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           Title: History of Dogma - Volume III
      Creator(s): Harnack, Adolf (1851-1930)
   CCEL Subjects: All; History; Theology
      LC Call no: BT21.H33 V.3
   LC Subjects:

   Doctrinal theology

   Doctrine and dogma
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                               HISTORY OF DOGMA

    BY

DR. ADOLPH HARNACK

    ORDINARY PROF. OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY, AND FELLOW OF THE ROYAL
    ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, BERLIN

   TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN
   EDITION

    BY

  NEIL BUCHANAN

  VOLUME III
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EDITOR’S PREFACE.

   The first chapter in this volume forms the concluding chapter of the First
   Volume of the German Work. It answers to the Seventh Chapter of the Second
   Book of the first great division of the subject, which has for its aim to
   shew the origin of Ecclesiastical Dogma. The First Book treats of the
   Preparation for Dogma; the Second of the Laying of the Foundation. This
   Second Book begins with the second volume of the English Translation, and
   closes with the first chapter of the third volume now published. Thereafter
   commences the Second Part of the Work, which deals with the Development of
   Dogma. The numbering of the chapters here begins anew, running on from I. to
   VI.

   The Second Volume of the German Work commences with the Second Part, and
   tells the story of the Development of Dogma till the time of Augustine. Only
   a portion of it appears in this volume. The remainder will form the contents
   of the Fourth Volume. The author has prefixed to the volume two prefaces,
   one to the first, the other to the third Edition. These are here given.

   The Appendix on Manichæism is the last of four which appear at the end of
   the first volume of the German Edition. The first three of these will be
   found at the end of the first volume of the English Edition.

   A. B. BRUCE.

   Glasgow, August, 1897.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION OF VOLUME II. OF THE GERMAN WORK.

   THE first half of the second part of the History of Dogma is here given
   apart and as the second volume, because it is complete in itself, and I
   shall be prevented from completing the work at once by other tasks.

   The account contained in the following pages would have been shorter, if I
   could have persuaded myself of the correctness of the opinion, that a
   single, all-determining thought obtained its true development in the History
   of Dogma from the fourth to the eighth century. This opinion dominates,
   apart from a few monographs, all writings on the History of Dogma, and gives
   a uniform impress to the accounts of Protestants and Catholics. I share it
   within certain limits; but these very limits, which I have endeavoured to
   define, [1] have not yet received due attention. In the fourth century the
   formula that was correct, when judged by the conception of redemption of the
   ancient Church, prevailed; but the Fathers, who finally secured its triumph,
   did not give it the exposition which it originally demanded. In the fifth
   century, or the seventh, on the contrary, a formula that, measured by the
   same standard, was incorrect, prevailed; yet it was associated with an
   exposition that to some extent compensated for the incorrectness. In both
   cases, however, the imperfections of the conclusion, which are explained
   from various circumstances, became of the highest importance. For in them we
   find the reason why the phantom Christ did not wholly oust the historical;
   and, in order to overcome them, men turned anew to Philosophy, especially to
   Aristotle. The orthodox Church owes two things to the incorrect form in
   which the Trinitarian and Christological Dogma was finally stated: (1)
   contact with the Gospel, and (2) renewed contact with ancient science, i.e.,
   scholasticism.

   The account of these conditions demanded a more minute discussion of the
   process of the History of Dogma, than is usual in the ordinary text-books.
   Dogma developed slowly and amid great obstacles. No single step should be
   overlooked in the description, and, in particular, the period between the
   fourth and fifth Councils is not less important than any other. Political
   relationships, at no point decisive by themselves, yet everywhere required,
   as well as western influences, careful attention. I should have discussed
   them still more thoroughly, if I had not been restrained by considerations
   of the extent of the book. I have included the state of affairs and
   developments in the West, so far as they were related to, and acted upon,
   those in the East. In the following Book I shall begin with Augustine. The
   scientific theological expositions of the Fathers have only been brought
   under review, where they appeared indispensable for the understanding of
   Dogma. In any case I was not afraid of doing too much here. I am convinced
   that a shorter description ought not to be offered to students of Theology,
   unless it were to be a mere guide. The history of Christian Dogma—perhaps
   the most complicated history of development which we can completely
   review—presents the investigator with the greatest difficulties; and yet it
   is, along with the study of the New Testament, and in the present position
   of Protestantism, the most important discipline for every one who seeks
   really to study Theology. The theologian who leaves the University without
   being thoroughly familiar with it, is, in the most critical questions,
   helplessly at the mercy of the authorities of the day. But the royal way to
   the understanding of the History of Dogma, opened up by F. Chr. Baur, and
   pursued by Thomasius, does not lead to the goal; for by it we become
   acquainted with the historical matter only in the abbreviated form required
   for the defence of the completed Dogma.

   The history of the development of Dogma does not offer the lofty interest,
   which attaches to that of its genesis. When we return from the most
   complicated and elaborate doctrinal formulas, from the mysticism of the
   Cultus and Christian Neoplatonism, from the worship of saints and ceremonial
   ritual of the seventh and eighth centuries, back to Origen and the third
   century, we are astonished to find that all we have mentioned was really in
   existence at the earlier date. Only it existed. then amid a mass of
   different material, and its footing was insecure In many respects the whole
   historical development of Dogma from the fourth century to John of Damascus
   and Theodore of Studion was simply a vast process of reduction, selection,
   and definition. In the East we are no longer called upon to deal in any
   quarter with new and original matter, but always rather with what is
   traditional, derivative, and, to an increasing extent, superstitious. Yet
   that to which centuries devoted earnest reflection, holding it to be sacred,
   will never lose its importance, as long as there still exists among us a
   remnant of the same conditions which belonged to those times. But who could
   deny that those conditions—in the Church and in learning —are still powerful
   among us? Therefore even the religious formulas are still in force which
   were created in the Byzantine age; nay, they are the dogmas kat' exochḗn in
   all Churches, so that the popular idiom is nowise wrong which with the word
   "dogma" primarily designates the doctrines of the Trinity and the divine
   humanity of Christ. The inquirer who follows the development of these dogmas
   after the fourth century, and who, owing to the want of originality and
   freshness in his material, loses pleasure in his work, is ever and again
   reanimated, when he considers that he has to deal with matters which have
   gained, and still exercise, an immense power over the feelings and minds of
   men. And how much it is still possible for us to learn, as free Evangelical
   Christians, especially after generations of scholars have dedicated to this
   history the most devoted industry, so that no one can enter into their
   labours without becoming their disciples!

   I know very well that it would be possible to treat the material reviewed in
   this book more universally than I have done. My chief purpose was to show
   how matters arose and were in their concrete manifestation. But the task of
   making dogma really intelligible in all its aspects within the limits of a
   History of Dogma, is after all as insoluble as any similar problem which
   isolates a single object from Universal History, and requires its
   investigation in and by itself. This limitation I need only recall. But
   something further has to be said. Dogmas, undoubtedly, admit of a process of
   refinement, which would bring them closer to our understanding and our
   feeling. But my powers are not equal to this lofty task, and even if I
   possessed the uncommon qualities of the psychologist and the religious
   philosopher, I should have hesitated about employing them in this book; for
   I did not wish to endanger the reliability of what I had to present by
   reflections, which must always remain more or less subjective. Thus I have
   limited myself to a few hints; these will only be found where the nature of
   the material itself induced me to seek for the far remote thought underlying
   the expression.

   I have throughout striven in this volume, to give such an account as would
   demand to be read connectedly; for a work on the history of dogma, which is
   used only for reference, has missed its highest aim. I have believed that I
   could not dispense with the addition of numerous notes, but the text of the
   book is so written that the reader, if he prefers it, may disregard them.

   Marburg, 14 June, 1887.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

   I HAVE subjected this volume to a thorough revision, and have sought to
   improve and strengthen it in not a few places. May this new edition also
   promote the study of a historical period whose products are still held by
   many among us to be incapable of reform.

   ADOLF HARNACK.

   Berlin, 28 May, 1894.

CONTENTS.

   FIRST PART: SECOND BOOK CONTINUED. [2]

   CHAPTER I.—The decisive success of theological speculation in the sphere of
   the Rule of Faith, or, the defining of the norm of the Doctrine of the
   Church due to the adoption of the Logos Christology
   1-118
     1. Introduction 1
     Significance of the Logos Doctrine 2
   Consequences 3
   Historical retrospect 5
   Opposition to the Logos Doctrine 7
   The Monarchians, within Catholicism 8
   Precatholic only among the Alogi 12
   Division of subject, defective information 13
     2. Secession of Dynamistic Monarchianism, or Adoptianism 14 14
   a. The so-called Alogi in Asia Minor 14
   b.

   The Roman Monarchians: Theodotus the leatherworker and his party;
   Asclepiodotus, Hermophilus, Apollonides. Theodotus the money-changer, also
   the Artemonites
   20
   c. Traces of Adoptian Christology in the West after Artemas 32
   d.

   Ejection of Adoptian Christology in the East.—Beryll of Bostra, Paul of
   Samosata etc.
   34


   Acta Archelai, Aphraates
   50
     3. Expulsion of Modalistic Monarchianism 51
   a.

   Modalistic Monarchians in Asia Minor and in the West: Noetus, Epigonus,
   Cleomenes, Æschines, Praxeas, Victorinus, Zephyrinus, Sabellius, Callistus
   51
   b. The last stages of Modalism in the West, and the state of Theology 73



   Commodian, Amobius, Lactantius
   77

   Theology of the West about A.D. 300
   78
   c.

   Modalistic Monarchians in the East: Sabellianism and the History of
   Philosophical Christology and Theology after Origen
   81
   Various forms of Sabellianism 82
   Doctrine of Sabellius 83
   The fight of the two Dionysii 88
   The Alexandrian training school 95
   Pierius 96
   Theognostus 96
   Hieracas 98
   Peter of Alexandria 99
   Gregory Thaumaturgus 101

   Theology of the future: combination of theology of Irenæus with that of
   Origen: Methodius
   104
   Union of speculation with Realism and Traditionalism 105
   Dogmatic culminating in Monachism 110
   Close of the development: Identification of Faith and Theology 113
   SECOND PART. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA.


   FIRST BOOK. The History of the Development of Dogma as the Doctrine of the
   God-man on the basis of Natural Theology.
     CHAPTER I.—Historical Situation 121-162
     Internal position of the Church at the beginning of the fourth Century 121

   Relative unity of the Church as World-Church, apostolicity and
   secularisation
   123
   Asceticism culminating in monachism as bond of unity 127
   State of Theology 131
   Theology influenced by Origen departs from strict monotheism 135

         Conservative Theology in the East 137

   Critical state of the Logos doctrine, and the epochmaking importance of
   Athanasius
   138

   The two lines in which Dogma developed historically after Nicene Council
   144
   Periods of History of Dogma, chiefly in the East 148
   First period up to A.D. 381 150
   Second period up to A.D. 451 152
   Third period up to A.D. 553 154
   Fourth period up to A.D. 680 156
   Last period and close of process of History of Dogma 157


   CHAPTER II.—Fundamental Conception of Salvation and General Outline of
   System of Doctrine
   163-190
   § 1.

   Conception of Redemption as deification of humanity consequent upon
   Incarnation of Deity
   163

   Reasons for delay, and for acceptance in imperfect form, of dogmatic
   formulas corresponding to conception of Redemption
   167
   § 2.

   Moral and Rational element in System of Doctrine. Distinction between Dogmas
   and Dogmatic presuppositions or conceptions
   172
   Sketch of System of Doctrine and History of Dogma 177
   Supplement 1. Criticism of principle of Greek System of doctrine 178
            ”          2. Faith in Incarnation of God, and Philosophy 179
            ”          3. Greek Piety corresponding to Dogma 179

            ”          4. Sources from which Greek Dogma is to be derived;
   Difficulty of selecting and using them; Untruthfulness and forgeries
   181
            ”          5. Form to which expression of faith was subject 185

            ”          6. Details of Eschatology: agreement of Realism and
   Spiritualism; Obscuration of idea of Judgment
   186


   CHAPTER III.—Sources of knowledge: or Scripture, Tradition and the Church
   191-239
     Introduction 191
   1 Holy Scripture. Old Testament in the East 192
   Old Testament in the West 194

   New Testament in the East; its close; and hesitations New Testament in the
   West
   195
   Dogma of Inspiration and pneumatic exegesis 199
   Uncertainties of exegesis (Spiritualism and literalism) 199

         Exegesis of Antiochenes 201
   Exegesis in the West, Augustine 202
   Uncertainties as to attributes and sufficiency of Scripture 205
   The two Testaments 206
   2. 2. Tradition. Scripture and Tradition 207

   The creed or contents of Symbol is tradition; Development of symbol,
   Distinction between East and West
   208

   Cultus, Constitution, and Disciplinary regulations covered by notion of
   Apostolic Tradition, the parádosis agraphos
   211
   Authority and representation of the Church 214
   Councils 215
   Common Sense of Church 219
   "Antiquity"; Category of the "Fathers" 219
   Apostolic Communities, Patriarchate 221
   Rome and the Roman Bishop: prestige in East 224
   View of innovations in the Church 228
   Summing up on general notion of Tradition 230
   Vincentius of Lerinum on Tradition 230
   3. The Church. Notion and definition of the Church 233
   Unimportance of the Church in Dogmatics proper 235

   Reasons for considering the Church: predominance of interest in the Cultus
   236
   Divisions of the One Church 237
   A.—Presuppositions of Doctrine of Redemption or Natural Theology.


   CHAPTER IV.—Presuppositions and Conceptions of God the Creator as Dispenser
   of Salvation
   241-254
     Proofs of God, method in doctrine of God 241
   Doctrine of nature and attributes of God 244
   Cosmology 247
   The upper world 248
   Doctrine of Providence. Theodicies 249
   Doctrine of Spirits; Influence of Neoplatonism 251
   Significance of doctrine of angels in practice and cultus 251
   Criticism 254

   CHAPTER V.—Presuppositions and conceptions of man as recipient of Salvation
   255-287
     The common element 255
   Anthropology 256
   Origin of Souls 259
   Image of God 260

         Primitive State 261
   Primitive State and Felicity 261
   Doctrine of Sin, the Fall and Death 263
   Influence of Natural Theology on Doctrine of Redemption 265
   Blessing of Salvation something natural 266
   Felicity as reward 266
   Revelation as law; rationalism 267
   Influence of rationalism on Dogma 269
   Neutralising of the historical; affinity of rationalism and mysticism 270
   More precise account of views of Athanasius 272
   Of Gregory of Nyssa 276
   Of Theodore 279
   Of John of Damascus 283
   Conclusion 287

   B.—The doctrine of Redemption in the Person of the God-man, in its
   historical development.


   CHAPTER VI.—Doctrine of the necessity and reality of Redemption through the
   Incarnation of the Son of God
   288-304
     The decisive importance of the Incarnation of God 288
   Theory of Athanasius 290
   Doctrines of Gregory of Nyssa 296
   Pantheistic perversions of thought of Incarnation 299
   Other teachers up to John of Damascus 301
   Was Incarnation necessary apart from sin? 303
   Idea of predestination 303

   Appendix. The ideas of redemption from the Devil, and atonement through the
   work of the God-man
   305-315
   Mortal sufferings of Christ 305
   Christ's death and the removal of sin 306
   Ransom paid to the Devil 307
   Christ's death as sacrifice—vicarious suffering of punishment 308
   Western views of Christ's work. Juristic categories, satisfactio 310
   Christ as man the atoner 313
   Appendix on Manichæism 316
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   [1] Vide pp. 167 ff. of this volume.

   [2] Vide Editor’s Preface to this volume.
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                      FIRST PART: SECOND BOOK CONTINUED.
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CHAPTER I.

  THE DECISIVE SUCCESS OF THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION IN THE SPHERE OF THE RULE OF
  FAITH, OR, THE DEFINING OF THE NORM OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH DUE TO THE
  ADOPTION OF THE LOGOS CHRISTOLOGY. [3]
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   1. Introduction.

   FROM the great work of Irenæus and the anti-gnostic writings of Tertullian,
   it would seem as if the doctrine of the Logos, or, the doctrine of the
   pre-existence of Christ as a distinct person, was at the end of the second
   century an undisputed tenet of Church orthodoxy, and formed a universally
   recognised portion of the baptismal confession interpreted anti-gnostically,
   i.e., of the rule of faith. [4] But certain as it is that the Logos
   Christology was in the second century not merely the property of a few
   Christian philosophers, [5] it is, on the other hand, as clear that it did
   not belong to the solid structure of the Catholic faith. It was not on the
   same footing as, e.g., the doctrines of God the Creator, the real body of
   Christ, the resurrection of the body, etc. The great conflicts which, after
   c. A.D. 170, were waged for more than a century within the Catholic Church
   rather show, that the doctrine only gradually found its way into the creed
   of the Church. [6] But a higher than merely Christological interest attaches
   to the gradual incorporation of the Logos doctrine in the rule of faith. The
   formula of the Logos, as it was almost universally understood, legitimised
   speculation, i.e., Neo-platonic philosophy, within the creed of the Church.
   [7] When Christ was designated the incarnate Logos of God, and when this was
   set up as His supreme characterisation, men were directed to think of the
   divine in Christ as the reason of God realised in the structure of the world
   and the history of mankind. This implied a definite philosophical view of
   God, of creation, and of the world, and the baptismal confession became a
   compendium of scientific dogmatics, i.e., of a system of doctrine entwined
   with the Metaphysics of Plato and the Stoics. But at the same time an urgent
   impulse necessarily made itself felt to define the contents and value of the
   Redeemer's life and work, not, primarily, from the point of view of the
   proclamation of the Gospel, and the hopes of a future state, but from that
   of the cosmic significance attaching to his divine nature concealed in the
   flesh. Insomuch, however, as such a view could only really reach and be
   intelligible to those who had been trained in philosophical speculations,
   the establishing of the Logos Christology within the rule of faith was
   equivalent for the great mass of Christians to the setting up of a mystery,
   which in the first place could only make an impression through its
   high-pitched formulas and the glamour of the incomprehensible. But as soon
   as a religion expresses the loftiest contents of its creed in formulas which
   must remain mysterious and unintelligible to the great mass of its
   adherents, those adherents come under guardians. In other words, the
   multitude must believe in the creed; at the same time they no longer derive
   from it directly the motives of their religious and moral life; and they are
   dependent on the theologians, who, as professors of the mysterious, alone
   understand and are capable of interpreting and practically applying the
   creed. The necessary consequence of this development was that the mysterious
   creed, being no longer in a position practically to control life, was
   superseded by the authority of the Church, the cultus, and prescribed
   duties, in determining the religious life of the laity; while the
   theologians, or the priests, appeared alone as the possessors of an
   independent faith and knowledge. But as soon as the laity were actuated by a
   desire for religious independence, which produced a reaction, and yet was
   not powerful enough to correct the conditions out of which this state of
   matters arose, there made its appearance only an expedient of a conservative
   sort, viz., the order of the monks. As this order did not tamper with the
   prevailing system of the Church, the Church could tolerate it, and could
   even use it as a valve, by which to provide an outlet for all religious
   subjectivity, and for the energies of a piety that renounced the world. The
   history of the Church shows us, or, at any rate, lets us divine, this
   situation at the transition from the 3rd to the 4th century. On the one
   hand, we see—at least in the East—that the Christian faith had become a
   theology, which was regarded, to all intents without question, as the
   revealed faith, and only capable of being represented and expounded by
   "teachers". On the other hand, we find a lay Christendom tied to the priest,
   the cultus, the sacraments, and a ceremonial penitence, and revering the
   creed as a mystery. Between these arose with elemental force the order of
   the monks, which—apart from a few phenomena—did not attack the
   ecclesiastical system, and which could not be suppressed by priests and
   theologians, because it strove to realise on earth the object to which they
   themselves had subordinated the whole of theology, because it, as it were,
   sought to soar on wings to the same height, to which the steps of the long
   ladders constructed by theology were meant to conduct. [8]

   Now the incorporation in the creed of philosophic (Platonic) speculation,
   i.e., the Hellenising of the traditional doctrines, was not the only
   condition, but it was certainly one of the most important of the conditions,
   that led to the rise of this threefold Christendom of clergy, laity, and
   monks, in the Church. That the Catholic Church was capable of accommodating
   these three orders in its midst is a proof of its power. That the
   combination forms up to the present day the signature of Catholic Churches
   is evidence, moreover, of the practical value attached by the Church to this
   unified differentiation. It, in fact, could not but best correspond to the
   different wants of men united to form a universal Church. So far as it was a
   consequence of the general conditions under which the Church existed in the
   third century, we must here leave its origin untouched, [9] but so far as it
   was due to the reception of philosophical speculation into the Church, its
   prior history must be presented. Yet it may not be superfluous to begin by
   noticing expressly, that the confidence with which first the Apologists
   identified the Logos of the philosophers and the Christ of faith, and the
   zeal with which the anti-gnostic Fathers then incorporated the Logos-Christ
   in the creed of believers, are also to be explained from a Christian
   interest. In their scientific conception of the world the Logos had a fixed
   place, and was held to be the "alter ego" of God, though at the same time he
   was also regarded as the representative of the Reason that operated in the
   Cosmos. Their conception of Christ as the appearance of the Logos in a
   personal form only proves that they sought to make the highest possible
   assertion concerning him, to justify worship being rendered him, and to
   demonstrate the absolute and unique nature of the contents of the Christian
   religion. The Christian religion was only in a position to gain the
   cultured, to conquer Gnosticism, and to thrust aside Polytheism in the Roman
   empire, because it had concluded an alliance with that intellectual
   potentate which already swayed the minds and hearts of the best men, the
   philosophic-religious ethics of the age. This alliance found expression in
   the formula: Christ is word and law (Christòs lógos kaì nómos). The
   philosophic Christology arose, so to speak, at the circumference of the
   Church, and thence moved gradually to the centre of the Christian faith. The
   same is true of theology generally; its most concise description is
   philosophic Christology. A complete fusion of the old faith and theology,
   one that tranquillised the minds of the devout, was not consummated till the
   fourth, strictly speaking, indeed, till the fifth century (Cyril of
   Alexandria). Valentinus, Origen, the Cappadocians mark the stages of the
   process. Valentinus was very speedily ejected as a heretic. Origen, in spite
   of the immense influence which he exerted, was in the end unable to retain
   his footing in the Church. The Cappadocians almost perfected the complete
   fusion of the traditional faith of the Church conceived as mystery and
   philosophy, by removing Origen's distinction between those who knew and
   those who believed (Gnostics and Pistics); meanwhile they retained much that
   was comparatively free and looked on with suspicion by the traditionalists.
   Cyril's theology first marked the complete agreement between faith and
   philosophy, authority and speculation, an agreement which finally, in the
   sixth century, suppressed every independent theology. But from the end of
   the second century up to the closing years of the third, the fundamental
   principle of philosophic theology had naturalised itself, in the very faith
   of the Church. This process in which, on the one hand, certain results of
   speculative theology became legitimised within the Church as revelations and
   mysteries, and on the other—as a sort of antidote—the freedom of theology
   was limited, is to be described in what follows.

   It has been shown above (Vol. I., p. 190 ff.) that about the middle of the
   second century there existed side by side in the Churches chiefly two
   conceptions of the person of Christ. In the Adoptian view Jesus was regarded
   as the man in whom divinity or the spirit of God dwelt, and who was finally
   exalted to godlike honour. In the Pneumatic conception, Jesus was looked
   upon as a heavenly spirit who assumed an earthly body. The latter was
   adopted in their speculations by the Apologists. The fixing of the apostolic
   tradition, which took place in opposition to the Gnostics, as also to the
   so-called Montanists, in the course of the second half of the second
   century, did not yet decide in favour of either view. [10] The Holy
   Scriptures could be appealed to in support of both. But those had decidedly
   the best of it, in the circumstances of the time, who recognised the
   incarnation of a special divine nature in Christ; and as certainly were the
   others in the right, in view of the Synoptic gospels, who saw in Jesus the
   man chosen to be his Son by God, and possessed of the Spirit. The former
   conception corresponded to the interpretation of the O. T. theophanies which
   had been accepted by the Alexandrians, and had proved so convincing in
   apologetic arguments; [11]  it could be supported by the testimony of a
   series of Apostolic writings, whose authority was absolute; [12] it
   protected the O. T. against Gnostic criticism. It, further, reduced the
   highest conception of the value of Christianity to a brief and convincing
   formula: "God became man in order that men might become gods;" and,
   finally,—which was not least—it could be brought, with little trouble, into
   line with the cosmological and theological tenets which had been borrowed
   from the religious philosophy of the age to serve as a foundation for a
   rational Christian theology. The adoption of the belief in the divine Logos
   to explain the genesis and history of the world at once decided the means by
   which also the divine dignity and sonship of the Redeemer were alone to be
   defined. [13] In this procedure the theologians themselves had no danger to
   fear to their monotheism, even if they made the Logos more than a product of
   the creative will of God. Neither Justin, Tatian, nor any of the Apologists
   or Fathers show the slightest anxiety on this point. For the infinite
   substance, resting behind the world,—and as such the deity was
   conceived—could display and unfold itself in different subjects. It could
   impart its own inexhaustible being to a variety of bearers, without thereby
   being emptied, or its unity being dissolved (monarchia kat' oikonomian, as
   the technical expression has it). [14] But, lastly, the theologians had no
   reason to fear for the “deity” of the Christ in whom the incarnation of that
   Logos was to be viewed. For the conception of the Logos was capable of the
   most manifold contents, and its dexterous treatment could be already
   supported by the most instructive precedents. This conception could be
   adapted to every change and accentuation of the religious interest, every
   deepening of speculation, as as to all the needs of the Cultus, nay, even to
   new results of Biblical exegesis. It revealed itself gradually to be a
   variable quantity of the most accommodating kind, capable of being at once
   determined by any new factor received into the theological ferment. It even
   admitted contents which stood in the most abrupt contradiction to the
   processes of thought out of which the conception itself had sprung, i.e.,
   contents which almost completely concealed the cosmological genesis of the
   conception. But it was long before this point was reached. And as long as it
   was not, as long as the Logos was still employed as the formula under which
   was comprehended either the original idea of the world, or the rational law
   of the world, many did not entirely cease to mistrust the fitness of the
   conception to establish the divinity of Christ. For those, finally, could
   not but seek to perceive the full deity in the Redeemer, who reckoned on a
   deification of man. Athanasius first made this possible to them by his
   explanation of the Logos, but he at the same time began to empty the
   conception of its original cosmological contents. And the history of
   Christology from Athanasius to Augustine is the history of the displacing of
   the Logos conception by the other, destitute of all cosmical contents, of
   the Son,—the history of the substitution of the immanent and absolute
   trinity for the economic and relative. The complete divinity of the Son was
   thereby secured, but in the form of a complicated and artificial
   speculation, which neither could be maintained without reservation before
   the tribunal of the science of the day, nor could claim the support of an
   ancient tradition.

   But the first formulated opposition to the Logos Christology did not spring
   from anxiety for the complete divinity of Christ, or even from solicitude
   for monotheism; it was rather called forth by interest in the evangelical,
   the Synoptic, idea of Christ. With this was combined the attack on the use
   of Platonic philosophy in Christian doctrine. The first public and literary
   opponents of the Christian Logos-speculations, therefore, did not escape the
   reproach of depreciating, if not of destroying, the dignity of the Redeemer.
   It was only in the subsequent period, in a second phase of the controversy,
   that these opponents of the Logos Christology were able to fling back the
   reproach at its defenders. With the Monarchians the first subject of
   interest was the man Jesus; then came monotheism and the divine dignity of
   Christ. From this point, however, the whole theological interpretation of
   the two first articles of the rule of faith, was again gradually involved in
   controversy. In so far as they were understood to refute a crude docetism
   and the severance of Jesus and Christ they were confirmed. But did not the
   doctrine of a heavenly æon, rendered incarnate in the Redeemer, contain
   another remnant of the old Gnostic leaven? Did not the sending forth of the
   Logos (probolē tou logou) to create the world recall the emanation of the
   æons? Was not ditheism set up, if two divine beings were to be worshipped?
   Not only were the uncultured Christian laity driven to such criticisms, —
   for what did they understand by the "economic mode of the existence of God"?
   — but also all those theologians who refused to give any place to Platonic
   philosophy in Christian dogmatics. A conflict began which lasted for more
   than a century, in certain branches of it for almost two centuries. Who
   opened it, or first assumed the aggressive, we know not. The contest engages
   our deepest interest in different respects, and can be described from
   different points of view. We cannot regard it, indeed, directly as a fight
   waged by theology against a still enthusiastic conception of religion; for
   the literary opponents of the Logos Christology were no longer enthusiasts,
   but, rather, from the very beginning their declared enemies. Nor was it
   directly a war of the theologians against the laity, for it was not laymen,
   but only theologians who had adopted the creed of the laity, who opposed
   their brethren. [15] We must describe it as the strenuous effort of Stoic
   Platonism to obtain supremacy in the theology of the Church; the victory of
   Plato over Zeno and Aristotle in Christian science; the history of the
   displacement of the historical by the pre-existent Christ, of the Christ of
   reality by the Christ of thought, in dogmatics; finally, as the victorious
   attempt to substitute the mystery of the person of Christ for the person
   Himself, and, by means of a theological formula unintelligible to them, to
   put the laity with their Christian faith under guardians — a state desired
   and indeed required by them to an increasing extent. When the Logos
   Christology obtained a complete victory, the traditional view of the Supreme
   deity as one person, and, along with this, every thought of the real and
   complete human personality of the Redeemer was in fact condemned as being
   intolerable in the Church. Its place was taken by “the nature” [of Christ],
   which without ,the person” is simply a cipher. The defeated party had right
   on its side, but had not succeeded in making its Christology agree with its
   conception of the object and result of the Christian religion. This was the
   very reason of its defeat. A religion which promised its adherents that
   their nature would be rendered divine, could only be satisfied by a redeemer
   who in his own person had deified human nature. If, after the gradual fading
   away of eschatological hopes, the above prospect was held valid, then those
   were right who worked out this view of the Redeemer.

   In accordance with an expression coined by Tertullian, we understand by
   Monarchians the representatives of strict, not economic, monotheism in the
   ancient Church. In other words, they were theologians who held firmly by the
   dignity of Jesus as Redeemer, but at the same time would not give up the
   personal, the numerical, unity of God; and who therefore opposed the
   speculations which had led to the adoption of the duality or trinity of the
   godhead. [16] In order rightly to understand their position in the history
   of the genesis of the dogmatics of the Church, it is decisive, as will have
   been already clear from the above, that they only came to the front, after
   the anti-gnostic understanding of the baptismal confession had been
   substantially assured in the Church. It results from this that they are,
   generally speaking, to be criticised as men who appeared on the soil of
   Catholicism, and that therefore, apart from the points clearly in dispute,
   we must suppose agreement between them and their opponents. It is not
   superfluous to recall this expressly. The confusion to which the failure to
   note this presupposition has led and still continually leads may be seen,
   e.g., in the relative section in Dorner’s History of the development of the
   doctrine’ of the Person of Christ, or in Krawutzcky’s study on the origin of
   the Didache. [17] The so-called Dynamistic Monarchians have had especially
   to suffer from this criticism, their teaching being comfortably disposed of
   as “Ebionitic”. However, imperative as it certainly is, in general, to
   describe the history of Monarchianism without reference to the ancient
   pre-Catholic controversies, and only to bring in the history of Montanism
   with great caution, still many facts observed in reference to the earliest
   bodies of Monarchians that come clearly before us, seem to prove that they
   bore features which must be characterised as pre-Catholic, but not
   un-Catholic. This is especially true of their attitude to certain books of
   the New Testament. Undoubtedly we have reason even here to complain of the
   scantiness and uncertainty of our historical material. The Church historians
   have attempted to bury or distort the true history of Monarchianism to as
   great an extent as they passed over and obscured that of the so-called
   Montanism. At a very early date, if not in the first stages of the
   controversy, they read Ebionitism and Gnosticism into the theses of their
   opponents; they attempted to discredit their theological works as products
   of a specific secularisation, or as travesties, of Christianity, and they
   sought to portray the Monarchians themselves as renegades who had abandoned
   the rule of faith and the Canon. By this kind of polemics they have made it
   difficult for after ages to decide, among other things, whether certain
   peculiarities of Monarchian bodies in dealing with the Canon of the N. T.
   writings spring from a period when there was as yet no N. T. Canon in the
   strict Catholic sense, or whether these characteristics are to be regarded
   as deviations from an already settled authority, and therefore innovations.
   Meanwhile, looking to the Catholicity of the whole character of Monarchian
   movements, and, further, to the fact that no opposition is recorded as
   having been made by them to the N. T. Canon after its essential contents and
   authority appear to have been established; considering, finally, that the
   Montanists, and even the Marcionites and Gnostics, were very early charged
   with attempts on the Catholic Canon, we need no longer doubt that the
   Monarchian deviations point exclusively to a time when no such Canon
   existed; and that other “heresies”, to be met with in the older groups, are
   to be criticised on the understanding that the Church was becoming, but not
   yet become, Catholic. [18]

   The history of Monarchianism is no clearer than its rise in the form of
   particular theological tendencies. Here also we have before us, at the
   present day, only scanty fragments. We cannot always trace completely even
   the settled distinction between Dynamistic — better, Adoptian — and
   Modalistic Monarchianism; [19] between the theory that made the power or
   Spirit of God dwell in the man Jesus, and the view that sees in Him the
   incarnation of the deity Himself. [20]

   Certainly the common element, so far as there was one, of the Monarchian
   movements, lay in the form of the conception of God, the distinguishing
   feature, in the idea of revelation. But all the phenomena under this head
   cannot be classified with certainty, apart from the fact that the most
   numerous and important “systems” exist in a very shaky tradition. A really
   reliable division of the Monarchianism that in all its forms rejected the
   idea of a physical fatherhood of God, and only saw the Son of God in the
   historical Jesus, is impossible on the strength of the authorities up till
   now known to us. Apart from a fragment or two we only possess accounts by
   opponents. The chronology, again, causes a special difficulty. Much labour
   has been spent upon it since the discovery of the Philosophumena; but most
   of the details have remained very uncertain. The dates of the Alogi,
   Artemas, Praxeas, Sabellius, the Antiochian Synods against Paul of Samosata,
   etc., have not yet been firmly settled. The concise remarks on the subject
   in what follows rest on independent labours. Finally, we are badly informed
   even as to the geographical range of the controversies. We may, however,
   suppose, with great probability, that at one time or other a conflict took
   place in all centres of Christianity in the Empire. But a connected history
   cannot be given.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [4] See Vol. II., pp. 20-38 and Iren. I. 10, 1; Tertull. De præscr. 13; Adv.
   Prax. 2. In the rule of faith, De virg., vel. I, there is no statement as to
   the pre-existence of the Son of God.

   [5] See Vol. I., p. 192, Note (John's Gospel, Revelation, Kḗrugma Pétrou,
   Ignatius, and esp. Celsus in Orig. II. 31, etc.).

   [6] The observation that Irenæus and Tertullian treat it as a fixed portion
   of the rule of faith is very instructive; for it shows that these
   theologians were ahead of the Church of their time. Here we have a point
   given, at which we can estimate the relation of what Irenæus maintained to
   be the creed of the Church, to the doctrine which was, as a matter of fact,
   generally held at the time in the Church. We may turn this insight to
   account for the history of the Canon and the constitution, where,
   unfortunately, an estimate of the statements of Irenæus is rendered
   difficult.

   [7] By Neo-platonic philosophy we, of course, do not here mean
   Neo-platonism, but the philosophy (in method and also in part, in results),
   developed before Neoplatonism by Philo, Valentinus, Numenius, and others.

   [8] See my lecture on Monachism, 3rd ed. 1886.

   [9] Yet see Vol. II., pp. 122-127.

   [10] The points, which, as regards Christ, belonged in the second half of
   the second century to ecclesiastical orthodoxy, are given in the clauses of
   the Roman baptismal confession to which alēthōs is added, in the precise
   elaboration of the idea of creation, in the heis placed alongside Christòs
   Iēsous, and in the identification of the Catholic institution of the Church
   with the Holy Church.

   [11] The Christian doctrine of the Son of God could be most easily rendered
   acceptable to cultured heathens by means of the Logos doctrine; see the
   memorable confession of Celsus placed by him in the lips of his "Jew" (II.
   31); hōs eige ho logos estin humin huios tou Theou, kai hēmeis epainoumen;
   see also the preceeding: sophizontai hoi Christianoi en tō legein ton huion
   tou Theou einai autologon.

   [12] The conviction of the harmony of the Apostles, or, of all Apostolic
   writings, could not but result in the Christology of the Synoptics and the
   Acts being interpreted in the light of John and Paul, or more accurately, in
   that of the philosophic Christology held to be attested by John and Paul. It
   has been up to the present day the usual fate of the Synoptics, and with
   them of the sayings of Jesus, to be understood, on account of their place in
   the Canon, in accordance with the caprices of the dogmatics prevalent at the
   time, Pauline and Johannine theology having assigned to it the role of
   mediator. The "lower" had to be explained by the "higher" (see even Clemens
   Alex. with his criticism of the "pneumatic", the spiritual, Fourth Gospel,
   as compared with the first three). In older times men transformed the sense
   right off; nowadays they speak of steps which lead to the higher teaching,
   and the dress the old illusion with a new scientific mantle.

   [13] But the substitution of the Logos for the, otherwise undefined,
   spiritual being (pneuma) in Christ presented another very great advantage.
   It brought to an end, though not at once (see Clemens Alex.), the
   speculations which reckoned the heavenly personality of Christ in some way
   or other in the number of the higher angels or conceived it as one Æon among
   many. Through the definition of this "Spiritual Being" as Logos his
   transcendent and unique dignity was firmly outlined and assured. For the
   Logos was universally accepted as the Prius logically and temporally, and
   the causa not only of the world, but also of all powers, ideas, æons, and
   angels. He, therefore, did not belong—at least in every respect—to their
   order.

   [14] Augustine first wrought to end this questionable monotheism, and
   endeavoured to treat seriously the monotheism of the living God. But his
   efforts only produced an impression in the West, and even there the attempt
   was weakened from the start by a faulty respect for the prevalent
   Christology, and was forced to entangle itself in absurd formulas. In the
   East the accommodating Substance-Monotheism of philosophy remained with its
   permission of a plurality of divine persons; and this doctrine was taught
   with such naïvety and simplicity, that the Cappadocians, e.g., proclaimed
   the Christian conception of God to be the just mean between the polytheism
   of the heathens and the monotheism of the Jews.

   [15] The Alogi opposed the Montanists and all prophecy; conversely the
   western representatives of the Logos Christology, Irenæus, Tertullian and
   Hippolytus were Chiliasts. But this feature makes no change in the fact that
   the incorporation of the Logos Christology and the fading away of
   eschatological apocalyptic hopes went hand in hand. Theologians were able to
   combine inconsistent beliefs for a time; but for the great mass of the laity
   in the East the mystery of the person of Christ took the place of the Christ
   who was to have set up his visible Kingdom of glory upon earth. See
   especially the refutation of the Chiliasts by Origen (peri arch. II. II) and
   Dionysius Alex. (Euseb. H. E. VII. 24, 25). The continued embodiment in new
   visions of those eschatological hopes and apocalyptic fancies by the monks
   and laymen of later times, proved that the latter could not make the
   received mystery of dogma fruitful for their practical religion.

   [16] This definition is, in truth, too narrow; for at least a section, if
   not all, of the so-called Dynamistic Monarchians recognised, besides God,
   the Spirit as eternal Son of God, and accordingly assumed two Hypostases.
   But they did not see in Jesus an incarnation of this Holy Spirit, and they
   were therefore monarchian in their doctrine of Christ. Besides, so far as I
   know, the name of Monarchians was not applied in the ancient Church to
   these, but only to the theologians who taught that there was in Christ an
   incarnation of God the Father Himself. It was not extended to the earlier
   Dynamistic Monarchians, because, so far as we know, the question whether God
   consisted of one or more persons did not enter into the dispute with them.
   In a wider sense, the Monarchians could be taken also to include the Arians,
   and all those theologians, who, while they recognised the personal
   independence of a divine nature in Christ, yet held this nature to have been
   one created by God; in any case, the Arians were undoubtedly connected with
   Paul of Samosata through Lucian. However, it is not advisable to extend the
   conception so widely; for, firstly, we would thus get too far away from the
   old classification, and, secondly, it is not to be overlooked that, even in
   the case of the most thoroughgoing Arians, their Christology reacted on
   their doctrine of God, and their strict Monotheism was to some extent
   modified. Hence, both on historical and logical grounds, it is best for our
   purpose to understand by Monarchians those theologians exclusively who
   perceived in Jesus either a man filled, in a unique way, with the Spirit, or
   an incarnation of God the Father; with the reservation, that the former in
   certain of their groups regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine Hypostasis, and
   were accordingly no longer really Monarchians in the strict sense of the
   term. For the rest, the expression “Monarchians” is in so far inappropriate
   as their opponents would also have certainly maintained the “monarchia” of
   God. See Tertulli., Adv. Prax. 3 f.; Epiphan. H. 62. 3: ou polutheian
   eisēgoumetha, alla monarchian kēruttomen. They would even have cast back at
   the Monarchians the reproach that they were destroying the monarchy. “Hē
   monarchia tou Theou” was in the second century a standing title in the
   polemics of the theologians against polytheists and Gnostics — see the
   passages collected from Justin, Tatian, Irenæus etc. by Coustant in his Ep.
   Dionysii adv. Sabell. (Routh, Reliq. Sacræ III., p. 385 f.). Tertullian has
   therefore by no means used the term “Monarchians” as if he were thus
   directly branding his opponents as heretical; he rather names them by their
   favourite catch-word in a spirit of irony (Adv. Prax. 10; “vanissimi
   Monarchiani”). The name was therefore not really synonymous with a form of
   heresy in the ancient Church, even if here and there it was applied to the
   opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity.

   [17] See Theol. Quartalschr. 1884, p. 547 ff. Krawutzcky holds the Didache
   to be at once Ebionitic and Theodotian.

   [18] It is very remarkable that Irenæus has given us no hint in his great
   work of a Monarchian controversy in the Church.

   [19] It was pointed out above, (Vol. I., p. 193) and will be argued more
   fully later on, that the different Christologies could pass into one
   another.

   [20] We have already noticed, Vol. I., p. 195, that we can only speak of a
   naïve Modalism in the earlier periods; Modalism first appeared as an
   exclusive doctrine at the close of the second century; see under.
     _________________________________________________________________

   2. The Secession of Dynamistic Monarchianism or Adoptianism.

   (a). The so-called Alogi in Asia Minor. [21]

   Epiphanius [22] and Philastrius (H. 60) know, from the Syntagma of
   Hippolytus, of a party to which the latter had given the nickname of
   “Alogi”. Hippolytus had recorded that its members rejected the Gospel and
   the Apocalypse of John, [23] attributing these books to Cerinthus, and had
   not recognised the Logos of God to whom the Holy Spirit had borne witness in
   the Gospel. Hippolytus, the most prolific of the opponents of the heretics,
   wrote, besides his Syntagma, a special work against these men in defence of
   the Johannine writings; [24] and he perhaps also attacked them in another
   work aimed at all Monarchians. [25] The character of the party can still be
   defined, in its main features, from the passages taken by Epiphanius from
   these writings, due regard being given to Irenæus III. 11, 9. The
   Christological problem seems not to have occupied a foremost place in the
   discussion, but rather, the elimination of all docetic leaven, and the
   attitude to prophecy. The non-descript, the Alogi, were a party of the
   radical, anti-montanist, opposition in Asia Minor, existing within the
   Church — so radical that they refused to recognise the Montanist communities
   as Christian. They wished to have all prophecy kept out of the Church; in
   this sense they were decided contemners of the Spirit (Iren. l.c.; Epiph.
   51, ch. 35). This attitude led them to an historical criticism of the two
   Johannine books, the one of which contained Christ’s announcement of the
   Paraclete, a passage which Montanus had made the most of for his own ends,
   while the other imparted prophetic revelations. They came to the conclusion,
   on internal grounds, that these books could not be genuine, that they were
   composed “in the name of John” (eis onoa Iōannou ch. 3, 18), and that by
   Cerinthus (ch. 3, 4,); the books ought not therefore to be received in the
   Church (ch. 3: ouk axia auta phasin einai en ekklēsia). The Gospel was
   charged with containing what was untrue; it contradicted the other Gospels,
   [26] and gave a quite different and, indeed, a notoriously false order of
   events; it was devoid of any sort of arrangement; it omitted important facts
   and inserted new ones which were inconsistent with the Synoptic Gospels; and
   it was docetic. [27] Against the Apocalypse it was alleged, above all, that
   its contents were often unintelligible, nay, absurd and untrue (ch. 32-34).
   They ridiculed the seven angels and seven trumpets, and the four angels by
   the Euphrates; and on Rev. II. 18, they supposed that there was no Christian
   community in Thyatira at the time, and that accordingly the Epistle was
   fictitious. Moreover, the objections to the Gospel must also have included
   the charge (ch. 18) that it favoured Docetism, seeing that it passed at once
   from the incarnation of the Logos to the work of the ministry of Christ. In
   this connection they attacked the expression “Logos” for the Son of God;
   [28] indeed, they scented Gnosticism in it, contrasted John I. with the
   beginning of Mark’s Gospel, [29] and arrived at the result, that writings
   whose contents were partly docetic, partly sensuously Jewish and unworthy of
   God, must have been composed by Cerinthus, the gnosticising Judaist. In view
   of this fact it is extremely surprising to notice how mildly the party was
   criticised and treated by Irenæus as well as by Hippolytus. The former
   distinguishes them sharply from the declared heretics. He places them on a
   line with the Schismatics, who gave up communion with the Church on account
   of the hypocrites to be found in it. He approves of their decided opposition
   to all pseudo-prophetic nonsense, and he only complains that in their zeal
   against the bad they had also fought against the good, and had sought to
   eject all prophecy. In short, he feels that between them and the Montanists,
   whom likewise he did not look on as heretics, [30] he held the middle
   position maintained by the Church. And so with Hippolytus. The latter, apart
   from features which he could not but blame, confirms the conformity to the
   Church, claimed by the party itself (ch. 3), and conspicuous in their
   insistence on the harmony of the Scriptures (sumphōnía tōn biblōn). [31] He
   nowhere sets them on a line with Cerinthus, Ebion, etc., and he has
   undoubtedly treated even their Christological views, on which Irenæus had
   communicated no information, more mildly, because he found so much in them
   of an anti-docetic, anti-montanistic nature, with which he could agree. But
   what was their teaching as to Christ? If Lipsius [32] were correct in his
   opinion that the Alogi only saw in Jesus a man naturally procreated, that
   they only pretended to hold by the current doctrine, then the attitude to
   them of Irenæus and Hippolytus would be incomprehensible. But our authority
   gives no support to such a view. It rather shows plainly that the Alogi
   recognised the first three Gospels, and consequently the miraculous birth
   from the Holy Ghost and the virgin. They placed, however, the chief emphasis
   on the human life of Jesus, on his birth, baptism, and temptation as told by
   the Synoptics, and for this very reason rejected the formula of the Logos,
   as well as the “birth from above”, i.e., the eternal generation of Christ.
   The equipment of Christ at his baptism was to them, in view of Mark, ch. I.,
   of crucial importance (see p. 16, Note 4) and thus they would assume,
   without themselves making use of the phrase “a mere man” “(psilòs
   anthrōpos), an advancement (prokopē) of the Christ, ordained at his baptism
   to be Son of God. [33]

   The earliest opponents known to us of the Logos Christology were men whose
   adherence to the position of the Church in Asia Minor was strongly marked.
   This attitude of theirs was exhibited in a decided antagonism both to the
   Gnosticism, say, of Cerinthus, and to “Kataphrygian” prophecy. In their
   hostility to the latter they anticipated the development of the Church by
   about a generation; while rejecting all prophecy and “gifts of the Spirit”
   (ch.35), they, in doing so, gave the clearest revelation of their Catholic
   character. Since they did not believe in an age of the Paraclete, nor
   entertain materialistic hopes about the future state, they could not
   reconcile themselves to the Johannine writings; and their attachment to the
   conception of Christ in the Synoptics led them to reject the Gospel of the
   Logos. An explicitly Church party could not have ventured to promulgate such
   views, if they had been confronted by a Canon already closed, and giving a
   fixed place to these Johannine books. The uncompromising criticism, both
   internal and external — as in the hypothesis of the Cerinthian authorship
   — to which these were subjected, proves that, when the party arose, no
   Catholic Canon existed as yet in Asia Minor, and that, accordingly, the
   movement was almost as ancient that of the Montanists, which it followed
   very closely. [34] On this understanding, the party had a legitimate place
   within the developing Catholic Church, and only so can we explain the
   criticism which their writings encountered in the period immediately
   succeeding. Meanwhile, the first express opposition with which we are
   acquainted to the Logos Christology was raised within the Church, by a party
   which, yet, must be conceived by us to have been in many respects
   specifically secularised. For the radical opposition to Montanism, and the
   open, and at the same time jesting, criticism on the Apocalypse, [35] can
   only be so regarded. Yet the preference of the Logos Christology to others
   is itself indeed, as Celsus teaches, a symptom of secularisation and
   innovation in the creed. The Alogi attacked it on this ground when they took
   it as promoting Gnosticism (Docetism). But they also tried to refute the
   Logos Doctrine and the Logos Gospel on historical grounds, by a reference to
   the Synoptic Gospels. The representatives of this movement were, as far as
   we know, the first to undertake within the Church a historical criticism,
   worth of the name, of the Christian Scriptures and the Church tradition.
   They first confronted John’s Gospel with the Synoptics, and found numerous
   contradictions; Epiphanius, — and probably, before him, Hippolytus, — called
   them, therefore, word-hunters (lexithērountes H. 51, ch. 34). They and their
   opponents could retort on each other the charge of introducing innovations;
   but we cannot mistake the fact that the larger proportion of innovations is
   to be looked for on the side of the Alogi. How long the latter held their
   ground; how, when, and by whom they were expelled from the Church in Asia
   Minor, we do not know.

   (b). The Roman Adoptians. — Theodotus the leather-worker and his party:
   Asclepiodotus, Hermophilus, Apollonides, Theodotus the money-changer, and
   also the Artemonites. [36]

   Towards the end of the episcopate of Eleutherus, or at the beginning of that
   of Victor (± 190) there came from Byzantium to Rome the leather-worker
   Theodotus, who afterwards was characterised as the “founder, leader, and
   father of the God-denying revolt”, i.e., of Adoptianism. Hippolytus calls
   him a “rag” (apospasma) of the Alogi, and it is in fact not improbable that
   he came from the circle of those theologians of Asia Minor. Stress is laid
   on his unusual culture; “he was supreme in Greek culture, very learned in
   science” (en paideia Hellēnikē akros, polumathēs tou logou); and he was,
   therefore, highly respected in his native city. All we know for certain of
   his history is that he was excommunicated by the Roman Bishop, Victor, on
   account of the Christology which he taught in Rome (Euseb. V. 28. 6:
   apekēruxe tēs koinōnias); his is, therefore, the first case of which we are
   certain, where a Christian who took his stand on the rule of faith was yet
   treated as a heretic. [37] As regards his teaching, the Philosophumena
   expressly testify to the orthodoxy of Theodotus in his theology and
   cosmology. [38] In reference to the Person of Christ he taught: that Jesus
   was a man, who, by a special decree of God, was born of a virgin through the
   operation of the Holy Spirit; but that we were not to see in him a heavenly
   being, who had assumed flesh in the virgin. After the piety of his life had
   been thoroughly tested, the Holy Ghost descended upon him in baptism; by
   this means he became Christ and received his equipment (dunameis) for his
   special vocation; and he demonstrated the righteousness, in virtue of which
   he excelled all men, and was, of necessity, their authority. Yet the descent
   of the Spirit upon Jesus was not sufficient to justify the contention that
   he was now “God”. Some of the followers of Theodotus represented Jesus as
   having become God through the resurrection; others disputed even this. [39]
   This Christology, Theodotus and his party sought to prove from Scripture.
   Philaster says in general terms: “they use the chapters of Scripture which
   tell of Christ as man, but they avoid those which speak of him as God,
   reading and by no means understanding” (Utuntur capitulis scripturarum quæ
   de Christo veluti de homine edocent, quæ autem ut deo dicunt ea vero non
   accipiunt, legentes et nullo modo intellegentes). Epiphanius has,
   fortunately, preserved for us fragments of the biblical theological
   investigations of Theodotus, by the help of the Syntagma. These show that
   there was no longer any dispute as to the extent of the N. T. Canon; the
   Gospel of John is recognised, and in this respect also Theodotus is
   Catholic. The investigations are interesting, however, because they are
   worked out by the same prosaic methods of exegesis, adopted in the above
   discussed works of the Alogi. [40]

   Theodotus’ form of teaching was, even in the life-time of its author, held
   in Rome to be intolerable, and that by men disposed to Modalism — e.g., the
   Bishop himself, see under — as well as by the representatives of the Logos
   Christology. It is certain that he was excommunicated by Victor, accordingly
   before A.D. 199, on the charge of teaching that Christ was “mere man”
   (psilos anthrōpos). We do not know how large his following was in the city.
   We cannot put it at a high figure, since in that case the Bishop would not
   have ventured on excommunication. It must, however, have been large enough
   to allow of the experiment of forming an independent Church. This was
   attempted in the time of the Roman Bishop Zephyrine (199-218) by the most
   important of the disciples of Theodotus, viz., Theodotus the money changer,
   and a certain Asclepiodotus. It is extremely probable that both of these men
   were also Greeks. A native, Natalius the confessor, was induced, so we are
   told by the Little Labyrinth, to become Bishop of the party, at a salary of
   150 denarii a month. The attempt failed. The oppressed Bishop soon deserted
   and returned into the bosom of the great Church. It was told that he had
   been persuaded by visions and finally by blows with which “holy angels”
   pursued him during the night. The above undertaking is interesting in
   itself, since it proves how great had already become the gulf between the
   Church and these Monarchians in Rome, about A.D. 210; but still more
   instructive is the sketch given of the leaders of the party by the Little
   Labyrinth, a sketch that agrees excellently with the accounts given of the
   ‘lexithērountes’ in Asia, and of the exegetic labours of the older
   Theodotus. [41] The offence charged against the Theodotians was threefold:
   the grammatical and formal exegesis of Holy Scripture, the trenchant textual
   criticism, and the thorough-going study of Logic, Mathematics, and the
   empirical sciences. It would seem at a first glance as if these men were no
   longer as a rule interested in theology. But the opposite was the case.
   Their opponent had himself to testify that they pursued grammatical exegesis
   “in order to prove their godless tenets,” textual criticism in order to
   correct the manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, and philosophy “in order by
   the science of unbelievers to support their heretical conception.” He had
   also to bear witness to the fact that these scholars had not tampered with
   the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, or the extent of the Canon (V. 28.
   18). [42] Their whole work, therefore, was in the service of their theology.
   But the method of this work, — and we can infer it to have been also that of
   the Alogi and the older Theodotus — conflicted with the dominant theological
   method. Instead of Plato and Zeno, the Adoptians revered the Empiricists;
   instead of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, the grammatical was
   alone held to be valid; instead of simply accepting or capriciously trimming
   the traditional text, an attempt was made to discover the original. [43] How
   unique and valuable is this information! How instructive it is to observe
   that this method struck the disciple of the Apologists and Irenæus as
   strange, nay, even as heretical, that while he would have seen nothing to
   object to in the study of Plato, he was seized with horror at the idea of
   Aristotle, Euclid, and Galen, being put in the place of Plato! The
   difference was, indeed, not merely one of method. In the condition of the
   theology of the Church at that time, it could not be supposed that religious
   conviction was especially strong or ardent in men who depreciated the
   religious philosophy of the Greeks. For whence, if not from this source, or
   from Apocalyptics, did men then derive a distinctively pious enthusiasm?
   [44] It is also little to be wondered at that the attempt made by these
   scholars to found a Church in Rome, was so quickly wrecked. They were fated
   to remain officers without an army; for with grammar, textual criticism, and
   logic one could only throw discredit, in the communities, on the form of
   Christological doctrine which held the highest place and had been rendered
   venerable by long tradition. These scholars, therefore, although they
   regarded themselves as Catholic, stood outside the Church. [45] Of the works
   of these, the earliest exegetical scholars, nothing has come down to us.
   [46] They have gone without leaving any appreciable effect on the Church.
   Contrast the significance gained by the schools of Alexandria and Antioch!
   The latter, which rose about 60 years later, took up again the work of this
   Roman school. It, too, came to stand outside the great Church; but it
   brought about one of the most important crises in the dogmatics of the
   Church, because in its philosophico-theological starting-point it was at one
   with orthodoxy.

   The methodical and exegetical examination of the Holy Scriptures confirmed
   the Theodotians in their conception of Christ as the man in whom in an
   especial manner the Spirit of God had operated, and had made them opponents
   of the Logos Christology. The author of the Little Labyrinth does not state
   wherein the doctrine of the younger Theodotus differed from that of the
   older. When he says that some of the Theodotians rejected the law and the
   prophets prophásei cháritos, we may well suppose that they simply
   emphasised — in a Pauline sense, or because of considerations drawn from a
   historical study of religion — the relativity of the authority of the O. T.;
   [47] for there is as little known of any rejection of the Catholic Canon on
   the part of the Theodotians, as of a departure from the rule of faith. Now
   Hippolytus has extracted from the exegetical works of the younger Theodotus
   one passage, the discussion of Hebr. V. 6, 10; VI. 20 f.; VII. 3, 17; and
   out of this he has made an important heresy. Later historians eagerly seized
   on this; they ascribed to the younger Theodotus, as distinguished from the
   older, a cultus of Melchizedek and invented a sect of Melchizedekians (=
   Theodotians). The moneychanger taught, it was said (Epiph. H. 55), that
   Melchizedek was a very great power, and more exalted than Christ, the latter
   being merely related to the former as the copy to the original. Melchizedek
   was the advocate of the heavenly powers before God, and the High Priest
   among men, [48] while Jesus as priest stood a degree lower. The origin of
   the former was completely concealed, because it was heavenly, but Jesus was
   born of Mary. To this Epiphanius adds that the party presented its oblations
   in the name of M. (eis onoma tou Melchisedék); for he was the guide to God,
   the prince of righteousness, the true Son of God. It is apparent that the
   Theodotians cannot have taught this simply as it stands. The explanation is
   not far to seek. There was a wide-spread opinion in the whole ancient
   Church, that Melchizedek was a manifestation of the true Son of God; and to
   this view many speculations attached themselves, here and there in
   connection with a subordinationist Christology. [49] The Theodotians shared
   this conception. Immediately after the sentence given above Epiphanius has
   (55, c. 8): And Christ, they say, was chosen that he might call us from many
   ways to this one knowledge, having been anointed by God, and chosen, when he
   turned us from idols and showed us the way. And the Apostle having been sent
   by him revealed to us that Melchizedek is great and remains a priest for
   ever, and behold how great he is; and because the less is blessed by the
   greater, therefore he says that he as being greater blessed Abraham the
   patriarch; of whom we are initiated that we may obtain from him the
   blessing. [50]

   Now the Christological conception, formulated in the first half of this
   paragraph, was certainly not reported from an opponent. It is precisely that
   of the Shepherd, [51] and accordingly very ancient in the Roman Church. [52]
   From this, and by a reference to the controversial writing of Hippolytus
   (Epiph. l.c. ch. 9), the “heretical” cultus of Melchizedek is explained.
   These Theodotians maintained, as is also shown by their exegesis on 1 Cor.
   VIII. 6, [53] three points: First, that besides the Father the only divine
   being was the Holy Spirit, who was identical with the Son — again simply the
   position of Hermas; secondly, that this Holy Spirit appeared to Abraham in
   the form of the King of Righteousness — and this, as has been shown above,
   was no novel contention; thirdly, that Jesus was a man anointed with the
   power of the Holy Ghost. But, in that case, it was only logical, and in
   itself not uncatholic, to teach that offerings and worship were due, as to
   the true, eternal Son of God, to this King of Righteousness who had appeared
   to Abraham, and had blessed him and his real descendants, i.e., the
   Christians. And if, in comparison with this Son of God; the chosen and
   anointed servant of God, Jesus, appears inferior at first, precisely in so
   far as he is man, yet their position was no more unfavourable in this
   respect than that of Hermas. For Hermas also taught that Jesus, being only
   the adopted Son of God, was really not to be compared to the Holy Spirit,
   the Eternal Son; or, rather, he is related to the latter, to use a
   Theodotian expression, as the copy to the original. Yet there is undoubtedly
   a great distinction between the Theodotians and Hermas. They unmistakably
   used their speculations as to the eternal Son of God in order to rise to
   that Son from the man Jesus of history, and to transcend the historical in
   general as something subordinate. [54] There is not a word of this to be
   found in Hermas. Thus, the Theodotians sought, in a similar way to Origen,
   to rid themselves by speculation of what was merely historical, setting,
   like him, the eternal Son of God above the Crucified One. We have evidence
   of the correctness of this opinion in the observation that these
   speculations on Melchizedek were continued precisely in the school of
   Origen. We find them, and that with the same tendency to depreciate the
   historical Son of God, in Hieracas and the confederacy of Hieracite monks;
   [55] as also in the monks who held the views of Origen in Egypt in the
   fourth and fifth centuries.

   We have accordingly found that these theologians retained the ancient Roman
   Christology represented by Hermas; but that they edited it theologically and
   consequently changed its intention. If, at that time, the “Pastor” was still
   read in the Roman Church, while the Theodotian Christology was condemned,
   then its Christology must have been differently interpreted. In view of the
   peculiar character of the book, this would not be difficult. We may ask,
   however, whether the teaching of the Theodotians is really to be
   characterised as Monarchian, seeing that they assigned a special, and as it
   seems, an independent role to the Holy Spirit apart from God. Meanwhile, we
   can no longer determine how these theologians reconciled the separate
   substance (hypostasis) of the Holy Ghost, with the unity of the Person of
   God. But so much is certain, that in their Christology the Spirit was
   considered by them only as a power, and that, on the other hand, their
   rejection of the Logos Christology was not due to any repugnance to the idea
   of a second divine being. This is proved by their teaching as to the Holy
   Spirit and His appearance in the Old Testament. But then the difference
   between them and their opponents does not belong to the sphere of the
   doctrine of God; they are rather substantially at one on this subject with a
   theologian like Hippolytus. If that is so, however, their opponents were
   undoubtedly superior to them, while they themselves fell short of the
   traditional estimate of Christ. In other words, if there was an eternal Son
   of God, or any one of that nature, and if He appeared under the old
   covenant, then the traditional estimate of Jesus could not be maintained,
   once he was separated from that Son. [56] The formula of the man anointed
   with the Spirit was no longer sufficient to establish the transcendent
   greatness of the revelation of God in Christ, and it is only a natural
   consequence that the O. T. theophanies should appear in a brighter light. We
   see here why the old Christological conceptions passed away so quickly,
   comparatively speaking, and gave place so soon in the Churches to the
   complete and essential elevation of Jesus to the rank of deity, whenever
   theological reflection awoke to life. It was, above all, the distinctive
   method of viewing the Old Testament and its theophanies that led to this.

   In certain respects the attempt of the Theodotians presents itself as an
   innovation. They sought to raise a once accepted, but, so to speak,
   enthusiastic form of faith to the stage of theology and to defend it as the
   only right one; they expressly refused, or, at least, declared to be matter
   of controversy, the use of the title “God” (Theos) as applied to Jesus; they
   advanced beyond Jesus to an eternal, unchangeable Being (beside God). In
   this sense, in consequence of the new interest which the representatives of
   the above doctrine took in the old formula, it is to be regarded as novel.
   For we can hardly attribute to pre-catholic Christians like Hermas, a
   special interest in the essential humanity of Jesus. They certainly believed
   that they gave full expression in their formulas to the highest possible
   estimate of the Redeemer; they had no other idea. These theologians, on the
   other hand, defended a lower conception of Christ against a higher. Thus we
   may judge them on their own ground; for they let the idea of a heavenly Son
   of God stand, and did not carry out the complete revision of the prevailing
   doctrine that would have justified them in proving their Christological
   conception to be the one really legitimate and satisfactory. They indeed
   supported it by Scriptural proof, and in this certainly surpassed their
   opponents, but the proof did not cover the gaps in their dogmatic procedure.
   Since they took their stand on the regula fidei, it is unjust and at the
   same time unhistorical to call their form of doctrine “Ebionitic”, or to
   dispose of them with the phrase that Christ was to them exclusively a mere
   man (psilos anthrōtos). But if we consider the circumstances in which they
   appeared, and the excessive expectations that were pretty generally attached
   to the possession of faith — above all, the prospect of the future
   deification of every believer — we cannot avoid the impression, that a
   doctrine could not but be held to be destructive, which did not even elevate
   Christ to divine honours, or, at most, assigned him an apotheosis, like that
   imagined by the heathens for their emperors or an Antinous. Apocalyptic
   enthusiasm passed gradually into Neo-platonic mysticism. In this transition
   these scholars took no share. They rather sought to separate a part of the
   old conceptions, and to defend that with the scientific means of their
   opponents.

   Once more, 20 to 30 years later, the attempt was made in Rome by a certain
   Artemas to rejuvenate the old Christology. We are extremely ill informed as
   to this last phase of Roman Adoptianism; for the extracts taken by Eusebius
   from the Little Labyrinth, the work written against Artemas and his party,
   apply almost exclusively to the Theodotians. We learn, however, that the
   party appealed to the historical justification of their teaching in Rome,
   maintaining that Bishop Zephyrine had first falsified the true doctrine
   which they defended. [57] The relative correctness of this contention is
   indisputable, especially if we consider that Zephyrine had not disapproved
   of the formula, certainly novel, that “the Father had suffered”. The author
   of the Little Labyrinth reminds them that Theodotus had been already
   excommunicated by Victor, and of this fact they themselves cannot have been
   ignorant. When, moreover, we observe the evident anxiety of the writer to
   impose Theodotus upon them as their spiritual father, we come to the
   conclusion that the party did not identify themselves with the Theodotians.
   What they regarded as the point of difference we do not know. It is alone
   certain that they also refused to call Christ “God”; for the writer feels it
   necessary to justify the use of the title from tradition. [58] Artemas was
   still alive in Rome at the close of the 7th decade of the 3rd century, but
   he was completely severed from the great Church, and without any real
   influence. No notice is taken of him even in the letters of Cyprian. [59]
   Since Artemas was characterised as the “father” of Paul in the controversy
   with that Bishop (Euseb. H. E. VII. 30. 16), he had afterwards attained a
   certain celebrity in the East, and had supplanted even Theodotus in the
   recollection of the Church. In the subsequent age, the phrase: “Ebion,
   Artemas, Paulus (or Photinus)” was stereotyped; this was afterwards
   supplemented with the name of Nestorius, and in that form the phrase became
   a constant feature in Byzantine dogmatics and polemics.

   (c). Traces of Adoptian Christology in the West after Artemas.

   Adoptian Christology — Dynamistic Monarchianism — apparently passed rapidly
   and almost entirely away in the West. The striking formula, settled by the
   Symbol, “Christus, homo et deus”, and, above all, the conviction that Christ
   had appeared in the O. T., brought about the destruction of the party. Yet,
   here and there — in connection, doubtless, with the reading of Hermas [60]
   — the old faith, or the old formula, that the Holy Spirit is the eternal Son
   of God and at the same time the Christ-Spirit, held its ground, and, with
   it, conceptions which bordered on Adoptianism. Thus we read in the writing
   “De montibus Sina et Sion” [61] composed in vulgar Latin and attributed
   wrongly to Cyprian, ch. IV: “The body of the Lord was called Jesus by God
   the Father; the Holy Spirit that descended from heaven was called Christ by
   God the Father, i.e., anointed of the living God, the Spirit joined to the
   body Jesus Christ” (Caro dominica a deo patre Jesu vocita est; spiritus
   sanctus, qui de cælo descendit, Christus, id est unctus dei vivi, a deo
   vocitus est, spiritus carni mixtus Jesus Christus). Compare ch. XIII.: the
   H. S., Son of God, sees Himself double, the Father sees Himself in the Son,
   the Son in the Father, each in each (Sanctus spiritus, dei filius, geminatum
   se videt, pater in filio et filius in patre utrosque se in se vident). There
   were accordingly only two hypostases, and the Redeemer is the flesh (caro),
   to which the pre-existent Holy Spirit, the eternal Son of God, the Christ,
   descended. Whether the author understood Christ as “forming a person” or as
   a power cannot be decided; probably, being no theologian, the question did
   not occur to him. [62] We do not hear that the doctrine of Photinus, who was
   himself a Greek, gained any considerable approval in the West. But we learn
   casually that even in the beginning of the 5th century a certain Marcus was
   expelled from Rome for holding the heresy of Photinus, and that he obtained
   a following in Dalmatia. Incomparably more instructive, however, is the
   account given by Augustine (Confess. VII. 19. [25]) of his own and his
   friend Alypius’ Christological belief, at a time when both stood quite near
   the Catholic Church, and had been preparing to enter it. At that time
   Augustine’s view of Christ was practically that of Photinus; and Alypius
   denied that Christ had a human soul; yet both had held their Christology to
   be Catholic, and only afterwards learned better. [63] Now let us remember
   that Augustine had enjoyed a Catholic education, and had been in constant
   intercourse with Catholics, and we see clearly that among the laity of the
   West very little was known of the Christological formulas, and very
   different doctrines of Christ were in fact current even at the close of the
   4th century. [64]

   (d). The Ejection of the Adoptian Christology in the East, — Beryll of
   Bostra, Paul of Samosata, etc.

   We can see from the writings of Origen that there were also many in the East
   who rejected the Logos Christology. Those were undoubtedly most numerous who
   identified the Father and the Son; but there were not wanting such as, while
   they made a distinction, attributed to the Soh a human nature only, [65] and
   accordingly taught like the Theodotians. Origen by no means treated them, as
   a rule, as declared heretics, but as misled, or “simple”, Christian brethren
   who required friendly teaching. He himself, besides, had also inserted the
   Adoptian Christology into his complicated doctrine of Christ; for he had
   attached the greatest value to the tenet that Jesus should be held a real
   man who had been chosen by God, who in virtue of his free will, had
   steadfastly attested his excellence, and who, at last, had become perfectly
   fused with the Logos in disposition, will, and finally also in nature (see
   Vol. II., p. 369 f.). Origen laid such decided emphasis on this that his
   opponents afterwards classed him with Paul of Samosata and Artemas, [66] and
   Pamphilus required to point out “that Origen said that the Son of God was
   born of the very substance of God, i.e., was homoousios, which means, of the
   same substance with the Father, but that he was not a creature who became a
   son by adoption, but a true son by nature, generated by the Father
   Himself” (quod Origines filium dei de ipsa dei substantia natum dixerit, id
   est, homoousion, quod est, eiusdem cum patre substantiæ, et non esse
   creaturam per adoptionem sed natura filium verum, ex ipso patre generatum).
   [67] >So Origen in fact taught, and he was very far from seeing more in
   the Adoptian doctrine than a fragment of the complete Christology. He
   attempted to convince the Adoptians of their error, more correctly, of their
   questionable one-sidedness, [68] but he had seldom any other occasion to
   contend with them.

   Perhaps we should here include the action against Beryll of Bostra. This
   Arabian Bishop taught Monarchianism. His doctrine aroused a violent
   opposition. The Bishops of the province were deeply agitated and instituted
   many examinations and discussions. But they appear not to have come to any
   result. Origen was called in, and, as we are informed by Eusebius, who had
   himself examined the acts of the Synods, he succeeded in a disputation in
   amicably convincing the Bishop of his error. [69] This happened, according
   to the common view, in A.D. 244. We have to depend, for the teaching of
   Beryll, on one sentence in Eusebius, which has received very different
   interpretations. [70] Nitzsch says rightly, [71] that Eusebius missed in
   Beryll the recognition of the separate divine personality (hypostasis) in
   Christ and of his pre-existence, but not the recognition of his deity.
   However, this is not enough to class the Bishop with certainty among the
   Patripassians, since Eusebius’ own Christological view, by which that of
   Beryll was here gauged, was very vague. Even the circumstance, that at the
   Synod of Bostra (according to Socrates) Christ was expressly decreed to have
   a human soul, is not decisive; for Origen might have carried the recognition
   of this dogma, which was of the highest importance to him, whatever the
   doctrine of Beryll had been. That the Bishop rather taught Dynamistic
   Monarchianism is supported, first, by the circumstance that this form of
   doctrine had, as we can prove, long persisted in Arabia and Syria; and,
   secondly, by the observation that Origen, in the fragment of his commentary
   on the Ep. of Titus (see above), has contrasted with the Patripassian belief
   [72] a kind of teaching which seems to coincide with that of Beryll.
   Primitive Dynamistic Monarchian conceptions must, however, be imputed also
   to those Egyptian Millenarians whom Dionysius of Alexandria opposed, and
   whom he considered it necessary to instruct “in the glorious and truly
   divine appearing of our Lord” (peri tēs endoxou kai alēthōs entheou tou
   kuriou hēmōn epiphaneias [73]

   These were all, indeed, isolated and relatively unimportant phenomena; but
   they prove that even about the middle of the 3rd century the Logos
   Christology was not universally recognised in the East, and that the
   Monarchians were still treated indulgently. [74] Decisive action was first
   taken and Adoptianism was ranked in the East with Ebionitism as a heresy, in
   the case of the incumbent of the most exalted Bishopric in the East, Paul of
   Samosata, Bishop of Antioch from 260, but perhaps a little earlier. He
   opposed the already dominant doctrine of the essential natural deity of
   Christ, and set up once more the old view of the human Person of the
   Redeemer. [75] That happened at a time when, through Alexandrian theology,
   the use of the categories logos (word), ousia (being), hupostasis
   (substance), enupostatos (subsisting), prosōpon (person), perigraphē ousias
   (configuration of essence), etc., had almost already become legitimised, and
   when in the widest circles the idea had taken root that the Person of Jesus
   Christ must be accorded a background peculiar to itself, and essentially
   divine.

   We do not know the circumstances in which Paul felt himself impelled to
   attack the form of doctrine taught by Alexandrian philosophy. Yet it is
   noticeable that it was not a province of the Roman Empire, but Antioch, then
   belonging to Palmyra, which was the scene of this movement. When we observe
   that Paul held a high political office in the kingdom of Zenobia, that close
   relations are said to have existed between him and the Queen, and that his
   fall implied the triumph of the Roman party in Antioch, then we may assume
   that a political conflict lay behind the theological, and that Paul’s
   opponents belonged to the Roman party in Syria. It was not easy to get at
   the distinguished Metropolitan and experienced theologian, who was indeed
   portrayed by his enemies as an unspiritual ecclesiastical prince, vain
   preacher, ambitious man of the world, and wily Sophist. The provincial
   Synod, over which he presided, did not serve the purpose. But already, in
   the affair of Novatian, which had threatened to split up the East, the
   experiment had been tried A.D. 252 (253) of holding an Oriental
   general-council, and that with success. It was repeated. A great Synod — we
   do not know who called it — met in Antioch A.D. 264; Bishops from various
   parts of the East attended it, and, especially, Firmilian of Caesarea. The
   aged Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, excused his absence in a letter in
   which he did not take Paul’s side. The first Synod came to an end without
   result, because, it is alleged, the accused had cunningly concealed his
   false doctrines. [76] A second was also unsuccessful. Firmilian himself gave
   up the idea of a condemnation “because Paul promised to change his
   opinions.” It was only at a third Synod, between 266 and 269, probably 268,
   at Antioch, Firmilian having died at Tarsus on his way thither, that
   excommunication was pronounced on the Bishop, and his successor Domnus was
   appointed. The number of the members of Synod is stated differently at 70,
   80, and 180; and the argument against Paul was led by Malchion, a sophist of
   Antioch and head of a high school, as also a presbyter of the Church. He
   alone among them all was in a position to unmask that “wily and deceitful
   man.” The Acts of the discussion together with a detailed epistle, were sent
   by the Synod to Rome, Alexandria, and all Catholic Churches. Paul, protected
   by Zenobia, remained four years longer in his office; the Church in Antioch
   split up: “there took place schisms among the people, revolts among the
   priests, confusion among the pastors” (egenonto schismata laōn, akatastasiai
   hiereōn, tarachē poimenōn). [77] In the year A.D. 272 Antioch was at last
   taken by Aurelian, and the Emperor, to whom an appeal was brought,
   pronounced on the spot the famous judgment, that the Church building was to
   be handed to him with whom the Christian Bishops of Italy and of Rome
   corresponded by letter. This decision was of course founded on political
   grounds. [78]

   The teaching of Paul was characterised by the Fathers as a renewal of that
   of Artemas, but sometimes also as Neo-Jewish, Ebionitic, afterwards as
   Nestorian Monothelite, etc. It was follows. God was simply to be regarded as
   one person. Father, Son, and Spirit were the One God (hen prósōpon). In God
   a Logos (Son) or a Sophia (Spirit) can be distinguished — both can again
   according to Paul become identified — but they are qualities. [79] God puts
   forth of Himself the Logos from Eternity, nay, He begets him, so that he can
   be called Son and can have being ascribed to him, but he remains an
   impersonal power. [80] Therefore it was absolutely impossible for him to
   assume a visible form. [81] This Logos operated in the prophets, to a still
   higher degree in Moses, then in many others, and most of all (mallon kaì
   diapheróntōs) in the Son of David, born of the virgin by the Holy Ghost.
   The Redeemer was by the constitution of his nature a man, who arose in time
   by birth; he was accordingly “from beneath”, but the Logos of God inspired
   him from above. [82] The union of the Logos with the man Jesus is to be
   represented as an indwelling [83] by means of an inspiration acting from
   without, [84] so that the Logos becomes that in Jesus which in the Christian
   is called by the Apostle “the inner man”; but the union which is thus
   originated is a contact in knowledge and communion (sunapheia kata mathēsin
   kai metousian) a coming together (suneleusis); there does not arise a being
   existent in a body (ousia ousiōmenē en sōmati), i.e., the Logos dwelt in
   Jesus not “in substance but in quality” (ousiōdōs, alla kata poiotēta). [85]
   Therefore the Logos is to be steadily distinguished from Jesus; [86] he is
   greater than the latter. [87] Mary did not bear the Logos, but a man like us
   in his nature, and in his baptism it was not the Logos, but the man, who was
   anointed with the Spirit. [88] However, Jesus was, on the other hand,
   vouchsafed the divine grace in a special degree, [89] and his position was
   unique. [90] Moreover, the proof he gave of his moral perfection
   corresponded to his peculiar equipment. [91] The only unity between two
   persons, accordingly between God and Jesus, is that of the disposition and
   the will. [92] Such unity springs from love alone; but love can certainly
   produce a complete unity, and only that which is due to love  — not that
   attained by “nature” — is of worth. Jesus was like God in the
   unchangeableness of his love and his will, and became one with God, being
   not only without sin himself, but vanquishing, in conflict and labour, the
   sins of our ancestor. As he himself, however, advanced in the manifestation
   of goodness and continued in it, the Father furnished him with power and
   miracles, in which he made known his steadfast conformity to the will of
   God. So he became the Redeemer and Saviour of the human race, and at the
   same time entered into an eternally indissoluble union with God, because his
   love can never cease. Now he has obtained from God, as the reward of his
   love, the name which is above every name; God has committed to him the
   judgment, [93] and invested him with divine dignity, so that now we can call
   him “God [born] of the virgin”. [94] So also we are entitled to speak of a
   pre-existence of Christ in the prior decree [95] and prophecy [96] of God,
   and to say that he became God through divine grace and his constant
   manifestation of goodness. [97] Paul undoubtedly perceived in the imparting
   of the Spirit at the baptism a special stage of the indwelling of the Logos
   in the man Jesus; indeed Jesus seems only to have been Christ from his
   baptism: “having been anointed with the Holy Spirit he was named Christ —
   the anointed son of David is not different from wisdom” (tō hagiō pneumati
   christheis prosēgoreuthē Christos — ho ek Dabid christheis ouk allotrios
   esti tēs sophias) The Bishop supported his doctrine by copious proofs from
   Scripture, [98] and he also attacked the opposite views. He sought to prove
   that the assumption that Jesus was by nature (phúsei) Son of God, led to
   having two gods, [99] to the destruction of Monotheism; [100] he fought
   openly, with great energy, against the old expositors, i.e., the
   Alexandrians, [101] and he banished from divine service all Church psalms in
   which the essential divinity of Christ was expressed. [102]

   The teaching of Paul was certainly a development of the old doctrine of
   Hermas and Theodotus, and the Church Fathers had a right to judge it
   accordingly; but on the other hand we must not overlook the fact that Paul
   not only, as regards form, adapted himself more closely to the accepted
   terminology, but that he also gave to the ancient type of doctrine, already
   heterodox, a philosophical, an Aristotelian, basis, and treated it ethically
   and biblically. He undoubtedly learned much from Origen; but he recognised
   the worthlessness of the double personality construed by Origen, for he has
   deepened the exposition given by the latter of the personality of Christ,
   and seen that “what is attained by nature is void of merit” (ta kratoumena
   tō logō tēs phuseōs ouk echei epainon). Paul’s expositions of nature and
   will in the Persons, of the essence and power of love, of the divinity of
   Christ, only to be perceived in the work of His ministry, because
   exclusively contained in unity of will with God, are almost unparalleled in
   the whole dogmatic literature of the Oriental Churches in the first three
   centuries. For, when such passages do occur in Origen, they at once
   disappear again in metaphysics, and we do not know the arguments of the
   Alogi and the Theodotians. [103] It is, above all, the deliberate rejection
   of metaphysical speculation which distinguishes Paul; he substituted for it
   the study of history and the determination of worth on moral grounds alone,
   thus reversing Origen’s maxim: ho sōtēr ou kat' metousian, alla kat' ousian
   esti theos (the Saviour is God not by communion, but in essence). As he kept
   his dogmatic theology free from Platonism, his difference with his opponents
   began in his conception of God. The latter described the controversy very
   correctly, when they said that Paul “had betrayed the mystery of the
   Christian faith,” [104] i.e., the mystic conception of God and Christ due to
   natural philosophy; or [105] when they complained of Paul’s denial that the
   difficulty of maintaining the unity of deity, side by side with a plurality
   of persons, was got over simply by making the Father their source. What is
   that but to admit that Paul started in his idea of God, not from the
   substance, but from the person? He here represented the interests of theism
   as against the chaotic naturalism of Platonism And in appreciating the
   character of Jesus he refused to recognise its uniqueness and divinity in
   his “nature”; these he found only in his disposition and the direction of
   his will. Therefore while Christ as a person was never to him “mere man”
   (psilos anthrōpos), yet Christ’s natural endowment he would not recognise as
   exceptional. But as Christ had been predestinated by God in a unique manner,
   so in conformity to the promises the Spirit and the grace of God rested on
   him exceptionally; and thus his work in his vocation and his life, with and
   in God, had been unique. This view left room for a human life, and if Paul
   has, ultimately, used the formula, that Christ had become God, his appeal to
   Philipp. II. 9 shows in what sense he understood the words.

   His opponents, indeed, charged him with sophistically and deceitfully
   concealing his true opinion behind phrases with an orthodox sound. It is
   possible, in view of the fact, e.g., that he called the impersonal Logos
   “Son”, that there is some truth in this; but it is not probable. He was not
   understood, or rather he was misunderstood. Many theologians at the present
   day regard the theology of Hermas as positively Nicene, although it is
   hardly a whit more orthodox than that of Paul. If such a misunderstanding is
   possible to the scholars of to-day — and Hermas was certainly no dissembler,
   — why can Firmilian not have looked on Paul as orthodox for a time? He
   taught that there was an eternal Son of God, and that he dwelt in Jesus; he
   proclaimed the divinity of Christ, held there were two persons (God and
   Jesus), and with the Alexandrians rejected Sabellianism. On this very point,
   indeed, a sort of concession seems to have been made to him at the Synod. We
   know that the Synod expressly censured the term “homoousios”, [106] and this
   was done, Athanasius conjectures, to meet an objection of Paul. He is said
   to have argued as follows: — If Christ is not, as he taught, essentially
   human, then he is homoousios; with the Father. But if that be true then the
   Father is not the ultimate source of the deity, but Being (the ousia), and
   thus we have three ousiai; [107] in other words the divinity of the Father
   is itself derivative, and the Father is of identical origin with the Son,
   — “they become brothers”. This can have been an objection made by Paul. The
   Aristotelian conception of the ousia would correspond to his turn of
   thought, and so would the circumstance, that the possibility of a
   subordinate, natural, divinity on the part of the Son is left out of the
   question. The Synod again can very well have rejected homoousios in the
   interests of anti-sabellianism. [108] Yet it is just as possible that, as
   Hilarius says, the Synod condemned the term because Paul himself had
   declared God and the impersonal Logos (the Son) to be homoousios, i.e., “of
   the same substance, of one substance.” [109] However that may be, whenever
   Paul’s view was seen through, it was at once felt by the majority to be in
   the highest degree heretical. No one was yet quite clear as to what sort of
   thing this “naturally — divine” element in Christ was. Even Origen had
   taught that he possessed a divinity to which prayer might not be offered.
   [110] But to deny the divine nature (physis) to the Redeemer, was
   universally held to be an attack on the Rule of Faith. [111] They correctly
   perceived the really weak point in Paul’s Christology, his teaching, namely,
   that there were actually two Sons of God; [112] Hermas, however, had already
   preached this, and Paul was not in earnest about the “eternal Son”. Yet this
   was only a secondary matter. The crucial difference had its root in the
   question as to the divine nature (physis) of the Redeemer.

   Now here it is of the highest interest to notice how far, in the minds of
   many Bishops in Palestine and Syria, the speculative interpretation of the
   Rule of Faith had taken the place of that rule itself. If we compare the
   letter of Hymenæus of Jerusalem and his five colleagues to Paul with the
   regula fidei — not, say, that of Tertullian and Irenæus — but the Rule of
   Faith with which Origen has headed his great work: peri archōn then we are
   astonished at the advance in the times. The Bishops explain at the opening
   of their letter, [113] that they desired to expound,” in writing, the faith
   which we received from the beginning, and possess, having been transmitted
   and kept in the Catholic Church, proclaimed up to our day by the successors
   of the blessed Apostles, who were both eye-witnesses and assistants of the
   Logos, from the law and prophets and the New Testament.” (engraphon tēn
   pistin hēn ex archēs parelabomen kai echomen paradotheisan kai tēroumenēn en
   tē katholikē kai hagia ekklēsia, mechri tēs sēmeron hēmeras ek diadochēs apo
   tōn makariōn apostolōn, ohi kai autoptai kai hupēretai gegonasi tou logou,
   katangellomenēn, ek nomou kai prophētōn kai tēs kainēs diathēkēs.) But what
   they presented as “the faith” and furnished with proofs from Scripture, was
   the speculative theology, [114] In no other writing can we see the triumph
   in the sphere of religion of the theology of philosophy or of Origen, i.e.,
   of Hellenism, so clearly, as in this letter, in which philosophical
   dogmatics are put forward as the faith itself. But further. At the end of
   the third century even the baptismal confessions were expanded in the East
   by the adoption of propositions borrowed from philosophical theology; [115]
   or, to put it in another way, — baptismal confessions apparently now first
   formulated, were introduced in many Oriental communities, which also now
   contained the doctrine of the Logos. Since these statements were directed
   against Sabellianism as well as against “Ebionitism”; they will be discussed
   later on.

   With the deposition and removal of Paul the historian’s interest in his case
   is at an end. It was henceforth no longer possible to gain a hearing, in the
   great forum of Church life, for a Christology which did not include the
   personal pre-existence of the Redeemer: no one was permitted henceforth to
   content himself with the elucidation of the divinely-human life of Jesus in
   his work. It was necessary to believe in the divine nature (physis) of the
   Redeemer. [116] The smaller and remote communities were compelled to imitate
   the attitude of the larger. Yet we know from the circular letter of
   Alexander of Alexandria, A.D. 321, [117] that the doctrine of Paul did not
   by any means pass away without leaving a trace. Lucian and his famous
   academy, the alma mater of Arianism, were inspired by the genius of Paul.
   [118] Lucian — himself perhaps, a native of Samosata — had, during the
   incumbency of three Bishops of Antioch, remained, like Theodotus and his
   party in Rome, at the head of a school outside of the great Catholic Church.
   [119] In his teaching, and in that of Arius, the foundation laid by Paul is
   unmistakable. [120] But Lucian has falsified the fundamental thought of Paul
   in yielding to the assumption of a Logos, though a very subordinate and
   created Logos, and in putting this in the place of the man Jesus, while his
   disciples, the Arians, have, in the view sketched by them of the person of
   Christ, been unable to retain the features Paul ascribed to it; though they
   also have emphasised the importance of the will in Christ. We must conclude,
   however, that Arianism, as a whole, is nothing but a compromise between the
   Adoptian and the Logos Christology, which proves that after the close of the
   3rd century, no Christology was possible in the Church which failed to
   recognise the personal pre-existence of Christ.

   Photinus approximated to Paul of Samosata in the fourth century. Above all,
   however, the great theologians of Antioch occupied a position by no means
   remote from him; for the presupposition of the personal Logos Homousios in
   Christ, which they as Church theologians had to accept simply, could be
   combined much better with the thought of Paul, than the Arian assumption of
   a subordinate god, with attributes half-human, half-divine. So also the
   arguments of Theodore of Mopsuestia as to the relation of the Logos and the
   man Jesus, as to nature, will, disposition, etc., are here and there
   verbally identical with those of Paul; and his opponents, especially
   Leontius, [121] were not so far wrong in charging Theodore with teaching
   like Paul. [122] Paul was in fact condemned a second time in the great
   scholars of Antioch, and — strangely — his name was once more mentioned, and
   for the third time, in the Monothelite controversy. In this case his
   statements as to the one will (mia thelēsis sc. of God and Jesus) were
   shamefully misused, in order to show to the opposition that their doctrine
   had been already condemned in the person of the arch-heretic.

   We possess, however, another ancient source of information, of the beginning
   of the 4th century, the Acta Archelai. [123] This shows us that at the
   extreme eastern boundary of Christendom there persisted even among Catholic
   clerics, if we may use here the word Catholic, Christological conceptions
   which had remained unaffected by Alexandrian theology, and must be classed
   with Adoptianism. The author’s exposition of Christ consists, so far as we
   can judge, in the doctrine of Paul of Samosata. [124] Here we are shown
   clearly that the Logos Christology had, at the beginning of the 4th century,
   not yet passed beyond the borders of the Christendom comprehended in the
   Roman Empire.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [21] Merkel, Aufklärung der Streitigkaiten der Aloger, 1782. Heinichen, De
   Alogis, 1829; Olshausen, Echtheit der vier Kanonischen Evangelien, p. 241
   f.; Schwegler, Montanismus, p. 265 ff. etc.; Volkmar, Hippolytus, p. 112 f.;
   Döllinger, Hippolytus u. Kallistus, p. 229 ff.; Lipsius, Quellenkritik des
   Epiphanius p. 23 f., 233 f.; Harnack in d. Ztschr. L. d. histor. Theol.
   1874, p. 166 f.; Lipsius, Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte, p. 93 f.,
   214 f.; Zahn in d. Ztschr. für die histor. Theol., 1875, p. 72 f.; Caspari,
   Quellen III., p. 377 f., 398 f., Soyres, Montanism, p. 49 f.; Bonwetsch,
   Montanismus vv. ll.; Iwanzov-Platonov, Häresien und Schismen der drei ersten
   Jahr. I, p. 233 f.; Zahn, Gesch. d. N. T. Kanons I., p. 220 ff.; Harnack,
   das N. T. um d. J. 200, p. 38 ff.; Jülicher, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1889, No. 7;
   Salmon i. Hermathena, 1892, p. 161 ff.

   [22] Hær.51; after him Augustine H.30, Prædest. H.30 etc. The statement of
   the Prædest. that a Bishop named Philo refuted the Alogi is worthless.
   Whether the choice of the name was due to the Alexandrian Jew is unknown.

   [23] Nothing is reported as to the Letters. Epiphanius is perhaps right in
   representing that they were also rejected (1.c. ch. 34); but perhaps they
   were not involved in the discussion.

   [24] See the list of writings on the statue of Hippolytus: uper tou kata
   iōan[n]ēn euangeliou kai apokalupseōs; and Ebed Jesu, catal. 7 (Assemani,
   Bibl. Orient. III. 1, 15): “Apologia pro apocalypsi et evangelio Johannis
   apostoli et evangelistæ.” Besides this Hippolytus wrote: “Capita adversus
   Caium,” a Roman sympathiser with the Alogi. Of this writing a few fragments
   have been preserved (Gwynn, Hermathena VI., p. 397 f.; Harnack, Texte und
   Unters. VI. 3, p. 121 ff.; Zahn, Gesch. des N. T. Kanons, II., p. 973 ff.

   [25] It is certain that Epiphanius, besides the relative section of the
   Syntagma, also copied at least a second writing against the “Alogi”, and it
   is probable that this likewise came from Hippolytus. The date of its
   composition can still be pretty accurately determined from Epiphan. H.31,
   ch. 33. It was written about A.D. 234; for Epiphanius’ authority closes the
   period of the Apostles 93 years after the Ascension, and remarks that since
   that date 112 years had elapsed. Lipsius has obtained another result, but
   only by an emendation of the text which is unnecessary (see Quellen der
   ältesten Ketzergeschichte, p. 109 f.). Hippolytus treats his unnamed
   opponents as contemporaries; but a closer examination shows that he only
   knew them from their writings — of which there were several (see ch. 33),
   and therefore knew nothing by personal observation of the conditions under
   which they appeared. A certain criterion of the age of these writings, and
   therefore of the party itself, is given by the fact that, at the time when
   the latter flourished, the only Church at Thyatira was, from their own
   testimony, Montanist, while the above-mentioned authority was already able
   to tell of a rising catholic Church, and of other Christian communities in
   that place. A Christian of Thyatira, by name Papylus, appears in the
   Martyrium Carpi et Papyli (see Harnack, Texte u. Unters. III. 3, 4). The
   date when this movement in Asia Minor flourished can be discovered more
   definitely, however, by a combination, proved by Zahn to be justified, of
   the statements of Hippolytus and Irenæus III. 11. 9. According to this, the
   party existed in Asia Minor, A.D. 170-180.

   [26] Epiph. LI., ch 4: phaskousi hoti ou sumphōnei ta biblia tou Iōannou
   tois loipois apostolois, ch. 18: to euangelion to eis honoma Iōannou
   pseudetai . . . legousi to kata Iōannēn euangelion, epeidē mē ta auta tois
   apostolois ephē, adiatheton einai.

   [27] Epiphanius has preserved for us in part the criticism of the Alogi on
   John I. II., and on the Johannine chronology (ch. 3, 4, 15, 18, 22, 26, 28,
   29). In their conception the Gospel of John precluded the human birth and
   development of Jesus.

   [28] Epiph. LI. 3, 28: ton logon tou Theou apoballontai ton dia Iōannēn
   kētuchthenta.

   [29] Epiph. LI., ch. 6: legousin; Idou deuteron euangelion peri Christou
   sēmainon kai oudamou anōthen legon tēn gennēsin; alla, phēsin, En tō
   Iordanē katēlthe to tneuma 'ep' auton kai phōnē; Houtos estin ho huios ho
   agapētos, 'eph hon ēudokēsa.

   [30] This milder criticism — and neither Montanists nor Alogi stand in
   Irenæus’ catalogue of heretics — naturally did not prevent the view that
   those “unhappy people” had got into an extremely bad position by their
   opposition to the prophetic activity of the Spirit in the Church, and had
   fallen into the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost.

   [31] In Epiph. LI., ch. 4: dokusi kaì autoì ta isa hēmin pisteúein.

   [32] Quellen, p. 102 f., 112.

   [33] It is not quite certain whether we may appeal to the words in Epiph.
   LI., ch. 18 (20): nomizontes apo Marias kai deuro Christon auton kaleisthai
   kai huion Theou, kai heinai men proteron psilon anthrōpon, kata prokopēn de
   eilēphenai tēn tou Theou prosēgorian.

   [34] As regards the problem of the origin and gradual reception of the
   Johannine writings, and especially of the Gospel, their use by Montanus, and
   their abrupt rejection by the Alogi, are of the greatest significance,
   especially when we bear in mind the Churchly character of the latter. The
   rise of such an opposition in the very region in which the Gospel
   undoubtedly first came to light; the application to the fourth of a standard
   derived from the Synoptic Gospels; the denial without scruple, of its
   apostolic origin; are facts which it seems to me have, at the present day,
   not been duly appreciated. We must not weaken their force by an appeal to
   the dogmatic character of the criticism practised by the Alogi; the
   attestation of the Gospel cannot have been convincing, if such a criticism
   was ventured on in the Church. But the Alogi distinctly denied to John and
   ascribed to Cerinthus the Apocalypse as well as the Gospel. Of Cerinthus we
   know far too little to be justified in sharing in the holy horror of the
   Church Fathers. But even if the above hypothesis is false, and it is in fact
   very probable that it is, yet the very fact that it could be set up by
   Churchmen is instructive enough; for it shows us, what we do not know from
   any other source, that the Johannine writings met with, and had to overcome,
   opposition in their birth-place.

   [35] The Roman Caius took over this criticism from them, as is shown by
   Hippolytus’ Cap. adv. Caium. But, like Theodotus, to be mentioned presently,
   he rejected the view of the Alogi as regards John’s Gospel.

   [36] See Kapp, Hist. Artemonis, 1737; Hagemann, Die römische Kirche in den
   drei ersten Jahrh., 1864; Lipsius, Quellenkritik, p. 235 f.; Lipsius,
   Chronologie der römischen Bischöfe, p. 173 f.; Harnack, in the Ztschr. f. d.
   hist. Theol., 1874, p. 200; Caspari, Quellen III., pp. 318-321, 404 f.;
   Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche I., p. 192 f.; Caspari, Om
   Melchizedekiternes eller Theodotianernes eller Athinganernes Laerdomme og om
   hvad de herve at sige, naar de skulle bline optagne i. den kristelige Kirke,
   in the Tidsskr f. d. evang. luth. Kirke. Ny Raekke, Bd. VIII., part 3, pp.
   307-337. Authorities for the older Theodotus are; (1) the Syntagma of
   Hippolytus according to Epiph. H.54, Philaster H. 50. and Pseudo-Tertull. H.
   28; (2) the Philosophumena VII. 35, X. 23, IX. 3, 12, X. 27; (3) the
   fragment of Hippolytus against Noëtus, ch. 3. 4) the fragments from the
   so-called Little Labyrinth (in Euseb. H. E. V. 28), which was perhaps by
   Hippolytus, and was written in the fourth decade of the third century, and
   after the Philosophumena. This work was directed against Roman Dynamistic
   Monarchians under the leadership of a certain Artemas, who are to be
   distinguished from the Theodotians. (For the age and author of the Little
   Labyrinth, and for its connection with the writings against the Alogi and
   against Noëtus; also for the appearance of Artemas, which is not to be dated
   before ± 235: see Caspari, Quellen l.c., and my art. “Monarchianismus”, p.
   186). Eusebius has confined his extracts from the Little Labyrinth to such
   as deal with the Theodotians. These extracts and Philos. Lib. X. are used by
   Theodoret (H. F. II. 4. 5); it is not probable that the latter had himself
   examined the Little Labyrinth. A writing of Theodotus seems to have been
   made use of in the Syntagma of Hippolytus. As regards the younger Theodotus,
   his name has been handed down by the Little Labyrinth, the Philosoph. (VII.
   36) and Pseudo-Tertull. H. 29 (Theodoret H. F. II. 6). The Syntagma tells of
   a party of Melchizedekians, which is traced in the Philosoph. and by the
   Pseudo-Tertullian to the younger Theodotus, but neither the party nor its
   founder is named. Very mysterious in contents and origin is the piece,
   edited for the first time from Parisian MSS. by Caspari (see above): perì
   Melchisedekianōn kaì Theodotianōn kai Athinganōn. The only controversial
   writing known to us against Artemas (Artemon) is the Little Labyrinth.
   Unfortunately Eusebius has not excerpted the passages aimed at him. Artemas
   is, again, omitted in the Syntagma and in the Philosoph. For this reason
   Epiphanius, Pseudo-Tertull. and Philaster have no articles expressly dealing
   with him. He is, however, mentioned prominently in the edict of the last
   Synod of Antioch held to oppose Paul of Samosata (so also in the Ep.
   Alexandri in Theodoret H. E. I. 3 and in Pamphilus’ Apology Pro Orig. in
   Routh, Reliq. S. IV. p. 367); therefore many later writers against the
   heretics have named him (Epiph. H. 65. 1, esp. Theodoret H. F. II. 6. etc.).
   Finally, let it be noticed that the statements in the Synodicon Pappi, and
   in the Prædestinatus are worthless, and that the identification of the
   younger Theodotus with the Gnostic of the same name, extracts from whose
   works we possess, is inadmissable, not less so than the identification with
   Theodotus, the Montanist, of whom we are informed by Eusebius. In this we
   agree with Zahn (Forschungen III., p. 123) against Neander and Dorner. As an
   authority for the Roman Monarchians, Novatian, De Trinitate, also falls to
   be considered.

   [37] It is significant that this took place in Rome. The Syntagma is further
   able to tell that Theodotus had denied Christ during the persecution in his
   native city before he came to Rome. See on this point my article on
   Monarchianism) p. 187.

   [38] VII. 35: phaskōn ta peri men tēs tou pantos archēs sumphōna ek merous
   tois tēs alēthous ekklēsias, hupo tou Theou panta homologōn gegonenai.

   [39] Philos. VII. 35: Theon de oudepote touton gegonenai thelousin epi tē
   kathodō tou pneumatos, heteroi de meta tēn ek nekrōn anastasin. The
   description in the text is substantially taken from the Philos., with whose
   account the contents of the Syntagma are not inconsistent. The statement
   that Theodotus denied the birth by the virgin is simply a calumny, first
   alleged by Epiphanius. The account of the Philos. seems unreliable, at most,
   on a single point, viz., where, interpreting Theodotus, it calls the Spirit
   which descended at the baptism “Christ” But possibly this too is correct,
   seeing that Hermas, and, later, the author of the Acta Archelai have also
   identified the Holy Spirit with the Son of God. (Compare also what Origen
   [perì arch. pref.] has reported as Church tradition on the Holy Spirit.) In
   that case we would only have to substitute the “Son of God” for “Christ”,
   and to suppose that Hippolytus chose the latter term in order to be able to
   characterise the teaching of Theodotus as Gnostic (Cerinthian). On the
   possibility that the Theodotians, however, really named the Holy Spirit
   “Christ”, see later on.

   [40] Epiphanius mentions the appeal of the Theodotians to Deut. XVIII. 15;
   Jer. XVII. 9; Isa. LIII. 2 f.; Mat. XII. 31; Luke I. 35; John VIII. 40; Acts
   II. 22; 1 Tim. II. 5. They deduced from Mat. XII. 31, that the Holy Spirit
   held a higher place than the Son of Man. The treatment of the verses in
   Deut. and Luke is especially instructive. In the former Theodotus
   emphasised, not only the “prophḗtēn hōs emé”, and the “ek tōn adelphōn”,
   but also the “egerei”, and concluded referring the passage to the
   Resurrection: ho ek Theou egeiromenos Christos houtos ouk ēn Theos alla
   anthrōpos, epeidē ex autōn ēn, hōs kai Mōusēs anthrōpos ēn — accordingly the
   resuscitated Christ was not God. On Luke I. 35 he argued thus: “The Gospel
   itself says in reference to Mary: ‘the Spirit of the Lord will come upon
   thee’; but it does not say: ‘the Spirit of the Lord will be in thy body’,
   or, ‘will enter into thee.’” — Further, if we may trust Epiphanius,
   Theodotus sought to divide the sentence — diò kaì tò gennṓmenon ek sou
   hagion klēthḗsetai huiòs Theou — , from the first half of the verse, as if
   the words “dio kai” did not exist, so that he obtained the meaning that the
   Sonship of Christ would only begin later, — subsequent to the test. Perhaps,
   however, Theodotus entirely deleted “dio kai”, just as he also read “pneuma
   kuriou” for “pneuma hagion” in order to avoid all ambiguity. And since
   Hippolytus urges against him that John I. 14 did not contain “to pneuma sarx
   egeneto”, Theodotus must at least have interpreted the word “logos” in the
   sense of “ponuma”; and an ancient formula really ran: “Christos ōn men to
   prōton pneuma egeneto sarx” (2 Clem. IX. 5), where later “logos” was,
   indeed, inserted in place of “pneuma”. See the Cod. Constantinop.

   [41] Euseb. (H. E. V. 28): “They falsified the Holy Scriptures without
   scruple, rejected the standards of the ancient faith, and misunderstood
   Christ. For they did not examine what the Scriptures said, but carefully
   considered what logical figure they could obtain from it that would prove
   their godless teaching. And if any one brought before them a passage from
   Holy Scripture, they asked whether a conjunctive or disjunctive figure could
   be made of it. They set aside the Holy Scriptures of God, and employ
   themselves, instead, with geometry, being men who are earthly, and talk of
   what is earthly, and know not what comes from above. Some of them,
   therefore, study the geometry of Euclid with the greatest devotion;
   Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired; Galen is even worshipped by some.
   But what need is there of words to show that men who misuse the sciences of
   the unbelievers to prove their heretical views, and falsify with their own
   godless cunning the plain faith of Scripture, do not even stand on the
   borders of the faith? They have therefore laid their hands so unscrupulously
   on the Holy Scriptures under the pretext that they had only amended it
   critically (diōrthōkenai). He who will can convince himself that this is no
   calumny. For, if one should collect the manuscripts of any one of them and
   compare them, he would find them differ in many passages. At least, the
   manuscripts of Asclepiodotus do not agree with those of Theodotus. But we
   can have examples of this to excess; for their scholars have noted with
   ambitious zeal all that any one of them has, as they say, critically
   amended, i.e., distorted (effaced?). Again, with these the manuscripts of
   Hermophilus do not agree; and those of Apollonides even differ from each
   other. For if we compare the manuscripts first restored by them (him?) with
   the later re-corrected copies, variations are found in many places. But some
   of them have not even found it worth the trouble to falsify the Holy
   Scriptures, but have simply rejected the Law and the Prophets, and have by
   this lawless and godless doctrine hurled themselves, under the pretext of
   grace, into the deepest abyss of perdition.

   [42] See under.

   [43] See V. 28. 4, 5.

   [44] The triumph of Neo-platonic philosophy and of the Logos Christology in
   Christian theology is, in this sense, to be considered an advance. That
   philosophy, indeed, in the third century, triumphed throughout the empire
   over its rivals, and therefore the exclusive alliance concluded with it by
   Christian tradition was one which, when it took place, could be said to have
   been inevitable. Suppose, however, that the theology of Sabellius or of Paul
   had established itself in the Church in the 3rd century, then a gulf would
   have been created between the Church and Hellenism that would have made it
   impossible for the religion of the Church to become that of the empire.
   Neo-platonic tradition was the final product of antiquity; it disposed, but
   as a living force, of the intellectual and moral capital of the past.

   [45] As “genuine” scholars — and this is a very characteristic feature —
   they took very great care that each should have the credit of his own
   amendments on the text.

   [46] The Syntagma knows of these; Epiph. H. 55. c. 1: pláttousin heautois
   kaì bíblous epiplástous,

   [47] Even the great anti-gnostic teachers had come to this view (see Vol.
   II., p. 304) without indeed drawing the consequences which the Theodotians
   may have deduced more certainly.

   [48] L.c. Dei hēmas tō Melchisedek prospherein, phasin, hina di' autou
   prosenechthē huper hēmōn, kai heurōmen di' autou zōēn.

   [49] See Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. 25. 161; Hierakas in Epiph. H. 55, c. 5, H.
   67, c. 3; Philast. H. 148. Epiph. has himself to confess (H. 55, c. 7), that
   even in his time the view to be taken of Melchizedek was still a subject of
   dispute among Catholic Christians: hoi men gar auton nomizousi phusei ton
   huion tou Theou en idea anthrōpou tote tō Abraam pephēnenai. Jerome Ep. 73
   is important. The Egyptian hermit, Marcus, wrote, about A.D. 400, an
   independent work eis tòn Melchisedèk katà Melchisedekeiōn, i.e., against
   those who saw in Melchizedek a manifestation of the true Son of God (see
   Photius, Biblioth. 200; Dict. of Christ. Biog. III. p. 827; Herzog’s R. E.,
   2 Aufl. IX. p. 290); cf. the above described fragment, edited for the first
   time by Caspari; further Theodoret H. F. II. 6, Timotheus Presb. in
   Cotelier, Monum. Eccl. Græcæ III. p. 392 etc.

   [50] Kai Christos men, phasin, exelegē, hina hēmas kalesē ek pollōn hodōn
   eis mian tautēn tēn gnōsin, hupo Theou kechrismenos kai eklektos genomenos,
   epeidē apestrepsen hēmas apo eidōlōn kai hupedeixen hēmin tēn hodon. Ex
   hou