only to the unbegotten One, and lastly, as 'contained in space, and capable of locomotion. He describes him as originally not with God as a separate subsistence, but in him, as an attribute, that is, his logos, reason, or wisdom; but, says he, 'God, when about to make those things he had designed, begat this logos, producing, or throwing him out, the first-born of every creature.'* Thus he became a real being, subject to the will of the Father, and was employed by him as his instrument in making the worlds. Afterwards, when it pleased the Father, he was commissioned by him to go from place to place, where he was heard and seen.' He entered Paradise, and conversed with Adam and Eve, not in his own person, but in the 'person of the Father and Lord of all,' and was visible in a circumscribed space. He is thus plainly distinguished from the supreme and unbegotten God. Again, Theophilus contends expressly that the one only and true God,' by whom he always understands the Father, is alone to be worshipped.' But it is unnecessary to adduce further evidence of his views of the Son, whom he evidently regarded as born, or produced from the reason of the Father, a little before the creation of the world, thus becoming a distinct being, subject to the will of the Father, and not entitled to equal adoration. § Theophilus was the first Christian writer who used the term trinity,' in reference to the Deity, but it is deserving of remark that the three distinctions,' or three 'somewhats,' to adopt the modern phraseology, designated by it, are, according to him, God, his logos, and his wisdom.' By wisdom, we suppose we are here to understand the Spirit, though in * Ad Autol. Lib. 1. p. 365. See also p. 355. 365. Lib. 1. p. 345. + Lib. II. p. § When Theophilus speaks of God, as consulting his logos, or wisdom, before the generation of the Son, he evidently uses a figurative mode of expression. So a man is said to take counsel of his understanding, or of his affections; he consults his sense of duty, or his inclination, but no one supposes this phraseology to imply that the understanding, or affections, or conscience, are real beings, persons. Such expressions are familiar in all languages, and they serve to explain what is meant by the early Fathers, when they speak of God as consulting his logos, reason, or wisdom, before the event called by them the generation of the Son. The phraseology is not of a nature to create the least embarrassment. Every school-boy knows better than to construe it as implying an actual consultation between real beings. the theology of the Fathers, it was generally considered as synonymous with the logos or word. It was often, however, confounded with the Spirit.* Athenagoras, a learned Athenian, also flourished near the end of the second century; and from two short pieces of his, which are extant, it appears that he was equally careful with the writers above quoted, to preserve the supremacy of the Father, and entertained similar views of the origin and rank of the Son. He calls him the 'mind, intellect, and logos of the Father,' the first progeny of the Father.' 'God,' he tells us, 'always had in himself logos, or reason, being always rational.' Hence sprang the Son, from an attribute becoming a person, or being, whom the Father used as his instrument in forming the world. Thus he was regarded by Athenagoras as distinct and subordinate.† Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, also wrote late in the second century, and has left on record a summary of the faith *So, too, they often confounded the Spirit with the logos, adhering to the old Jewish phraseology, but attributing to it an entirely new sense. Thus in Psalm xxxiii. 6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth,' or spirit, the two terms, word and spirit, are used to express the same thing, that is, a divine operation. There is no allusion whatever to persons, or separate agents, but only to a mode of divine agency. Such was the Jewish sense of the terms, and in this sense they were synonymous. When the Platonizing Fathers had affixed a new sense to the term logos, or word, considering it as designating a real person, they still for a time retained former Jewish modes of expression, though utterly at variance with their system. Thus they speak indiscrim, inately of the Spirit and logos as inspiring the prophets, and of the Spirit, or power of God, or logos, as overshadowing the Virgin. According to the sense the Jews attributed to those terms, there was no inconsistency in this use of them, the breath, spirit, power, or word of the Lord, being only different modes of expressing a divine influence, or act of power. But when the logos, or word, came to be considered a person or being, distinct from the Father and Spirit, whether the last was regarded as a person or an influence, the phraseology became absurd. The Fathers, however, continued to use it occasionally from the effect of habit. The history of the phraseology in question, the signification it bore in the writings of the Jews, its inconsistency with the doctrine of the Fathers, though from custom they continued to employ it, afford, to our minds, conclusive evidence, had we no other, that they were innovators. The doctrine of the trinity was as yet very imperfectly formed; as it became further advanced, the phraseology alluded to was gradually dropped. Legat. pro Christ. See particularly pp. 282-284, and 286, 287. of Christians of his time, in which we discover no trace of the doctrines of modern orthodoxy.* Like the philosophical converts of the second and third centuries generally, he believed, unquestionably, that the Son had a sort of metaphysical existence in the Father, as an attribute from eternity, but he is very careful, on all occasions, to distinguish him from the one true and only God,' who is 'over all,' and 'besides whom there is no other.' The Father' sends,' the Son is sent; the Father commands,' the Son ministers to his will, and was his instrument in making the world. These and similar expressions, which form his current phraseology, and, in fact, are interwoven with the texture of his whole work 'Against Heresies,' would not have been employed by one, who conceived of the Son as partaking of the numerical essence of the Father, or as in any sense his equal. 6 Again, he quotes the words of our Saviour, Mark xiii, 32, 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,' without any attempt to explain them away, or evade the obvious inference. He admits their truth in the simplest and broadest sense, and thence deduces an argument for humility. If the Son,' says he, did not blush to refer the knowledge of that day to the Father, neither do we blush to reserve the solution of difficult questions to God.' He goes further. Far from denying the consequence we should derive from the expression referred to, he expressly admits it. Our Saviour, he observes, used this expression, that we might learn from him, that the Father is over all; for, the Father, he says, is greater than I.' The doctrine of two natures, by the help of which modern Trinitarians attempt to evade the force of this and similar passages, was not as yet invented. Irenæus very honestly understood the words of our Saviour according to their obvious, and, we add, necessary import; and thus understood, we perceive, they taught nothing which militated against his views of the nature and rank of the Saviour. Irenæus has another class of expressions which show that he never thought of attributing to the Son an equality with the Father. He describes his power, dignity, and titles, as derived from the gift of the Father. Thus, he received do * Adv. Hær. Lib. 1. c. 2, 3. See also Lib. III. c. 1 & 4. † Lib. II. c. 48. ‡ Ib. c. 49. minion of the Father.' The Father gave him the heritage of the nations,'' subjected all his enemies to him,' and hence he is entitled to be called 'Lord.' But it is unnecessary to multiply quotations. Irenæus evidently believed that Jesus Christ suffered in his whole nature. There were some Christians of his time of the sect of Gnostics, who maintained that a certain exalted intelligence, called Christ, descended on Jesus at his baptism, and left him and reascended at his crucifixion. This opinion he strenuously combats, as taking away the Saviour, who, according to this hypothesis, was neither incarnate nor died, the man Jesus alone having suffered; thus clearly intimating his belief, that Jesus Christ was not in any part of his nature impassible. Again, he says, 'Jesus, who suffered for us, is the logos of God,' whence we may infer that he supposed him to have suffered in his most exalted nature.* It is hence quite obvious that he did not regard him as one in essence with God. We come next to Tertullian, a Latin Father, who flourished about the year 200. His testimony on the points under consideration, is even more full and explicit than that of Irenæus. He has transmitted three creeds, or summaries of the belief of Christians in his time,† similar in sentiment, though differing somewhat in expression. All these teach the supremacy of the Father, a doctrine, in fact, which stands prominent in all the writings of Tertullian, especially in his treatises against Hermogenes and Praxeas. We might fill page after page with expressions in which it is either directly asserted, or necessarily implied. Thus he is the 'One Supreme, of whom are all things,' 'who made all things by the * Lib. 1. c. 1, 25. Lib. III. c. 11, § 1. He sometimes, indeed, speaks of the logos as quiescent during the crucifixion, though the train of his reasoning, as we have seen, evidently implies his belief that the whole Christ suffered. To the intelligent reader it will occur, that if this reasoning was good against the followers of Cerinthus, and others of his time, it is equally conclusive against a doctrine of modern orthodoxy. The Orthodox of modern ages, in fact, virtually occupy the place of the heretics in the days of Irenæus. The former teach that Christ suffered only in his human nature, and this was condemned by the early Fathers as a denial of the Saviour. But there are strange revolutions in human opinion. † De Præscrip. Hæret. c. 13. Adv. Prax. c. 2. De Virg. Veland. instrumentality of his word,' 'without beginning,' and who 'has no equal.' * 6 Tertullian admits that the Son is entitled to be called God, on the principle that 'whatever is born of God is God,' just as one born of human parents is human. He speaks of him as possessing unity of substance' with God; but by this and similar phrases, as the learned well know, the Ante-Nicene Fathers never meant to express a numerical unity of essence, but only a specific, that is a common, nature. Thus all human beings, as such, are of one substance; the son is of one substance with the father. In this sense Tertullian evidently uses the phrase in question, as he immediately proceeds to explain. For, after saying that the Son has unity of substance' with God, he adds, for God is spirit,' and, from spirit is produced spirit, from God, God, from light, light.' † Thus he supposed the Son to be in some sort divine by virtue of his birth, and of one substance with God, as he is a spirit, and God is spirit. At the same time he regarded him as a different being from the Father, that is, numerically distinct from him. This, all his illustrations imply, and moreover he expressly affirms it. The Son,' he says, 'is derived from God, as the branch from the root, the stream from the fountain, the ray from the sun.' The root and the branch are two things, though conjoined; and the fountain and the stream are two species, though undivided; and the sun and its ray are two forms, though cohering.' And so, according to him, God and Christ are two things, two species, two forms. Things conjoined,' or 'cohering,' must necessarily be two. We do not use the terms of one individual substance. Again, alluding to John i. 1, he says, 'There is one who was, and another with whom he was.' Again, he observes, 'He who begets is different from him who is begotten; he who sends, from him who is sent.' || Again, alluding to 1 Cor. xv, 27, 28, he says, 'From this passage of the Apostolical Epistle, it may be shown that the Father and Son are two, not only from a difference in name, but from the fact, that he who delivers a kingdom, and he to whom it is delivered, he who subjects, and he who receives in subjection, are necessarily two.' ¶ Adv. Hermog. c. 4. * Adv. Marcionem, L. 1. c. 3. ences in the preceding note. † Apol. adv. Gentes. c. 21. See also refer |