii. 59, 60, ix. 14, 21;
I Cor. i. 2;
Phil. ii. 10;
Heb. i. 6;
I John v. 13-15;
Rev. v. 6-13; from the heathen testimony of Pliny the Younger concerning the singing of hymns to Christ as God (
”Carmen Christo quasi, Des dicere,” Epist., x. 97);from the "Gloria in Excelsis," which was the daily morning hymn of the Eastern Church as early as the second century; from the "
Tersanctua ";from the Hymn of Clement of Alexandria to the divine Logos (
Padagogus, iii. 12); from the statements of Origen
(Contra Celsuna, viii. 67) and Eusebius
(Hilt. eccl., v. 28); and from many other testimonies. Christ was believed to be divine, and adored as divine, before he was clearly taught to be divine. The ante-Nicene rules of faith as they are found in the writings of Irenaus, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, etc., are in essential agreement among themselves and with the Apostles' Creed, as it appears, first in the fourth century, especially at Rome and Aquileia. (Cf. Rufinus,
De symbolo.) They all confess the divine-human character of Christ as the chief object of the Christian faith, but in the form of facts, and in simple, popular style, not in the form of doctrinal or logical statement. The Nicene Creed is much more explicit and dogmatic in consequence of the preceding contest with heresy; but the substance of the faith is the same in the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds.(For these Ante-Nicene Rules of Faith, cf. Schaff,
Creeds, ii. 11-45.
Imitation of Christ)
