The Soul

The Soul

Thomas Allen

Is the human soul immortal or mortal? Does the soul continue to exist consciously after the body dies? Or, does it die when the body dies?

There are two views of the nature of man. One is the dualistic view, which is the popular Christian view and the pagan view. The other is the holistic view, which is the Hebrew and Biblical view.

Greek, Egyptian, and other pagan philosophers claim that the soul is immortal and continuous a conscious existence after the body dies. According to the pagan Greeks, the soul is trapped in a material body. When the body dies, the soul is liberated and continuous a conscious existence elsewhere because the soul is immortal and, therefore, indestructible. Consequently, a person cannot really die; he merely transitions to another form. Death is merely the separation of the soul and the body.

The Hebrews claim that the soul is mortal and dies with the body — that is, its conscious existence ends with the death of the body. Since the soul animates the body, it dies (ceases to have consciousness) when the body dies; it not a distinct substance. When the body dies, the soul ceases its function of the animating life-principle of the body, and, therefore, it also dies. Furthermore, according to the Hebrews, the soul and body are an indissoluble unit. Moreover, man does not have a soul; he is a soul.

While the pagans teach a dualistic nature of man (the soul is immortal and the body is mortal), the Hebrews in the Old Testament teach a holistic view (both the soul and body are mortal). The pagan view asserts that the body, which is mortal, and the soul, which is immortal, are two different substances that coexist within one human being. Nevertheless, they are two characteristics of the same person. Thus, human nature consists of two entities (a body and a soul) that function independently — the dualistic view of man.

Contrasting with the pagan idea is the Hebrew. The Hebrew idea is that of an animated body, and the soul animates the body. When one dies, the other also dies. Both the body and the soul are mortal. Consequently, human nature is an indissoluble unity where the body and soul are different aspects of the same person — the holistic view of man.

For the Hebrews of the Old Testament and the early Christians of the New Testament, immortality is a gift from God given at the resurrection. Immortality is not an innate human possession as the pagans and orthodox Christians teach.

Tertullian and Origen introduce the Greek notion of an immoral soul into Christianity. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas expounded this pagan dualistic view of human nature. Consequently, the pagan dualistic concept of man became the orthodox Christian doctrine.

During the Reformation, Calvin, Luther, and most other Protestant leaders maintained that the soul was immortal. According to Calvin and Augustine, when the body dies, the souls of believers enjoy blessings in heaven while the souls of unbelievers suffer torments in hell. (However, the Anabaptists preached the Hebrew holistic concept of the soul, i.e., the soul is mortal and ceases conscious existence when the body dies.)

Adherents of the pagan dualistic nature of man believe that death is the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body. At the resurrection, the immortal soul is reunited with the body. Today, most Christians believe in this dualistic doctrine.

Conversely, adherents of the Hebrew holistic nature of man believe the soul like the body is mortal and, therefore, dies with the body. At the resurrection, the whole person, body and soul, is resurrected.

What Is the Soul?

What is the soul? The soul is the life-giving force; it is man’s consciousness and awareness. Consequently, the soul is that part of a being that interprets the outside world through the senses. It interprets what one sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels. Therefore, the soul and not the brain is what sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels. It is what perceives and evaluates. (Further, the soul is what gives all living creatures their life, consciousness, and awareness.  Consequently, all animals, plants, fungi, protists, and monerans have souls.)

Moreover, the soul is the seat of one’s emotions, personality, intellect, and memory. As such, it is what makes a human being human. It is that part of a person that believes, decides, reasons, judges, rejoices, sorrows, loves, hates, doubts, and the like. Furthermore, from the soul come man’s moral and religious attributes.

The soul is the mind as opposed to the brain. (Some theologians claim that the spirit of man is the mind instead of the soul. [See the last paragraph for a discussion on the spirit of man.]) Through the soul does a person perceive and understand the material world. However, the soul does not reside in the brain and has no corporal nature. On the contrary, the soul is distinct from and independent of the brain.

Although signals received from the senses are analyzed in the brain, the soul is what understands and gives this information meaning and significance. The brain merely serves as a vehicle delivering information to the soul. The soul observes and interprets the information formed in the brain.

The existence of the soul refutes materialism, and, therefore, it repudiates Darwinism and evolution. Materialists believe that the movement of chemicals in the brain controls a person’s thoughts, emotions, and actions. Blind, unconscious atoms and electrical signals cannot be the source of awareness, perception, thought, beliefs, emotions, and the like.

Some theologians distinguish between the soul of man and the spirit of man. For these theologians, the soul of man is identified with the secular exercise of an individual. The spirit of man is that part of human nature that allies with God. Also, some identify the spirit of man as what makes man a rational being. However, many treat the soul and the spirit as two names for the same entity. This article does not distinguish between the two.

Reference

Bacchiocchi, Samuele. Popular Beliefs: Are They Biblical? Berrien Springs Michigan: Biblical Perspectives, 2008.

Davis, John D. The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible. Revised by Henry Snyder Gehman. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 1944.

Douglas, J.D. et al., editors. The New Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962.

Jacobus, Melanchthon W., Edward E. Norse, and Andrew C. Zenos, editors. A New Standard Bible Dictionary. New York, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1926.

Martin, William C. The Layman’s Bible Encyclopedia. Nashville, Tennessee: The Southwest Company, 1964.

Tenney, Merrill C., editor. The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1967.

Yahya, Harun (Adnan Oktar). Darwin’s Dilemma the Soul. First English edition. Editor Tam Mossman. Translator Carl Nino Rossini. Istanbul, Turkey: Global Publishing, 2008.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Milton on the Son of God – Part 1

Milton on the Son of God – Part 1

Thomas Allen

    John Milton (1608–1674), who is best known as the author of Paradise Lost, believed in an unipersonal God instead of the triune God of three persons or gods in one God of today’s orthodox Christianity. Thus, Jesus is the Son of God and not God the Son. The following summaries Milton’s view of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, as presented in Milton on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit from His Treatise on Christian Doctrine (London, England: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1908). About 150 years would pass before Milton’s essay was published. Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to the book referenced above. My comments are enclosed in brackets.
    Milton notes that according to the Catholic Church, the Trinity Doctrine cannot be “proved from any passage of Scripture” (p. 1). [At least Catholics are more honest than Protestants.]
    His notion that Christ Jesus is not the second person of a triune God, Milton derives from the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone. [The Trinity Doctrine relies heavily on Greek philosophy, primarily that of Plato and his followers.] For him, the Scriptures alone are “the rule of faith” (p. 1).
    First, Milton discusses generation, “whereby God, in pursuance of his decree, has begotten his only Son” (p. 3). “Generation must be an external efficiency, since the Father and Son are different persons” (p. 3), which the Trinitarians acknowledge. Whereas Milton argues that the Son has a beginning, Trinitarians argue that he is “generated from all eternity” (p. 3).
    Milton notes that “the Father be said in Scripture to have begotten the Son in a double sense, the one literal, with reference to the production of the Son, the other metaphorical, with reference to his exaltation” (p. 4). However, many Trinitarians “have applied the passages which allude to the exaltation and mediatorial functions of Christ as proof of his generation from all eternity” (p. 4). Nevertheless, they claim “that it is impossible to find a single text in all Scripture to prove the eternal generation of the Son” (p. 4).
    Citing John 1:1-3, John 17:5, Colossians 1:15, 16, 18, Revelations 3:14, 1 Corinthians 8:6, and Hebrews 1:2, 5:10, Milton believes “the Son existed in the beginning, under the name of the logos or word, and was the first of the whole creation, by whom afterwards all other things were made both in heaven and earth” (p. 4). Milton states,  “All these passages prove the existence of the Son before the world was made, but they conclude nothing respecting his generation from all eternity” (p. 5). [Milton’s Christology is similar to that of the Arians and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, both of whom claim that the Son is God’s first creation. Contrary to this notion is that of Unitarians who believe that the Son first existed outside the mind of God when God begot him in the womb of Mary.]
    Citing verses concerning Christ’s “resuscitation from the dead, or to his unction to the mediatorial office” (p. 5), Milton concludes “that however the generation of the Son may have taken place, it arose from no natural necessity, as is generally contended, but was no less owing to the decree and will of the Father than his priesthood or kingly power, or his resuscitation from the dead” (pp. 6-7). Moreover, Jesus is called the Son of God “because he had no other Father besides God[:] . . . ‘God was his Father,’ John v. 18” (p. 7). God created Adam from dust and, therefore, was Adam’s creator. However, God is “properly the Father of the Son made of his own substance” (p. 7). [Trinitarians agree with him about the Son being the same substance as the Father.] He continues, “Yet it does not follow from hence that the Son is co-essential with the Father, for then the title of Son would be least of all applicable to him, since he who is properly the Son is not coeval with the Father, much less of the same numerical essence, otherwise the Father and the Son would be one person; nor did the Father beget him from any natural necessity, but of his own free will — a mode more perfect and more agreeable to the paternal dignity” (p. 7). He concludes that “the Son was begotten of the Father in consequence of his decree, and therefore within the limits of time, for the decree itself must have been anterior to the execution of the decree, as is sufficiently clear from the insertion of the word ‘to-day’” (p. 8).
    Citing several verses (John 1:14, 18, 3:16, 18, and 1 John 4:9) where the Son is called “only begotten,” Milton comments, “Yet he is not called one with the Father in essence, inasmuch as he was visible to sight, and given by the Father, by whom also he was sent, and from whom he proceeded; but he enjoys the title of only begotten by way of superiority, as distinguished from many others who are also said to have been born of God. . . . But since throughout the Scriptures the Son is never said to be begotten, except, as above, in a metaphorical sense, it seems probable that he is called only begotten principally because he is the one mediator between God and man” (p. 9).
    Next, he cites several verses (Romans 8:29, Colossians 1:15, 18, Hebrews 1:6, and Revelations 3:14) that refer to the Son as the “first born.” All these “passages preclude the idea of his co-essentiality with the Father, and of his generation from all eternity” (p. 9). [Some Unitarians disagree with Milton on his notion of the preexisting Son. According to some Unitarians, the Son existed in God’s mind as part of his foreordained plan. He did not really come into existence until his miraculous conception.]
    Milton notes that “since to generate another who had no previous existence, is to give him being, and that if God generate by a physical necessity, he can generate nothing but a co-equal Deity, which would be inconsistent with self-existence, an essential attribute of Divinity” (p. 10). Then, he inquires into “how or in what sense God the Father can have begotten the Son” (p. 10). After reviewing the Scriptures, he concludes “that God of his own will created, or generated, or produced the Son before all things, endued with the divine nature, as in the fulness of time he miraculously begat him in his human nature of the Virgin Mary” (p. 10). Moreover, “God imparted to the Son as much as he pleased of the divine nature, nay, of the divine substance itself, care being taken not to confound the substance with the whole essence, which would imply, that the Father had given to the Son what he retained numerically the same himself; which would be a contradiction of terms instead of a mode of generation” (p. 11).
    About the few verses that call the Son, God, which lead to the Trinitarian absurdity of trying to make two to be one, Milton remarks that Trinitarians could have avoided “such violence to reason” (p, 11) if they had paid attention to the Scriptures. Then he cites Psalm 82:6 where God calls the children of Israel gods and John 10:35. [Also, Moses is called God in Exodus 4:16 and 7:1. See below where Milton discusses this issue further.]
    According to the Scriptures, “there is in reality but one true independent and supreme God” (p. 13). Furthermore, “human reason and the common language of mankind, and the Jews, the people of God, have always considered him as one person only” (p. 13). Milton turns to the Scriptures to identify who this God is.
    Since Jesus, the only begotten Son, is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), he should know who is God. According to Jesus’ testimony, the Father is the one true God. This testimony is given in Mark 12:28, 29, and 32: “‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord’ or as it is in the Hebrew, ‘Jehovah our God is one Jehovah’” (p. 14). This conversation between Jesus and the scribe shows that the “unity of God is intended his oneness of person” (p. 15). John 8:41, 54 proves that God is the Father: “[W]e have one Father, even God. . . . [I]t is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say that he is your God.” For more proof, Milton cites John 17:3 (“this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”) and John 20:17 (“I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God”). Therefore, if “the Father be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God beside the Father” (p. 16).
    Moreover, Paul, like Jesus, teaches that there is but one God, the Father. [Paul does not teach a triune God or that the Father is one person in God and Jesus is another person in God, yet both are one God.] To support his argument (p. 16), Milton cites 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (“there is none other God but one . . . there is but one God the Father”). As only one God exists, then not only are all other essences excluded, but all other persons are excluded (p. 16). In the above-cited passage, Paul clearly distinguishes Jesus Christ from God, who is the Father. Referring to 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Milton adds that if a different causation “of whom all things” applies to God the Father and “by whom are all things” applies to Christ the Son, then“if a difference of causation prove a difference of essence, he [Christ] is distinguished also in essence” (p. 16). He adds, “Besides, since a numerical difference originates in difference of essence, those who are two numerically, must be also two essentially” (p. 17).
    Milton argues that when the Scriptures declare that all things are by Christ, “it must be understood of a secondary and delegated power” (p. 18).
    Referencing Ephesians 4:4-6, Milton argues that “there is one Spirit, and one Lord; but the Father is one, and therefore God is one in the same sense as the remaining objects of which unity is predicated, that is, numerically one, and therefore one also in person” (p. 19). Then, he cites 1 Timothy 2:5 (“there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”). He states that “the mediator, though not purely human, is purposely named man, by the title derived from his inferior nature, lest he should be thought equal to the Father, or the same God, the argument distinctly and expressly referring to one God” (p. 19). Rhetorically, he asks “how anyone can be a mediator to himself on his own behalf” (p. 19). [Some Unitarians would strongly object with Milton about Jesus not being purely human. If he were not purely human, he could not have been tempted as humans {Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15} are, suffered like them, or died like them, etc. He was like a man in all respects {Hebrews 2:17}. However, Jesus was a uniquely special man in that he was a special messenger of God the Father with a divine mission whose authority came directly from God the Father. He is the one and only Son of God, who has a unique and intimate relationship with God. Moreover, he was filled with the spirit of God. Unfortunately, Milton could not wean himself from the Greek philosophy that had infected Christianity and that underlies the Trinity Doctrine. Thus, he literally interprets passages that suggest that the Son really existed before his conception. Yet, he does not literally interpret passages that declare the Son to be a real man — fully human like every other human but without sin. Consequently, for him as for Trinitarians, the Son is man but not a man. A preexisting spirit incarnated in a human body may become man, but he cannot become a man. One can only become a man if his beginning is with conception — unless all humans preexist spiritually and are incarnated in a human body, which is a concept that nearly all Christians reject — Origen and those who believe in reincarnation being exceptions.]
    Next, he quotes Romans 5:10 (“we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son”). He remarks, “To whatever God we were reconciled, if he be one God, he cannot be the God by whom we are reconciled, inasmuch as that God is another person; for if he be one and the same, he must be a mediator between himself and us, and reconcile us to himself by himself; which is an insurmountable difficulty” (pp. 19-20). [Moreover, how can an immortal, eternal God die? Trinitarians would argue that only the human nature of Jesus died; his divine nature did not. Then many of these same Trinitarians would declare that mankind could not be saved except by the death of God.]
    Milton notes “that the Father alone is a self-existent God, and that a being which is not self-existent cannot be God” (p. 20). This is so evident that no explanation should be required. Then, he remarks:

[I]t is wonderful with what futile subtleties, or rather with what juggling artifices, certain individuals have endeavoured to elude or obscure the plain meaning of these passages; leaving no stone unturned, recurring to every shift, attempting every means, as if their object were not to preach the pure and unadulterated truth of the gospel to the poor and simple, but rather by dint of vehemence and obstinacy to sustain some absurd paradox from falling, by the treacherous aid of sophisms and verbal distinctions, borrowed from the barbarous ignorance of the schools (p. 20).

[Thus, he lambastes Trinitarians.]
    Trinitarians interpret John 10:30 (“I and my Father are one”) to mean that the Son and the Father are one in essence. Milton answers, “Two things may be called one in more than one way” (p. 21). In the previous verse (John 10:29), Jesus said that his Father was greater than all. In John 10:34-36, Jesus denies making himself God. About John 10:36, Milton writes, “This must be spoken of two persons not only not co-essential, but not coequal” (p. 21).
    Moreover, by failing to mention the Holy Spirit, John 10:30 fails to support the Trinity Doctrine. “[T]he Son and the Father without the Spirit are not one in essence” (p. 22) — so argue Trinitarians.
    How are the Son and Father one? “[T]hey are one, inasmuch as they speak and act with unanimity” (p. 22). Jesus said, “believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:38) and “the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). Thus, when Jesus says that “I and my Father are one,” he means one in “intimacy of communion” (p. 22). He does not mean the unity of essence. He “declares himself to be one with the Father in the same manner as we are one with him — that is, not in essence, but in love, in communion, in agreement, in charity, in spirit, in glory” (p. 22). In support of this conclusion, he cites John 14:20, 21 and 17:21-23.

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 2

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Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 6

The Arian Controversy

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

The Arian Controversy
    The principal actors in the Arian controversy were Arius and Alexander. Arius (250 or 256 – 336) was a presbyter in Alexandria and an ascetic. Alexander (d. 326 or 328) was the Bishop of Alexandria. After the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius (c. 296–298 – 373) would become an important actor. When Alexander died, Athanasius became the leader of the opposition to the Arians.
    In the years before the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity was becoming sharply divided into two primary camps on the issue of the Trinity: the Arians and the Athanasians. Arius led the Arians, and Alexander and later Athanasius led the Athanasians. Both sides appealed to the ante-Nicene Fathers to show the antiquity of their dogma. Both sides read into the writings of the early Fathers, dogmas unknown to the Fathers. Eventually, the Athanasians would prevail, and beginning with the Council of Nicaea, they developed what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine.
    The controversy began with Arius protesting Alexander’s, the Bishop of Alexandria and Arius’ superior, Sabellian-like concept of the Trinity. About the Trinity, Arius credited Alexander as saying, “‘Always God, always the Son; as the Father, so is the Son; the Son is unbegotten of the Father; neither in thought, nor the least point of time, does God precede the Son; always God, always the Son’” (p. 287). Alexander maintained that “the Son was eternal and wholly uncreated” (Walker, p. 115). His description of the Trinity was a move away from the orthodox concept of the Trinity. Alexander demanded Arius to abandon his (Arius’) views of the Trinity and to embrace his (Alexander’s) views. Because Arius could not assent to Alexander’s Sabellian-like doctrine, Alexander assembled a council, which condemned Arius and drove him from Alexandria in 320.
    Arius asserted that Alexander had anathematized “‘all the Oriental bishops,’ since they asserted that ‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 271), except three whom Alexander pronounced as ignorant heretics.
    After Arius left Alexandria, he went to Palestine where Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265 – 339/340), Bishop of Caesarea, befriended him. Later Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341), Bishop of Berytus (Beirut) and later Bishop of Nicomedia, also befriended Arius. Afterwards Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote many letters defending Arius. Consequently, Arians were often called Eusebians.
    In defense of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia stated, “‘He never heard that there were two unbegotten. We affirm that there is one unbegotten [the Father], and another [the Son] who did in truth proceed from him, yet who was not made out of his substance, and who does not at all participate in the nature or substance of him who is unbegotten. We believe him [the Son] to be entirely distinct in nature and in power’” (p. 293).
    Arius claimed that his views of the Father and the Son were those received from tradition. That is, “‘the Father existed before the Son’” (p. 294). On “the supremacy of the Father and his priority of existence” (p. 295), tradition was on the side of the Arians. About “[t]he new doctrine embraced by the orthodox concerning the generation of the Son, . . . [the Arians claimed] was pure Manichaeism and Valentinianism” (p. 295). (Manichaeism rejected the historical Jesus. According to Manichaeism, Jesus Christ was “an aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world. . . . Christ appeared to be man, to live, suffer, and die to symbolize the light suffering in this world” [Arendzen]. Valentinianism held that Christ had three figures or dimensions: spiritual, psychic, and body.)
    While Arius was soliciting support, so was Alexander. In his extant letters, Alexander acrimoniously attacks Arius and Eusebius in the harshest terms.
    Discord had reached such heights that Emperor Constantine was induced to intervene. Although he blamed both sides, he placed most of the blame on Alexander. To Constantine, the controversy was merely a frivolous dispute about words. In spite of the Emperor urging reconciliation, the dispute grew more intense. Finally, Constantine ordered the bishops throughout the Empire to assemble in council and resolve the issue. In 325, the council convened in Nicaea — thus, it was called the Council of Nicaea, Nicene Council, or Nicaean Council, which Lamson called the Council of Nice.
    The ante-Nicene Fathers maintained the “strict and proper inferiority of the Son” (p. 299). Except for Origen, they believed “that the Son was begotten in time, and not from eternity” (p. 299). Based on Platonic influences, the Fathers also believed that the Son “had a sort of metaphysical existence in the Father from eternity; in other words, existed as his Logos, Wisdom, or Reason; that is, as an attribute, which was afterwards converted into a real person by a voluntary act of the Father” (p. 299).
    Arius accepted the tradition that the Son was begotten and was not eternal and that the Son was inferior to the Father. Also, the Son “is by his own will unchangeable, ever remaining unalterably good” (p. 301). However, he rejected the mysticism of the Fathers about the Son, the Logos. This point distinguished the doctrine of Arius from that of the Fathers.
    “The characteristic dogma of Arius was, that the Son was originally produced out of nothing; and, consequently, there was a time when he did not exist. . . . he was a great pre-existent spirit, the first and chief of all derived beings; that this spirit became afterwards united with a human body, and supplied the place of the rational soul” (pp. 299-300). Thus, the distinguishing characteristic Arius’ Christology was that “Christ was a created being” (Walker, p. 114). Therefore, Christ “was not of the substance of God, but was made like other creatures of ‘nothing.’ Though the first-born of creatures, and the agent in fashioning the world, He was not eternal. ‘The Son has a beginning, but . . . God is without beginning’” (Walker, pp. 114-115). He believed that Christ was “God in a certain sense, . . . but a lower God, in no way one with the Father in essence or eternity. In the incarnation, this Logos entered a human body, taking the place of the human reasoning spirit. . . . Christ was neither fully God nor fully man, but a tertium quid [intermediate between the two] between.” (Walker, p. 115). According to Arius, “the human soul was wanting in Jesus Christ, and he was a compound being only in the sense in which all human beings are; that is, he consisted of a body, and one simple, undivided, and finite spirit” (p. 300). (“Some of the preceding Fathers attributed a human soul as well as body to Jesus; which, however, was so absorbed in the divine part of his nature, that they were, in a strict sense, one spirit, and not two, as modern Trinitarians affirm, or imply” [p. 300]).
    Arius appealed to the Scriptures and used scriptural terminology to describe his doctrine. Such an appeal brought the Arians “under suspicion of evasion and of narrow and bare literalness, while the orthodox were made to appear the advocates of broader and freer views, and of more accurate and straightforward statement” (p. 300n). (Apparently, according to the Athanasians, the Bible should not be read and understood literally. It should be read and understood using human speculation and philosophy. The Athanasian’s attitude toward relying on a strict literal reading of the Scriptures to support one’s doctrine is prima facie evidence that they were convinced that the Scriptures supported Arian’s position better than it did theirs.)
    Arius stated, “‘We must either suppose two divine original essences without beginning, and independent of each other; or we must not shrink from asserting that the Logos had a beginning of his existence; that there was a moment when he did not as yet exist’” (p. 301). In favor of Arius’ position was the “‘expression “made” applied to Christ (as Acts ii. 36, and Heb. iii. 2), or in which he is styled the First-born’” (pp. 301-302).
    Arius never intended “‘to lower the dignity of Christ, but would ascribe to him the greatest dignity which a being could have after God, without entirely annihilating the distinction between that being and God’” (p. 302). He believed that he was defending the old doctrine of the Church and was merely simplifying it.
    Athanasius accompanied Bishop Alexander to the council at Nicaea. Afterwards, he became a zealous champion of what would develop into the new orthodoxy of the Trinity.
    Arriving at a doctrine that would be generally acceptable, but also exclude the Arians proved a great difficulty. The Council had to condemn the Arian dogma that the Son “was produced out of nothing, and that there was a time when he did not exist” (p. 306) and had to affirm the opposite doctrine. Selecting terms that the orthodox could employ, but that the Arians could not without changing their sentiments proved difficult.
    The first proposal was “to make use only of Scriptural expressions, such as, ‘Christ is the Wisdom and the Power of God,’ the ‘Brightness of his Glory;’ or others of a similar character” (p. 306). As the Arians found this approach acceptable, it was abandoned. A creed was offered, but as it contained no term to which the Arians would object, it was disapproved because it was “no sufficient test of orthodoxy” (p, 307). Then the Council discovered that “the Arians had great dread of the term ‘consubstantial’” (p. 307). Thus, this word was placed in the previously rejected creed, and other modifications were made. Then the Council adopted the creed.
    As expected, the Arians objected. They argued “that the language in question was new; that it had not the sanction of the sacred writings or of antiquity” (p. 307). Moreover, many bishops were forced to sign the creed. Thus, the Nicene Creed was adopted. It read:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and dead, And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change — these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes (Creed of Nicaea).

    The new, unscriptural term “consubstantial” caused reluctance of some bishops to assent to the new creed — especially Eusebius of Caesarea. He assented after the phrase “‘of the substance [consubstantial] of the Father’” (p. 308) was explained to him to mean “‘the Son is of the Father, but not as being part of the Father,’ that is, ‘not part of his substance’” (p. 308). Thus, he concluded “‘that the expression, of the substance of the Father, implies only that the Son of God does not resemble, in any one respect, the creatures which he has made; but that to the Father, who begat him, he is in all points perfectly similar’” (p. 308).
    The Nicene Creed did not declare the numerical equality of the Father and the Son. It did not declare the Son equal to the Father. Further, it did not declare the Son eternal.
    Thus, the ante-Fathers could interpret the Nicene Creed as upholding their concept of the Trinity. Athanasians could (and did) use it to develop what eventually became the Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Sabellians would have had little problems in accepting the Creed as they could easily explain it as supporting their concept of the Trinity. (Many of Origen’s disciples saw the Creed as Sabellian.) However, the Arians and the Artemonites would have to abandon their beliefs to adhere to this Creed.
    Athanasius interpreted the Nicene Creed to mean that the Father alone is self-existent and absolute God. The Son and Holy Spirit are derived and subordinate. The Son is derived by eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit, by eternal procession. 
    The anathemas annexed to the Creed “prohibited the use of expressions not found in the Scriptures. Yet the creed contained such expressions” (p. 308).
    Later, Arius convinced Constantine of his orthodoxy and, under the order of the Emperor, was readmitted to the Church. Meanwhile, Constantine banished Athanasius after having found him guilty of various crimes. Later, Athanasius’ banishment was commuted, and he became the off-and-on Bishop of Alexandria. He became a vigorous opponent of the Arians and did not hesitate to call them all sorts of evil names.
    To Athanasius, the primary issue was salvation. “The Greek conception of salvation had been, . . . the transformation of sinful mortality into divine and blessed immortality — the impartation of ‘life.’ . . . Only by real Godhead coming into union with full manhood in Christ could the transformation of the human into the divine be accomplished in Him, or be mediated by Him to His disciples” (Walker, p.118). To him “the great error of Arianism was that it gave no basis for a real salvation” (Walker, p. 118).
    About Athanasius’ character, Lamson wrote, “His piety and love of truth we have no disposition to call in question; yet the history of his life would seem to authorize the suspicion, that he was influenced rather by motives of pride and ambition than by a desire to promote the peace of the church. He would set all Christendom in a flame sooner than relinquish the patriarchal throne of Alexandria” (p. 331). (Far too many church leaders are guided more by pride and ambition than by the love of Jesus and the truth.)
    For decades following its adoption, the Nicene Creed aroused a great deal of turmoil. Its two major opponents were the Arians and the disciples of Origen who objected to it for being a Sabellian creed.
    After the death of Constantine (337), Arianism revived and prospered for a while. As it grew, schisms occurred. One faction, the Semi-Arians or Homoiousians, maintained “that the Son was, in all respects, of like substance with the Father” (p. 323). The other faction was the strict Arians, who were dominated by the Aetians, Eunomiaus, and Anomceans. They believed that the Son “of a different substance, and wholly unlike the Father” (p. 323). By uniting with the Semi-Arians, the Athanasians eventually overcame the Arians. Arianism ceased to exist after 660, at least publicly.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 5    Part 7

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 5

Between Origen and Arius

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Writers Between Origen and Arius
    The distinction between Tritheism and Monarchianism was becoming sharper. Because their mode of defending the unity of God, Monarchians were often accused of Patripassianism and “the denial of the divinity of Christ, by maintaining that the Logos as a separate subsistence formed no part of his nature” (p. 253).
    During this era, Tritheism, was becoming the orthodoxy while Monarchianism in the form of Sabellianism was becoming its chief opponent. However, in attacking the Monarchians, some opponents, such as Dionysius of Alexandra and Methodius of Olympus, laid the foundation of Arianism.
    In its hostility toward Sabellius, Paul, and their kindred, “the doctrine of the self-subsisting personality of the Logos, or Son, was more strenuously insisted on than ever” (p. 257). This emphasis on the self-subsisting personality of the Son contributed to the rise of Arianism, which strongly contrasted with the Monarchian doctrine of Sabellius and Paul.
    Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264) was Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria between 248 and 264. He was a student of Origen, and about 232, he became the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
    In his dispute with the Sabellians, Dionysius became tainted with heresy. He was charged “with placing the Son in the rank of ‘a creature’ in repelling the errors of Sabellius, going into the opposite extreme; making not only a ‘diversity of persons’ but a ‘difference of substance’” (p. 258). Thus, he was accused of sowing the seeds of the Amonoeans, who were a branch of the Arians. (Amonoeans “made a clear distinction between God and Christ. God was the deity that always had existed, Christ was only created by him. From this, God and Christ could not be considered equal or similar. In consequence, Christ was also denied the consubstantiality, that of two natures in him; a human and a divine” [“Amonoean”].)
    According to Dionysius, “‘the Son of God is something made and begotten; neither is he by nature (a son) proper, but is in substance foreign to the Father, as is the husbandman to the vine, or the shipbuilder to the ship; and being a creature, he was not before he was begotten’” (pp. 258-259). Although he maintained the subordination of the Son, he held that the Logos “is not simply the second person of the Trinity in His virtual existence. . . . He is already God” (Pressense, p. 363). “‘Dionysius summed up his doctrine in this formula: ‘We expand the indivisible Monas [one deity] into the Trias [three deities], and we bring back the Trias undiminished to the Monas.’ This singular formula sets aside absolutely the idea that the Son is of a different nature from the Father” (Pressense, p. 364).
    “As to the term ‘consubstantial’ Dionysius says that he did not find it in the Scriptures, and he therefore felt justified in rejecting it” (p. 259). He used consubstantial in the sense, for example, a human progeny is of the same genus with the parent. “In this sense, consubstantiality did not imply numerical identity” (p. 260). Thus, following the older Fathers, Dionysius held that the “the Father and the Son might be pronounced ‘consubstantial,’ as they were beings of the same specific nature (that is, both divine), though as distinct from each other as Peter and John, or the husbandman and the vine, the maker of the ship and the ship” (p. 260).
    Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213 – 270) was a student of Origen and Bishop of Pontus. He claimed that the Father and the Son, “are one in substance, and distinct only in thought” (Pressense, p. 358). Nevertheless, he seemed to consider the Logos as created or produced. Therefore, he was charged “with depressing the Son to the rank of a ‘creature,’ or ‘work,’ — something produced” (p. 261). Except for the eternity of the Son, which Origen held, Gregory seemed to have adopted all of Origen’s views of the Son. Gregory believed that the Son “to be of inferior dignity to the Father, and did not believe in their numerical identity” (p. 261).
    Theognostus (c. 210 – c. 270) was an Alexandrian theologian and a disciple of Origen. According to Theognostus, “‘[t]he substance of the Son is not anything procured from without, nor accruing from nothing; but it sprang from the Father’s substance, as radiance from light, or vapour from water; for neither is the vapour, nor the radiance, the water itself, or the sun, nor is it foreign to it. The Son is an effluence from the substance of the Father, without the substance of the Father undergoing any partition; for as the sun remains the same and is not diminished by the rays which flow out from it, so neither does the substance of the Father undergo any change through the Son who bears its image’” (p. 262). He considered the Logos to be a creature, “yet he affirms that He [the Son] neither came forth from nothing nor from any created source, but from the very bosom of God” (p. 359).
He used “consubstantial” before the Council of Nicaea used it. However, he does not assert “numerical identity of substance in the sense of the later Athanasian orthodoxy” (p. 262).
    Pierius (d. after 309) was a Christian priest in Alexandria and the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He believed that the Father and Son were two substances and two natures. The Holy Spirit was “‘inferior in glory to the Father and Son’” (p. 263).
    Methodius (d. c. 311) was the Bishop of Olympus in Lycia and later of Tyre of Phoenicia. He disagreed with Origen on several points, but apparently not with his doctrine of the Trinity, which was the orthodoxy at this time.
    According to Methodius, “the Father was the principle out of which the Logos, which was before in him, proceeded” (p. 264). Apparently, he knew nothing “of the eternity of the Son, as a self-subsistent being” (p. 264). To him, the Son was “‘first begotten of God — before the ages’” (p. 264). In power and dignity, the Son was inferior to the Father. Later, Methodius was condemned for supporting Arianism.
    Lucian of Antioch (c. 240 – 312) was a presbyter and theologian. Most of the Arian leaders were his disciples — therefore, followers of Arius were often called Lucianists. He rejected the Sabellian principle that the Logos had no separate personality and was not a self-subsistent being.
    Cyprian (c. 200 – 258) was the Bishop of Carthage. He declared God to be One and Supreme and that He was without a partner or equal. Of the Son, he believed him to be “the ‘Word,’ or the ‘Son of God,’ who is ‘sent,’ is the ‘Power of God, his Reason, his Wisdom, and Glory’ (p. 269). When Cyprian “speaks of the Holy Spirit as becoming ‘clothed with flesh’” (p. 269), he confounds the Spirit with the Logos as did many early Fathers. At other times, Cyprian “distinguishes the Spirit from the Logos, making it inferior in dignity to Christ himself” (p. 269).
    Although he called Christ God, he meant the Son of God and clearly denied his supremacy. The Father sanctified and sent the Son into the world. God the Creator is the Father of Christ. “Cyprian never thought of a numerical identity of the Father and Son, but regarded them as two distinct beings, the Father being the Fountain and Giver of all the power and dignity possessed by the Son” (p. 220).
    About the Christians of the first three centuries, Lamson writes, “The ancient Christians had not learned that refinement of logic by which he who sends and he who is sent are made one. They went on the assumption, that they must necessarily be two” (p. 270). (Lamson may have meant this statement sarcastically. Liking the sophistication of Athanasius and later Trinitarians, these ignorant Christians’ belief in two beings was necessary: one to send and the other to be sent. Unlike the later Athanasians, they did not realize that one could send oneself and give the appearance of two by merely changing the title or office [mode or manifestation?] of the sender and sent. This notion of the Trinitarians seems to be approaching the heresy of Sabellianism.)
    Novatian (c. 200–258) was a scholar, theologian, and presbyter of the Church of Rome. He wrote more than most on the doctrine of the Trinity.
    According to him, the Son was inferior to the Father and, therefore, not his equal. He testified “to the old doctrine of the undivided supremacy of the Father, and the derived nature and inferiority of the Son. The Spirit he places still lower” (p. 291). Novatian described God the Father as “‘the most perfect Creator of all things.’ . . . ‘Maker of all things, containing all; moving, vivifying all.’ . . . — ‘without origin and without end,’ whom ‘no words can adequately describe and no mind comprehend;’ [and is] ‘immutable, one, without equal, unbegotten, infinite, incorruptible, and immortal’” (p. 272). Like other ante-Nicene Fathers, he never applied these epithets to the Son. “Novatian believed Christ to be both God and man, but not in the modern or Athanasian sense” (p. 272). In Christ, the Divinity of the Word was “united by ‘concretion’; or commixture with human nature, constituting an indivisible unity” (p. 272). Although Christ was God and man, he was not the supreme God, He was “man as born of man, God as born or begotten of God, according to the doctrine of the old Fathers, that what is born of God is God, that is, divine, consubstantial with God, as what is born of man is man, that is, human, consubstantial with man, numerical identity being excluded, there being only identity of kind or species” (p. 272). Thus, he is man who is of man and is God who is of God. “So Christ is God and man. He has his origin from God, and sustains the same relation to him as a human being sustains to its father” (pp. 272-273). Nevertheless, the Son was inferior to the Father and dependent, and he was a distinct being from the Father.
    Unlike the Trinitarians who followed, Novatian read the Bible in its most natural and obvious sense. For example, when Christ said that the “Father is greater than I,” Christ literally meant what he said: His Father was superior to him. Christ was stating that he was a distinct being from the Father, and that he occupied a second place. (Novatian was unaware of the two-natures doctrine that the Trinitarians would later develop to explain away any comment that Jesus made about himself that conflicted with the Trinity Doctrine.)
    About omnipresence, Novatian held that “the Father himself, the supreme one, the only true God, is infinite, and cannot be contained within any limits of place; cannot ascend or descend, but contains and fills all things. Not so the Son, who is capable of ascending and descending, and can be enclosed within space” (p. 275). Thus, God the Father is omnipresent; the Son of God is not.
    To explain the Father as God and Christ as God without having two Gods and without resorting to Sabellianism, Novatian resorted to the Logos-doctrine. Thus, the Son is “a divine being, having, after he was begotten, a distinct personal subsistence, but being subordinate to the Father, not co-equal and co-eternal with him” (p. 275). The Father is one God “‘of whom, when he willed, the Word or Son was begotten.’ He was ‘always in the Father,’ as his unbegotten virtue or energy, but had no distinct personal subsistence. . . . ‘The Father precedes him’ (the Son), in that as Father, he must be prior, since ‘he who has no origin must of necessity precede him who has an origin’” (p. 276). Further, “‘[i]f he [the Son] were not begotten, there would be two unbegotten, and so two Gods’” (p. 276) Since the “‘Son does nothing of his own will, or his own counsel, but in all things obeys the precepts and commands of the Father’” (p. 276), there are not two Gods, but one God. (For more of Novatian’s arguments to save the unity of God, see Lamson, pp. 275-276.) This is a brief sketch of his explanation of two Gods not being two Gods. In short, “supreme divinity is not to be ascribed to Christ. He is not co-equal, or co-eternal with the Father. . . . Christ was God, but not the one infinite God; not self-existent; not having a personal, individual being from eternity, but deriving his origin, divinity, power, and authority from the only Supreme and Unbegotten God, the self-existent and Eternal One” (pp. 276-277).
    Novatian asserted the inferiority of the Spirit. He did not consider the Spirit to be God or Lord. Moreover, he did not give the Spirit a personality and certainly did “exalt the Spirit into one of three co-equal persons” (p. 277).
    Dionysius of Rome (d. 268) was the Bishop of Rome, i.e., the Pope between 259 and 268. He repudiated the opinions of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Sabellius, and Dionysius of Alexander. In opposition to the Sabellians, he declared that the Deity consisted of three divine persons and not three manifestations. He rejected the notion of three distinct divinities. “He asserts His [Logos] eternal divinity. ‘It is not lawful to divide into three deities the glorious and divine Monad [one, unity]. It is necessary that the Word should be united to the God of the universe, that the Holy Spirit should dwell and abide in Him, and that the sacred Triad [a group of closely related three] should be resolved at length into a sublime unity in the Almighty God, the Creator of all Beings. We must believe in one God, the Father Almighty, in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The Word [Logos] is one with the God of the universe. Thus do we hold fast at once the divine Triad and the holy doctrine of the divine unity’” (Pressense, p. 417). He was closer to stating what would become the Trinity Doctrine than the other ante-Nicene Fathers. Dionysius “is the forerunner of the school of authoritative metaphysics. With him, the age of free doctrinal creations seems to pass away” (Pressense, p. 418). (Thus, religious liberty died in Christianity until the after the Reformation.)
    Arnobius (d. c. 330) was a Christian teacher and apologist. “[H]e maintained the supremacy of the Father, and makes the Son a different being and subordinate” (p. 278). God the Father is “‘alone unbegotten, immortal, and everlasting,’ the ‘Father, Governor, and Lord of all things’” (p. 278). God the Father sent Christ, the Son, who spoke by the command of the Father. Christ “‘giver of immortality,’ as the ‘Supreme King has appointed him to that office’” (p. 278).
    Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was a student of Arnobius and a teacher and writer. He believed that the Son was not eternal, but was begotten by the Father. The Son was the firstborn and was alone worthy of the divine nature. However, the Son was subordinate to the Father. Therefore, the Son was not eternal or equal to the Father. Moreover, the Son “is of a ‘middle nature or substance between God and man’” (p. 280). Christ “‘taught that there is one God, who alone is to be worshipped; neither did he once call himself God. . . . Because he was thus faithful, assuming nothing to himself, but fulfilling the commands of him that sent him, he received the dignity of a perpetual priesthood, and the honours of the highest king, and the power of judge, and the name of God’” (p. 280). Thus, the Fathers and Son are “two beings, entirely distinct, one [the Father] first and supreme, the other [the Son] subordinate; one giving, the other receiving” (p. 281). Unity existed with the Father and the Son; they are one in will, affection, and consent: “‘[T]he Son faithfully obeys the will of the Father, nor ever does nor did anything except what the Father has willed or commanded’” (p. 281). However, at times Lactantius seemed to consider the Father and the Son to be one of mind, spirit, and substance.
    Lactantius denied the personality of the Holy Spirit. However, at times, he confounds the Spirit with the Logos.
    The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity between Origen and Arius showed as much, if not more, support for Arius as for Alexander and Athanasius. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that had developed before the Arian controversy differed significantly from the Trinity Doctrine that developed after the Council of Nicaea. When the Arian controversy began, the doctrine of the Trinity declared the Son to be pre-existing. Nevertheless, the Father preceded him, i.e., unlike the Father who had no beginning and was, therefore, eternal, the Son had a beginning and was, therefore, not eternal. (Origen was an exception as he speculated about “‘beginningless’ creation, and a ‘beginningless generation of the Son’” [p. 285].) Therefore, the Son was not coeternal with the Father as maintained by the Trinity Doctrine. Further, the Son was inferior to the Father and was a distinct being from the Father, i.e., of a different essence or substance. Because he was begotten of God, the Son “partook in some sort of the same specific nature (that is, a divine), just as an individual of our race partakes of the same nature or essence with the parent from whom he sprang (that is, a human)” (p. 284). Again, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity just before the Council of Nicaea differed significantly from the modern Trinity Doctrine. Moreover, the Son was both God and man, but not in the Athanasian sense. The Holy Spirit was not eternal and was subordinate to the Son and the Father. Furthermore, it lacked a personality.

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 4    Part 6

Development of the Nicene Creed – Part 4

Origen; the Monarchians

Thomas Allen

[Reference Note: As this article relies primarily on First Three Centuries by Alvan Lamson, page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Lamson’s book. References to other works are enclosed in parentheses with the work’s title or the author’s name listed in “References” at the end of this article.]

Origen
    Origen (184/185 – 253/254) was a pupil of Clement, a Greek scholar, an ascetic, and later master of the Catechetical School in Alexandria. Although a devoted Christian, he was also an advocate of philosophy because he believed that philosophical and secular literature aided in the investigation of divine truth. Among his many writings were commentaries on the Bible. He applied the “‘allegorical mode of explaining the Grecian mysteries . . . to the Jewish Scriptures’” (p. 187).
    Further, he originated what is now called Biblical criticism. During the early centuries of Christianity, most Christians used the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament. Origen compared the Hebrew text with the Septuagint to correct errors that had crept into the Septuagint.
    In 230, Origen was excommunicated as a heretic. More than anything else, envy, jealousy, and hatred guided his persecutors. About this act, Lamson wrote, “Behold now the most celebrated scholar, biblical critic, and commentator of his times, who knew more than all his persecutors combined, and performed more labour in the cause of Christianity than any dozen of them put together, behold him now an excommunicated man. His heresy served well enough for a pretext, but it was not the cause of his persecution at this time” (pp. 193-194). According to the orthodox Jerome, Origen “was condemned, ‘not on account of the novelty of his dogmas; not on account of heresy, for which he is now barked at by the rabid dogs, but because they could not endure the fame of his eloquence and learning’” (p. 194). In spite of the anathema of the synods of Egypt, the bishops of Caesarea, Jerusalem, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Greece gave him refuge and allowed him to continue his work. About him, Erasmus declared, “‘I acquire more knowledge of Christian philosophy . . . from one page of Origen, than from ten of Augustine” (p. 203).
    “The germ of most of his errors . . . existed in the prevalent modes of thinking” (p. 202). According to Origen, the Scriptures contained three senses: (1) the literal or historical, (2) the allegorical, i.e., moral or mystical, and (3) the spiritual, which is the highest and should not be confounded with the mystical. He was inclined to mystify and allegorize nearly everything in the Bible. As did many of his contemporaries and predecessors, Origen resorted “to mystical senses in order to escape the difficulties of the natural interpretation of Scripture” (p. 206n).
    Like the Fathers who preceded him, Origen, “regarded the Son as the first production of the Father; having emanated from him as light from the sun, and thus partaking of the same substance — that is, a divine” (pp. 214-215). However, “God and the Son constituted two individual essences, two beings” (p. 215). The Father and Son “‘are two things as to their essence, but one in consent, concord, and identity of will’” (p. 215).
    According to Origen, the Son made the Spirit, and the Spirit ranked below the Son. “To the Spirit, the office of redeeming the human race properly pertained; but, it being incompetent to so great a work, the Son, who alone was adequate to accomplish it, engaged” (p. 220).
    When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” Origen explained it as meaning a unity of will and affection. As support, he cites Acts 14:32, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul.”
    Further, “Origen contends that Christ is not the object of supreme worship; and that prayer, properly such, ought never to be addressed to him, but is to be offered to the God of the universe, through his only-begotten Son, who, as our intercessor and high priest, bears our petitions to the throne of his Father and our Father, of his God and our God” (p. 218). He declares, “‘Prayer is not to be directed to one begotten, not even to Christ himself; but to the God and Father of the universe alone, to whom also our Saviour prayed, and to whom he teaches us to pray’” (p.218).
    In summary, “Origen believed God and the Son to be two essences, two substances, two beings” (p. 220). Moreover, “he placed the Son at an immense distance from the Infinite One” (p. 220). Nevertheless, the Son stood “at the head of all God’s offspring, and with them, and for them” (p. 220). Origen claimed that God created, made, and begot the Son, “not from an inner necessity, but ‘by the will of the Father, the first-born of every creature’” (p. 220). Moreover, the Father and the Son “were correlative terms, the one could not subsist without the other, inasmuch as light implied necessarily coeval brightness. And Christ was, to him, as much divine as he was human” (p. 220n). When he said that Christ had a human nature, he meant that Christ possessed a rational human soul, which had been denied since Justin’s development of the Logos-doctrine. “He supposed that the Logos, or divine nature of Christ, became united with a human rational soul before his incarnation” (pp. 228-229). (Also, “[h]e believed all souls to be preexistent, all endowed with freedom” [p. 229]. [For more details on Origen’s view of the soul of Christ, see Lamson, pp. 229ff. For characteristics of Alexandrian theology from which came Origen’s, see Hama, pp. 93-94.])
    Origen regarded the Holy Spirit to be “from the Son, and therefore as subordinate in a still more marked degree” (Pressense, p. 307). The Holy Spirit “is the personification and the hypostasis of holiness, as the Word is of the reason” (Pressense, p. 308).
    Some credit Origen with introducing the Trinitarian notion of eternal generation of the Son, i.e., the eternal Son. (For a discussion on this issue, see Lamson, pp. 221-222). Such a notion was a logical outcome of “the ‘Platonic idea of an endless becoming’” (pp. 222-223). However, Origen was careful “to affirm that the generation of the Son was by act of the ‘divine will’” (p. 223). Nevertheless, Origen greatly advanced the Logos-doctrine of Christology.
    Later both the Arians and the Athanasians would claim that Origen supported their position. However, Origen’s teachings were closer to the Arians than to the Athanasians, who were the orthodox after the Nicene Council.
    In the centuries following his death, Origen was anathematized as a heretic. According to Bunsen “‘Origen’s death is the real end of free Christianity, and, in particular, of free intellectual theology’” (p. 277). Although the Church condemned him, Origen’s philosophy and theology about the Son were essential in the development of the Nicene Creed and the Trinity Doctrine.

The Monarchians
    The Monarchians attempted to avoid ditheism and tritheism by emphasizing that God is one being and one person. Generally, they fall into three groups: the followers of Artemon, Noetus, or Sabellius.
    While the theology of the philosophical Christians, such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandra, and Origen, were moving forward, the monotheistic Christians, called Monarchians, protested. They accused the philosophical Christians of introducing tritheism, the Trinity. According to the Monarchians, the philosophical Christians taught three Gods. That is, by means of the Logos-doctrine, the philosophical Christians were teaching a plurality of Gods. Monarchians rejected the Logos-doctrine.
    Artemon (fl. ca. 230) was a prominent Christian teacher in Rome and was a leader of the Monarchians in their protest against the philosophical Christians. The style of Monarchianism that Artemon taught has been called Dynamic Monarchianism.
    Artemon believed that Jesus was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit; therefore, he had to have “something divine in him; a ‘certain divine energy’ uniting itself with him from the first, the divinity of the Father acting in some way in him” (p. 225). Thus, Artemon held the primitive, the ancient, doctrine, which existed before the Logos-doctrine entered Christianity. Many consider his Christology to be a form of Adoptionism — Jesus was the Son of God by adoption.
    Many Monarchians who were called Artemonites were intellects of the scientific culture, who were reflective and philosophical. “[T]heir intellectual tendencies led them to eliminate almost entirely the mystical element from their theology” (p. 226). Thus, the Platonists defended the doctrine of Christ’s divinity while the Aristoteleans contested it. (Honest Trinitarians admit that the Artemonites were close to the truth. “Christians [Trinitarians] are not monotheists, in the conventional sense . . . of ‘the world’s great monotheistic religions’ [i.e., in the Old Testament sense][Fleming, p. 9]. They are tritheists, who worship a Triune God — three Gods who are one God.)
    Noetus (230) was a presbyter of the church of Asia Minor. Like Artemon, he also was a Monarchian, but his theology differed from Artemon’s. “He believed in one God the Father, who manifested himself in the Son, the Logos; not, however, becoming in him a separate personality” (p. 227). His doctrine he believed honored Christ while preserving the unity of God. Noetus was accused of being a Patripassian, (According to the Patripassians, the Trinity is three manifestations or modes of a single divine being.) Noetus’ style of Monarchianism has been called Modalist Monarchianism.
    Beryllus (246), Bishop of Bostras, was another Monarchian whose theology also differed from Artemon’s. He held “that Christ had no personal existence before his appearance on earth, though while on earth the divinity of the Father dwelt in him, having united itself with him at his birth” (p. 228). Like Noetus, he was also considered a Patripassian.
    Sabellius (fl. c. 215) was a priest and theologian. He may have been the “‘most original and acute thinker among the Monarchians’” (p. 254).
    His doctrine was “a trinity of attributes, names, or manifestations” (p. 254). Where Sabellius differed from the orthodox Platonizing Fathers was his denial of “the permanent self-subsistence of the Logos in Jesus Christ” (p. 255). According to Sabellius, the power of God, or Logos, “united itself with the man Jesus, wrought in him, as in no other man, made him sufficient for his great work, and left him when that work was accomplished” (p. 255). For the Platonizing Fathers, the self-subsisting Logos of God was permanently in Christ. Whereas the orthodox distinguished the Holy Spirit from the Logos, Sabellius seemed “to have regarded it simply as the power of God” (p. 255). Sabellius’ doctrine of the Logos was similar to Justin Martyr’s.
    Paul of Samosata (c. 200 – 275) was Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268. “He held that there was in the divine nature only one hypostasis or person; that Christ was man by nature, yet was higher than other men, as conceived by the Holy Spirit. He first began to exist when born of Mary. The divine Logos united itself with him, and dwelt in him as in no other ever sent of God, but did not, properly speaking, incarnate himself in him; it had in him no personal subsistence. The divine Reason itself, the Wisdom or Power of God, revealed itself in him, as it had never revealed itself in any other prophet. So great was the illumination he hence received, and so was his nature exalted by means of it, that he could with propriety be called the Son of God” (p. 256). Between 269 and 272, the Synod of Antioch condemned and excommunicated Paul. This synod also rejected the term homoousios, ‘consubstantial,’ which, after the Council of Nice [Nicaea], became the very Shibboleth of orthodoxy” (p. 257). Like Artemon, Paul taught Dynamic Monarchianism. (Later his notion of equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be incorporated into the Trinity Doctrine.)

References
Alford, H.W. The Manual of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, Investigated and Defended. Dover, New Hampshire: The Trustees of the Freewill Baptist Connection, 1842.

Allen, Thomas. “Early Church Theories of Christ.” Franklinton, North Carolina: TC Allen Co., 2009.

“Amonoean” http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Downloaded July 6, 2009.

Arendzen, John, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. V. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm. Downloaded July 12, 2009.

Arendzen, John. “Manichæism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. IX. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm. Downloaded July 4, 2009.

The Creed of Nicaea – Agreed at the Council in 325, http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/creed_of_nicaea_325.htm, Downloaded October 29, 2017.

“Docetism.” http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm. Downloaded Jul. 5, 2009.

Fleming, Thomas. “A Plague on Both Their Houses.” Chronicles, Vol. 39, No. 3, March 2015, page 9.

Hase Charles. History of the Christian Church. Translators Charles E. Blumenthal and Conway P. Wing. New York: D. Appleton, 1870.

Lamson, Alvan. First Three Centuries: Or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, With Special Reference to The Doctrine of the Trinity. Reprint. and revised with notes, Ezra Abbot, editor: Boston, Mass.; 1875 reprinted with additional notes, Henry Ierson, editor: London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association,

The Lost Books of the Bible. 1820; reprint. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1929; reprint, 1979, New York, New York: Crown Publishing Co.

Milner, Vincent L. Religious Denominations of the World. Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872.

“Montanism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montanism. Downloaded November 12, 2017.

Pressense, E. De. The Early Years of Christianity: Heresy and Christian Doctrine. Translator Anne Harwood. New York: Nelson & Phillips, n.d.

“Q&A.” Grace in Focus. November/December 2017, page 46.

Walker, Williston. A History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More religious articles.

Part 3    Part 5

Early Church Theories of Christ

Early Church Theories of Christ
Thomas Allen

What follows is a catalogue of some of the early (first five centuries) church sects and their beliefs or theories about Christ and his nature. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Most of these sects have been condemned as heresies although some of their beliefs can be found in well-established churches today. Heresy does mean that it is wrong. It means that the church people with the most political power disagreed with them and, therefore, condemned them. Occasionally, the civil authority favored some of these condemned sects, so they could continue to practice. When their protector died and was replaced by an adherent of the orthodox (consensus or majority) position, the condemned sect was suppressed and often persecuted. Overall, when the civil authority favored orthodoxy, the orthodox seemed more inclined to persecute the heretics than the heretics did the orthodox when the civil authority favored the heresy.

When discussing theories of Christ or any other theological doctrine, one needs to keep in mind Virgil Vaduva’s admonition: "There is no such thing as consensus theology. If it’s consensus, it isn't theology. If it's theology, it isn't consensus. Period."[1] Because the consensus of orthodoxy is that Trinitarianism is the correct theory of Christ does not make it correct or incorrect. Consensus should be irrelevant. If anything, the consensus should cause one to be skeptical because the majority is usually wrong.

Most of what is known about some of these sects has been written by their enemies. As many of the following theories not only conflict with orthodoxy, they also conflict with each other, some of them must be wrong. All of them including orthodox Trinitarianism may be wrong.

The book of John is a favorite for deriving theories about Christ. It is used to defend nearly every theory from orthodox Trinitarianism to the wildest Gnosticism.

These theories, including orthodoxy (Trinitarianism), seem to be short on Scriptural support and long on Greek, Persian, or Babylonian philosophy. The theorists appear to have started with the theory and emphasized any Scripture that supported it and disregarded or explained away any Scripture that conflicted with it.

Adoptionists
Adoptionism or Dynamic Monarchianism is a form of Monarchianism. It appeared in the second and third centuries.

Monarchianism was an attempt to reinforce monotheism and was a rejection of Trinitarianism. It stressed the unity of God; only God was the deity.

"The Adoptionists taught that Christ, although of miraculous birth, was a mere man until his baptism when the Holy Spirit made him the Son of God by adoption."[2] Thus, Jesus was "a mere man who was endowed with the Holy Spirit."[3] The man Jesus is the adopted son of God. "Adoptionism defined God to be a single unity, while Jesus Christ was of divine nature only temporarily, for the period his mission lasted. Jesus [w]as a human being possessed by a spiritual entity. This possession, or spiritual adoption, happened either at the time of Jesus’ baptism or his ascension. He was the Son of God by the virtues of his high degree of divine wisdom and power."[4]

Adoptionism reappeared in the eighth century and survives today in Unitarian theology.

Amonoeans
Amonoeans were followers of a form of Arianism taught by Aetius.

Amonoeans "made a clear distinction between God and Christ. God was the deity that always had existed, Christ was only created by him. From this, God and Christ could not be considered equal or similar. In consequence, Christ was also denied the consubstantiality, that of two natures in him; a human and a divine."[5]

The Amonoean movement appeared in the 350s and died out soon after 394. In 359, the Arian Counsel of Seleucia condemned Aetius’ doctrine.

Arians
The Arians were followers of Arius (c. 259–c. 336), a presbyter of a church in Alexandria circa 315. Arians believed "that the Son of God was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom God had created—the instrument, by whose subordinate operation he formed the universe; and, therefore, inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity. . . ."[6] The son was the Word, but he was not eternal. Although the Son was divine and like the Father, the Father created him. Trinitarians hold that the Son is coeternal with the Father. Whereas Trinitarians claim that the Father and Son are of one and same substance and being; Arians claim that he is of like substance. ". . . Christ had nothing of man in him but the flesh, to which the . . . word was joined, which is the same as the soul in us."[7]

". . . the Holy Ghost was not God, but created by the power of the Son."[8]

1 Corinthians 8:6, which states that God and Jesus have two different qualities and positions, supports Arianism. The Arian concept of the Messiah is much nearer to the Jewish concept than is the Trinitarian concept.[9]

"Arianism was therefore dealing mainly with the question of the oneness of God as well as to immutability of God; Jesus went through the cycles of a human being, including both a normal birth and death, and he was also of a different matter than God. Hence it could be derived that Jesus was a mere human being."[10]

A later variant called Lower Arianism held "that Christ pre-existed; but not as the eternal Logos of the Father, or as the being by whom he made the worlds, and had intercourse with the patriarchs, or as having any certain rank or employment whatever in the divine dispensation."[11]

In 325, the Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism. With the conversion of the Franks to Catholicism in 496, Arianism died.

Armenians
The Armenian church was founded at the end of the third century. Armenians believe that Christ has only one nature, a divine nature. Thus, they adhered to Monophysitism (q.v.). The Holy Spirit emanates from the Father only. The Armenian religion is still practiced today.

Basilidianists
In the second century, Basilides, an Egyptian Gnostic, founded the Basilidianism. Basilidians believed in "the existence of one supreme God, perfect in goodness and wisdom, who produced from his own substance seven beings, or aions, of a most excellent nature."[12] From them came angels and heavens, various ranks and orders, and finally earth and animal life. Angels of the lowest heaven began to corrupt man and to erase knowledge of the Supreme Being, so that man would worship them. "Hence the Supreme God, beholding with compassion the miserable state of rational beings, who groaned under the contest of these jarring powers, sent from heaven his son Nus, or Christ, the chief of the aions, that, joined in a substantial union with the man Jesus, he might restore the knowledge of the Supreme God, destroy the empire of those angelic natures which presided over the world, and particularly that of the arrogant leader of the Jewish people. The God of the Jews, alarmed at this, sent forth his ministers to seize the man Jesus, and put him to death. They executed his commands; but their cruelty could not extend to Christ, against whom their efforts were vain."[13] Instead of Jesus being executed, Simon of Cyrene, who carried Jesus’ cross, was mistakenly executed. Jesus assumed the form of Simon, and Simon assumed the form of Jesus. After Simon’s crucifixion, Jesus returned to is Father.

Cerinthians
Cerinthians followed the teachings of Cerinthus, a Gnostic-Ebonite, of the first century. Cerinthians denied the deity of Jesus Christ. "They believed that he was a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary; but that in his baptism a celestial virtue descended on him in the form of a dove; by means whereof he was consecrated by the Holy Spirit, made Christ, and wrought so many miracles; that, as he received it from heaven, it quitted him after his passion, and returned to the place whence it came; so that Jesus, whom they called a pure man, really died and rose again; but that Christ, who was distinguished from Jesus, did not suffer at all."[14]

Docetists
Docetism or Docetae is related to Gnosticism. It appeared early enough for John to describe it in his letters (1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 7). Docetists believed "that Jesus Christ had appeared as a phantom form, that he had not had a real or natural body, and that his crucifixion had only been an illusion. . . . Consequently, Christ's resurrection and ascension into heaven were denied."[15] Thus, ". . . Christ only ‘appeared’ or ‘seemed[’] to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death."[16]

Ebionites
The Ebionite sect, which was a branch of the Nazarenes, appeared in the second century. Ebionites objected to the deification of Jesus and denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, his pre-existence, and his virginal birth. Furthermore, they observed Jewish law, rejected Paul as an apostle, and used only the Gospel of Matthew.

Euchites
Euchites, also called Messalians, appeared in the latter part of the fourth century. Their doctrine was similar to the Manichaeans (q.v.). They believed that the Holy Spirit existed within them and inspired and possessed them. Euchites believed that one or more demons inhabited every person. However, the Holy Spirit could replace these demons. Even Jesus’ body once had demons.

Eunomians
A branch of the Arians called the Eunomians appeared in the fourth century (350–381) and vanished by the mid-fifth century. Their name came from Eunominus, bishop of Cyzicus. They believed "‘There is one God, uncreated and without beginning; who has nothing existing before him, for nothing can exist before what is uncreated; nor with him, for what is uncreated must be one; nor in him, for God is a simple and uncompounded being. This one simple and eternal being is God, the creator and ordainer of all things: first, indeed, and principally of his only begotten Son; and then through him of all other things. For God begat, created, and made the Son only by his direct operation and power, before all things, and every other creature; not producing, however, any being like himself, or imparting any of his own proper substance to the Son; for God is immortal, uniform, indivisible; and therefore cannot communicate any part of his own proper substance to another. He alone is unbegotten; and it is impossible that any other being should be formed of an unbegotten substance. He did not use his own substance in begetting the Son, but his will only; nor did he beget him in the likeness of his substance, but according to his own good pleasure; he then created the Holy Spirit, the first and greatest of all spirits, by his own power, in deed and operation mediately; yet by the immediate power and operation of the Son. After the Holy Spirit, he created all other things, in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, corporeal and incorporeal, mediately by himself, by the power and operation of the Son, &c.’"[17]

Eutychians
Eutychianism appeared in the fifth century. Eutyches, a monk near Constantinople (Istanbul), is generally credited as the founder of this sect although the Eutychians did not claim him as a leader or founder. Eutyches developed his doctrine of Christ in opposition to the Nestorians (q.v.). He claimed that Christ had "‘only one nature, that of the incarnate Word,’ his human nature having been absorbed in a manner by his divine nature."[18] The divinity absorbed the humanity in Jesus.

Eutyches held "that nothing can be imposed as of faith which is not verbally to be found in Scripture."[19] (If theologians and civil leaders had held to this rule, much of the conflict and bloodshed over various theories of Christ would have been avoided, for they would not have traveled down the road of speculation.)

Eutychianism is closely related to Monophysitism (q.v.). However, some Monophysites condemned Eutyches.

"Strict Monophysitism, or Eutychianism, explains the one nature in Christ in one of four ways:
– the human nature is absorbed by the divine;
– the divine Word (Logos) disappears in the humanity of Christ;
– a unique third nature is created from the combination of the divine and human natures;
– or there is a composition (a natural whole) of humanity and divinity, without confusion."[20]

In 451, the Council of Chalcedon condemned the Eutychian doctrine. It declared that "‘in Christ two distinct natures are united in one person, and that without any change, mixture, or confusion.’"[21]

Eutyches’ doctrine of Christ as Jacob Baradaeus espoused it in the sixth century survives today in the Armenian (q.v.), Syrian Christian, Abyssinian, and Copt churches.

Gnostics
The Gnostics existed before Jesus and attached themselves to Christianity soon after its beginnings. Gnostics held that only they possessed the true knowledge of Christ and Christianity. Unlike most other religions and sects that hold salvation is through faith and works, Gnostics believe that salvation is through knowledge.

Gnosticism consisted of several pantheistic-idealistic sects. Included among them were the Basilidians (q.v.), Valentinians (q.v.), Simonians, Carpocratians, and Nicolaitans.

"The Gnostics considered Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and inferior to the Father, who comes into the world for the rescue and happiness of miserable mortals, oppressed by matter and evil beings; but they rejected our Lord’s humanity, on the principle that everything corporal is essentially and intrinsically evil; and therefore the greatest part of them denied the reality of his sufferings."[22] "Christ, the divine spirit, inhabited the body of the man Jesus and did not die on the cross but ascended to the divine realm from which he had come. The Gnostics thus rejected the atoning suffering and death of Christ and the resurrection of the body."[23]

Gnosticism peaked in the second century and had nearly vanished by the fifth century. Today, some form of Gnosticism appears in many new-age religions.

Lucianists
In the second century, Lucianus (Lucanus), a disciple of Marcion founded the Lucianists, or Lucanists. It was an offshoot of the Marcionites.

Luciferians
Luciferians appeared in the fourth century. They were followers of Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari. Luciferians believed in the Nicene doctrine of three persons in the Godhead.

Macedonians
The Macedonians, or Pneumatomachians, were a sect that appeared in the fourth century and lasted about 30 years. Macedonianism was based on the works of Macedonius and was similar to Arianism. In 381, the First Council of Constantinople condemned it.

Macedonians denied "the full personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was defined as created by the Son and was thus subordinate to both the Father and the Son. In this, the essence of Jesus Christ was understood as similar to that of God the Father."[24]

Manichaeans
Manichaeans derive their name from Mani (215/216–276/277), who was also known as Manes and Manichaeus, who founded the sect in the latter half of the third century. Manichaeans blended the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism with Christianity and added Babylonian folklore and Buddhist ethics. They believed "in two eternal principles, from which all things proceed, namely, light and darkness, which are respectively subject to the dominion of two beings, one the god of good, and the other the god of evil."[25] The god of darkness created man with corrupt and mortal bodies. However, the souls were part of the eternal light and, therefore, subject to the god of light. "[T]o deliver the captive souls of men from their corporal prisons,"[26] the god of light created Christ and the Holy Ghost. He "sent Christ into the world, clothed with the shadowy form of a human body and not with the real substance, to teach mortals how to deliver the rational soul from the corrupt body, and to overcome the power of malignant matter."[27] Manichaeanism was a Gnostic religion. It was a dualistic religion of pure reason.

Mani rejected the historical Jesus. "Jesus Christ was to Mani but an aeon or persistent personification of Light in the world. . . . Christ appeared to be man, to live, suffer, and die to symbolize the light suffering in this world."[28]

Christ’s promise of the Comforter given in John 16:7-5, Manichaeans believed was fulfilled in the person of Mani.

By the sixth century, Manichaeanism had died out in the West. In the East, it survived until the thirteenth century.

Marcionites
Marcionites appeared in the second and third centuries. Marcion (c. 110–?), a priest from Sinope, founded this sect in 144. He applied "the old Oriental belief of two independent, eternal, co-existing principles, one evil and the other good,"[29] to Christianity. The God of the Old Testament was the bad god and the God of the New Testament was the good god. Man’s soul came from the good principle. However, the evil genius created his body and the whole visible world. This evil strived to keep man’s spiritual nature imprisoned to make the soul forget its pure and noble nature. Marcionites believed ". . . that the law of Moses, with its threats and promises of things terrestrial, was a contrivance of the evil principle in order to bind man still more to the earth; but the good principle, in order to dissipate these delusions, sent Jesus Christ, a pure emanation of itself, giving him a corporal appearance and a semblance of bodily form, in order to remind men of their intellectual nature, and that they cannot expect to find happiness until they are reunited to the principle of good from which they are derived."[30] Marcion rejected the Old Testament, so Christ was not the Son of the God of the Old Testament. He was the Son of the good God, who was not the God of the ancient covenant. God reveals Himself in Christ, who is the Son of God and is also God. Christ is God manifested instead of God incarnate. Thus, "the god of the New Testament was one of goodness who had no relation with this world, and had not acted in any way in its creation. . . . [He] sent Christ out of pure kindness, aiming at saving humans from the material world and to reveal the truth about existence. The crucifixion of Christ was an act that untied the human link to the creator god, setting him free and into a relation to the good god. Salvation was to help to [sic] soul free itself from the body."[31]

"Marcionism deviates from pure tenets of Gnosticism, in which the soul is created parallel to the material world and by the same deity. Also, contrary to pure Gnosticism's emphasis on knowledge and insight, Marcionism promotes faith as the central instrument in the redemption of the human soul. While Gnosticism largely were orientations reserved [for] the privileged, Marcionism was an open orientation promoting a message intelligible to the large masses."[32]

Marcionism was a Gnostic sect and was similar to Docetism (q.v.). In 325, the First Council of Nicaea condemned it.

Monophysites
Monophysites were followers of Severus, a monk of Palestine and later patriarch of Antioch, and Petrus Fullensis. They believed that Christ had one nature, a divine nature. ". . . the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ were so united as to form only one nature, yet without any change, confusion, or mixture of natures."[33]

In 680/681, the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople condemned Monophysitism and the Monophysites.

The Monophysite doctrine appears today in the Armenian Orthodox (q.v.), Syrian Orthodox, Copt and Abyssinian churches.

Nestorians
The Nestorians appeared in the fifth century. Nestorians take their name from Nestorius (d.c. 451) of Syria, bishop of Constantinople. Nestorians believe "‘that the divine nature was not incarnate in, but only attendant on, Jesus, being superadded to his human nature after the latter was formed.’"[34]

Nestorius disavowed this doctrine. He "held that Christ's human nature was complete but was conjoined with the Word by an external union."[35] He believed "that the divine Word was united to the human nature in Jesus Christ in the most strict and intimate sense possible; that these two natures, in this state of union, made but one Christ and one person; that the properties of the Divine and human natures may both be attributed to this person; and that Jesus Christ may be said to have been born of a virgin, to have suffered and died, but he never would admit that God could be said to have been born, to have suffered, or to have died."[36] Thus, two persons, human and divine, are incarnated in Jesus Christ. These two acted as one, but they were not joined together. Christ’s human nature, but not his divine nature, suffered and died.

They also held that Mary is not the mother of God. She was the mother of Jesus only in his humanity. His divine nature came from his father. (If, as Trinitarians claim, Jesus is God and Mary is his mother, then logically Mary is the Mother of God. Logically, the Catholics are right, and the rest of the orthodoxy that rejects her as the Mother of God is wrong.)

Barsumas, bishop of Nisibis, became the most zealous and successful Nestorian. "He differed considerably from Nestorius, holding that there are two persons in Jesus Christ, as well as the Virgin was not his mother as God, but only as man."[37]

In 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius. The Council of Chalcedon reaffirmed the condemnation of Nestorianism in 451.

The Nestorian belief is still held today primarily in Western Asia in a highly modified form.

Origenists
Origenism appeared in the third century. The Origenists were followers of the teachings of Origen (185–253/254), who was a presbyter of Alexander.

"Origen attempted to synthesize Christian scriptural interpretation and belief with Greek philosophy, especially Neoplatonism and Stoicism."[38] He believed, "That the soul of Christ was united to the Word before the incarnation. For the Scriptures teach us that the soul of the Messiah was created before the beginning of the world, Phil. ii. 5, 7. This text must be understood of Christ's human soul because it is unusual to propound the Deity as an example of humility in Scripture. Though the humanity of Christ was so God-like, he emptied himself of this fulness of life and glory, to take upon him the form of a servant. It was this Messiah who conversed with the patriarchs under a human form; it was he who appeared to Moses upon the Holy Mount; it was he who spoke to the prophets under a visible appearance; and it is he who will at last come in triumph upon the clouds to restore the universe to its primitive splendor and felicity."[39]

In 553, The Council of Constantinople condemned Origenism.

Patripassians
Patripassionism or Modalistic Monarchianism is a form of Monarchianism. "The Patripassians believed in the divinity of Christ but regarded the Trinity as three manifestations, or modes, of a single divine being. They taught that the Father had come to earth and suffered and died under the appearance of the Son; hence their name (Latin pater; patris, "father"; passus, "to suffer")."[40] Patripassians sought to defend monotheism against tritheism of orthodox Trinitarianism "by denying the personal distinctiveness of a divine Son and Holy Spirit in contrast to God the Father."[41] Patripassionism differs from Adoptionism in that it declares the full deity of the Son by identifying the Son as the Father himself.

Paulianists
In the third century, Paulus Samosatenus of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, founded the Paulianists. Paulianism was an advanced form of Adoptionism. Paulianists believed "that the Son and the Holy Ghosts exist in God in the same manner as the faculties of reason and activity do in man; that Christ was born a mere man; but that the reason or wisdom of the Father descended into him, and by him wrought miracles upon earth, and instructed the nations; and, finally, that on account of this union of the Divine Word with the man Jesus, Christ might, though improperly, be called God."[42] "He depersonalized the Logos as simply the inherent rationality of God, . . . [and] denied the personal subsistence of the preincarnate Word."[43]

The Council of Nice condemned him in 269.

Sabellians
In the third and fourth centuries, a sect called the Sabellians appeared. They followed the teachings of Sabellius, a philosopher of Egypt. He taught "that there is but one person in the Godhead. . . . the Word and the Holy Spirit are only virtues, emanations, or functions of the Deity; and held that he who is in heaven is the Father of all things; that he descended into the Virgin, became a child, and was born of her as a son; and that having accomplished the mystery of our salvation; he diffused himself on the apostles in tongues of fire, and was then denominated the Holy Ghost."[44] ". . . God is three only in relation to the world, in so many ‘manifestations’ or ‘modes.’ The unity and identity of God are such that the Son of God did not exist before the incarnation; because the Father and the Son are thus one, the Father suffered with the Son in his passion and death."[45] "As Father it [Deity] revealed itself as Creator and Lawgiver. As Son it revealed itself as Redeemer. As Spirit it revealed itself as the giver of grace. These were three different modes revealing the same divine person."[46] Thus, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not distinct persons or representations. God himself died on the cross. Sabellianism was a sophisticated form of Patripassionism.

Sabellians viewed Trinitarians as defectors from Christian monotheism. To support their doctrine, "Sabellianism points out that to God in the Bible, only the number One is ascribed. There is no mention of God being of the number Three."[47]

Trinitarians
The Trinitarians are the orthodox. They hold that the Godhead consists of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons are distinct from each other. "Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: ‘the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.’ In this Trinity of Persons, the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent."[48] First formed in the second century, the Trinitarian doctrine was finalized in the fourth century.

The following compares the basic theories of Christ as held by the Monophysites, Nestorians, and Trinitarians (Catholics and the orthodox):

"Nestorians: One person, two hypostasis [personalities], two natures.
Catholics: One person, one hypostasis, two natures.
Monophysites: One person, one hypostasis, one nature."[49]

"Most modern Christian Theologians believe essentially this: That the One True God in Heaven Chose to share the human experience for 33 years; that He needed to make sure that all the other needs in the Universe were provided for during those years, so He needed to maintain a Presence in Heaven; that He wanted His human experience to be as ‘normal’ as was possible, so He arranged a Birth through Mary, and a childhood and early adulthood which did not include His (earthly) knowledge of Whom He really was (possibly through a Kenosis type ‘emptying’ of His Knowledge of His True Divinity) and that His earthly knowledge only learned of His True Divinity rather late in His human life. This situation resulted in His human existence, as Jesus, sometimes oddly asking His Own Divine existence, Whom He called Father, about various things."[50]

"The controversies between the Christians and the Jews concerning the Trinity centered for the most part about the problem whether the writers of the Old Testament bore witness to it or not, the Jews naturally rejecting every proof brought forward by their opponents."[51]

Valentinians
Valentinians were Gnostic who followed Valentinus (d.c. 160). His teachings merged Christianity with Greek and Oriental speculation. Valentinianism survived into the fifth century.
"He assumed, as the beginning of all things, the Primal Being or Bythos, who after ages of silence and contemplation, gave rise to other beings by a process of emanation. The first series of beings, the aeons, were thirty in number, representing fifteen syzygies or pairs sexually complementary. Through the weakness and sin of Sophia, one of the lowest aeons, the lower world with its subjection to matter is brought into existence. Man, the highest being in the lower world, participates in both the psychic and the hylic (material) nature, and the work of redemption consists in freeing the higher, the spiritual, from its servitude to the lower. This was the word and mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit. . . . He seems to have maintained the existence of three redeeming beings, but Christ the Son of Mary did not have a real body and did not suffer."[52] Unlike most other Christian sects that fought over Christ’s two natures, Valentinians declared that Christ had three figures or dimensions: spiritual, psychic, and body.

[Editors note: The original contains an appendix of the ecumenical councils of the first five centuries and their declarations pertaining to Christ.]

Endnotes
1. Virgil Vaduva, "Michael Crichton on Consensus," Dec. 9, 2006, http://blog.planetpreterist. com/index.php?query=Consensus&amount=0&blogid=3, Jul. 15, 2009.
2. C.A. Braising, "Monarchianism, Sabellianism, Patripassionism, Moralism," http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/monarchi.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
3. Ibid.
4. "Adoptionism," http://looklex.com/e.o/adoptionism.htm, Jul. 6, 2009.
5. "Amonoean" http://looklex.com/e.o/amonoean.htm. Jul. 6, 2009.
6. Vincent L. Milner, Religious Denominations of the World (Philadelphia: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1872), p. 243.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Kaufmann Kohler and Samuel Krauss, "Arianism," Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906, 2002, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1757&letter=A&search=arian, Jul. 14, 2009.
10. "Arianism," http://looklex.com/e.o/arianism.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
11. Milner, pp. 214-215.
12. Ibid., p. 461.
13. Ibid., pp. 462.
14. Ibid., p. 442.
15. "Docetism," http://looklex.com/e.o/docetism.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
16. John Arendzen, "Docetae," The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm, Jul. 12, 2009.
17. Milner, pp. 422-423.
18. Ibid., p. 330.
19. John Chapman, "Eutychianism," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05633a.htm, Jul. 4, 2009 .
20. Agnes Cunningham,"Monophysitism," http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/monophys.htm. Jul. 5, 2009.
21. Milner, p. 331.
22. Ibid., p. 258.
23. Pheme Perkins, "Gnosticism," http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/gnostici.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
24. "Macedonianism," http://looklex.com/e.o/macedonianism.htm, Jul. 9, 2009.
25. Milner, p. 337.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. John Arendzen, "Manich ism," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm, Jul. 4, 2009 .
29. Milner, p. 340.
30. Ibid.
31. "Marcionism," http://looklex.com/e.o/marcionism.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
32. Ibid.
33. Milner, p. 437.
34. Ibid., p. 330.
35. Reginald H Fuller, "Nestorianism, Nestorius." http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/nestoria.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
36. Milner, p. 472.
37. Ibid., p. 468.
38. Ross Mackenzie, "Origen," http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/origen.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
39. Milner, p. 412.
40. C.A. Braising, "Monarchianism, Sabellianism, Patripassionism, Moralism" http://mb-soft.com/ believe/txn/monarchi.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
41. Ibid.
42. Milner, p. 415.
43. C.A. Braising, "Monarchianism, Sabellianism, Patripassionism, Moralism" http://mb-soft.com/ believe/txn/monarchi.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
44. Milner, p. 444-445.
45. Agnes Cunningham, "Sabellianism," http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/sabellia.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
46. C.A. Braising, "Monarchianism, Sabellianism, Patripassionism, Moralism" http://mb-soft.com/ believe/txn/monarchi.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
47. "Sabellianism," http://looklex.com/e.o/sabellianism.htm, Jul. 6, 2009.
48. George Joyce, "The Blessed Trinity," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
49. John Chapman, "Monophysites and Monophysitism." The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10489b.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
50. Langdon Gilkey, "Trinity, Godhead," http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/trinity.htm, Jul. 5, 2009.
51. Kaufmann Kohler and Samuel Krauss, "Trinity," Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906, 2002, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=338&letter=T&search=nestor, Jul. 14, 2009.
52. Patrick Healy, "Valentinus and Valentinians." The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 15, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15256a.htm, Jul. 4, 2009.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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