Chapter First

THE FIRST EPOCH OF THE SECOND PERIOD.

FROM THE YEAR 381 TO THE REFORMATION.

THE TIME DURING WHICH UNDUE STRESS WAS LAID ON THE

DIVINE, AS COMPARED WITH THE HUMAN, ASPECT OF

THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

SECTION I.

THE TWO ASPECTS OF CHRIST ARE DECIDED TO BE TWO ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT NATURES, IN ONE PERSON.

From the Council of Constantinople, A.d. 381, to the Council of Chalcedon, A.d. 451.

CHAPTER FIRST.

THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH. DIODORUS OF TARSUS. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA. NESTORIUS.

The present section comprises the period during which the school of Antioch enjoyed the greatest degree of prosperity and of influence in the Church,—a prosperity and influence due partly to such men as Diodorus, Theodore, Nestorius, and others, and partly to the victory gained over Apollinarism by the tendency of which these teachers were the representatives. The force of this school, however, lay not in theological speculations. It adopted, and doubtless in all sincerity, the traditional view of the doctrine of the Trinity, even as it affected Christology, and devoted itself with all its weight, and with whatever creative power it could boast, to anthropology:— indeed, in general, to the historical and empirical aspects of theological inquiries (Diodorus, for example, battled with Manichaeism and Fatalism). This general tendency did not, however, prevent Theodore of Mopsuestia, in particular, from giving his conception of the world a speculative colouring, and applying it to the purposes of his very peculiar Ohristology.

Before entering on details, it will repay us to give a general glance at the Syrian Church, whose history, still in many respects obscure, justly attracts to itself ever more earnest attention, and on which we may unquestionably expect much light to be thrown ere many years have passed (Note 1) (a).

The Syrian Church falls into two main divisions. The Western Division, with Antioch as its centre, comprised thp cities of Hierapolis, Laodicea, Emesa, and Samosata, all which have as their representatives in history men of reputation. Of the Eastern Division, the chief centres were Edessa and Nisibis, in the northern part of Mesopotamia; and .Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Babylon, in the southern. Throughout both parts of the Eastern Division very numerous Jewish colonies had been planted; about the time of Christ a Jewish royal family existed in tne northern part. Rapidly and quietly did Christianity here take root ;¹ and Edessa and Nisibis became seats of such learning and culture, that even as early as the second century a prince of Edessa, Abgarus, who reigned from 152 to 187, and was a friend of Bardesanes, became a convert to Christianity.2 The remarks made in Part First of this work (see pages 144, 145) on Antioch, and the ancient prosperity of the Church of Western Syria, are equally applicable, in the second century, to the Church of Eastern Syria, which stood in close connection with Persia and Armenia, and was frequently designated the Assyrian Church. The Syrian Translation of the New Testament, which existed as early as the middle of the second century, the collections of old Christian hymns, and the development of the forms of worship and of the constitution of the Church, must have given to Christianity in those countries a national position and character at a very early period. That great activity prevailed among the Syrian Christians of the second century, is proved by the numerous forms under which

¹ According to tradition, by the instrumentality of Adaeus, and his disciples, Aghaeus and Maris.

- According to coins stamped with the sign of the cross: Assemanni Bibl. Or. i. 423; Wichelhaus, de Novi Test. Versione Syriaca Antiqua, quam Peschitho vocant LL. iv. 1850, p. 50 ff. Wichelhaus thinks that the Peshito took its rise in Nisibis. \

(a) See Appendix I.

Gnosticism made its appearance there,¹ by the works of Theophilus of Antioch, and of Tatian (the Assyrian—that is, the East Syrian—with the Encratites), whose Diatessaron, as well as the commentaries of Theophilus and Serapion, bear witness that the Syrian mind had been awakened to the study of Scripture. A hint, if nothing more, regarding the inner condition and history of Christian thought in those districts may be drawn from the fact, that the Mesopotamian bishops are said to have at first sought ordination in Antioch, and afterwards in Jerusalem. After Barchochba it appears that the Church of Eastern Syria asserted for itself an independent position, and that its bishops found a centre of unity in the bishopric of Seleucia, where accordingly the pseudo-Clementine idea of archbishop must have found its first realization. In the third century, besides Serapion, who occupied himself with the pseudo-epigraphic literature (see Euseb. H. E. 6, 12), we may mention the learned presbyters, Malchion and Dorotheus (see Euseb. H. E. 9,29; 7, 32), both of whom were well acquainted with Greek literature. Of these latter, Lucian, pupil of Macarius of Edessa (see " Vita Luciani Presbyt. et Martyris") and the teacher of Arius (vide supra, pp. 733, 802, Part I.), became a disciple, especially in relation to the criticism of the Old Testament, and with him an entire school. We have similar accounts respecting a Christian school which existed at Edessa in the third century, and in connection with which Macarius publicly explained the sacred Scriptures. The oldest Synods of importance—namely, those held at Antioch in opposition to Paul of Samosata—belong also to Syria. How Paul, and probably also Beryll of Bostra, was connected with Theodotus the Syrian, fragments of whose writings are preserved in Clement, we have shown in a former part of this work (see Part I., pp. 505-516, and 551 ff.).

¹ Many apocryphal writings also originated in the districts of Syria. We should further remember the fruitful Ignatian literature; then the Minaeans (see above, vol. i., p. S05) * or Nazarenes, who also probably arose in Eastern Syria; then the teacher of Clemens Alexandrinus from Assyria (see vol. i. 442, 443), and the one from C<ele-Syria; and finally, the Excerpta Theodoti, i. 505 ff., with the Melchizedekians. In the third century importance attached to this Church as the bridge of Manichaasm, opposition to which was raised especially by Archelaus the Armenian.

* Correct references will be given when, the whole la completed.—T»

The movement to which the causes just mentioned, and especially the influence of Paul, gave rise in Western Syria, and which extended also to the northern districts, has been previously described. In the North, we find Gregory Thaumaturgus and his brothers leading and administrating the Armenian Church; which again was in close intercourse, even of a political kind, with the Church in Eastern Syria. Worthy of special mention, however, is it, that in the fourth century Nisibis was almost entirely Christian. There flourished the celebrated Bishop James, of Nisibis (comp. his " Sermones" in the Library of the Fathers edited by Galland, Part V., pp. iii.-clvi.); and his disciple Ephraem, called the Prophet of the Syrians, in Edessa, whose school of Christian learning was enriched with a library. But it was in Eastern Syria also that Audius (Udo) gained his many disciples (Audianites); it was in evil repute, moreover, on account of the Messalians (see Esra vi. 12, "those who pray") and the Hypsistarians, not to mention the traces of Persian and Chaldee influences.

The Mesopotamian bishops (of Nisibis, Edessa, Amida, Carrhae, and so forth) attended the Synods at Nicrea, Antioch, and Constantinople; and the hermit Julian Saba, having been summoned to Antioch, there entered the lists against the Arians.

To the school of Western Syria, after Lucian, belong Eusebius of Emisa, Diodorus of Tarsus, Carterius, and Theodoras,—this last mentioned, first a disciple of Diodorus, and afterwards Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cicilia.¹

The not unimportant difference between the spirit of Western and that of Eastern Syria, and which, not having been of a merely temporary character, justifies us in speaking of two Syrian schools, is deserving of special attention. The peculiarity of this spirit is clearly seen as soon as we contrast Tatian, Bardesanes, and other dualistic Gnostics, with the men of Western Syria (Sec. 2, 3), Theophilus, Malchion, Dorotheus, and Paul of Samosata; or, in the fourth century, men like Audius, James of Nisibis, and Ephraem, with such as Lucian,

¹ Compare Siefferts, "Theodoras Mopsvestenus V. T. sobrie interpretandi vindex;" Comment. Regiom. 1827; and my Christmas Programme on " Theodori Mopsv. doctrina de imagine Dei, 1844." The introduction treats of the school of Antioch.

Dlodorus of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. They were related to each other much as in Africa the Alexandrian school was related to the North African during the third century. The school of Eastern Syria was distinguished by its vivid fancy, by its religious spirit, at once fiery and practical, by fervour and, in part, depth of thought. It exhibited, also, a tendency to the impassioned style and too gorgeous imagery (Note 2) of the East, to mysticism and asceticism. No other country competed, at an early period (since the time of Hilarion in the fourth century), so closely with Egypt in the matter of monasteries as Eastern Syria. These monasteries, moreover, were to a certain extent nurseries of science, and held a very active intercourse with those of Lybia and Egypt. They regarded each other as allies, more especially after the old spirit of the Alexandrian school had given way to dogmatic and monkish tendencies,— a circumstance which is of importance to those who wish to understand the history of the Church from the time of Theophilus of Alexandria down, and subsequent, to Athanasius. The Church of Western Syria, on the contrary, displayed even at an early period that sober, judicious, and critical spirit for which it became renowned, and by which it was especially distinguished from the third to the fifth century. The Eastern school inclined to theosophy, and thus had a certain affinity with the religious systems which prevailed in the East; the Western, on the other hand, took its stand on the firm basis of experience and history. In one word, the contrast between the two divisions of the Syrian Church bore a not inconsiderable resemblance to that which exists between the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions in Germany. Many things might be adduced, especially from the works of Ephraem, confirmatory of this remark.¹ Apollinaris of Laodicea, whose spirit had more affinity with the tendency which predominated in East Syria than with that of the school of Antioch, inoculated to some extent the Church of Western Syria with his own and related

¹ Specially in the doctrine of the Eucharist. Ephraem's view is similar to that of Ignatius (see above, vol. i. 157, 158). In his Christology, the divine aspect had the decided predominance; but he still laid very great stress on the unity of the Person, and made use of the formula dmfitiiarxots rai i itofiurur in order to allow of the divine nature participating in the sufferings of the human.

views (Note 3),—a thing which must have been doubly disagreeable to a school so consolidated as that of Antioch. From the tone in which the adherents of the school of Antioch, even down to the time of Theodoret, speak of Apollinaris, we may see that they were sorely vexed that a foreign and thoroughly antagonistic element should have intruded its presence amongst them.

In no one point does the difference between the two schools show itself so markedly as in the mode of interpreting the Scriptures; and, remarkably enough, this is the point in respect of which there is a measure of affinity between the two. Both schools, namely, oppose that arbitrary allegorical method of interpretation which had been in vogue since the time of Origen, and require of commentators that they give careful attention to the grammatical meaning of words. But the two schools started from opposed points of view, and arrived at opposite results. The followers of Audius, whose true home was in Eastern Syria, but who spread as far as Egypt (see Sec. 4), took advantage of this principle to prove that God must be conceived of as like to man,—" Man is the image of God even according to the body" (see Epiphanii, h. 70; Theodoret, i. h. f. 4, 10): on this ground they were entitled Anthropomorphites. But once assume the existence in God of an eternal humanity, and a germ was planted which might issue in the Apollinarian view of the Person of Christ (Note 4). The adherents of the school of Antioch, on the other hand, set their faces against allegorical interpretations, because they desired to base their views on sober historical investigations. Nor can it be denied that this school rendered good service, not merely in connection with the Old Testament, but also in connection with the Person of the historical Christ. In more than one respect its representation of Christ was more accurate than that adopted by the Church, notwithstanding the contempt with which it has been treated since the fifth century.

In endeavouring to understand the Christology of the school of Antioch, we must start with its peculiar doctrine concerning the nature and constitution of man. Here the first thing that calls for consideration, is the view taken by the school of the Divine Image. Diodorus says: "The Divine Image cannot refer to the invisible essence of the soul; for both angels and devils are invisible: it refers rather to the visible part of man —to those arrangements of his body which enable him to rule over nature. As the lord or king on earth, as the head of the visible creation, he bears the Divine image. Hence, in 1 Cor. xi. 3, Paul speaks of the man as bearing the image of God; but not so of the woman, as he must have done if the likeness to God ought to be referred to the soul." Theodore of Mopsuestia also denies the latter; but, in opposition to Diodorus, he remarks that spirits also, yea, even evil spirits, exercise power and dominion, without ever being designated Godlike. Man is the only creature in the whole universe to whom such a description applies,—an indication that he is exalted in a peculiar way above all other beings.

By a law inherent in them, all the elements of the earth, all animals, and all the luminaries of heaven, seek in man, whom they are meant to serve, their common centre. The like is said concerning spirits in Heb. i. 14. Man, therefore, though in one respect but a part of the universe, is at the same time the point in which the spiritual and visible worlds meet and unite. He occupies God's place in the world. He is, in short, the cosmical god. For, as all things visible and invisible have in the Creator their common centre of unity, so has He willed that all things on earth should combine and unite in, and thus administer to the well-being of, man, the witness of the Divine existence. But this cosmical god, man, also in turn renders a service to the world. For the world would be imperfect were its various distinctions and parts not conjoined so as to constitute a living unity. This conjunction is effected in man. It was the will of God that the world, with its antagonisms of mortal and immortal, rational and irrational, visible and invisible, should constitute one great whole; and He appointed man to be the living bond uniting all things together,—the certain pledge of universal friendship and harmony. For this reason, man, whom He created, combines in his body all the four elements, fire and water, air and earth, and is thus allied to the visible world; while, on the other hand, by his spirit he resembles the world of spirits. The world thus called for such a unity of antagonisms as is actually realized in the life of man. The whole creation, when it came forth from God's hands, divided itself into numberless antagonisms, which reached a climax in the dualism between the kingdom of spirits and the visible material world. But creation was impelled to seek a consummation; and this it found in man, who reconciled in his own person that deepest antagonism between the world of spirit and the world of matter. Man is the highest creature—the one in whose nature and constitution the victory is gained over the onesided and antagonistic tendencies of things outside of him (Note 5).

What we have just advanced, might lead to the supposition that Theodore either regarded man as this God-man (God on earth) of which creation was in quest, or that he left no place at all for any such being as a God-man. We shall soon see, however, how matters stood in this respect.

One might, further, also suppose that Theodore, like the pseudo-Clementines and the Audianites, either conceived of God as possessing a distinct form, or that he at all events considered visibility to constitute an essential feature of the idea of God; for, in his view, man's claim to be the image of God is based on the circumstance that he is the unity of the visible and invisible. He may, however, have regarded man as a unity constituted out of the antagonisms of the world; God, on the contrary, as that creative unity which comprises not only those antagonisms, but even man himself. Besides, as man was already the visible God in relation to the world, the notion that God must of necessity become visible was too remote to have been entertained. What might have much more readily suggested itself was the question, Why, if the unity of the universe is actually realized and secured in God, need it be specially set forth in man? Some of the older teachers assigned to the Eternal Word the position which Theodore gives to man (for example, in Methodius "de Sym. et Anna," ed. Fabr. 409, the Eternal Son is termed the ovv8eafio<;, pvdfibs of the universe): they described Him as the chain running through the universe and binding all things together. Theodore invests the Logos with this office (see Phot., ed. Becker, Cod. 177, p. 123); and his name appears amongst those who defended the doctrine of the Church against Arianism. Why, then, does he seek for another bond and pledge of the unity of the world besides the Logos? Unquestionably because a unity of the world which consists in the creative causality of the Logos is external to the world itself, is not immanent in the world, and passed away with the act of creation. This becomes still more plain when we remember that the world which the Logos originated was a free world. At this point the ethical character of his system is seen in all its significance and importance. Theodore's ethical tendency enabled him to perceive that a Christology was both possible and necessary, though he was unable so far to accord with the doctrine of the Church as to see in Christ a manifestation of God.

He believed that souls must be created free; and that, before being stirred by the irresistible might of love, they must be endowed with the knowledge of a law, obedience to which was a matter of free choice. It was necessary that man should be constituted capable of learning the nature of good, and of obedience; otherwise, the good in us might have been an irrational thing, and we should have had no certain knowledge of our own concerning that which is good and that which is evil.

It is, therefore, he held, a universal moral law that man cannot be perfect at the very beginning. The beginning and the end must be connected by a moral process, which embraces both knowledge and action, and constitutes a real history. This history having attained its goal, it is not necessary, according to Theodore, that there should always remain the possibility of a new fall, as Origen thought. A free soul, filled and animated by the irresistible might of love, cannot fall—it is no longer able to fall: and, so far from this being the destruction, it is the perfection, of freedom. But, in any case, it was impossible that the regal dignity which belonged to God on earth should be conferred on man the moment he went forth from the hand of God. In addition to this, there came the fall. In consequence thereof, the tie which bound spirit and body together in man was broken; the soul withdrew from the body; death then became a physical necessity,—nay more, the body became so independent that it assumed a position of hostility towards the soul. Instead of the original dissoluble unity and harmony being established by obedience, it was broken up by disobedience, and the world thus lost its bond and pledge of unity. The higher spiritual world, which once lovingly sympathized with man (Luke xv. 7), and presided over visible things for our advantage, was troubled, and became estranged from us; nay more, as the power of sin and death advanced P. 2.—VOL. I. 0

with ever greater strides, they first despaired of us, and then feelings hostile to us took possession of their hearts, because of the mischief that had been done; and, finally, they forsook us as aliens, because, instead of founding and maintaining the peace and concord of all antagonisms, we had stirred up discord and civil conflicts (Note 6).

By the fall of man, God lacked a creature, in beholding whom, the world presented itself to Him as an united harmonious whole. It is true, indeed, that, even apart from the fall, this harmony and unity were not at once realized in Adam: their actual realization in man must be a work of time. When Adam came forth from God's hand, creation was not yet complete: its completion waited on and presupposed the performance of a moral act by man. Adam's fall, and the subsequent increase of sin, lead not only to the world's remaining incomplete, but to its being involved in rebellion and conflict, and ceasing almost to deserve the name (Koafios) which it bore. God, however, continued to be the guard of the primal idea of the world, and of the idea of man's likeness to Himself; and herein lies the ground of the Divine incarnation. Through Christ the world became once more a world (i.e., a Koit/xo?); and all those became actually the sons of God who, according to the Scriptures, ought to have been gods and sons of the Highest, but apart from Christ were dying as men.

The account just given involves of necessity that Theodore's Christology must assume a form totally different from any that had preceded it. In the first place, a function of fundamental' importance was assigned to the humanity of Christ: the mission of Christ was to be that true and real image of God, which Adam ought to have been, but failed to become. He is regarded as an indispensable part of the Koitfiix;; and of such an estimate there are only the faintest traces in such writers as Irenseus and Tertullian. In the second place, Theodore follows that ethical tendency which claims that Christ also, so far as He is under the necessity of being truly a man, shall undergo a moral development. Previous to Theodore, marked traces of this ethical tendency are scarcely discoverable in any writings save those of Lactantius and Origen. The former, however, did not view freedom as an essential element of the ethical, but contented himself with dogmatically affirming that Christ is

the manifestation, revelation of the living law,—that He sets the law palpably before us in His own Person. Origen, on the other hand, obscured his Christology by the docefical character of his doctrine of the pre-existence of souls, which he applied to Christ. Theodore has most affinity with Origen; differing from him, however, in the greater firmness of his hold on the empirical world, and in his opinion that the destinies of the super-sensual world also depended on the incarnation which took place on earth (Note 7).

The point which brings most clearly to light the peculiar \ character of the Christology of Diodorus of Tarsus and of' Theodore, is their conception of freedom. The Christology of Apollinaris also starts from the same idea. He says, "If Christ had a human soul like ours, He must also have had freedom;" and therein is he at one with the school of Antioch. But, whereas Apollinaris goes on to say, "Because freedom of will involves mutability, therefore Christ cannot have had a human soul," the doctrine of the Church answered confidently, "He cannot have been destitute of a human soul." When, however, the Church came to treat of the question, "In what sense can Christ be said to have had a free human will?" its reply was very uncertain.¹ By some teachers, freedom of choice was not considered to form at all an essential part of human nature: they were of opinion, on the contrary, that we ought at once to ascribe to the God-man a freedom of the same kind as that which belongs to God. So Hilary (see Part I. 1059, Note, and 1070, Note), Athanasius (see Part I., pp. 973, 1071), Gregory Nazianzen (p. 1075, etc.). Men in general are liable to fall; for in them creation is not yet complete: in Christ, on the contrary, it is complete, and therefore He has by nature true freedom—freedom for good, to the complete exclusion of all possibility of the contrary. From such a point of view, freedom of choice appears, of course, rather as a defect than as a good. These teachers, however, contented themselves simply with that image of Christ as a whole which is the result of contemplating Him in the light of His exaltation, and of His significance for the history of the world; or, in other words, in the light of the Divine counsels. But others, who were by no means destitute of deeper insight into the true con»

See above, I., 973, 987, 1059, (specially 1071-1075.

ception of freedom, very decidedly teach (and whether in consequence of the influence of Origen, or during the struggle in which they were engaged with fatalistic systems, some of which had even a dualistic character, it is difficult to say) that freedom of choice is a good, when they discourse of man; but when they discourse of Christ, they convert freedom into the rpeirrbv, that is, into mutability, passibility, and* capability of development,—understanding thereby a passive capacity of devetopment: they never view it as the power of self-determination. Such was the position taken by Gregory of Nyssa. Against all such the school of Apollinaris continued justly to protest, and to assert that the Church had committed an act of injustice in excluding Apollinaris, its head, so long as his teaching was at one with that of the Church on the point which he considered most essential. His aim had been to show that the humanity of Christ had no self, in order to avoid the necessity of attributing to Him freedom of choice, which, in his opinion, endangered both the unity of the Person of the Godman, and the certainty of the fulfilment of His redemptive mission. But the teachers of the Church did exactly the same thing when they denied to Jesus freedom of choice, in the strict sense of the term. In the place of the human avre^ovaiov, in which Apollinaris considered the true essence of the human vovs, in its common acceptation, to lie, they set the overpowering, all-dominant might of the Logos. The postulate of a true human soul necessarily involved freedom of choice, and not merely mutability in the physical sense, or even a ^verts BeKriKrj for antagonistic elements (I. 1071), which, being in Christ's case from the very commencement wholly occupied by the good, can only in abstracto be described as a susceptibility to evil, or as exposed to conflict. Were not this the case, Apollinaris might without difficulty have granted the existence of a human soul in the sense of a multiplicity of spiritual powers in one body, which are subjected to the sway of the Logos.

It was at this point that the school of Antioch, and above all Theodore, brought its influence to bear on the development of the doctrine of the Person of Christ. In agreement with Apollinaris, Theodore maintained that freedom of will, thei power of self-determination, forms an essential part of a true | human soul: in opposition to Apollinaris, and in agreement j with the Church, he claims for Christ a genuine human soul. When he taught that freedom was a necessary part of a true human soul, he touched a point which had hitherto been treated only very cautiously, and concerning which the Church had arrived at no definite judgment. It was his sincere conviction, in doing so, that he was but pursuing the path which the Church itself had rightly taken, and to which it had held when opposing Apollinaris. For how can the human soul or the human development be such in reality and truth, if the human nature be but an absolutely passive organ of the divine nature,—that is, merely a form in which the divine nature manifests itself? Nay more, what would become of the incarnation itself, if what we see in Christ were not a real man, but merely the appearance of a man, called into existence by a being foreign to man, that is, by the Logos, who gathered round Himself a congeries of human powers and attributes without a human centre of unity; and whose object was not to be really a man, but simply to have the semblance of a man, or to appear as God through the medium of an illusory man, as His organ? To Theodore, the conscientious and careful investigator of Scripture, the New Testament presented a totally different image of Christ. He appears there as in every respect a true man: to this, His growth, His temptations, and the sufferings He underwent, loudly bear witness.

Theodore did not fail to perceive that by such premises the problem of the Person of Christ was burdened with increased difficulties. The course to be pursued wears a much smoother aspect, if either the view taken by Apollinaris be adopted, or the inquiry, whether freedom also be an attribute of the humanity of Christ, be given up as impracticable, as it was by the Church previous to the time of Theodore. But when, for the reasons just assigned, he applied himself to the task of demonstrating the unity of the Person of Christ from the simple and unmutilated premises offered by the New Testament, he derived support from the higher conception of freedom with which he started, and which had probably dawned on him during his struggle with Arianism. Now this very conception of freedom was an object of abhorrence to the teachers of the Church, specially because they supposed it to involve that mutability which Arius had ascribed to the Son of God (I. 973). The same detestation must necessarily also have attended the view upheld by Theodore, had he ascribed the rpeirrov absolutely (that is, both physically and ethically, and also as a state destined to endure) to the God-man, even in regard to His human nature. For, in such a case, the Christian mind must have lost entirely its conviction of the certainty of redemption, and revelation could never have assumed its complete and final form. To this, it was necessary that there should be a human nature, but not necessary that there should be eternal uncertainty and vacillation.

Theodore, however, could neither allow the existence of freedom where God alone was the Actor, nor regard freedom as mere mobility of the power of choice (as Origen did): power of choice he considered to be an essential element, but not the whole, of the true idea of freedom. He believed the full idea of freedom to involve, quite as necessarily, harmony with the determining Divine Spirit; nay more, true freedom, in his view, is the higher unity of liberty of choice and necessity: such freedom he finds realized in the unrestrainable energy of free love. But this true idea of human freedom does not allow of its being represented as a thing ready-made and complete at once; it requires that a process be undergone, which shall effect the union, commingling, and mutual interpenetration of the apparently antagonistic principles of freedom and necessity. This process constitutes the moral character of freedom: it bears, on the contrary, a physical character when represented as complete from the very commencement, from the moment of its origination; and that whether it be liberty of choice, or the being determined by the Divine will. His ^; aim is a union of the human and the divine in a moral, and (not in a merely physical sense (yyayxg W <pvaei). Inasmuch, however, as he deemed it impossible for the human to attain to perfection without the aid of the divine, it was by no means inconsistent with his conception of freedom to hold that the divine exercised a determinant influence on the development from its very commencement, provided only that the true moral character of that development were preserved, by according to man a power of freely acting and deciding for himself. Room being left for this, the humanity of Christ ceases to have a merely Docetic existence; notwithstanding that the very freedom which discriminates it from, and, so to speak, constitutes its independence of, the absolute God, is brought into play, for the purpose of realizing an indissoluble living unity with the Spirit of God—that unity, namely, which Theodore considered to be necessary to the perfection of true freedom.

Even before his time, we have found the school of Antioch insisting more strongly on the reality of the human soul of Christ than did the Church generally (Note 8). Its chief aim, however, in doing so, had been rather to assert in general that He underwent a process, a development; and that He was therefore mutable. Theodore, on the contrary, was guided by ethical principles in determining both the true idea of humanity and of its development, and the true idea of God.

In his work on the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ,¹ he asks, whether the indwelling of God (evoiKrja&) is to be conceived as an indwelling of His nature or of His energy (evepyeia)? Before an answer can be given to this question, the true idea of the Divine omnipresence must be determined. Does God dwell in all men, or only in his saints? Inasmuch as His indwelling is the subject of a promise (" I will dwell in them, and walk in them," etc., 2 Cor. vi. 16), it cannot be a simple matter of course—it cannot denote that God is in all creatures alike, but must be something peculiar to saints. Does the distinction and specialty then consist in God's dwelling in the saints according to His nature and essence, and otherwise in other creatures? Such an answer would be derogatoiy to the honour of God: it would detract from the infinitude and omnipresence of His nature, which is bound by no limits of space, by shutting it out from all beings except holy men. If the indwelling of God be an indwelling of His nature or substance, it must be ascribed to all men alike,—nay, even to the irrational and inanimate part of creation,—which would be as perverse as to consider His nature to be circumscribed in consequence of His indwelling. But either to the first or the second of these conclusions we must be led, if the indwelling of God be an indwelling of His substance: there is, therefore, no alternative but to reject the idea of His indwelling being that of His nature. The case, however, is a perfectly similar one, if we understand by the indwelling of God His energizing in His creatures. Again, we are driven to choose between the two alter¹ A. Mai Coll. Nov. T. vi. 300-312, from Leontius.

natives: either, this energy is restricted to saints, and bounded by them; or, all things participate in this energy—all things being, in fact, subject to its sway. If we take the first alternative, we are met at once by the inquiry—What place would then be left for the Logos, whose office it is to exercise providence, to govern the world, and everywhere to work what is right? On the second alternative, we should necessarily reduce the Divine indwelling to something absolutely indeterminate and general. Consequently, neither according to His substance, nor according to His energy, is God able to effect what is termed an indwelling. How then shall we express and preserve its distinctive character? It is the good pleasure (evBoKia) God takes in His saints that causes His presence in them to be of a different character from His presence in other creatures. In other words, by the indwelling of God, Theodore means a moral union or alliance (Note 9). As to His illimited, omnipresent nature, God is in all beings alike: as to His complacence, He is far from some, and nigh unto others; He is far from sinners, but nigh unto those whose disposition constitutes them worthy of His nearness. By itself, His nature (<f>vai<i) produces neither a greater nearness nor a greater remoteness; the nearness or remoteness of God is determined by the temper of mind of the being concerned (o^eaet 7% Tvw/imjv). Now, as the Divine evBoKia determines God's nearness or remoteness, so also is it the instrument of His perfect indwelling. No limitation does He allow His nature and activity (<f>vaiv Kal ivepyeiav) to experience from those in whom He dwells: as to both, He continues omnipresent, though He is at the same time separated from the unworthy, on account of their character. We see thus, that Theodore distinguished between God's physical or metaphysical omnipresence, and His moral presence; at the same time, he considered the essential nature of God to lie not in the moral but in the physical. By means, however, of the distinction drawn between God's moral presence or being in man, and that being of His <f>vais and ivepyeia which we designate omnipresence, he secured a place for a peculiar alliance of God with man. He remarks, moreover, that so far from the infinitude of God's nature being disparaged by the affirmation that, besides His omnipresence, there is another kind of presence, namely, an ethical one, which is peculiar to those with whom He is well-pleased, on the contrary, His omnipresence in the general sense is not characterized by freedom, but is simply a natural necessity, unless we hold that, though omnipresent, yet by His complacency He is nigh to the worthy, and far from the unworthy. God would appear enslaved to the infinity and unboundedness of His own nature as to a fate, if the omnipresence of His nature involved the omnipresence of His complacency. For then He would no longer be present as to His disposition (yva>firj), that is, by a free moral volition, but would be subjected to necessity, and His disposition (yva>/ir)) would be the enthralled puppet of the infinitude of His nature.¹

But, he then proceeds, as God is everywhere present with His nature and activity, but only "dwells in" a very small number,—as, for example, in the Apostles and in the righteous generally,—in whom He takes pleasure, and whose virtuous character is to Him a source of joy; so is His indwelling not in every case equal, for the same evBoKia, through which His indwelling is brought to pass at all, determines also its measure and mode. He does not dwell in other men as He dwelt in Christ; for in Christ God dwelt as in the Son. By His indwelling, the Logos united the entire man assumed by Him to Himself, and fitted Him to share all the honour which belonged by nature to the indwelling (eternal) Son. The result of this! union was one person. Hence Christ's dominion, His judg-' | ment of the world at the last day, and so forth, are quite as truly acts of His human, as of His divine nature.

After such a view of the doctrine of the Person of Christ, it might appear as though the union with the Logos was realized in Jesus in consequence of, and by way of reward for, His virtue: a supposition which must necessarily lead to an essentially Cerin

¹ P. 302: His infinitude fiti^orus aii^trai, vrxv <$u.'urrcrxi fiy as ita.yn.yt r(»i iovMvur T£ a\—tpt'/pi<fu rijs Qvatas. El fit» yeip Xvavrxxov txput rri fiSox/a, i-'ipus viiKit diiiyxfi SouXfiut fipicxtro, oiixtri xd.ro. yvafiniiTjj» itxpavaixr voioifisrof, dKKi T£ Xtitpa rijf (fiatas xxl rrrJ yvupw Wofiifitt fxfii'

L. c. p. 306, ix., he says: "What a change of place is to us, that God effects by means of His will." When we say, " It is my will to be yonder," wo are compelled to change our place; but this is not necessary for God, who is everywhere present as to His nature. But still He is able to be present in a special manner in a place, through His mind or will. It is of interest to compare with this his discussion on the omnipresence of God, sec. 16.

thian, or even Ebionitic Christology. But in Theodore's estimation, evBoKia does not designate merely God's pleasure in virtue, as might possibly be concluded from Matthew iii. 17, but also the fulness, and the free manifestation, of His grace (see Col. i. 19, comp. ii. 9). Moreover, as we well know, Theodore's conception of human freedom was not that deistic one which necessarily requires it to have been separated from God, at all events in the beginning, in order to be really freedom: he held, that without prejudice to the reality and truth of freedom, it was possible for God to exercise a decided influence upon it from the very beginning; provided only (and this condition he regards as essential) the result be more than a mere physical process or illusory development.

Theodore consequently represents the Divine complacency, or the indwelling of the Logos, as enjoyed by Jesus from the very commencement, not arbitrarily, but wisely or with foresight. When this man was first formed, the Logos unitedli Himself with him, foreseeing what he would become (katoj irpoyvaxnv Ottoios Tk e<rra/.). For a time, it is true, because \v was requisite, He suffered the man, previously to his crucifixion, to exercise his virtue, for our benefit, according to his own purpose; but even then the Logos worked in him most of what he did, impelled him onwards, and strengthened him for the perfect fulfilment of his task. When Jesus arrived at the age at which, in the ordinary course of nature, human beings begin to discriminate between good and evil, yea, even previous to that time, the capacity and habit of discrimination developed themselves, under the influence of the Logos, with extraordinary rapidity; and in such matters Christ was remarkably in advance even of those who excel the generality of men. Indeed, He must necessarily have been superior to other men even in respect of the human, seeing that He was not originated like other men, but was formed by the Divine power of the Spirit. He was also stirred by a mighty impulse towards the good, for the sake of union (ewuat?) with the Logos—that is, with God —who honoured him by descending from above to unite Himself with him. As the consequence of these superior advantages, the moment Jesus distinguished good from evil, he felt abhorrence for the latter, and followed after the former with irrepressible love. Enjoying a co-operation of the Logos,

which accorded with his own purpose and disposition (irp6deai<;, yixofirj), he remained thenceforward free from the possibility of a change for the worse; and that as much because he himself was minded for good, as because his resolves were formed under the eye of the Logos. With the greatest ease, therefore, did he lead a life of the most finished virtue: both in his observation of the law previously to baptism, in his conduct during his state of grace (rrjv ev yapni fieruov iro euiv), and, lastly, subsequently to his resurrection and ascension, he stands as an example for us all. In the presence of the cross, indeed, we find him still hungering and thirsting, trembling, and on some points ignorant, although he adhered firmly to his resolve even in the midst of suffering. His life in the state of exaltation, however, exhibits the perfect realization of union with the Logos: there he acts no longer distinctly and separately from the Logos, who is God; but the Logos is completely and entirely in him (ircuneKSy;, Kad6\ov), and because of his ii'wai'; with, works all in, him.

Theodore thus preserves a specific distinction between Christ and the Apostles and Prophets,—a distinction grounded not merely in His sinlessness, but in His supernatural generation by the Spirit of God, and, finally, in His union with the Logos. For the two latter reasons was Christ the realization of the original idea of humanity, and is the true Godlike man. He was the fulfilment of all that had been previously declared concerning man's likeness to God, and concerning the significance of that likeness in relation to the universe. In Christ, thel world, humanity, became the alter Deus, the cosmical God, the\ son of God, and that in unity with the Eternal Son. We see thus that Theodore did not, like most of the teachers of the Church, content himself with simply affirming Christ's humanity to be of one substance with our common humanity: he regarded Christ's humanity, on the contrary, as distinguished not merely through the indwelling of the Logos, but in itself (Coll. N. vi. 307; xiv. 203, ii.). And yet he at the same time so carefully insisted on the necessary laws of human development, that he could undertake to incorporate into his Christology all those passages of the life of Jesus which allude to His development. It must not, however, be supposed that even for a single moment he regards Christ by Himself as a mere man born of

the Holy Ghost, and the union with the Logos as having been first initiated at a subsequent period. He believed, rather, that at the very moment when the man Jesus was formed, God the Logos began to unite Himself with him, in accordance with the Divine foreknowledge of His virtue (Note 10).

The completeness of his conception of the humanity of Christ may be seen from a series of individual traits which he has preserved for us. Mary gave birth to Jesus, not to the Logos; for the Logos was, and continued to be, omnipresent, although from the very commencement He dwelt in a peculiar way in Jesus. The Logos did not originate with and in Jesus. Mary, therefore, was properly the mother of Christ, not of God. Only in a figure, per anaphoram, can she be styled the mother of God—namely, on the ground that God was in Christ in a special manner (l. c. 309, xxviii.). Strictly speaking, she bore a man, with whom the Logos had already, it is true, begun to unite Himself; but the union was at first so far from complete, that Jesus could not then have been termed Son of God or Redeemer. He was called Jesus—a name which Joshua also had borne. Not till after His baptism was He designated Son of God by the voice of the Father; just as Simon and Saul received, at a later period, the names Peter and Paul. He grew in years, wisdom, and favour with God and men, and was, as a man, though eminent and peerless, subject to the law until His baptism,—to which fact may perhaps be referred the words, "He was justified in the Spirit." John saw Him come to him for baptism as a man; and the words, " I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" do not prove that the Baptist did not look upon Him as a man. John knew, of course, that he himself was far surpassed by Jesus in energy of spirit and of virtue; and by a vision it was afterwards made known to him, that on this man had been conferred the honour of Divine Sonship, and that He was therefore distinguished by the title, Son of God. But even subsequent to baptism He was a man, and had a human will and a human understanding of His own; which, however, constantly united themselves with the will and thought of the Logos. Through ever fresh temptations was this union to be confirmed and displayed. In the wilderness He overcame the temptations of f)Bovrj, Bo^a, and of the aryada Tov Koafiov (l. c. 308, xxiii.-xxv.). But He was exposed far more to spiritual than bodily assaults (xxix.); especially in Gethsemane had He to sustain so severe a struggle, that an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen Him. These things clearly show that He was a man (p. 306, x.). By nature this man was neither Son of God nor Lord (comp. Mar. Merc, ed. Baluz. p. 347). He underwent death also,—that tribute which, according to the law of nature, every man is forced to pay (Merc. 344). In short, He wore the appearance and spoke the language of a man, and was held to be nothing but a mere man by all who saw Him (Facund. Herm. defens. trium Capitul. ed. Sirmond, p. 73). Subsequently, however, the Apostles, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, saw that the Eternal Son of God was in Him. Never, as Apollinaris taught, did a commingling (KpaaK) of the divine and human take place in Him: both natures remained ever distinct from each other. On this point Theodore was completely at one with Diodorus of Tarsus.¹ It cannot be denied that Theodore was stirred quite as much by a regard to the interests of religion as to the requirements of exegesis, when he insisted so strongly on the humanity of Christ. If it were God's purpose to make changeable human nature unchangeable, it was necessary that He should assume human nature in its state of mutability. So also had taught both Irenaeus and Athanasius. But Theodore deemed it necessary to the accomplishment of the work of salvation, that Christ's free will should sustain a conflict with evil. For, unless a true, and not simply a perfect, man, were its principle and ground, salvation would be an arbitrary thing, a thing effected by a species of magic; and if this man had not been compelled to pass through grave and genuine conflicts, His human life and struggles would be for us a mere spectacle (diarpov), devoid of all reality. When, then, the humanity of Christ is either curtailed or denied, as is the case when His personality is regarded

¹ Mar. Merc. 849; Jesus grew, etc., etc., which cannot be said of the Logos, who neither has need of anything, nor grows. "Non enini ei mox fonnato vel edito omnem propriam sapient km Deitas contulit, sed hanc particulatim corpori (?) tribuebat." Therefore also is He "a Prophet from amidst His brethren," in Deut. xviii. The Word of God is not our brother. If we refuse to discriminate divine and human, says he, in opposition to Apollinaris, we might also maintain that He who was of David's seed was not of David's seed, but existed eternally.

as solely and exclusively divine, the work of redemption which God appointed Him to accomplish is deprived of truth, and reduced to a vain show.

Theodore's opponents, however, objected that he had by no means shown that an actual union had been effected in Christ, or even that an incarnation of the Logos had come to pass. To these objections he replied (vi. viii. xxx. ell. xxxiii.), and at the same time endeavoured, by means of his reply, to make clear and intelligible the mode in which the union was realized.

A commingling of the two natures would have been repugnant to both. There is a difference between the divine form and the servant's form; between the temple chosen, and Him who dwelleth therein; between Him who underwent the dissolution of death, and the One who raised Him from the dead; between Him who was made perfect by suffering, and the One by whom He was perfected; between Him who was made a little lower than the angels, and the One by whom He was humbled; between Him who was crowned with glory and honour, and the One by whom He was thus crowned. This distinction must be preserved: each nature remained indissolubly what it was in its own essence (oSiaXtrrea? e<f> eatm;?). But it is quite as evident that a union (evwai?) was congruous to both. For, being thus brought together, the two natures (</>uaet?) constituted, as far as respects the union, one person \^s (irpoaayirov). Hence, as the Lord said of man and wife that they were no longer two, but one flesh, so, in conformity to the union, can we say that there are no longer two persons, but one,—preserving intact, however, the distinction of the natures. As, in the former case, the oneness of the flesh, so far as we can speak of such a oneness, is not destroyed by the duality, so, in the latter case, the unity of the person is not dissolved by the distinction of the natures. Looking at the natures in their distinction from one another, we characterize that ($i5<m) of , God the Logos as complete; in like manner, also, His divine personality: for a self-existent being cannot be said to be impersonal (oy&e yap airpoawirov iirnv viroaraaiv elirelv): but we characterize the human nature and person also as perfect and complete. When, however, we direct our attention to the conjunction (avvucpeia), we say, There is one person (vi.). We affirm, it is true, most decidedly that the Logos has taken to

Himself a man; but we hold it to be an absurdity that He became man. When John says (see chap. i. 14), "The Logos became flesh"—that is, man—the expression is not to be too strictly interpreted; otherwise it would imply that the Logos changed Himself into flesh, which the Evangelist did not intend to teach. John spoke, therefore, according to the appearance of the thing. That the Logos took to Himself a man, was not a mere show and seeming; but it was only in appearance that He became man (viii.). Moreover, it was not the Son of God who was born of Mary, but simply a man in whom God was.

This very significantly indicates Theodore's peculiar posi- I tion. He strove, in the first place, to conceive the two natures \ as personal, in order to conceive them as complete; and was therefore, in the second place, indisposed to bring them into so near relationship to each other, that the one should constitute a mere modification of the essence, and form part of the being, of the other. On the contrary, in the third place, he recognised no union where there are not two actual persons. Essentialiter^ they continued to be two persons; actualiter, they had the ap- ( pearance of one person. They constituted one person, in such I a manner that the thought and volition of the man Jesus were, J¹ in point of contents, the thought and volition of the Logos; and that, at all events, in the state of exaltation, all the thought and volition of the Logos appertained to the man. He maintained, however, that the form in which the mind of Jesus actually expressed itself, was determined by the Logos; though, in consonance with his theory of freedom, he represented this determination as a mere influence of the Logos. Theodore never really arrived at the conception of volitions and thoughts which were at once divine and human (divine-human); for he supposed the two natures (represented by him, at the same time, also as persons), as to their inmost essence, to continue separate and distinct,—and that, not merely previous to the assumption of humanity by the Logos, or during Christ's development, but eternally. Strictly speaking, the two persons were one only in outward appearance, as the image of marriage shows. Inwardly, they were still two persons, though harmoniously related; and so closely connected, that everything done was done at the impulse of the Logos in Christ. This view is confirmed when we, by way of conclusion, glance back at his idea of man's like

ness to God. He held it to have heen fully realized in Christ, and believed that thus the great thought of the world reached its eternal goal. Principially, Christ was the realization of the idea of the world. This does not involve, Theodore maintains, that the world was restored and led back into the divine life or essence, when, by the incarnation of the divine, the human became divine. But the Man Kar e^oyrjv, that crown of the world and principle of its unity, took up in the world the position of God. Spirit and nature found in Him their centre of unity, and became again one, as they were when they proceeded forth from God, their primal source. These two principles had separated and become discordant; but in Christ, within and from the world itself, though at the same time through the action of God, they are restored to unity. Thus, as the perfect man and the image of God, Christ is the cosmical God: to Him, therefore, pertain all authority and honour as God, after that He became the Son of God for the good of the world, and for the sake of its unity and harmony. It is evident that here there was presented to Theodore a point of connection for what we have termed the Mystical Christology,—of course, in a peculiar form, and with the reservation, that in Christ neither God became man, nor man God. So far from allowing this, he maintained that God (whom he viewed as a Trinity) and the world, the divine and the human, remain eternally apart, eternally separated by their essential nature; which, whilst permitting the two to be connected with, and to exert an influence upon, each other, does not allow of a union in which the human is counted to belong to God, and the divine, therefore, to have become human. Nor does he concede even to love the power of bridging over this chasm, notwithstanding the strong stress he lays on the ethical. The reason thereof is, that he did not consider the ethical to constitute the very essence of God—to be that on which His nature is dependent; but held the nature of God (omnipresence, and so forth) to be an independent power in Him, and only so far subject to the divine will, that it cannot prevent God, notwithstanding His omnipresence, taking up His abode at certain points of the living world in a peculiar way, and even dwelling in an unique and unexampled manner in Him who is the centre of the world, and through whom, henceforth, God is connected with the world.¹ Substantially, this is a species of Arian view of the Person of Christ,—with the difference, that the place of the pra>mundane central creature is (and, if one may so say, more after modern fashion) occupied by the Son of God, who becomes man. The doctrine of the Trinity, which may unquestionably be said to have taken its rise in the efforts to understand the nature and Person of Christ, becomes, notwithstanding its loftiness, an abstract and unproductive thing as soon as we deny that the Logos became man; and although Theodore clung very firmly to the Trinity, his system afforded no sufficient foundation for it. The Son is constantly represented as retaining His hypostasis for Himself; and one cannot see why the activity, and even the unique indwelling in Christ, attributed to Him, should not be referred to God's general presence. On the contrary, almost the sole aim of the Trinitarian conception of God seems to be, to set forth God as self-contained, self-sufficient, and to assert His unapproachable and absolute transcendence.

There remained still another aspect of these considerations to be applied to the work of Christ. One would have supposed that, as Theodore laid such stress on the freedom of man, he would devote equal attention to man's consciousness of personal responsibility and guilt. But this was not the case. His attention was directed almost exclusively to the other result of sin, namely, punishment,—summed up in death and mortality. In this point he exactly resembles the other Greek Fathers of the fourth and fifth century. Failing to pay special regard to the fact of human guilt, the work of Christ appeared to him to consist not so much in the atonement, as in the overcoming of death, or in the bestowal of immortality by His kingly power. Still, in fairness, it must not be forgotten that the older theories of the atonement took, in general, little notice of guilt, and that they chiefly occupied themselves with death. They began with that which was most external, and thence penetrated more deeply towards the centre and root of the matter. Some, in fact, employed the term davaros, as it is not unfrequently used in the New Testament, to designate the state of misery involved in, and constituted by, sin. Theodore's system, however, contains no trace of this spiritual meaning of death. According ¹ Compare the passage xxvi. P. 2.—VOL. I. D

to it, the term no longer denotes the mischief in its totality, hoth internal and external, but merely its outward aspect; and the mode which he took to show that outward death itself contained a principle of spiritual corruption, was not altogether free from artificiality. On the other hand, with reference to sin itself, Theodore taught, as distinctly as other orthodox Fathers of the Greek Church, that the Spirit sent by Christ exercises an influence on the free human will; nay, he took more pains than the others to show freedom to be a reality, and not a mere illusion, whilst he at the same time represented the work of redemption as a work of sanctification. In his view, freedom was not the mere capability of being turned, now in one direction, and then in another, but the faculty of self-determination; and yet he showed, on ethico-religious principles, that there is a point at which the free will cries out for the help of grace. In this respect he occupied a higher position than the first Fathers of the Greek Church—than such as Origen, Athanasius, and the Cappadocian bishops; whilst, on the other hand, he differed decidedly, to his advantage, from Pelagius.¹ In common with the former, however, he was quite unable to give a reason why the gift of the Holy Spirit was dependent on the manifestation of Christ: in other words, though he did not consider sanctification, or deliverance from sin, to be merely the work of man, yet he was unable to bring this grace into more than a merely outward connection with the work of Christ.

Theodore of Mopsuestia was the crown and climax of the school of Antioch. The compass of his learning, his acuteness, and, as we must suppose also, the force of his personal character, conjoined with his labours through many years as a teacher both of churches and of young and talented disciples, and as a prolific writer, gained for him the title of Magister Orientis.² He laboured on uninterruptedly till his death in the year 427; and was regarded with an appreciation the more widely extended, as he was the first Oriental theologian of his time. What specially commended and extended the influence of his teachings, was the aversion of the Church to Apollinarism, of which Theodore proved himself a very warm opponent, without allow

¹ Compare the Programme by Dr Dorner, p. 19 ff.
^s See the Programme by Dr Dorner, pp. 3-5.

ing the Arian elements which partly coloured his theological system to detract from the deity of the Son. We shall not, however, he mistaken if we trace the opposition raised by the Church to Apollinarism to causes somewhat different from those which influenced Theodore. His aim was not so much to assert the thorough reality of the incarnation of God,—for in this respect his method of procedure was defective,—but mainly to distinguish clearly, and to emphasize duly, the reality and freedom of the human aspect of Christ's Person. No wonder, therefore, that attention was soon directed to this characteristic of his teachings, and that fears of Ebionitic elements should begin to be cherished. The antagonism which, at this period, divided the Western Church, was fought out in the East in connection with Christology (Note 11).